Guests of the Rotarians

November 22, 1928, Oshkosh Daily Northwestern

This is an interesting item about the Menasha football banquet 88 years ago.  The emphasis was on sportsmanship and being physically and morally "clean," the way Coach Calder put it.  I doubt any coach today would consider his role for the team was anything BUT winning, whereas the cadre of yesteryear were of the ilk that football (and other sports) was an adjunct to the total scholastic experience, not the end all and be all we've seen it evolve into over the years.  They seemed to have a higher plateau for the players under their direction and were interested in "molding men of strong moral character."

Side note: The "Chauncey Depew" mentioned in the story was an attorney for Cornelius Vanderbilt's railroad interests, president of the New York Central Railroad System, a United States Senator from New York from 1899 to 1911, and a famous orator of the time, back when that kind of thing mattered.