Princeton’s 1883 squad, left, notched the Tigers’ 10th straight win over Rutgers in a 61-0 blowout. The Scarlet Knights would gain the upper hand in the 1970s. At right, a statue in New Brunswick commemorates the first game. (Photos: Athletics at Princeton: A History; courtesy Flickr.com)

College football was born in New Jersey, 140 years ago today, when a team from Princeton traveled to New Brunswick to challenge Rutgers. The rules from that first contest differ greatly from those used today. Each team fielded 25 players who advanced the ball by kicking it or batting it with their hands (catching the ball was permitted, but running with it was not). The home team won, 6-4. Princeton topped Rutgers in a rematch one week later, the season’s only other game.

In a span of 111 years, the Tigers and Scarlet Knights played 71 times. While Princeton had a 53-17-1 record in the series, Rutgers dominated the later years, winning nine of the last 13 games. In 1980, PAW covered the final installment in football’s oldest rivalry. See story below.

From PAW, Oct. 20, 1980

Going Separate Ways

Rutgers 44, Princeton 13

By Martin E. Robins ’64

If the Brown game was a fork in the road, then the last game in the Rutgers series was a freeway interchange where the Scarlet Knights were jockeying for a spot in the fast lane, while the Tigers were exiting to the slower pace of secondary highways. Outdistancing Princeton 44-13, Rutgers ran up the highest point total and widest victory margin it has ever enjoyed in the 111-year history of college football’s oldest rivalry. In so doing, it vindicated Nassau Hall’s decision to let the two teams go their separate ways.

They’re back: A new school year begins, 1994

Finding a place to rest amidst the hustle and bustle of student move-in day can be a challenge. Ashley Hall ’95’s peaceful repose in September 1994 caught the attention of PAW, which featured her on its Oct. 12, 1994, cover. (Hall, a caption explained, was working at the booth of the Student Futon Agency.)

As the Class of 1998 arrived on campus, the top news was the proportion of freshman women — 47.5 percent of the class, then a Princeton record. See story below.

From PAW, Oct. 12, 1994

University greets Class of ’98

In the 25th year of coeducation, a record number of first-year women

Princeton began its 25th year as a coeducational institution last month by greeting a freshman class with the highest proportion of women ever. Some 47.5 percent of the Class of 1998, which numbers 1,158, is female; if prospective engineering students are removed from the count, women are a 51.2 percent majority.

Princeton football practice kicks off this week, and in September, Princeton Stadium will begin its 12th year as the team’s home. But the familiar venue still has a long way to go to match the history of its predecessor, Palmer Stadium, the Tigers’ legendary lair from 1914 to 1994.

Just before the start of the 1974 football season, Palmer’s 60th anniversary year, PAW contributor Dan White ’65 took a look back at the stadium’s construction and its enduring charm. See story below.

More about Sonia Sotomayor ’76

Our brief look at the Supreme Court nominee’s appearances in the Princeton Alumni Weekly includes a story from the July 15, 2009, issue, additional comments from alumni who knew her well at Princeton, and three pieces from the archives: the 1976 Pyne Prize announcement, a 1995 profile, and the 2001 presentation of Sotomayor’s honorary degree.

(Photo: Office of Communications, Princeton University)

Bannister’s star turn at Reunions

During Reunions 1949, Palmer Stadium played host to an international track meet pitting a combined squad of Princeton and Cornell stars against top athletes from Oxford and Cambridge. The marquee race featured Ron Wittreich ’50, in black, one of the NCAA’s top three milers that year, and Oxford captain Roger Bannister, in white.

Wittreich, the “Tenafly Flyer,” led at the half-mile mark, but near the end of the third lap, Bannister took over and glided to the finish in 4:11.1. Five years later, Bannister would make history as the first miler to break the four-minute mark.

(Photos: PAW, July 8, 1949)

An American hero in Iran

April 20, 2009, marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Howard C. Baskerville, Class of 1907, a fact briefly noted on the op-ed page of Saturday's New York Times. Baskerville, a teacher and aspiring theologian, went to northern Iran after college to teach in a school run by Presbyterian missionaries. While there, he became increasingly sympathetic with students who fought in favor of the constitutionalist government, and eventually he joined the cause. Leading 150 troops in defense of Tabriz, the city where he taught, Baskerville was shot and killed by a sniper. He became a martyr in the town and remains revered by many.

In a May 2007 PAW story, Mark Bernstein ’83 described Baskerville's gravesite:

Set in a small walled courtyard amid apricot and almond trees, the grave is a plain stone sarcophagus carved with the martyr's name -- Howard Baskerville, a member of Princeton's Class of 1907 -- and the dates of his birth (April 13, 1885) and death (April 20, 1909). A hundred years ago, the site, in the city of Tabriz, was a cemetery and hospital grounds for Presbyterian missionaries. Whoever once carefully tended to Howard Baskerville's grave, and his alone, with fresh flowers, no longer does so. The Armenian man who lives in the adjoining house built the wall in part to discourage pilgrims, but Tabrizis still can direct a visitor to the site.
That it is the grave of an American and a Princetonian makes the place remarkable. That it is the grave of a martyr to constitutional liberty, and that it is still honored in the heart of a nation whose government is hostile to the United States and many of its values, makes it more remarkable still.

To read more of Baskerville's story, click here.