Primarily known as a Major League catcher and coach, Morris “Moe” Berg was also a spy for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II, as well as a lawyer, linguist, and Princeton graduate. As a member of the class of 1923, Berg excelled scholastically and athletically by graduating with honors in Modern Languages (he studied Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Sanskirt), and playing first base and shortstop for the Princeton Tigers. While his batting average was low- Berg inspired a Major League scout to utter the phrase, “Good field, no hit”- he was known at Princeton for his strong arm and sound baseball instincts.[i]
The exhibit highlights the varied roles of Berg in its presentation of Princeton memorabilia from the class of 1923, Berg baseball cards, and other material culled from Mudd’s two collections on Moe Berg: The Moe Berg Collection (1937-2007), and the newly acquired Dr. and Mrs. Arnold Breitbart Collection on Moe Berg (1934-1933). Also on display is a 1959 baseball signed by Berg and other Major League players, on loan from Arnold Breitbart. The Moe Berg exhibit can be located in the lobby of the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, and will be on display until August 31.
[i] Dasidoff, Nicholas. The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg. New York: Pantheon, 1994.
Princeton’s reunions are almost as old as Princeton University itself, going back to the days when the university was still known as the "College of New Jersey." In today’s blog, posted during the Reunions weekend of 2011, we are showing you the oldest reunion footage in the University Archives: an annotated film of the Class of 1895’s 20th and 30th Reunions in 1915 and 1925, followed by footage of the Class of 1915’s 40th Reunion in 1955, and the Class of 1944’s 65th Reunion in 2009, the most recent reunion footage in the University Archives. The films may be compared with reunion footage featured in previous blogs, including the Reunion of the Class of 1921 in 1923 and 1926, and the Reunions and P-rade of 1928, of 1960 and 1961, and of 1986. A compilation of this footage to welcome returning alumni in 2011 can be found here.
The Class of 1895’s 20th reunion footage is the first of its kind, and would well have been the very oldest film in the University Archives, if not for the newsreel footage of the inauguration of President John Grier Hibben in 1912. The film was made by the Connecticut Film Company, which had two men follow the class around campus on Reunions Saturday, then return the following Monday to show the film at the Class Dinner. As Class Secretary Andrew Imbrie put it in a letter to classmates in advance of Reunions, this would be “a stunt never before attempted at any Princeton reunion.”
The annotated film opens with alumni and their sons disembarking from the train (which is still in front of Blair Hall). We then see members of the Class of 1895 pass by their place of lodging, the Hill Dormitory at 48 University Place (0:48). Next we watch the class as they proceed through FitzRandolph Gate accompanied by Klingler’s Allentown Band (1:07). Class members have been instructed to wear straw hats, white trousers and a dark coat. Hat bands, buttons and white umbrellas were provided for the class. “Umbrellas keep hot sun off bald heads,” wrote Imbrie, “and when used en masse dispel the silly feeling which one has when one carries one by one’s self.”
Back at headquarters at the Bachelor’s Club, we see a crowd of men and children gathered around class member Howard Colby’s “‘sarsaparilla automobile,’ built, decorated and provisioned with thoughtful consideration for the small army of sons and daughters” of class members (2:23). As the film winds down, the camera pans over the 136 class members who returned for 1895’s 20th along with their sons (3:53). The D.Q. Brown Long Distance Cup is presented by Dickinson Brown to his classmate Henry “Spider” McNulty, who traveled the farthest, from China, to attend the reunion.
In this short video from around 1983, President Bowen discusses Wu Hall, the then-new dining facility for Butler College. The video highlights three elements that played increasingly significant roles in shaping Princeton over the following decades: the support of alumnus Gordon Wu, the residential colleges system, and the architecture of alumnus Robert Venturi.
We don’t know the exact purpose for which this video was created, but it may have been part of the promotional material for A Campaign for Princeton, the fundraising campaign that officially ran from 1982 to 1986. As previously discussed on this blog, A Campaign for Princeton was enormously successful, bringing in an average of $1,000,000 per week at its height.
The Support of Gordon Wu ’58
In 1981, before the campaign even officially began, alumnus Gordon Y.S. Wu donated $1,000,000 to it. Wu earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Engineering from Princeton in 1958 and subsequently returned to his native Hong Kong. There, he founded Hopewell Holdings, a firm whose notable projects have included highways, hotels, railroads and power plants throughout Asia. Wu has been described as one of the wealthiest businessmen in Hong Kong and as one of the most influential engineers and businessmen in the world.
As A Campaign for Princeton was officially being launched in 1982, Princeton announced that Wu had donated an additional 25 million Hong Kong dollars in honor of his class’s upcoming 25th anniversary reunion. The funds, then equal to approximately USD $4.3 million, were used primarily to construct a dining facility for the then-new Butler College.
As generous as these donations were, they represented only a small fraction of what was to come. In 1995, Wu made a historic pledge to the With One Accord fundraising campaign, which was held as part of the University’s 250th anniversary. That year, Wu pledged to donate USD $100 million, the largest gift ever by a foreigner to a U.S. university, with the last payment scheduled to coincide with his class’ 50th anniversary reunion in 2008. Wu is currently serving as a Trustee of Princeton University, with a term ending in 2012.
The Vision of William Bowen *58
Although dwarfed in magnitude by his later donations, Wu’s 1982 donation has impacted the lives of literally thousands of Princetonians. It gave physical form to President Bowen’s aspirations for the residential college system, which has defined the Princeton undergraduate experience for every class since.
President Bowen (right) formed the Committee on Undergraduate Residential Life (CURL) in 1978. Made up of administrators, faculty and students, the committee was charged with addressing the intertwined issues of Princeton student housing, dining and socialization. Although some of the proposals in the committee’s final report – particularly those relating to eating clubs – did not come to pass, its primary proposal, the establishment of three new residential colleges, came to fruition within a few short years.
Two of the three new colleges, Rockefeller and Mathey, were established in extant buildings in Princeton’s traditional collegiate gothic style. Butler College, however, was housed in the “New New Quad,” which the Daily Princetonian defined for incoming freshman as, “Group of five newer dorms located on the lower-lower campus, fondly known as “The Sticks,” “New New World,” or “Brave New Quad.””
The construction of Wu Hall transformed this “group of dorms” into a true residential college. As the first Master of Butler College, Emory Elliot, said near the end of the first semester that Wu Hall was open, “It’s enabled the spirit of the college to come into full blossom.” He also described the new servery and dining facility as having a “friendly atmosphere conducive to having people come together.” Footage about Butler College and Wu Hall after the 2009 renovations can be found here.
Today’s post was written by Lisa Dunkley ’83, Project Analyst at the Office of Development, who worked under Fred Hargadon from 1988 to 1994.
“Yes!” Those of us who knew, or knew of, Dean Fred Hargadon cannot hear that exclamation without thinking about the blunt, welcome way successful Princeton applicants (and Stanford students before them) learned their admission results. The phrase became so strongly identified with him that Hargadon Hall, the Whitman College dormitory that was an honorific gift from several anonymous alumni, has the word engraved in stone at the building entrance. The simplicity of the message belied the long hours and deep experience that led to those decisions.
I worked in Princeton’s undergraduate admission office from 1988 to 1994, and was one of the first three people the Dean hired. I first met Fred at my interview—he is a tall, unassuming and often endearingly rumpled man. I was working in book publishing, and he is a voracious reader. We talked at length and with ease about books, and on occasion he would interject a question. I was a little tense, waiting for the “real” interview to begin. After about 45 minutes or so Fred stood and thanked me for coming: that was the interview. In retrospect I was impressed at how my answers revealed much more than I realized, an experience I found as disconcerting as it was fascinating. When Fred offered me the job a few weeks later, there was only one answer: Yes!
An admission neophyte, I was clueless about how differently the office operated under his watch compared to his predecessors, but I didn’t particularly care. Fred’s approach seemed right to me: admission was all about the applicant: our responsibility was to pay very sharp attention to all details and to make the playing field as even as possible for everyone, from the child of itinerant farm workers to the offspring of royalty, both real and conferred. Our job was to render a reasoned opinion about how well each student took advantage of whatever resources were at his or her disposal. “Children don’t choose where they grow up,” he once told me.
Fred was very open about how he ran the annual process and discussed it with audiences on many occasions over the years (of which this videotape is one). When he was asked how he managed to balance all of the competing interests at play in each year’s applicant group—a frequent question—he said that his goal was to leave every special interest group only slightly unhappy.
Staff training was unlike anything I’d known before. During the admission season, “first readers” like me passed our folders to more senior officers. Later we would review the finer observations they had added to our summaries: it was the best kind of one-on-one tutoring we could have. Summers are traditionally slow in admission, when most of us either meet with campus visitors or take vacation. In this “off season,” Fred’s strong preference was for us to read books of all kinds. He had a list of recommendations (from On Excellence to The Phantom Tollbooth), but there was sound reasoning behind this exercise: it was our responsibility to have a wide, deep and flexible vocabulary to describe each applicant with as much accuracy as possible. “There is a right word for everything,” he told us.
The title of this video notwithstanding, Princeton football fell on hard times after the decision to abandon the single wing offense in the late Sixties.
In 1973, hoping to revive their fortunes, they hired Bob Casciola ’58, a former All-Ivy tackle, as head coach. Casciola had been an assistant coach under Robert Colman and is credited with persuading future All-American Cosmo Iacavazzi ’66 to attend Princeton. The team finished last in the Ivy League in Casciola’s first season, but improved in 1974 as Walt Snickenberger ’75 won the Asa Bushnell Cup as Ivy League Player of the Year. That raised hopes that the Tigers could return to the top of the standings in 1975.
Those 1975 Tigers had several good players, including quarterback Ron Beible ’76, a civil engineering major who set several Princeton passing records. The film reflects the changing university. In addition to the long hair and flamboyant ’70s clothes (including Beible’s white shoes), there were African-Americans on the team and female cheerleaders on the sidelines (0:15). Several interviews were filmed outside Jadwin Gymnasium, which opened in 1969. Casciola refers to the lack of spring practice, a rule for Ivy football teams that dates to the early 1950s and predates the formal creation of a league.
The film also shows different helmet logos. Princeton experimented with several designs during this period, including the abstract striped tiger tail and the cartoon running tiger. Not until 1998 did they revert to the classic “Michigan” helmet design that coach Fritz Crisler had inaugurated at Princeton during the 1930s.
Unfortunately, the high hopes for the 1975 season were not realized. The team won its first three games but finished 4-5 and fifth in the Ivy League. Casciola continued as coach until 1977 and later served as chief operating officer of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets.
Nineteen seventy-five was, however, a more successful year for Princeton’s men’s basketball team, which won the National Invitational Tournament.
On March 17, 1989, in the opening round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Princeton University, seeded #16, faced national powerhouse Georgetown University, seeded #1 in the East Region. It was a classic David versus Goliath matchup. Since the tournament was expanded to 64 teams in 1985, a #16 seed has never defeated a #1 seed. There have been some close calls, but none closer than Georgetown’s narrow one point victory over Princeton.
The video below features four segments from the game. At the beginning of the broadcast (0.04), Dick Vitale, noted college basketball commentator and analyst, and John Saunders discuss the game. Vitale promises to don a Princeton cheerleader outfit if Princeton can beat Georgetown. He, like so many others, gave the Tigers little chance against the bigger, faster, and stronger Hoyas. Princeton took the floor as twenty-three point underdogs.
The starting line ups are presented in the second segment (0:28), and viewers can watch the first six minutes of the game (from 3:58), and see the final three minutes of play (from 12:03), including Vitale’s reaction to Princeton’s performance and near victory.
Georgetown, under head coach John Thompson, entered the tournament ranked #2 in the country and had recently won the Big East Conference title. They had a 26-4 pre-tournament record, and the team was loaded with talent, including freshman star and future NBA player Alonzo Mourning and senior captain Charles Smith, the Big East Player of the Year. Many predicted them to win the tournament.
Princeton, led by their famously colorful coach Pete Carril (left), was 19-8 overall, and as Ivy League champions had earned an automatic bid to the national tournament. They were a young team, with only one junior, Matt Lapin, and one senior, Ivy League Player of the Year and captain Bob Scrabis, on the roster. But, this was also a Princeton team that led the nation in defense, allowing only 53 points per game.
How could Princeton stay with Georgetown and keep the game close? The “Princeton Offense,” the hallmark of Carril’s coaching style, slowed down the Hoyas and forced an entirely different style of play. The “Princeton Offense” spread the floor, utilizing a three guard set, and made the contest a half court game. Clock management and patience were key.
In those days the shot clock was 45 seconds, and it was quite typical for Princeton to run the clock down for 30 seconds before they even began their offensive set. With constant ball movement and passing, the guards looked for players moving toward the basket, especially by back door cuts, which led to easy lay ups.
This style of play stymied Georgetown throughout the first half, and Princeton’s confidence seemed to grow with each basket. They picked up rebounds, scrambled for loose balls, limited turnovers, and generally frustrated the Hoyas. At half time, Princeton led 29-21, and there was a noticeable buzz of excitement in the arena.
In 1949, as the United States and its western allies established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to “contain” Soviet expansion into Europe, James A. Baker III was a freshman at Princeton. He was, in his words, “focused more on making grades, playing tennis and rugby, and chasing girls — not necessarily in that order — than on U.S. foreign policy” (Baker p. 287).
In his memoir, Baker provides a good-natured account of his early years here. “I became a member of both Princeton’s Right Wing Club — so named because we spent much of our time using our right arms to hoist spirituous beverages — and the 21 Club, another social organization with a similar mission” (Baker p. 9). But by the time he left Princeton, Baker had produced serious work; he found his interest in history and classics and had written his senior thesis about parliamentary politics in Britain in the two preceding decades.
The Cold War would soon find him, however. Baker graduated in 1952 and immediately entered the U.S. Marine Corps’ officer training program while the Korean War was still ongoing. The Cold War would continue to shape Baker’s career, by which he was both a witness to and agent of the fall of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1991, Baker had served as Ronald Reagan’s Chief of Staff and Treasury Secretary and as Secretary of State for George H. W. Bush.
Return to Princeton
This video, documenting a talk by Baker co-sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School and the Class of 1993, was delivered on December 12, 1991 in Alexander Hall. Baker was then serving as Secretary of State.
The decade after World War II was a Golden Age of Princeton football. Under the leadership of coach Charlie Caldwell ’25, the Tigers were often nationally ranked and it was not unusual for newsreel cameras to film Princeton games. These Paramount newsreels give highlights from across that era, although the clips are not in chronological order.
The first game shown here, a 13-7 victory over Penn in 1951, was almost certainly broadcast on national television, as the Quakers had a lucrative contract with ABC to broadcast all their home games. Dick Kazmaier ’52, a triple-threat tailback in Princeton’s distinctive single wing offense, won the Heisman Trophy that year, graced the cover of Time magazine, and was named the AP’s athlete of the year, beating out such luminaries as Otto Graham and Stan Musial. Kazmaier showed off his passing skills here with a bomb to Frank McPhee ’53. (0:48)
The second clip shows a 42-20 loss to Yale in 1956, the first year of Ivy League competition. Although it is not known if this game was broadcast, one concession to television in those years was a recommendation that the road team wear white uniforms, which made the teams easier to distinguish on black-and-white TV sets. For generations before that, Princeton always wore black and orange, whether playing at home or on the road. Nineteen fifty-six was also Caldwell’s last full season as coach. He died of cancer the following year and was succeeded by his assistant, Dick Colman.
Caldwell was just beginning to build his dynasty in 1947, when the third clip was filmed showing a 26-7 loss to the Quakers. Dick West ’48 provided the lone highlight, connecting with George Sella ’50 for a touchdown. (3:40) West played for the Tigers in 1942 but interrupted his education to join the military. Sella, like Dick Kazmaier, was later drafted by the Chicago Bears but decided to pass up the NFL for Harvard Business School.
The final clip shows a hard-fought 24-20 victory over Navy during the undefeated 1951 season. The win was Princeton’s fifteenth in a row. Their streak would eventually extend to 24 games before Penn snapped it the following year.
Today’s post is written by Rev. Frederick Borsch ’57, former Dean of Religious Life and the Chapel 1981-1988.
“A sermon in stone” is a familiar description of the Princeton University Chapel, and it is used to introduce this 1977 film tour of the Chapel’s architecture and windows through an interview with its then Dean Ernest Gordon. Although an effort was made to give the program a semblance of informality, it comes across now as rather rehearsed. First telecast (Nov. 27, 1977) as a 10 minute segment in a Sunday morning NBC-TV series, “The First Estate: Religion in Review,” the film is also, however, not without attractive and educational features. Since the Chapel remains essentially the same, the information is not dated, and there is much to appreciate in watching it. For considerable further information about the Chapel, one can go to the University’s Office of Religious Life’s site about the History of the Chapel to find links to a self-guided tour and an extensive audio-tour. There is also Richard Stilwell’s splendid The Chapel of Princeton University (Princeton University Press, 1971). Next one could go to the Chapel.
“Bring binoculars,” was the advice I was given, as that is the only way to take in much of the detail. The film seems to have been made in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the 1928 dedication of the Chapel. I first entered the building as a freshman in 1953 when it was 25 years old. We undergrads, of course, had other names for the building–not least because attendance at religious services was then required of freshmen and sophomores on every other weekend. One of my roommates, though not himself Jewish, usually went to their Friday evening services in order to get his chit signed and have the rest of the week-end free. Other of my friends might go to a denominational service, but often enough on Sunday mornings we went to the ecumenical (though rather Presbyterian) “God Box” or “Firestone South,” so labeled because the Chapel was neighbor to our more frequent destination–the Firestone Library just across the plaza.
Or, since lore had it that alumnus and plutocrat Harvey Firestone had donated a goodly part of the over two million dollars for building the Chapel, it was also “Firestone’s Folly.” We heard that this sobriquet had been given by earlier critics who would have preferred that the money be used for laboratories, libraries and faculty salaries. At the time, however, President Hibben had acclaimed the Chapel as Princeton’s two million dollar witness against materialism!
Yet it was hard not to stand–literally stand–in awe of the building and all it represented. I stood there. I worshipped in the Ralph Adams Cram Anglo-collegiate Gothic tribute to the unity of faith and knowledge. The visage of the philosopher-skeptic David Hume could even be glimpsed in one of the windows. I listened to the Aeolian-Skinner organ while admiring what has been called the “finest assemblage of stained glass in all the western hemisphere.” (Recently the windows were completely refurbished and restored to the tune of something like ten million dollars. The building and its fabric have over the years been very well endowed!) As an English major, I liked to sense the whole building as a paean to Christian humanism and to pick out Chaucer, Shakespeare, George Herbert, Donne, Milton, Blake, Emily Dickinson and T.S. Eliot. In the only apparent attempt at humor in the 1977 film (other than a reference of Donne’s “unholy” sonnets), Dean Gordon notes the tiger on which William Blake seems to sit. “Tiger, tiger, burning bring / In the forests of the night,” runs through one’s mind, followed by “tiger, tiger, tiger; sis, sis, sis; boom, boom, boom; ah.”
Ernest Gordon became the Chapel’s Dean in 1955. He was “earnest” all right (a little joke of ours), but what a change he brought to the worship with his Scot’s burr, his energetic faith and dramatic story of conversion to Christianity during his four years in a miserable Japanese concentration camp. A handsome man with a certain winsomeness about him (still seen in the film), he invited Billy Graham to campus for what was in affect a mission to undergraduates.
Later Gordon would twice invite (over a number of protests) Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Chapel’s pulpit and preside over the Chapel during the civil rights movement, then a memorial service for Dr. King, turmoil and protests over the Vietnam War–some of these gatherings taking place in the Chapel. As part of all that, a measure of interest in religion grew, but not necessarily in formal church-going. By 1964 all Chapel requirements had finally been dropped as the University became still more secular in outlook and at the same time more diverse in terms of religions. I had to wonder if Dean Gordon did not wince to himself when, at the end of the film, he commented on how important the Chapel was for undergraduates although far fewer were coming to his Sunday morning services than in earlier years.
Truth in blogging: in 1981 I succeeded Ernest Gordon as Dean, and one can read something more about his ministry, the Chapel and the times in my forthcoming Keeping Faith at Princeton: A Brief History of Religious Pluralism at Princeton and Other Universities (Princeton University Press, 2011).
The 1964-1965 basketball season was an unprecedented season of success for the Princeton men’s team as it played some of the finest basketball in the country, led by All-American and captain Bill Bradley ’65. During that magical season, the Tigers won the Ivy League title and earned a trip to the NCAA tournament. By season’s end they had bested teams from Navy, Syracuse, Rutgers, Cornell, and Providence. Bradley, arguably one of the best athletes ever to play at Princeton, led a talented group of juniors and up-and-coming sophomores as they demonstrated that an Ivy League team, devoid of scholarship players, could hold their own, and indeed, compete with basketball powerhouses such as Michigan and North Carolina State.
Princeton’s season opened on December 2nd with an 83-74 victory over Lafayette College. Crowds filled Dillon Gymnasium to watch the team, and as the end of December approached, Princeton was 6-2. Then at New York City’s Madison Square Garden (2:34), where the annual Holiday Festival tournament was played, Princeton opened with a victory over Syracuse. But the match-up everyone was anxious to watch pitted Princeton against the University of Michigan — then the number one ranked team in the country. Michigan’s star player was Cazzie Russell, a versatile 6’ 6” all court player.
The first half was a fairly evenly matched contest, with Princeton securing a 39-37 half time edge. During the second half, Princeton opened up a significant lead. With four and a half minutes to go, the Tigers lead by 12 (4:52). But, the game quickly turned when Bradley was called for his fifth and final personal foul — a costly error that sent him to the bench for the remainder of the game. Without their floor general, Princeton struggled to find its rhythm, but managed to keep things close. With less than a minute to play, they still led by two points. In the waning seconds (6:08), Michigan put the ball in Russell’s hands, and he did not disappoint, nailing the winning shot which gave Michigan an 80-78 victory. It was not the last time that these two teams would meet during the season. Nor would it be the last time that Bradley and Russell would compete together. Both played on New York Knicks teams in the late 1960s. (The Daily Princetonian, January 5, 1965)
Primarily known as a Major League catcher and coach, Morris “Moe” Berg was also a spy for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II, as well as a lawyer, linguist, and Princeton graduate. As a member of the class of 1923, Berg excelled scholastically and athletically by graduating with honors in Modern Languages (he studied Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Sanskirt), and playing first base and shortstop for the Princeton Tigers. While his batting average was low- Berg inspired a Major League scout to utter the phrase, “Good field, no hit”- he was known at Princeton for his strong arm and sound baseball instincts.[i]
