Playing the Game
According to the best possible source—the Social Establishment itself—the most important college, socially, is unquestionably Yale. Princeton has a lot of glamour, but Yale is solider. Boston, naturally, has always favored Harvard, but it is only a particular part of Harvard—a Harvard centered around such clubs as Porcellian, Fly, and Spee—that is favored. (There are, in a very real sense, two Harvards. In the Porcellian Club, a one-way mirror on the dining room wall symbolizes the division; members, dining, can look out on the rest of the university as it passes by; non-members see only a reflection of themselves. The two Harvards, therefore, neither speak to, nor recognize, each other.) Though Philadelphia prefers the St. Paul’s-to-Yale route, it still sends a number of its upper-class sons to its own University of Pennsylvania, an institution which Philadelphians blandly admit is “second-rate Ivy League,” and which other cities place far down on their lists. For company and solace at the University, the well-born young of Philadelphia huddle together in three select fraternities—Delta Psi (St. Anthony’s), Delta Phi (St. Elmo’s), and Zeta Psi—and quite literally never meet anyone else. These three clubs are so selective and conservative that they have occasionally had years when they took in no new pledges at all; there was simply no one suitable to take in. New England’s “little three,” Williams, Amherst, and Wesleyan, are favorites of individual families, with the first two considered “better,” from a social standpoint. Dartmouth has a rather raffish reputation, associated with hard drinking and long winter weekends. “A lot of Dartmouth men go into advertising,” says one non-Dartmouth man. “Also, a lot of them are Irish.” (Nelson Rockefeller, Dartmouth ’30, however, is neither Irish nor in advertising.) Notre Dame is not considered in the social running at all. Yale men are supposed to go into banking. (David Rockefeller, however, who is a banker, went to Harvard.)
A rough indication—and very rough—of the social standing of American colleges is the Social Register, which lists colleges and classes of the socially registered. The Register has standard abbreviations for all the colleges of the Ivy League—Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and “perhaps Cornell.” For years, however, it listed only two of the “little three”—omitting Wesleyan, though it long included the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Trinity, and, somewhat mysteriously, Union College, Rutgers, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Johns Hopkins, C.C.N.Y., and N.Y.U. For reasons equally mysterious, the only women’s college honored with its own Social Register symbol is Barnard, although Smith, Vassar, and Bryn Mawr, of the “seven sister” women’s colleges, are all a good deal more fashionable. And none of these may be as prestigious as certain of the women’s junior colleges—Bennett, Briarcliff, and Colby. Recently, Wesleyan was recognized and given its own Social Register symbol, “Wes,” indicating a possible improvement of its status. At the same time it has seemed to a few sensitive observers that Wesleyan is only partway into the Social Register. Though other collegiate symbols are translated in full in a key at the front of the book—“J Hop,” for instance, is said to stand for “Johns Hopkins Graduate”—“Wes” is somewhat sneeringly dismissed as “Wesleyan Univ. Grad.”
The Social Register makes allowances for graduates of both Annapolis and West Point, but has never recognized the United States Air Force Academy, and, of course, regional editions reflect local preferences. The San Francisco Register has symbols for Stanford and the University of California and, of the Eastern colleges, for only Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. The Washington book adds Georgetown and George Washington University, lists all the Ivy League except Cornell, and in another hard-to-fathom move, adds Hobart, which is in upstate New York.
There are other social “list” books besides the Social Register—though none considered as “reliable”—and a glance at their stand on colleges reveals that there may be a connection between the colleges and universities recognized and the alma maters of the lists’ publishers. The National Social Directory, for instance, in its “The List of Society,” gives the nod to all the colleges of the Ivy League and the “little three,” plus—in an attempt, perhaps, to give the publication the appearance of national scope—four others: Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; Northeastern University, in Boston; Southwestern University (whether of Los Angeles or of Georgetown, Texas, the “List” does not specify); and Southeastern University in Washington, D.C. Still another list includes the customary Ivy League and “little three” and adds a few surprises of its own—South Dakota School of Mines and McNeese State College, which is in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Book editors are apt to be a class-conscious lot. A Harvard-graduated Boston editor, going over proof of a novel, objected to a line of dialogue that identified one of the characters as belonging to the Porcellian Club. “A fellow like that would never have been taken into the Porc,” he announced. The author, suspicious, checked the editor’s credentials and found him not to have been a member of Porcellian either, but of the Spee Club. He then changed the line to read, “Only a member of the Spee Club. Too bad it couldn’t have been Porcellian.”
Just as there are certain proper schools and colleges, so are there certain proper college sports. Being able to play the right game is as important a part of being a gentleman or lady in Society as using the right fork and the right accent. American Society, like English Society, has always been strongly oriented toward the out-of-doors, the saddle, the firearm, the wicket and the bat, but just as certain colleges—such as Wesleyan—have a way of going in and out of fashion, so do sports. In the early part of the century, for instance, no gentleman in Society could decently admit that he was unable to play golf, or “the golf,” as it was somewhat flossily called. Golf brought with it the great era of the American country club, each surrounded by verdant acres of greens and fairways. Now, however, golf has become commonplace and is regarded as a middle-class sport. Few country clubs today could support themselves if they offered nothing but golf. Though there is admittedly a certain difference in cost, it is probably also significant of Society’s changing athletic attitudes that a New York contractor, who used to be kept busy building such things, has not installed a private golf course—full-size or miniature—since 1926. He has no end of orders, however, for private tennis courts. And, on the campuses of the better Eastern colleges, the golfer finds himself toward the bottom of the social ladder, along with the long-distance runner, the swimmer, the wrestler, the basketball and baseball player, and the most déclassé figure on the college athletic scene, the cheerleader.
The “racquet” sports—tennis, squash, and court tennis—have long been mandatory upper-class pastimes, with the latter so “inside” that it has become almost obscure (requiring, as it does, medieval-style courtyards so elaborate that only a handful exist in the United States for the handful of aristocratic court-tennis players, all of whom know each other). Squash and tennis, suffused with an aura of easygoing good-fellowship, have a breezy, casual air about them that blends so perfectly with the Society manner. As a North Shore Long Island lady has said, “I’m always delighted to throw the house open to young men who come up to the Club for our Tennis Week—even if I don’t know them. Of course I’d hardly want to throw the house open to a group of golfers. That would be quite different, somehow—I don’t know why, but it would.” And a member of Amherst’s tennis squad says, “The nice thing about the racquet sports is that they look easy to play, but aren’t, and that keeps the duffers out of the game.” On Eastern college campuses, an argument can always be started over which is the most prestigious sport, tennis or squash. Squash, which is played indoors, is of necessity the sweatier sport, yet squash courts are among the most popular features of the best men’s clubs—and this of course, is the essential difference. Squash is a one-sex sport, but tennis is a sport for both sexes and is associated with summer, youth, and love. As a Yale man says, “It’s more important to know how to play tennis than squash because—well, you play tennis in the spring, which is the most important time of year to make a good impression if you’re looking for invitations to June coming-out parties.” In spanking clean tennis whites, a young man can make an excellent impression—even before swooping down on his opening serve.
College crew, until a generation ago, was in roughly the same position of importance that tennis is in today, and it used to be taken as an article of faith that anyone rowing on the crew of a decent college bore credentials that were socially impeccable. Those were the days when so much snobbery surrounded crew that the father of Princess Grace, John Brendan Kelly, was told he could not compete in England’s Diamond Sculls because “A man who has worked with his hands should not compete against gentlemen.” Kelly, as the world surely knows by now, was a contractor’s son and, in the most noble purlieus of Philadelphia Society today, it is still said that Kelly “tried to use crew as a means to climb into Society.” Of the same era was the Porcellian stroke of the Harvard crew of whom it was said—according to a persistent legend—“He’s quite a democratic chap. He knows every man in the boat but the three up front.”
At such schools as St. Paul’s and Kent, crew continues to lure the sons of noted families but, at college, when athletic habits congeal, crew has had a considerable falling off. No one is quite sure why. The disintegration of the Yale-Harvard Regatta as a social event may be one reason. What was a chic affair in the twenties—involving private railways cars and all the largest steam yachts in the East—has turned into a general traffic jam that ties up all roadways, railways, and riverways around New London, Connecticut, and litters them all with empty beer cans. “Too many alumni got into the act,” explains a Yale senior.
Another social sport that, like crew, has suffered recently from overcrowding is Rugby. For a number of years, Rugby failed to get an official athletic department recognition at major colleges, which gave its partisans—like the select few who make up college polo teams—the pleasant feeling of being insiders by virtue of being outsiders. Also, on most campuses, Rugby players were not really required to know how to play Rugby; the major talent for Rugby was the ability to muster round-trip plane fare to Bermuda for Rugby Week, the sport’s annual rite of spring. Rugby Week or College Week was once cozy and gay and giggly and distinctly upper class, and mothers had no qualms about allowing their daughters to go, in groups, to attend the event. But slowly, the tiny Atlantic archipelago began noticing annual increases in the numbers of Rugby and non-Rugby playing guests at Easter time. Soon College Week was more crowded than the Yale-Harvard Regatta, more wild-eyed than Derby Day, Yale’s famous (and now defunct) romp. College Week sat in the middle of Bermuda’s sunny season like a drunk at a tea party. “I’ve gone to my last College Week,” said a Princeton sophomore a few years ago. “You can’t believe what it’s like. The hotels are all filled, so guys sleep under rocks on the beach. If you’re lucky enough to have a room, you’re expected to share it with twenty other guys. The bar at the Elbow-Beach Club is packed three people deep and filled with armed Security Guards trying to keep order. And the girls! My blind date one night was a CPA from Chicago. For my money, the whole Rugby thing has gone way, way down.” It was to go even further. Bermuda, displeased with the behavior of its visitors, made them increasingly unwelcome, and soon the young, and the ensuing disturbances, turned to the beaches of Florida, to Fort Lauderdale, and then, a few years later, to Daytona Beach. All pretense at any connection with the sport of Rugby was abandoned, and College Week no longer has any Society overtones at all. Today, the holidaying college crowd tends to favor Puerto Rico and upperclass mothers keep their daughters home—remembering, though, when it was all sweet innocence in Bermuda, with all those nice young Rugby players from the Ivy League. And where are the nice young men today if they are not playing Rugby? On the nearest ski slopes they can find.
Society fathers expect their sons to have learned, by the time of their maturity, to ride and respect horseflesh, to handle a firearm or a trout rod, to sail a boat, and to be kind to pedigreed dogs. Girls are expected only to be able to ride. From these areas of interest stem any number of specialist and rarefied sports which are determinedly, perennially, and almost exclusively aristocratic; such as yacht-racing, fox hunting, polo, and beagling. These sports seem incapable of losing their upper-class gloss. But other sports, like Rugby, have suffered social reverses, and the most notable of these is Eastern college football which, for several decades, has undergone a long decline. Often called “King Football,” the sport certainly is among the more enduring symbols of college life. For years, football games were the centers of huge, happy, sentimental, and generally well-bred gatherings. Saturday after Saturday, autumn after autumn, the packed station wagons threaded their way across the New England landscape toward the famous stadiums and bowls. And yet, though to an outsider all might have seemed well with college football, there were signs that it was sickening at its heart. It was not so much that Society boys no longer played football—there never have, really, been many Society football players—it was that the youngsters of Society were not attending football games with their old enthusiasm. The oldsters continued to flock to the games and to open the backs of their station wagons and spread out picnics with cocktails, chafing dishes, wines, and, in any number of cases, a white-coated houseboy in attendance to help serve. But they had not come to watch football being played as much as to pass around the thermos of iced Martinis, and to meet old friends at Portal Nine. After the game—or, more likely, before it was over, in order to beat the crowds—the oldsters left the stadium to wander over to Zeta Psi where a goodly number of football enthusiasts had already gathered for a drink and to inquire, in a bored and genial sort of way, about the victor and the final score.
During the games, cheering sections failed to materialize or, if they did, failed to cheer loudly enough to be heard across the field. Cheerleaders flopped about, calling for shreds of enthusiasm. Brilliant plays went unnoticed by larger and larger sections of the stands, and college newspaper editors editorialized halfheartedly about “lack of spirit” and “apathy.” Friday nights were given over to listless pep rallies, and the social standing of football on the Ivy League campus slid lower and lower.
After World War II, when returning veterans—most of whom considered football kid stuff—flooded the campuses, football sank to its knees. Football players were openly and loudly kidded and lampooned. They became the butt of every joke. College humor magazines depicted them as bulky dimwits who were able to stay in college only if they took the simplest “gut” courses and received elaborate scholastic coaching from their friends. If a particular fraternity happened to attract mostly football players to its membership, it became known as “The Ape House,” or “The Gorilla Cage,” or “The Jungle Club,” and Zeta Psi—which, on practically every campus it exists, is among the most exclusive—seriously discussed excluding football players from its Williams chapter. “They can give the house a bad name,” it was said at the time.* College professors, rather than seem to be giving football players a break, often seemed to be giving them a harder time than other students, calling on them to recite excessively, ridiculing them if they made mistakes. “Musclehead” and “meat-head” became popular expressions of derogation.
In the twenties and thirties, days when the image of Princeton’s great Hobey Baker hung in the sky, girls from Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley were the football hero’s for the asking. In the late forties and fifties, the football player—a hero no longer—had trouble finding himself a date. “Quite frankly, they don’t make good weekend dates,” said a Wellesley girl. “At least not during the season. If they’re playing, you have to go with one of their friends. After the game, if they’re not banged up somehow, they’re tired. Their training rules mean they don’t have much fun at parties. They go to sleep, and there you are.” During the week, too, life at the training table had the effect of isolating the football player from his fellow students. Lonely and neglected, he sought out the only company that was available to him—the company of other football players. Coincidentally, as the sixth decade of the century progressed, professional football increased enormously in popularity. Society turned on its television set or headed for the big pro games and, of all things, professional football became an upper-class spectator sport. At Yale today, the men who consider themselves the college’s social leaders have never met members of the Yale football team. They indulge, instead, in a sport that would horrify their grandfathers—touch football.
Does this mean that Eastern college sports have gone all effete and namby-pamby—that future sporting events will be limited entirely to those which can be held under green-and-white striped awnings, where spectators, seated in rows of folding chairs, will show their appreciation of exceptional plays not with stomping or cheering, but with polite applause? Not exactly. Two fairly rough and tumble sports, hockey and lacrosse, have been rapidly moving up the social ladder to fill the gap left by college football. Field hockey, too, is becoming popular at men’s colleges, as it long was at women’s. “Do you know what I think the chic-est college sporting event in the entire East is at the moment, bar none?” asks a Bennington girl. “It’s the annual Williams-Bennington field hockey game. You should see us out there in our little knickers!”
* Several years later, fraternities themselves were banned at Williams.