Those Places is a
daily prompt at Geneabloggers that invites family historians to post photos and
stories about places their ancestors lived.
This is the sixth in a series based on my great-aunt
Velma Davis Woodring’s scrapbook that she kept during her freshman year at
Harrisonburg Teachers College (now James Madison University).
When I was in college, women’s field hockey reigned
supreme as the main sport on campus. So
I’m surprised to learn from Velma’s scrapbook and yearbook that the sport had
such shaky beginnings.
Prior to 1924, field hockey struggled to find a place in
the hearts of the HTC students. From
1912-1915, teams were formed and competed during Field Day which was always
part of the commencement activities at that time. But then field hockey was dropped as an
organized sport until 1919 when the sport was revived with Junior and Senior
teams.
The sport became especially popular in 1923. Harrison Hall was the setting of a pre-breakfast
song and yell contest followed by a snake dance out to the hockey field located next to Rockingham Memorial Hospital.
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| 1924 - Hockey field was located where Burruss Hall and the library are today. |
Finally in 1924 the first varsity field hockey team was
organized. The girls played only one
game and lost miserably to Westhampton 4-1. In the years following they played
3 games a year. The second year produced
a winning season defeating Shepherd’s College 13-0 and Fredericksburg (now Mary
Washington University) 15-1, losing only to Westhampton once again 1-4. In 1928 HTC added an alumnae game to end the
season.
The team of Velma’s day wouldn’t know what to make of
today’s new field hockey complex.
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| from JMU Sports |
©2014, Wendy
Mathias. All rights reserved.
Great post about Field Hockey and how it began at JMU. Did Velma play?
ReplyDeleteIf she did, it wasn't on the team. She was on the basketball team her freshman year but not in her sophomore year.
DeleteThat sounds like quite the rough and tumble sport for those ladies. Um, does the photo show them playing in skirts or dresses by any chance? Wow, that would be interesting.
ReplyDeleteI had to smile when I read about the snake dance. It just sounded so funny. But what exactly is that?
Jana, In 1924 the team actually wore midi blouses and big baggy bloomers which probably was only a minor improvement over the skirts worn in the previous decade. As for the snake dance, I don't know for sure, but I picture sort of a conga line without the drunken frenzy, maybe just a line of girls winding their way in a sinuous path out to the field. But there were actual INDIAN snake dances popular at that time in places like New Mexico. From what I can tell, Velma's classmates had a flair for the dramatic so there's no telling what dance they were doing!
DeleteBloomers! That's so cute!
DeleteToo bad they didn't make a movie of their "snake dance." Couldn't you just see one of those old time grainy silent movies or newsreel movies featuring the girls in bloomers "snake dancing" their way onto the field?