CG Learn Article 9 “How Very Sporting of You!”

CAMELLIA GRACE LEARN ARTICLE #9

“How Very Sporting of You!”

Polo

De Thulstrup, Thure. “The International Polo Tournament at Newport.” Drawing. New York, 1886. Harper’s Weekly, pg. 568-569. HathiTrust.org

Polo, a stick and ball sport played on horseback, can trace its origins back thousands of years to ancient Persia, where it was called chovgan, pronounced COW-GAN. There, it was more than just a game and was used as a military training exercise, sometimes involving hundreds of riders at a time. The game became a symbol of excellence and prestige, and its popularity spread west to the Byzantine Empire and east to Tibet, China, India, and even Japan by the Middle Ages. The modern game of polo that is popular today traces its roots to Manipur, India, where a British Lieutenant saw a game being played by locals in 1859 and instantly became an enthusiast, quickly spreading the game through the British Empire.

James Gordon Bennett was both a newspaper publisher in New York and a sports enthusiast. Bennett’s father, James Gordon Bennett Sr., was the founder, owner, and publisher of the New York Herald and passed the business down to his son. Bennett raced yachts, funded auto races, ballooning races, and even airplane races with his newspaper fortune. In 1876, Bennett attended his first polo match in England and immediately purchased mallets and balls and shipped them home to New York. On his return home, he purchased a railcar full of horses from Texas. He held a dinner at his New York estate and introduced his sporting-enthusiast friends to the game of polo. This was the beginning of the Westchester Polo Club, as most of the men came from Westchester, NY. They agreed that this new game would be part of their summer activities in Newport, RI.

The Westchester Polo Club became the first polo club in the United States, and the sport caught the attention of the Gilded Age elites. The popularity grew, and other clubs started forming on the East Coast. Ten years after the club’s formation in 1886, the Westchester Polo Club challenged the English to a polo match, which became known as the Westchester Cup and established Newport as an International Polo destination. It was also the first international polo match.

Newport, RI, remained the capital of American Polo for nearly 40 years, attracting prestigious visitors and great athletes. Then WWI broke out, followed by the Great Depression, and the economic hardships hit, and the era of luxury and indulgence ended, and with it, the enthusiasm for Polo declined. But after the end of WWII, the sport experienced a reemergence in the 50s, which continued through to the 80s. In 1992, the Newport Polo Club, home of the historic Westchester Polo Club, started the Newport International Polo Series, a yearly event occurring every summer, bringing teams from all over the world to compete, bringing international polo back to Newport.

American Football

Pach Brothers. Harvard 1890 Foot Ball Team. Cambridge Massachusetts, 1890. Photograph. Library of Congress

Football is the most popular sport in the United States. The game played on fields across the country was now developed in the late nineteenth century from earlier forms of rugby and soccer (also referred to as association football) played in England. The game took shape on college campuses, and in the beginning, campuses had their own versions and rules. November 6, 1869, marked the first intercollegiate match between Rutgers and Princeton. Although the rules more closely resembled soccer, this contest marked the beginning of college football as a formalized activity.

Over the next few years, colleges continued to play their own games where a ball is kicked at a goal or kicked over a line, agreeing on rules and terms when a match was played. In 1873, Princeton, Yale, and Rutgers sent representatives to New York City to a meeting to form the Intercollegiate Football Association and to come to an agreement on common rules. However, Harvard refused to attend the conference, determined to continue playing their version of the game. The following year, Harvard agreed to a two-game match series against McGill University from Montreal. The first match was played with Harvard’s rules, and the second match was played with McGill’s rules (more like rugby). Afterwards, Harvard decided they liked the rugby rules and challenged Yale to a game where they played under “Concessionary Rules,” which ended up being a mix of rugby and soccer with 15 players a side. Thus, the more rugby-style of football was introduced to American Football.

In 1876, another rules committee was formed between Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia at the Massasoit Hotel in Springfield, MA, to standardize a new code of play based on the rugby game. Present at that meeting was Walter Camp, a Yale coach and administrator known as the “Father of American Football.” In the 1880s and 1890s, Camp introduced key innovations, including the line of scrimmage, the system of downs, and standardized scoring. These changes distinguished American football from rugby and emphasized planning, set plays, and specialized positions—features that still define the game today.

Yale vs University of Pennsylvania, Nov. 11, 1893. Harper’s Weekly. New York. Dec. 1893. Pg 1137. HathiTrust.org

College football expanded quickly beyond the East Coast over the last two decades of the 19^th century. The University of Michigan became the first college west of PA to form a team, and school rivalries started to emerge, most notably Army vs Navy. But with the growth of the sport, came challenges. By the early 1900s, the sport was particularly violent, resulting in numerous injuries, and even death. In 1905 alone, there were 19 deaths resulting from collisions on the field. Public concern led to reforms encouraged by President Theodore Roosevelt and the creation of what would become the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in 1906. Rule changes, such as the legalization of forward passes, helped open the game field and avoid large collisions.

Throughout the twentieth century, college football expanded beyond its early strongholds in the Northeast and Midwest, becoming a national spectacle tied to regional identity, school pride, and tradition. Conferences were formed to organize the competition. Bowl games emerged as postseason rewards, and media coverage—first through radio and later television—dramatically increasing the sport’s popularity. Today, college football remains central to American sports culture, serving as both a developmental pipeline for professional football and a powerful symbol of collegiate community and rivalry.

Other Words, People and Phrases:

Cloak and dagger: situations characterized by extreme secrecy, mystery or intrigue

Dr. Mallory’s Leeches: a practice of applying leeches on the skin as a way of “bloodletting” to rid the body of stagnant or “bad” blood. Thought to reduce fever, inflammation, infection, skin diseases, and more.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: an art museum in New York City founded in 1870, commonly known as the Met.

Waldorf’s Palm Gardens: a famous dining room within the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. A popular spot for the elite of the Gilded Age. A member of New York elite circles could more easily avoid their peers here, as the customers were varied

Sherry’s: a premier dining establishment on 5^th Avenue in New York City, famous for its ballroom and themed parties as well as its more exclusive customer base, catering almost exclusively to the 400.

Sources:

https://polomuseum.org/history-of-polo/

https://newportpolo.com/about/history/

https://quahog.org/index.php/FactsFolklore/Cultural_Brouhaha/Polo_Sport_of_Kings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gordon_Bennett_Jr.

https://completeguidepolo.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/history-of-the-sport-of-polo-the-19th-century/

https://lapolo.in/blog/8-historic-moments-in-the-world-of-polo/

https://newportpolo.com/club/history/

https://newportpolo.com/news/4317/4317/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_history_of_American_football

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Camp