Norwich Free Academy vs. New London High School: A Football Rivalry Still On After 134 Years
Editor’s Note: Sportademics is indebted to Geoffrey P. Serra,
Head of the English Department at Norwich Free Academy for permission to
publish the article that appears below which he authored last year.
While remarkable for its long running, this story is noteworthy too in
our view, for the contributions to academia made by many of the players
over the years as noted.
 Fourteen
members of the Norwich Free Academy (NFA) 1898 football team draw the
camera’s eye to the center of the photograph where one player, dressed
in a striped rugby-like shirt holds a football labeled NFA ’98. His look
is direct, open, perhaps defiant, and certainly smug. His teammates,
most dressed in quilted knicker-like pants, heavyweight knitted knee
socks, leather shoes, and solid colored turtle neck sweaters, surround
him in a kind of relaxed, confident embrace. On the floor in front, a
relatively tall lad, reclining on his left side, hair parted jauntily in
the middle, stares into the camera. His left hand touches the leather
“head harness” next to him on the floor. The whole picture conveys
pride, skill, confidence, strength and youthful bravado. It is one of
the oldest football photographs in the Norwich Free Academy archives.
Taken less than thirty years after the first collegiate American
football game between Princeton and Rutgers in 1869, the photograph
reveals a somewhat spherical ball giving testament to the transition of
the early round rugby like football, through a more watermelon shaped
ball, until l935 when the ball took on today’s shape and size. Merrill
nose masks, early football gear, hang from the necks of the two in
striped jerseys. When worn, the nose masks were held in position by a
flexible band worn across the forehead to protect the nasal ridge, nose,
and teeth.
In 1898, the Norwich Free Academy football squad
defeated their rivals from New London in a game the Norwich Bulletin
called a “duplicate on a small scale of the Yale-Harvard game.” Within
fourteen minutes of the 3:45 p.m. kickoff, NFA scored a touchdown, and
held New London scoreless to the end for a 6-0 victory. The game lasted
well beyond sunset, and the second half “was played in the dark and one
could only see the forms of the players.”
The Norwich Free
Academy, incorporated 1854, and opened in 1856. By 1898 when the
photograph was taken, the NFA– New London football rivalry already had
23 years of history. The rivalry originated between the Norwich Free
Academy and the Bulkeley School for Boys in New London, and continued
until 1951, when Bulkeley merged with New London’s Chapman Tech to
become New London High School. The Bulkeley Tigers then became the New
London Whalers, and school colors shifted from orange and black to green
and gold, but the rivalry with the Academy Wildcats, the red and white,
continued. According to Gary Makowicki, today’s NFA Athletics
Director, the current tally for the rivalry (as near as can be
determined) is Norwich Free Academy 74 wins, New London 61 wins, and 11
ties.
The first game of the oldest high school football
rivalry in the country took place on May 12, 1875. Bulkeley had opened
only two years earlier in 1873. The rivalry quickly took on life.
According to the November 1, 1883, edition of New London Telegram, fifty
cent round trip tickets were available on the New London Northern
Railroad to attend the game at Williams Park in Norwich where “a large
assembly is expected” and where “a large number from New London are
expected to attend.” Until 1910 NFA was undefeated by Bulkeley. NFA was
again defeated in 1911, and according to the Academy’s 1912 yearbook
The Mirror, despite the Wildcat defeat, it was “the finest exhibition of
football ever seen in this city.”
 The
134-year-old rivalry has become an institution in southeastern
Connecticut, and it has seen its share of excitement, unusual
occurrences, and both good natured and intense competition. In 1886, NFA
officials discovered a member of the Bulkeley faculty was a star player
in the lineup, a far from uncommon occurrence in the early days of high
school football. Bulkeley secured its first victory with the aid of
several young men home from college. In that 1910 game, Bulkeley alumni
participated in play in order for the school to field a team.
One
story has achieved legendary status. In 1889 on a grey, overcast
November day, the match took place on the Billard Academy field near
Pequot Avenue adjacent to the harbor in New London. In mid game an
intense snow squall hit, and when an Academy player sent the ball flying
on a high punt, it disappeared into the snow. The game ended there
because there was not another ball to replace the lost one. The story
was passed from Frederic H. Cranston, class of 1891, and NFA faculty
from 1898-1943, to Paul Bradlaw who was a NFA faculty member for 47
years (1918-1965) during which he served for many years as financial
advisor to student athletics. Since then, periodically, hints and rumors
surface about the whereabouts of that lost ball. All have been false
starts or dead ends. As recently as three years ago, the new head of
school was provided with a “lead” concerning the location of the missing
ball!
In 1902, the score already 130-0 in NFA’s favor, Bulkeley
gave up a few minutes into the second half. In 1909, the NFA timekeeper
allowed play to extend thirteen minutes during which time NFA scored a
touchdown to tie the game. He ran for his life when the error was
discovered. A memorable game in the early years was the 1911 game. It
ended with a New London victory 11-5, but NFA disputed the outcome and
protested to top football expert Walter Camp, a New Haven native, Yale
graduate, and football player. In time, Camp had a tremendous influence
upon shaping the game of football in America and is often referred to
as “the father of American football,” and until his death in 1925, Camp
edited the American Football rulebook. The play in dispute involved a
punt, a fumble, and a recovery at the goal line, claimed by NFA as a
touchdown but not ruled by the referee as a score. At the time,
touchdowns were worth five points, and the Academy claimed that had the
touchdown been called, and had the extra point been secured, NFA would
have tied the score. Camp agreed, and ultimately gave NFA the tie.
In
1923 Bulkley routed NFA 33 to 0; the rivalry had become so intense that
NFA alumnus Charles F. Noyes offered a $5,000 donation if the Wildcats
would defeat the Tigers in both football and baseball. The Bulkley
Annual of that year taunts “We wish you Luck, Norwich, but don’t count
to heavily on that offer,” and the Tigers went on to another 33 to 0
victory over the Wildcats in 1924. The history of the rivalry is filled
with stories of wagers and fundraising. According to one report, during
World War II (NFA beat Bulkley every year between 1941 and 1944, one of
the winning footballs was auctioned and fetched a winning bid of
$5,000.
In 1921 and then again for a brief period in 1970’s, the
games were held twice a year, before becoming an annual Thanksgiving
Day event. In a notable recent match on a snowy Thanksgiving Day in
2005, the New London team showed up with the wrong shoes to play on
NFA’s slick, wet astro-turf. Snow on the New London sidelines had not
been cleared, and for some reason, snow shovels seemed not to be
handy. After a discussion about snow removal with NFA officials, the
Whalers withdrew to the locker room, stalling until the shovels were
located, snow was cleared, and their cleated shoes arrived from New
London. In that game New London trounced NFA 34 to 3.
 Over
the years, the rivalry spurred elaborate rituals, many of which
continue today. Spirited school rallies preceded the matches, sometimes
with evening bonfires, and boisterous displays of school colors. These
often gave way to pranks, both funny and ill–advised. In the 30’s and
40’s, policemen were on duty the night before the game because
enthusiastic fans would try to splash their colors on the rivals’
campus, a far from easy feat, and one which could result in costly
cleanup. Prior to the 1948 game, Bulkeley fans were apprehended
displaying their spirit in orange and black paint on the NFA
campus. Their punishment was to clean up their display of school spirit
while school was in session at NFA to the taunts and jibes of students
passing between buildings to class. From the late 40’s on, as
automobiles became a way of life, hundreds of cars would return either
to New London or Norwich, horns blaring news of victory. For a period
during World War I, the rivalry was suspended because of the war, and
again in the 1950’s because the rivalry became a bit too intense.
Harold Arkava, a 1944 Bulkeley graduate and president of the Bulkeley
Alumni Association speaks fondly of the rivalry. He says that the
entire atmosphere of the school changed before “the annual blowout,”
when “nothing else mattered.” Akrava continues, “Everyone got pumped
up, but it was the spirit of the thing that mattered. It was the spirit
of good fun; it was a healthy rivalry.” Arkava, an intense sports
enthusiast, claims that a lot of the excitement resulted from the
knowledge on both sides that the competition was of national
significance as it had even been covered in the New York Times.
The
Norwich/New London rivalry wove its way through families and
careers. The match on November 13, 1948, is a case in point; it was
close to, if not the 100th face off. That game ended in a scoreless tie.
On the Bulkeley team were Bob McPhail and his brother Norm, the
Driscoll brothers Alan and Dan, and Jim Giodarno. McPhail, who
graduated from Bulkeley in 1949, ultimately taught computer science and
coached football for many years at NFA before ending his career as NFA
Athletics Director. His son, Marlin, a 1978 NFA graduate, became an
outstanding Wildcat quarterback. Daniel and Alan Driscoll later
distinguished themselves in long careers as English teachers at NFA.
Dan, who played offensive and defensive tackle, graduated with McPhail
in 1949, and served as NFA freshmen football coach. His only son Jay, a
Whaler defensive end, as a sophomore played in the 100th anniversary
Norwich/New London game in 1975. In that game, New London beat NFA 28 to
7. Jay Driscoll just completed his 20th year as a faculty member at the
Norwich Free Academy. For several years, in the early 90’s he served as
an assistant Wildcat football coach, but gave up the position to serve
as defensive line coach at the US Coast Guard Academy in New
London. Also playing for the Tigers in 1948 was James Giordano who in
the 1970’s served as NFA head football coach; he left his House
Principal position at NFA to become New London High School Principal, a
position from which he retired after many years.
The distance
between Norwich and New London is approximately15 miles; in 1875, it may
have seemed much greater; however, the psychic distance for the
football rivalry has never been great. In the fall, as the game
approached, excitement grew, the distance shrunk, and the facts became
obscured. Part of the excitement of the rivalry is that some stories and
facts are disputed or viewed differently on both sides. Today, that
process continues, and on November 26, 2009, once again, the two teams
will square off on NFA turf for the 135th year.
Epilogue: The 2009 game did not turn out so well for NFA as they lost to New London, 62-14.
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