One of the small silver linings of being stuck at home by the corona virus is that I’ve had plenty of time to troll around on eBay for good Rice stuff. This February, 1954 issue of Coach & Athlete magazine (the existence of which I had not previously suspected) was last week’s prize. We were the School of the Month!
It’s really great–pure, unadulterated public relations but a concise snapshot of a moment when it seemed that Rice would always be able to maintain academic and athletic excellence at the very highest levels. Note the picture of All-American tackle and nuclear physics major (and 2017 ARA Gold Medal recipient) Richard Chapman on the first page:
Bonus: The most arresting things in this magazine were the ads.
Love the sledgehammer to the head pic! 🙂
Loved all of it. Thanks, Melissa. Bill Whitmore knew everything there was to know about Rice football, and he was not bashful in telling people about it. Those were the glory days, with Frank Ryan and Rhoades Scholar Robert Johnston yet to appear.
At one time, long ago, Rice proved to America that academic and athletic excellence could both be achieved at a tiny college in Texas. Obviously, the pursuit of these noble goals were priorities of the Rice administration at the time. As our national private school peers – Duke, Stanford, Notre Dame, Northwestern – have shown, academic and athletic excellence can STILL coexist in todays college environment. But “to score these achievements, there must be outstanding leadership.” It appears that we are currently sorely lacking in this department.
Bill Whitmore’s son Stobie was my son’s coach at St. John’s and his grandson is one of my son’s best friends. Good family!
On another note, I graduated from Lafayette High School in Lafayette, LA in 1967 and was going though old school newspapers the other day. There was a small story about how recent grads were faring, and one note said that Ed Red would be representing the U.S. (and Rice) in the 1964 Olympics. I’d certainly heard of him but didn’t realize he went to my high school. I wasn’t able to find out much about him, but apparently he taught robotics at BYU. Perhaps retired by now?
Ann — This article says that Dr. Red retired from BYU’s Mechanical Engineering Dept. in September 2016: https://me.byu.edu/news/dr-ed-red-retires-mechanical-engineering-department
Melissa: Do you have ant historical information on Willy’s statue? Thanks and thanks for all you do and have done for Rice. Frank G. Jones
Yes, I pulled quite a bit of statue history when I was in the Woodson on Tuesday. I’m not sure whether it’s been scanned and posted yet–will let you know.