Vespers HISTORY, OUR PROFS LIKE TO SAY, IS WRITTEN by those in power. And so it follows that all that exists in the known historical record about the Gustavus First Women’s Football Classic, which was played on Friday, Dec. 1, 1923, was likely told to and/or written by white men. That being said, what we know is as follows. Gustavian Weekly sportswriters of the time created a fantasy football team of Gustie women students. Whether it was Gustie men challenging the women to make it real, or the fact that women’s interschool competition had ended with the creation of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (including the Gustie women’s basketball team, which would not break out of intramurals again until 1970), the women said yes. It was, by all accounts, brutally cold. The football coaches required the women to wait until the men’s season was over to use the men’s uniforms. The two opposing teams of Gustie women—as named by Gustie men—were the “Heavies” and the “Leans.” No tackling was allowed, just “taps on the fourth lumbar,” read The Weekly. The Minneapolis Journal went on to note, “frequently the girls so forgot themselves as to dispense with the slaps and they nailed their man in regulation fashion.” Wrote The Weekly sportswriters, “They showed surprising acumen, for girls.” The game ended in a 6-6 tie. The Weekly editors were soon buried in requests to learn more about the audacious act of Gustavus women playing football. News of the game soared around the world, making headlines in such dailies as the New York Times, GUSTAVUS QUARTERLY | FALL 2021
Los Angeles Times, and internationally via
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wire service. But the much anticipated Second Women’s Football Classic was never played. The smallpox vaccination, wrote The Weekly editors, “has rendered most of the co-eds hors de combat with sore arms… The hardy women of Gustavus can hardly be expected to carry on.”
This is the first time GA has received nationwide publicity. And to think it took the girls to do it.” —Gipp Ludcke, Class of 1921, writing from Harvard University after seeing dozens of stories about Gustavus women playing football in national and international newspapers.
