5 minute read
From the Head
Spoon Game
By Sheila Culbert
On Saturday, November 13, several busloads of Loomis Chaffee athletes and students made their way to the Kent School for the newly reinstated Spoon Game and other athletics contests. The story of the Spoon Game is, of course, legendary within Loomis/Kent lore— but the two schools’ football teams had not competed against one another since 2012. It was later that school year when Kent elected to drop Loomis Chaffee from its schedule due to changes in the Erickson League rules.
The Kent School was founded in 1906, just a few years before The Loomis Institute opened its doors in 1914. Both schools touted a democratic ethos, an accessible tuition model, and a commitment to preparing students from all walks of life. Loomis students modeled their proposal for a student government on the Kent plan, and Mr. Batchelder approved it. Indeed, Mr. Batchelder was close friends with Father Sill, the Kent headmaster. The two men admired one another, so it was natural that they would also compete against one another in sports—and so they did. In those early days, Mr. Batchelder coached the football team and was a passionate advocate for his team. Sidney Eaton, a member of the class of 1923, described Mr. B as “a vocal competitor” and a “berserk partisan.”
Mr. B was always quick to dispute a call, and that is exactly what he did in the game against Kent in 1921. As both schools’ players piled up on the Kent goal line, the officials ruled against a Loomis touchdown. Mr. Batchelder stormed onto the field to be met by an equally animated Father Sill. The two nearly came to fisticuffs until saner heads prevailed and the game resumed. Kent went on to win 13 to 7. Following the game, the two teams met for tea and cocoa at the Head’s House, where, Eaton wrote, “sociability was cool to icy.” It was at this tea that a Kent student pocketed a silver teaspoon from Mrs. Batchelder’s wedding cutlery set. When she later discovered the spoon was missing, Mr. Batchelder contacted Father Sill to demand that the Kent student return the spoon. An outraged Father Sill suggested that it was just as likely that the culprit was a Loomis student. With the friendship between the two men now irrevocably shattered, the two schools would not play again until 1934.
It was not until 1947 when the complete story of the disappearing teaspoon was fully revealed. A Kent boy had indeed taken the spoon—perhaps inadvertently. When, several months later, he approached Father Sill to tell him what had happened, relations with Loomis were already too far gone. Father Sill did not want to admit to Mr. B that he had been right, so Father Sill told the boy to keep the spoon. Subsequently it was passed down from head prefect to head prefect as a secret trophy. On the occasion of the celebration of the 35th anniversary of Mr. B’s headship, the new head of Kent, Father Chalmers, told the story and offered to return the spoon. Mrs. Batchelder told Father Chalmers that Kent should keep the spoon, but the two schools agreed to have a replica spoon made by New York jewelers Cartier that the two schools would then compete for annually. Each year the new Spoon would be awarded to the winning team, and the score would be engraved along the handle. And so Kent Day became enshrined in Loomis and Kent traditions and was played every year from 1947 until 2012.
When I became head in 2008, the football team had suffered a long string of losing seasons, and we needed to do something to get the program back on its feet. We hired a new coach and made the decision to leave the Erickson League believing that the league’s rules limited Loomis’ chances to improve its struggling football program and compete effectively both in the league and against non-league teams such as Deerfield, Andover, and Exeter. We continued to play Kent through the
2012 season. In spring 2013, with the conference realignment of New England prep school football, we no longer played Kent. (Kent opted to play Andover instead of Loomis as its one non-Erickson League game.) The hiatus of the Spoon Game continued until this year, when football became a Founders League sport, and on November 13, Loomis Chaffee won the game at Kent, much to the delight of our rain-drenched fans. Unfortunately, Kent appears to have lost the original spoon as well as its replacement, and though a silver spoon did change hands upon the Pelicans’ victory, it was not the spoon.
After the pandemic year of no interscholastic contests, this fall’s team under Coach Jeff Moore had an 8-1 regular-season record, losing only their game against Choate. The team’s excellent and disciplined play earned them not only a victory against Kent but also a berth in the school’s first-ever bowl game. The coup de grace for the season was winning the New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) Todd Marble Bowl, which is named for the longtime Kent athletic director and football coach.
The football team is just one of several successful Loomis Chaffee athletics teams this fall. In addition to football, three teams made it into the post-season NEPSAC Class A tournaments: girls and boys soccer and girls volleyball. While girls soccer lost its quarterfinal match against Buckingham Browne & Nichols, boys soccer defeated Milton in theirs but then lost in the semifinals to Taft on a penalty kick. Our Founders League champion volleyball team beat Choate in its quarterfinal match and beat Exeter in the semifinals but lost 2-3 to Deerfield in a hardfought championship match. Girls cross country also won the Founders League and came in second in the Division I New England Championships, held the same day as Kent Day, but at Andover, where the weather was much kinder than at Kent.
Indeed, the success of so many of our fall teams has contributed to the overall uptick in school spirit that we have seen. It is fun to have winning athletics teams—it raises the overall sense of spirit and community on campus.
WEB EXTRAS
To see a video with highlights of Kent Day and the pep rally, visit www.loomischaffee.org/ magazine.
Enthusiastic fans braved pouring rain to cheer on the Pelicans on
Kent Day. Photo: Stan Godlewski
Sophomore defensive linemen, and twin brothers, Jerod Smith and Jacob Smith rush the Kent quarterback
Photo: Stan Godlewski
