29 minute read
Speaking of Sports
A HISTORY OF LITTLE GIANT STADIUM
Baseball was the first sport played on campus. In this view from the 1870s, the diamond is seen in the upper-left corner of campus, roughly the spot where Little Giant Stadium stands today.
1870s 1904
Scene from the Wabash–IU game from 1904.
post-WWI
An undated photo of the first-ever bleachers, which were erected post-World War I. During this time, the field was oriented north to south. The house pictured behind the bleachers sat on Crawford Street and was torn down to build the Allen Center. It sat about where the west end of the Knowling Fieldhouse is today.
1908
The Little Giants of 1908 on Philistine Field, so named for its disreputable appearance. As seen, there are 11 players pictured and no grass. In 1929, Athletic Director Harry Scholler was determined to light the field for night football, an experiment that had worked well in the states west of Indiana. The lighting experiment was successful. The first game or two to be played at night attracted sufficiently large crowds, mostly due to the novelty. As the season went on and the weather grew colder, it became a chore for all but the most eager lovers of football to stay out in the damp cold of an autumn night.
Game action from the Wabash–Butler game of 1939 at Ingalls Field.
Photo of the 1903 Wabash football team. Pictured third from the left is William M. Cantrell of Danville, Illinois, Wabash College’s second Black player.
1903 1923
Game action from 1923. Note Lee Norman “Pete” Thorn ’24 is playing without a helmet. Thorn was the only Wabash man to earn 16 varsity letters in his college career and received the John Maurice Butler Prize given to a senior with outstanding scholarship and character.
1929
1939
Ingalls Field (1928–53) ran parallel to Crawford Street. This photo shows pregame warm-ups from a game there in 1951.
Wabash College hosted the 1956 U.S. Olympic Decathlon Trials on June 13–14. Rafer Johnson and Milt Campbell finished 1-2 in the event. Campbell went on to win gold at the Olympics in Melbourne, while Johnson won gold in the event in Rome in 1960. Bleachers were installed in the main seating area of Little Giant Stadium in 1966, as construction of the McCanliss Athletic Center continued in the background.
1928–53 1960s
Construction of Little Giant Stadium in the mid-1960s as the grandstand supports rose from the ground. Pioneer Chapel looms in the background. A rendition of Little Giant Stadium used at the facility dedication in 1966. From The Bachelor on October 7, 1966: “The 4,200-seat stadium, which looks down on historic Ingalls Field, is the anonymous gift of a Wabash benefactor who donated most of the $165,000 needed to make the permanent stands a reality. Outstanding features of the stadium include an all-weather press box and bright scarlet seats to match the college colors.”
1966
The first artificial turf playing surface at Hollett Little Giant Stadium was dedicated in memory of David Hunter Sewell ’76 and named Sewell Field from 2010 to 2019 through the generosity of Gary ’77 and Joanne Reamey.
2010
1956
1966 late 1960s
Aerial photo taken in the late 1960s. The new stadium was dedicated in 1966. The McCanliss Athletic Center [left] was dedicated in 1968. Little Giant Stadium and Frank Navarro Field Dedication on Saturday, September 18, 2021.
On September 26, 1998, Wabash’s former stadium was dedicated in honor of Byron P. Hollett ’36, trustee of the College for three decades and president of the Board of Trustees from 1975–84.
1998
Wabash College President Scott Feller and First Lady Wendy Feller at the inauguration celebration after Scott was officially given a copy of the College’s charter and became the 17th president. Feller is the first person to rise directly from the faculty to the presidency since Byron K. Trippet was elected president in 1956.
IN GRATITUDE
by Scott Feller
photos by Kim Johnson
Wabash has been my home for over 20 years and few college presidents have the benefit of such a long association with the institution they lead. I come to my office every day thankful for the relationships I have developed here and an appreciation for what Wabash means to its students and alumni.
our core values: the road map to success The roadmap to achieving the mission of Wabash College can be found in our core values—what we believe. All of us who love and care about Wabash would be wise to revisit them from time to time. The past 18 months have given me many opportunities to reflect on them.
Some of the things we believe in are: • A rigorous liberal arts education that fosters an appreciation for the intellectual and physical aspects of a good life and an understanding of, and appreciation for, other cultures. • A personal context to teaching and learning that encourages candid, respectful, face-to-face conversations and freedom of thought. • Individual responsibility and trust based on moral and ethical awareness, which are required for leadership and teamwork, and are expressed so eloquently in the Gentleman’s Rule. • We especially value a socially, economically, and ethnically diverse student body characterized by a dedication to the serious pursuit of learning.
making wabash accessible for all The headwinds facing good small colleges like Wabash are real. Think about the pending “birth dearth” that followed the Great Recession; the very real population declines in the Northeast and Midwest, where most liberal arts colleges are located; and specific to Wabash, the recent articles published by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Forbes on the declining number of young men who are enrolling in college.
There is a perception that the rising cost of tuition is the reason so many students can’t access a private college education. But the truth is, it is a family income problem more than a college cost problem.
When I was a college student in Oregon a little over 30 years ago, I worked hard on a farm in the summer and earned a couple of dollars above minimum wage. By the end of the summer, I had earned about $5,500 to contribute to my education at Willamette University. That was quite a bit of money in the mid-’80s.
Adjusted for inflation, I would have earned more than $13,000 this past summer. Can you imagine if students could work hard for one summer to earn $13,000 to help pay for their education?
This college access problem has been growing for some time, though it gained much more attention after the Great Recession of 2007. The demographic shifts in our country are going to force us to address the problem head-on if Wabash and other quality liberal arts colleges are to survive and thrive.
I believe that the only way to meet our enrollment goals—and our nation’s need for an educated society—will be by increasing the number of college-bound young people from groups historically underserved by private higher education: low-income, first-generation, and students of color.
Demography is not destiny. We can chart our own future by making Wabash accessible for the many young men who need us. And just as we have for the past 189 years, we will meet those young men where they are. We will maintain our historic commitment to being an engine of opportunity.
Many of our alumni were the firstgeneration sons of factory workers, farmers, custodians—from Gary, Hammond, Kokomo, and New Castle— or descendants of coal miners and steel workers in Western Pennsylvania. Many went on to become leaders of business, industry, law, banking, education, scientific research, and the ministry. All they needed was a chance. Wabash provided it through generous financial aid, a rigorous education, and a community that cared about them as individuals.
I pledge to you that our commitment to the education of promising young men, regardless of their socioeconomic status, will be the touchstone of my presidency.
higher education in crisis Mixed in with the newspaper opinion pieces predicting colleges will close are the perhaps even more concerning essays questioning the value of a college education. Exceptional small colleges like Wabash provide enormous value—value added in exponential proportion to our size.
If you combine the total number of living alumni of, say, Wabash and DePauw, over our nearly 200-year histories, the total is far less than the current enrollment at Indiana or Purdue universities.
And yet think about the disproportionate number of high-placed graduates of our two tiny colleges in every walk of life—from titans of business to school board presidents; from civil rights leaders to pioneering surgeons. Small colleges make an enormous difference in our communities, our nation, and this world.
Residential liberal arts education, with small classes taught by full-time, tenuretrack faculty, and with championship athletics and strong student support networks, are never going to be the lowcost option.
But even more concerning to me is the continued questioning of the value of higher education, and in particular, the devaluing of the liberal arts and the residential college experience.
We are seeing an attitude that higher education is a commodity, that students are consumers, and that colleges and universities are simply delivery networks. I already see some of this even at Wabash, when some people want to bargain over financial aid—or even worse, when I hear someone say, “I pay $40,000 a year to go here so I deserve X.”
Wabash College runs on relationships, not transactions. The commodification of higher education is dangerous to students. It will be fatal for Wabash. The reason is that treating higher education as a commodity encourages the unbundling of the college experience into individual components so that the consumers can choose just the pieces they want…and want to pay for.
At Wabash, a philosophy course is not a product to be consumed, independent of other courses, independent of a student’s discussions with peers, or independent of conversations and programs sponsored by the Career Center.
Can you possibly put a price on the hundreds of life-changing conversations that Coach Clyde Morgan has with students in any given month? Now multiply that by roughly 250 members of the faculty and staff, not to mention thousands of alumni, who are fully focused on the success of each and every student. That’s value for which there is no price tag.
resilience Make no mistake, Wabash College is on an enviable trajectory. We understand our mission better than any other college I know. The commitment of our faculty, staff, alumni, and friends is unrivaled.
This campus is a place of beauty. And our endowment, the accumulated philanthropy of generations of giving, is at the highest point in our history. But I will argue that our greatest asset at this moment in time is our resilience, and the ability it gives us to tackle the hard problems head-on.
There may have been a time that “Wabash Always Fights” was simply an athletic slogan, but after more than a year of providing an exceptional residential liberal arts education in the midst of a pandemic, Wabash Always Fights has proven to have much broader relevance.
And if you are going to tackle big problems head-on, the first thing you have to do is to acknowledge what you are up against. We face real headwinds, but we will face them head-on.
I realize that we are all anxious to move on from COVID-19, but it will be tragic if we don’t reflect on and learn from our experiences over the past year-and-a half, as individuals, as a society, and as an institution. Some questions we could reflect on: How did we, as a College with little experience with online learning, pivot in a single week during March of 2020 to virtual classes?
How did we, with a one-person Student Health Center, develop a comprehensive test-trace-isolate program that was the envy of much larger schools? And how in the world did we put on a vaccination clinic for students, faculty, staff, and dependents within days of the state making vaccines available?
How did we make study-abroad opportunities available for students last year? How did we find ways to acknowledge the milestone events in our students’ lives? How did we put on Chapel Sing? How were we the first school in our league to welcome fans into our athletic contests? How did we offer an in-person commencement for the classes of 2020 and 2021 that their families and friends could attend?
How did we manage through a pandemic without a single layoff or furlough?
And finally, the question I pondered when I rang in the Class of 2025: How did we recruit a promising class of young men to the College who never experienced a Wabash classroom, a football game, or an overnight visit on campus?
The keys were exceptional faculty and staff and a shared commitment to mission. But without a Wabash Always Fights attitude, and a willingness to make some bold moves, it never would have happened. These are just a few of the lessons learned that we can apply to the big challenges we face.
listening to make wabash better The past year taught us additional lessons that will also serve us well as we move forward. We learned that we must work individually and as a College to be more inclusive, and to understand and work against the ways that racism and other forms of bias keep members of our community from feeling the sense of belonging for which we strive.
One of the goals I set for myself when I began in July of 2020 was to be a better listener, and I have been rewarded with enormous personal growth. I have benefited by attending Chapel Talks, witnessing a moving protest by the young men of the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies, reading the words of alumni in Wabash Magazine, attending Black Studies classes and MXIBS events, listening to thought-leaders like Clint Smith and Jerome Adams, and having many, many conversations with students.
The authenticity and vulnerability of members of this community demonstrated through their thoughts, stories, and experiences was life-changing for me; they helped me focus my vision.
I have also benefited from conversations with faculty and staff colleagues, many of which were focused on ideas for programming to make us better and chart our future toward a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable Wabash.
These conversations culminated with the highlight of my first year as president when, early last spring, Lilly Endowment awarded Wabash a series of grants totaling more than $5.5 million that will fund our innovative “Restoring Hope, Restoring Trust” programs. These grants provide our college unprecedented resources to enhance student success and develop a stronger sense of belonging for all. This is work that touches our entire college, from living units to classrooms, across every office, and out into the broader world.
And, most important, it positions Wabash well to welcome the rising new majority students who, like those young men from Gary, Kokomo, and Pittsburgh half a century ago, are seeking access to a liberal arts curriculum led by a faculty that is engaging and accessible, and to an overall educational program that will give them the support they need to succeed.
the challenges we will face together We have much to celebrate here at Wabash, because we have proven to be both resilient and innovative in the face of this pandemic.
We will draw on everything we have learned over the last 18 months—indeed, over the last 189 years—to strengthen our college and the life-defining opportunities it provides for our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends.
While we have a clear vision of the kind of college we want Wabash to be as we approach our bicentennial in 2032, it is only through a careful study of—and commitment to—our historic beacons that will allow us to be successful in all that we strive to do.
“In Gratitude” was excerpted from President Scott Feller’s inaugural address given on October 8, 2021. To read the address visit wabash.edu/news.
This is a time where courageous and visionary leadership is needed most, and Scott, you bring this leadership. You are the leader Wabash needs now; you are a leader higher education needs now.
Greetings from Higher Education Michael McDonald, President of the Great Lakes Colleges Association
hold fast to your dreams, because when dreams die, they are like a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. In this moment we invite all of the good fortunes of the past to come to guide us forward to be our light in darkness, to be a beacon that calls us to be a steadfast rock as we try to do our best to lead this ship of Zion to the shores of the 21st century. There are multiple pandemics facing us. The pandemic of racial hatred, the pandemic of economic disparity, the pandemic of ecological disasters, the pandemic of health. And then there is the hope that is this college. The hope that stands to show forth the symbol of what is possible. We ask that the best wants of our nation become our guiding principles as we seek to educate men who will be critical thinkers, in a world so in need of courageous, spirited, and hopeful leaders.
Inauguration Celebration Blessing Timothy Lake, Associate Professor of English
i wish to express gratitude for your leadership at Wabash.
First, gratitude for your ongoing initiatives to make Wabash more inclusive, more accessible to new majority students, to increase diversity among the faculty, staff, and student body. Gratitude for your esteem of the liberal arts: You are a natural scientist who speaks passionately about the value of the social sciences and the humanities. Gratitude for your work in forging connections not only within Wabash but also outward. You, perhaps more than any other president of Wabash College, have nurtured enduring ties to the local community, having put down roots, quite literally, in Crawfordsville. Many of us have seen you and your wife, Wendy, actively contributing to this city, whether at the farmer’s market or Four Seasons Market or 4-H. You know us, and yet you want to know us better: inviting students, staff, and faculty to the table to share our concerns, our challenges, our visions.
Gratitude that you are a talented problem solver. In these times of great change, as we emerge from more immediate threats of the pandemic and round out our second century as a college, we very much need a good problem solver with heart and vision. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, panta rhei: all things flow or change. Change is a given. Much as we might like to, there is no going back to pre-COVID Wabash. We have changed, our students have changed. What is next for this institution?
We can embrace this moment of accelerated change to think about how we enact our mission. What can we do better to support the education of young men, especially now when fewer men are choosing to attend college? If Wabash always fights, what should we be fighting for? Whom should we be fighting for? We must all hold these questions in the forefront of our minds as we move quickly toward the third century of this mighty college.
scott e. feller, on behalf of the trustees of Wabash College, I present to you this symbol of an honored past and future filled with promise and possibility. On this inauguration day, we rededicate ourselves to the mission of Wabash College—to educate men to think critically, act responsibly, lead effectively, and live humanely.
In doing so, we place our trust in your ability to carry on that mission sustained by good men before you, and confident that the Wabash College we love will be led and guided by the wisdom of your mind and the generosity of your heart.
Presentation of the Wabash Charter Jay R. Allen ’79, Chairman of the Board
With many of my own years of experience working on a sheep farm, it is clear that you have the grit, determination, and patience to effectively lead our college based on the patience it requires to put a herd of sheep through a foot bath and trim their hooves. This is the least glorious and the toughest process of being a sheep herder. I can think of no better training for a president leading a college of 850 young men.
Greetings from the Faculty Bronwen Wickkiser, Professor of Classics, Department Chair Greetings from the Student Body Daniel Bass ’22, President of the Wabash Student Body
Four generations of Wabash presidents and their wives: 16th President Gregory Hess and Lora, 17th President Scott Feller and Wendy, 15th President Patrick White and Chris, and 14th President Andrew Ford and Anne. some might suggest that we were “lucky” to have scott and, by some definition of “lucky,” we were. However, as Thomas Jefferson said, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
I hope it is not presumptuous to suggest that Scott and Wendy are in many ways a product of Wabash College, and the personification of what Wabash is and what this college does to and for its constituents. While Scott has accomplished much in his role as teacher, researcher, department head, division head, and dean of the College to shape his students and co-workers, Wabash has also played a formative role in making Scott and Wendy, who they are today.
Scott brings together keen analytical expertise and strategic insights with a broad and deep understanding of the key drivers of long-term success for outstanding liberal arts colleges like Wabash. Further, Scott has an innate ability and eagerness to engage with students, faculty, staff, alumni, and his academic colleagues. He is an excellent listener, decisionmaker, communicator, and leader. In other words, a true Wabash man.
While maintaining strong connections and roots in their native state of Oregon, Scott and Wendy are woven into the fabric of the Wabash and Crawfordsville community. Their warm, down-to-earth personalities, broad civic involvement, and deep understanding and passion for the history and culture of Wabash College perfectly position Scott and Wendy to be our leaders. They embody Wabash in everything they do, and work tirelessly and enthusiastically to carry on the great traditions and mission of Wabash.
And for all of that we are both “lucky” and grateful.
Inauguration Celebration Toast Jay R. Allen ’79, Chairman of the Board
If you know my dad, you know that he shows his affection and his love for something by his action and his service. And so the fact that he has come into this leadership position at Wabash should show that this is the greatest expression of his love for the students, faculty, staff, trustees, and alumni. He’s going to be very successful leading this college into the future. And while I consider Wabash College very lucky to have him, I consider Jake and I more lucky to have him as a father.
Inauguration Celebration Amanda Murphy, daughter of President Scott and Mrs. Wendy Feller
by Dirk Caldwell ’93
The love of wisdom has led philosophers to explore the questions that relate to who we are and what our purpose is for ages. The love of wisdom urges us to think about the meaning of life, acquiring knowledge, our own sense of morality, and reality. Philosophy informs our political, religious, and economic lives, as well as how we perceive art and language.
Philosophy has been broken up into six major themes and inevitably we spend time thinking about all of them. Metaphysics helps us think about the expanse of the universe and the idea of reality. Logic helps us create valid arguments. Epistemology is the study of knowledge and how we acquire it. Aesthetics focuses on art and beauty. Politics directs our attention to political rights, how to govern, and the role of citizens within a political system. Finally, ethics forces us to think about morality, how to use our moral compass—or how we should live our lives. It’s easy to see how philosophy reaches into each part of our lives, whether we’re aware of it or not. When we begin to think of those parts of our lives, we are essentially budding philosophers.
ethics is something that can be applied to all parts of our lives. Using ethics allows us to make decisions and then execute those decisions in a morally “right” way. We must wrestle with medical ethics, business and professional ethics, political ethics, and social ethics. What makes a decision and then a behavior, “right?” The answer to that ethical question is fundamentally focused on the idea of happiness—one’s own happiness and, even more broadly applied, the happiness of others.
Any discussion of ethics must begin with two critically important questions, why and how. The “why” is concerned with the fundamental principles of ethical standards. Virtue, behavior, consequences, and happiness are some examples that guide us to those principles, and they strive to be as ideal as possible.
The “why” of ethics pushes us to think about what could or should be considered “norms.” Because of that, ethicists spend time thinking about normative ethics, or moral ethics, and that effort brings us to the idyllic, exemplary moral standard.
You’re probably thinking that a moral standard is impossible because opinions are subjective and impractical to apply across the entire population of humanity. That’s why ethicists have raised the second question, “how.”
How humans act, how they interpret and adhere to a standard moral code or not, is a completely different situation altogether. One culture might consider a standard moral code to be insufficient when it’s applied to their own lives. Their interpretation and application might be different from another cultural perspective. How we apply any ethical standard arises from the perspective of the community to which we belong. Consider a community to be a collection of people that voluntarily associate with each other, and they do so because they agree to abide by generally accepted norms.
A few examples: A city becomes a community because its citizens subscribe to the laws they put in place. A community of fans agree to cheer on the same sports team. A community of worshipers assemble to worship the same divinity. How we obey the laws, how we support a team, how we worship the divine are descriptions of each of those communities. Adhering to all the norms becomes even more complex when we understand that each of us belongs to a variety of communities. The actions that result from normative ethics fall into the category that ethicists have identified as descriptive ethics. Our behavior, what we say and do, describes what we hold to be our ideal, moral standard.
If philosophy in general—and ethics more specifically—can help us realize our own happiness and behave in ways that make us happy, is there an appropriate response that should come from that experience? Can something that clearly affects us in such an overwhelmingly positive way go unnoticed, unrecognized? If happiness abounds in each of us and in all parts of our lives, is there an ethical response that each of us should be able to express? Is it possible to have an “ethics of gratitude” whereby a standard moral code of gratitude or thankfulness can be a norm in a community, or even better, a norm that can be applied to a culture or even across cultures? If so, how would that manifest descriptively in each of those cultures?
a cursory search on google with “gratitude” fueling the search engine reveals that the idea of gratitude is anything but new. Philosophers, theologians, economists, psychologists, politicians, clergy, and even pop culture icons throughout millennia have been thinking about and wrestling with all that gratitude is or is not.
In the sixth century, Buddha said, “Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so let us all be thankful.”
Roman philosopher Cicero, in the first century BCE, said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of the virtues, but the parent of all the others.” A spirit of gratitude birthed in us a desire to share that thankfulness with others. When we have benefited from another’s gifts for us, we confront them with thanks. For Cicero, gratitude gave birth to other virtuous behavior, all of which led to a greater sense of happiness in the individual and in others.
Marcus Aurelius, considered among the greatest Roman Emperors, offered his thoughts on gratitude. “Take full account of what excellencies you possess and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.” This advice seems to be most apropos in our collective experience with the COVID pandemic. With our lives altered in every way, many of us realized that we hankered after many parts of our lives that we had been denied.
I was first introduced to the 19thand 20th-century theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, by my Wabash academic advisor, Dr. Raymond Williams. Dr. Schweitzer recognized the benefit of expressing our gratitude as well. He said, “Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.”
We must be intentional, thoughtful, even courageous when it comes to speaking or demonstrating how thankful we are. Seek out those who have acted as benefactors in your life and express your gratitude to them, either through a conversation or by reciprocating kindness and becoming a benefactor yourself.
Oprah Winfrey has a unique platform from which she influences millions of people. “I live in the space of thankfulness—and for that, I have been rewarded a million times over,” said Winfrey. “I started out giving thanks for small things, and the more thankful I became, the more my bounty increased. That’s because—for sure—what you focus on expands. When you focus on the goodness in life, you create more of it.”
Modern psychologists agree. From a study by Wood, Linley, and Joseph in a 2007 issue of The Psychologist (“Gratitude—Parent of All Virtues”), gratitude may have one of the strongest links to mental health. “Gratitude was more strongly related to this measure of happiness than all but two strengths, even after controlling for several demographic variables.”
Their research seems to imply that a spirit of gratitude is blind to demographics. Age, race, gender identification, ethnicity, and income levels shape who we are, and despite those demographics, gratitude plays an important role in helping people maintain happiness. They report that “people who feel more gratitude in life should be more likely to notice they have been helped, to respond appropriately, and to return the help at some future point. If the grateful person reciprocates the favor, then the other person is more likely to reciprocate the new favor, causing an upward spiral of helping and mutual support.”
Whether an “ethics of gratitude” exists or not is up for debate. Arriving at a universally recognizable expression of thanks is nearly impossible. Gratitude is something that arrives in us differently and then comes from us in unique expressions.
Based on all of those who have gone before us, it’s safe to conclude that being able to express our gratitude is essential. It’s imperative that we give thanks to those who have acted as benefactors to us—who have blessed us with something. It’s necessary that we must demonstrate our thankfulness to the situations that have taught us something or have moved us deeply. We have captured a taste of what it might be to not have something that we’ve grown to appreciate. That hankering brings with it gratitude.
Gratitude, when felt and then reciprocated out into the world, lifts up others, and motivates them to be grateful. With all the challenges we face today, being grateful for the blessings we receive and experience should be cherished. More than that, they should motivate each of us to act in the world in such a way that brings about more and more gratitude.
Bless someone else, offer kindness, sacrifice something of yourself so that others around you might experience some much-needed happiness, and then let us be grateful.
