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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
The president assembled the students shortly before they were to leave for winter break. He had a major announcement to make. Earlier that fall, the students had petitioned the president to develop an intercollegiate football program, and he had appointed a faculty and student committee to study the matter. He now was prepared to tell the gathered students whether he agreed to lead his college fully into athletics. He started slowly and told the students that their college was only six years old, much had been accomplished in that time, and many were tired and now hoping to “lie down on the new lawn under one of those new trees out there and bask in the glory that is Sacramento State College.” The president, however, was more amused than tired, as he continued. “But no! The dust blew and the rains came and then the fog! And out of the quietness and the thickness of the fog—a shout—a clamor: We want football!” The college already had an athletic program, and he tried to understand why the students would clamor for more. But, the fact remained that they had asked for football, and he now had to tell them what would become of their petition.
1 “Statement Concerning the Initiation of Football Presented to the Student Assembly on December 1, 1953, by West, Guy A, President,” folder 12, unprocessed collection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives.Google Scholar
2 See, for example, Thelin, John, Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); Watterson, John Sayle, College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Smith, Ronald A., Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar
3 See, for example, Geiger, Roger, Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Research Universities since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Thelin, John R., A History of American Higher Education (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); Graham, Hugh and Diamond, Nancy, The Rise of American Research Universities: Elites and Challengers in the Postwar Era (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Cohen, Arthur M., The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998); Eisenmann, Linda, Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945–1965 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); Oriard, Michael, King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels, Movies and Magazines, the Weekly & the Daily Press (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001; Thelin, , Games Colleges Play; Watterson, College Football. Google Scholar
4 As is the case with state colleges in general, the state colleges in California were comprised of former teachers colleges and normal schools, as well as new four-year institutions. Unlike the emerging research universities in the state and nation—such as the University of California—these California state colleges were to focus primarily on undergraduate teaching, with an emphasis on teacher education and liberal/general education. According to the state's various educational reports and studies in the 1940s and 1950s, the state colleges were to leave much of the research function and graduate education to the state's research universities. These state colleges eventually became part of the California State Colleges and then today's California State University. For more information on the California state colleges, their growth and function, and the role of the Master Plan, see Donald R. Gerth, The People's University: A History of the California State University (Berkeley, , CA: Berkeley Public Policy Press, 2010).Google Scholar
5 Leonard, J. Paul, “College Enrollment: Forecast, Facts and Figures, July 8, 1954,” folder 216, box 13, Leonard, J. Paul Papers, San Francisco State University Archives.Google Scholar
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11 “Statement Concerning the Initiation of Football Presented to the Student Assembly on December 1, 1953, by West, Guy A., President”; West, Guy A. to Leach, Lysle D., 13 November 1953, folder 11, unprocessed collection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives; “Present Status of the Development of the Football Issue at SSC, November 19, 1953,” folder 12, unprocessed collection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives; “Minutes of the Student Council Meeting, December 2, 1953,” folder 2, box 4, Student Affairs, Sacramento State University Archives.Google Scholar
12 “Present Status of the Development of the Football Issue at SSC, November 19, 1953.”Google Scholar
13 Gerth, , The People's University, 38, 42; Patterson, , Grand Expectations, 68, 367; Henry, David D., Challenges Past, Challenges Present: An Analysis of American Higher Education since 1930 (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1975), 62–63, 66–67, 101; Goldin and Katz, The Race between Education and Technology, 247; Mettler, Suzanne, Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 7; Oriard, , King Football, 116; Smith, , Sports and Freedom, 218; Clark, “The Two Joes Meet. Joe College, Joe Veteran,” 167–68, 174–78.Google Scholar
14 “Intercollegiate Athletics at San Diego State College, April 15, 1953,” folder 314, box 18, Leonard, J. Paul Papers, San Francisco State University Archives.Google Scholar
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19 “Statistical Report of Regular Students, Spring Semester 1955 Compared with Fall Semester 1954–55,” folder 12, box 4, Student Affairs, Sacramento State University Archives; “A First Partial Report on Student Demographic Characteristics and Financial Aid, October 1967,” folder 8, box 4, Student Affairs, Sacramento State University Archives.Google Scholar
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23 Morrow, James H. to Strizek, Jeré, 6 June 1956, folder 3, box 4, Student Affairs, Sacramento State University Archives; “Trophy Arrives on Campus,” folder 5, box 4, Student Affairs, Sacramento State University Archives; Oriard, , King Football, 13–14, 84; for more information on college life and the development of loyalty and spirit, see Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz, Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), 119.Google Scholar
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27 Guy, A. West to John Baker, 20 November 1957, folder 12, unprocessed collection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives.Google Scholar
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29 “Statement Concerning the Initiation of Football Presented to the Student Assembly on December 1, 1953, by West, Guy A., President.”Google Scholar
30 Watterson, , College Football, 219–27; Thelin, , Games Colleges Play, 100–107.Google Scholar
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36 See Grundy, , Learning to Win, 5–7, 13, 18–21; Clark, , Creating the College Man; Watterson, College Football; Ingrassia, “Public Influence Inside the College Walls.”Google Scholar
37 See, for example, “Sacramento State College, Policies for Intercollegiate Athletics,” folder 314, box 18, Leonard, J. Paul Papers, San Francisco State University Archives; “Minutes of the Executive Council Meeting, June 4, 1958,” folder 11, box 1, Executive Council, Sacramento State University Archives; and “Sacramento State College, Division of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, June 4, 1958,” folder 11, box 1, Executive Council, Sacramento State University Archives.Google Scholar
38 West, Guy A. to Warren, Jim and Jensen, Gene, 12 June 1953, folder 14, box 1, Faculty Council, Sacramento State University Archives.Google Scholar
39 “Minutes of State College Presidents Conference, April 23 and 24, 1952.”Google Scholar
40 “Sacramento State College, Policies for Intercollegiate Athletics”; see also “Intercollegiate Athletics at San Diego State College, April 15, 1953.”Google Scholar
41 “Minutes of State College Presidents Conference, April 23 and 24, 1952“; “Athletic Committee Report of Council of State College Presidents, May 27–28, 1952,” folder 9, box 1, Coordinating Executive and Faculty Council, Sacramento State University Archives; “Meeting of the State College Athletic Committee, March 13 and 14, 1952.”Google Scholar
42 “Intercollegiate Athletics at San Diego State College, April 15, 1953.”Google Scholar
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44 West, Guy A. to Jensen, F. Eugene, 20 November 1953, folder 12, unprocessed collection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives.Google Scholar
45 McCormick, H. J. to President West, 8 January 1957, folder 14, unprocessed collection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives.Google Scholar
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47 “Citizens Committee for a Progressive San Jose State College, November 7, 1957,” folder 14, unprocessed collection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives.Google Scholar
48 Ibid.Google Scholar
49 Ibid.Google Scholar
50 Your Stake in Higher Education and Athletics”; Levine, , The American College and the Culture of Aspiration, 19, 114, 118–20, 133–34; Oriard, , King Football, 13–14, 19, 143, 163–64, 226–28; Clark, , “The Two Joes Meet. Joe College, Joe Veteran,” 174–78, 189; Clark, , Creating the College Man, 14, 18–21, 80–81, 84–89, 94–97, 100–102, 109, 116–17. For a discussion of changes in the college degree in the 1950s, see Horowitz, , Campus Life, 187–92.Google Scholar
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53 Veysey, Laurence, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1965), 686–94; Thelin, , History of American Higher Education, 137–38.Google Scholar
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62 “Frank Leahy Recognizes San Jose State Bid to Reach Football ‘Big Time.”’Google Scholar
63 “Dan Caputo President of SJS Foundation”; “Spartan Foundation,” Campus Digest, 14 February 1958, box 33, series VI, Office of the President, Wahlquist, John T., San José State University Archives.Google Scholar