Return to the 1892 season page

Wake Forest's 1892 season was fairly successful when compared to most Southern football teams in the 1890's: she had an undefeated record and just one tie. Wake Forest opened her season on October 21st by tying VMI 12-12. VMI herself would go on to have a similarly excellent football season, going 4-0-1 with large wins over both Trinity and Washington & Lee. The following day, the Baptists beat Washington & Lee 16-0; the Generals would go on to have a respectable 3-3 season that year (W&L Football Coaching Records). On October 24th, the Baptists beat Richmond College 16-0. Richmond was by far the weakest team the Baptists had played so far that season, with the local paper's summary of the game starting bluntly by saying Richmond was "defeated again" (The Times, October 25th, 1892, p. 6). While this record in and of itself was a very respectable record, Wake Forest tried to inflate it and make it into more than what it really was; this is where the drama comes in.

On November 24th, Wake Forest traveled to Knoxville and beat Tennessee 10-6; The following Sunday, a controversial article which made several dubious claims about Wake Forest's record for the season appeared in The State Chronicle. Perhaps the least concrete of those claims was that in defeating Tennessee, the Baptists had defeated "the champions of Tennessee," as Tennessee was, frankly, terrible, in 1892. The sole intercollegiate win the Volunteers could claim was over Maryville. The remainder of their season included two losses each to Tennessee-based Sewanee and Vanderbilt and a win over the Chattanooga Athletic Club. As such, Tennessee were clearly not the "champions" of Tennessee that Wake Forest attempted to claim them as.

Perhaps the more egregious claims, though, were the wins she claimed by forfeit against St. John's College, of Maryland, a second game against the Virginia Military Institute, and a game against North Carolina A&M. The article went on to insinuate that Wake Forest could have seriously challenged Southern football powerhouse Virginia, and directly called out Virginia and UNC for refusing to schedule a game with her, saying Wake Forest's record was "unequaled" and held down only by "an ordinary college quarrel." The one rational statement in the article was that "Wake Forest may not claim the championship of either North Carolina or the South," owing to the dearth of teams faced by the Baptists; this, however, this would change shortly thereafter (The State Chronicle, November 27th, 1892, p. 1).

Needless to say, the article sat poorly with several of the colleges mentioned. To add to this drama, Wake Forest scheduled a game for Saturday, November 26th, against Asheville's football team, planning to stop and play the game on their way back from Knoxville. Asheville's city team was perennially strong, having just defeated the similarly strong Robert Bingham School 28-0. Because of this, many Asheville fans thought that their team could win against the Baptists (The Asheville Daily Citizen, November 21st, 1892, p. 4). An early report of why the game was canceled in the Saturday edition of the Daily Citizen was attributed to a late train and difficulty on the part of the Asheville team in reaching Wake Forest's team via telegraph, with the article stating their manager "could not get any definite reply" (The Asheville Daily Citizen, November 26th, 1892, p. 4). The next day's copy of the Daily Citizen contained an irate editorial from the Asheville team's captain, E. B. Lewis. Lewis claimed that the Baptist's team manager, D. M. Price, requested to be paid more money on their first pass through Asheville on Wednesday, while heading northward. After contacting Price informing him of better arrangements, Lewis received the following reply: "Men badly hurt. Will write tonight. We win." Despite several further attempts to contact the Baptist team, no response was received. Reportedly, Price made misleading statements about why the game was canceled to Asheville reporters, and eventually wrote that Wake Forest would not play "for less than expenses and one hundred dollars [$2,814.76 in 2019]" (The Asheville Daily Citizen, November 27th, 1892, p. 4). Despite the fact the Asheville paper clearly states a game never took place, in the aforementioned State Chronicle article, Price claimed his team won "an easy exhibition game in Asheville."

On November 29th, Wake Forest challenged UNC to a game in Raleigh for December 10th. This timing was highly convenient for Wake Forest, as the State's Baptist Convention was to be held in Raleigh on December 8th, and "the majority of students of Wake Forest" were expected to be in Raleigh for the convention (The Biblical Recorder, December 7th, 1892, p. 2). However, by December 1st, UNC's team had disbanded in preparation for examinations (Durham Globe, December 1st, 1892, p. 4). Up until this point, Wake Forest had been the main propagator of petty remarks and criticisms, and had UNC maintained course, the argument could have ended there. However, in a response to Wake Forest, UNC stated "the University does not feel called upon to challenge any lesser institution." UNC claimed that the paper twisted their words to draw in the argument and stated, "The University declines to be drawn into any newspaper warfare" (The State Chronicle, December 2nd, 1892, p. 1).

By December 15th, Wake Forest wrote that "Wake Forest has as much right to claim the championship as any of the Southern teams" (The Commonwealth, December 15th, 1892, p. 3). In response to the Baptists' claims, The University of North Carolina Magazine wrote a scathing criticism of Wake Forest's football team, writing that Wake Forest's claims of Champion of the South were "an unpardonable exhibition of gall" and that they could claim "championship of the United States" with "equal justice." The editorial went on to say that Wake Forest should attempt to play any of the teams on UNC's schedule, namely Trinity, Sewanee, and Vanderbilt, "before daring to speak of holding the championship. If they play some of these teams we predict some of their astonishing conceit will be knocked out of them" (University of North Carolina Magazine, 1892-1893, pp. 78-79). Wake Forest's Student responded with a mock exchange between two passing football fans who indirectly concluded that UNC disbanded out of fear for Wake Forest's team and that UNC was ignorant for not conceding the championship or accepting their challenges to settle the dispute (The Wake Forest Student, 1892-1893, pp. 156-157).

In the meantime, A&M's team was also disputing Wake Forest's claimed win over them. A&M's manager, Charles Pearson, said Wake Forest had "claimed too much." Pearson went on to add that Wake Forest "never legally challenged us," and sardonically stated that Wake Forest declined a proposed game for the first Saturday in December because their team "would go out of training Thanksgiving day," but later went on to attempt to arrange a game with UNC for December 10th. Pearson also explains that an earlier date was not arranged for because "our team did not go into training until very late" (The State Chronicle, December 2nd, 1892, p. 1). Pearson ended the letter by saying he hoped to play Wake Forest the next season so the matter could be settled.