Return to the 1909 season page

Wake Forest is NC State's most-met football rival: the two teams have met every year since 1910. That makes NC State-Wake Forest tied for the second-longest active consecutive game streak (tied with Oklahoma-Oklahoma State) and behind only the Minnesota-Wisconsin rivalry, which has met since 1907. Unbelievably enough, though, the teams could have met continuously since 1908, giving the rivalry sole ownership of the second place spot had the game not been called off in 1909.

What, then, caused the cancelation? It's not exactly clear. Before looking at that, though, it's important to see how Wake Forest's uncanceled 1909 season went, and look a little into their history.

On the heels of the Old Gold and Black's 1908 season (their first since 1895 and their first full season in 15 years), Wake Forest football was expected to keep first-year coach A. P. Hall, Jr., despite his lackluster 1-5 record. There were good reasons for keeping Hall. First and foremost, his failures were attributed more to the fact that almost none of Wake Forest's team had ever played football in 1908. Secondly, "Nearly the whole of last year's team" was returning, allowing Hall to continue building on his progress (The (Raleigh) Evening Times, September 6th, 1909, p. 7).

In addition to the coaching of Hall and the strong corps of experienced players returning, the 1909 season also saw the creation of the Wake Forest Alumni Athletic Association, which, in conjunction with the existing Student Athletic Association, would help foster athletics at the college. The main immediate goal of the association was to raise enough money "to secure a good coach" (The Charlotte Evening Chronicle, September 15th, 1909, p. 1). The Association got control of and finance all branches of the college's athletics, in addition to creating a local graduate manager and treasurer (The Wake Forest Student, Vol. XXIX No. 1 (October 1909), p. 54).

For reasons that currently remain unclear, Hall was not actually selected to be the Baptists' coach. Instead, former Harvard end A. T. Myers was selected to lead the team (The (Raleigh) Evening Times, September 16th, 1909, p. 5). Myers arrived in Wake Forest on September 17th, a few days after the team organized; prior to his arrival, practices had been lead by Captain L. Legget (Charlotte Daily Observer, September 16th, 1909, p. 3; News and Observer, September 17th, 1909, p. 3).

Under Myers, work progressed well. Logically, the former Crimson player strove to implement a Harvard style of play -- in other words, fast, flashy, and full of trick plays (Winston-Salem Journal, September 18th, 1909, p. 6). In addition to the strong leadership of returning captain, L. Legget, the Baptists had brought in several former Raleigh High School players. They were also supplemented by a particularly strong scrub team (News and Observer, October 1st, 1909, p. 2). The team was reported to be progressing at a much better rate than the previous season (The Tar Heel, September 30th, 1909, p. 1).

By September 16th, Wake Forest's manager, Hubert T. White, including games against North Carolina (10/2), Maryville (10/4), Washington & Lee (10/16), South Carolina (10/23), Richmond (11/5), and NC A&M (11/20); all of these games except the one against the Farmers were played as originally scheduled (The Charlotte News, September 16th, 1909, p. 2). The Old Gold and Black split their first four games, losing to North Carolina (0-18) and Washington & Lee (0-17) but defeating a Maryville team (3-0) who had played A&M just two days before and a despondent South Carolina (8-0) who was outscored 36-128 on the season.

In addition to those games and a game scheduled against Richmond (which Wake Forest lost, 0-5), a game was added mid-season against the North Carolina Medical College; played just two days after their win over South Carolina, the Baptists lost the game 0-5. There was also talk of adding a Thanksgiving game against Davidson, either in Charlotte or Raleigh, but the plans never materialized (The (Raleigh) Evening Times, September 17th, 1909, p. 2).

As for injuries, the team seemed to go through a cycle of being healthy and then injured. The team reportedly lost four starters following the UNC game but pulled off the win against Maryville nonetheless; several remained out through their game against Washington & Lee (Charlotte Daily Observer, October 5th, 1909, p. 3; The Charlotte Evening Chronicle, October 13th, 1909, p. 1). Despite the proximity of their games againast South Carolina and the NC Medical College, though, the Old Gold and Black were reported to be in good condition in preparation for their game against Richmond, not a single player being out with injuries (News and Observer, November 3rd, 1909, p. 3).

Just the day before the Richmond game, however, it was announced that several members of the Wake Forest sophomore class were expelled for hazing. Notably, Wake Forest had allowed intercollegiate football to return to their campus in 1908 with the understanding that hazing would be eliminated (The Charlotte Evening Chronicle, November 4th, 1909, p. 9; Bulletin of Wake Forest College, Vol. IV No. 2 (July 1909), p. 140). Because of this breach, it was reported that Wake Forest was canceling the remainder of their season's football games, abandoning scheduled games against William & Mary (11/13), North Carolina A&M (11/20) and a neutral site game against Asheville's Robert Bingham School in Greensboro for Thanksgiving.

However, later reports indicated that the season ended prematurely for an entirely different reason--or, more correctly, two reported reasons. An article dated on November 13th in The Tar Heel claimed that the Baptists ended their season early because their only remaining games were against A&M and Bingham (glossing entirely over William & Mary), and "they did not consider themselves in the same class as A. & M. and that there was nothing to be gained in winning from a prep school, while it is very bad to lose to it" (The Tar Heel, November 20th, 1909, p. 3). Later that month, however, another paper reported that Wake Forest ended their season "owing to the crippled condition of the players" (The Charlotte Evening Chronicle, November 22nd, 1909, p. 6).

While there is a lot of evidence supporting the faculty and students' agreement on hazing causing the cancelation of the season, there are some oddities. The most prominent eccentricity was the fact that both Wake Forest's scrub teams and sophomore teams continued to play after November 5th. Warrenton High School demolished Wake Forest's scrub team 26-0 on November 13th, but avenged themselves the following week by defeating the high school 6-0 (News and Observer, November 14th, 1909, p. 12; News and Observer, November 21st, 1909, p. 11). The same day that the scrubs defeated Warrenton, the Wake Forest Sophomores tied Raleigh High School 0-0 (The (Raleigh) Evening Times, November 22nd, 1909, p. 2).

So while evidence does suggest that Wake Forest had an agreement on hazing which would nix their season prematurely, other non-varsity teams continued to play after the expulsion of the sophomore hazers. On the other hand, both the other explanations proffered make a good degree of sense: though no paper specifically mentions a high number of injuries during the Richmond game, it was reported that Wake Forest resorted to mostly "old style football" (meaning line plunges and mass plays), which is more likely to result in injuries (Charlotte Daily Observer, November 6th, 1909, p. 3).

Most likely, the cancelation was caused by a culmination of all three reasons, however it will be impossible to ever know for sure.