TCNJ Library is sporting a new photo exhibit

Long before the College started receiving national attention from The New York Times and U.S. News & World Report, people across the country learned about our school from a simple photo. The picture was of then-football coach George Ackerman (for whom the current baseball field is named) giving his team a pep talk during halftime of a 1949 game against Montclair. At the time the picture was taken, the Lions trailed 0-6. However, the caption underneath the photo tells us that the Lions went on to win 7-6. Normally, such a low-scoring contest between two small-school teams would not be fodder for a national publication. But the win was the football team’s first in 11 years, and Life magazine, one of the most widely read periodicals in the country at the time, made the photo its “Picture of the Week.”

That photo, along with many others culled from the College’s archives and yearbooks, is part of an ongoing exhibit in the College library. “Early College Sports to 1950” showcases both varsity and intramural athletics at the College from the late 1800s through the middle of last century.

The idea for the exhibit came about after an alumnae’s granddaughter donated a 107-year-old photo of the women’s basketball team to the College archives, said Librarian Pat Beaber. The donor, Elizabeth James Skidmore, found the photo among the possessions of her grandmother, Georgianna Elizabeth Walling, who was a member of the New Jersey State Normal School Class of 1901 and is among the women pictured in the team photo.

Also included in the exhibit are several photos of students playing cage volleyball, a women’s intramural sport that, according to the Seal yearbook, was invented here at the College. “So far as we know this game is a native of State Teachers College. We have made our own rules to suit our needs,” reported the 1931 Seal. The yearbooks from that time period state that cage volleyball started in 1929 and was immensely popular for several years; however, the sport seems to have disappeared completely after 1932. There is no indication why this happened, although the 1932 Seal does hint that individual sports were becoming more popular than team sports with students of the time.

Another defunct intramural club from the same time period, the women’s rifle team, is also represented in the exhibit. This sport seems to have been just as popular as cage volleyball. Again, though, there is little information on why the sport disappeared (although, given the dates, it could have had something to do with the College’s move to the current campus here in Ewing).

Many other sports are featured in the exhibit, including baseball, track, field hockey, and swimming. The exhibit, which will run through the end of the semester, is in the display cases to your right and left as you enter the library through the doors on the north end of the library (the entrance closest to Roscoe L. West Hall).