A pandemic. War. Vanderbilt football continued despite the misery of 1918
Vanderbilt’s football season was delayed by a coach’s illness amid a pandemic, and the university’s senior medical students petitioned the faculty for early graduation to be sent to the front lines.
Adam Sparks for Nashville Tennessean via USA Today
Masks were worn in public. People were encouraged to avoid large crowds. Church services were canceled and schools were closed. And caskets were in short supply.
In the fall of 1918, college football was a welcome distraction for some and an impossibility in a time of crisis for others. Vanderbilt merely did what it could to play an abbreviated football season as the Spanish flu pandemic raged and World War I waned.
The 1919 Commodore yearbook called it “one of the most difficult years through which Vanderbilt ever passed, (a) story of sacrifice and hardships … (and the) depleted ranks of Vanderbilt students.”
As Vanderbilt approaches the start of the 2020 football season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a century-old reflection reveals similarities to the fall of 1918. But a closer look also shows the extra hardships that Nashville and Vanderbilt endured in that year.
“So many bad things happened in Nashville in 1918,” Nashville historian David Ewing said. “The war was the worst, by far. But they were all bad.”
13 players kept Vanderbilt football going
In 1918, Vanderbilt had 13 players, including 11 starters who rarely left the field. Their season was postponed for three weeks until Oct. 19 so coach Ray Morrison could recover from the flu. A 6-0 loss to Camp Greenleaf started a six-game schedule that some viewed as an unofficial season — including the rival Tennessee Vols.
Historical documents, old yearbooks and newspaper archives show how Nashvillians and Vanderbilt students were more concerned with winning World War I than outlasting the pandemic. Read more from USA Today.
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