“Foot Ball. This game had never been played scientifically at Bates, but we suppose it may now be considered as fairly introduced.” 

So wrote The Bates Student, then a monthly publication that was part literary journal, part newspaper, in its November 1875 issue. For on Saturday, Nov. 6 at 11 a.m., Bates had played Tufts in the first intercollegiate football game ever held in the state of Maine. The action took place on Rand Field, now the site of Gillespie Hall. 

The Student reprinted the rules of the game in full, and 150 years later, they are tough to decipher. This was long before the days of touchdowns being worth six points, the forward pass, or four quarters. Instead, “touch-downs” were worth one point, but only if you made the kick! And the game was played over the course of “three innings,” each lasting 30 minutes. 

As the Lewiston Evening Journal put it, “The rules of the game are the Rugby, slightly Americanized.” 

Tufts won the game 1–0, scoring three touch-downs and making one kick. Despite the loss, it was mission accomplished for Bates, as the Student reported that “the object of the Bates boys in accepting a challenge to a game of which they were so ignorant, was to learn the points of the game by practice, and to form an acquaintance with the students of Tufts.” 

Despite the success of the first game, Bates would not compete again in intercollegiate football for another 14 years. And in November 1889, they traveled to Bowdoin for a one-off contest, only to lose 62–0. 

Following that rather disheartening defeat, the Student, without mentioning the score, delivered what can only be described as a motivational speech in its November 1889 issue. 

“College athletics must receive due attention, foot-ball as well as the rest,” the Student opined. “There is the will, the spirit, and the backbone in Bates to make a strong foot-ball team. All we need is the ‘stick to it’ and the practice.” 

And in 1893, Bates fielded a football team that played a full season for the first time. 

The Pioneers

The late 19th century was a great time to be a Bates football player. The program did not suffer a losing season thanks to a number of stars who would go on to have distinguished careers. 

It all started with Oliver Cutts, Class of 1896, who played on the 1893 and 1895 squads, missing the 1894 season due to injury. He and Royce Davis Purinton, Class of 1900, did not overlap on campus as students or as staff. But between the two, their impact on Bates football and Bates athletics as a whole would be felt for years to come. 

Cutts, a legacy honoree in the Bates College Athletics Hall of Fame, went on to star at Harvard, where he was a consensus All-American center as a 28-year-old law student in 1901. He was also quite good at Bates as a guard, helping propel the program to a 4–0 record against the University of Maine (at the time, Maine State College) as the Garnet outscored the state’s flagship school by a combined count of 108–6 during Cutts’ career.

Purinton was the first great Bates quarterback. Granted, this was in the days before the forward pass would elevate the position’s importance. Still, Purinton’s leadership on the gridiron was such that Bates went 4–0–1 in 1897 and 6–0 in 1898. He was flanked by such early Bates luminaries as running back and team captain Nathan Pulsifer, Class of 1899; left guard William Allen Saunders, Class of 1899; and right guard Thomas Seth Bruce, Class of 1898.

These undefeated seasons included the program’s first two wins over Bowdoin, a not-so-friendly rivalry in those days. The two schools bickered over gate receipts and the team from Brunswick’s refusal to travel to Lewiston. It got so acrimonious that Bates and Bowdoin didn’t even play each other in 1900 before resuming the rivalry in 1901.

During Purinton’s senior season of 1899, Bates football started playing their home games on Garcelon Field. Prior to their debut on Garcelon, the Garnet 11 had competed at Lee Park, a combination athletic and circus grounds close to campus, near what is now the Lewiston Armory. 

Named after Alonzo Garcelon, a Lewiston leader who is credited with Bates being located in Lewiston, Garcelon Field was built with the assistance of Bates students, who helped clear the “rough uncouth pasture” just to the northeast of Roger Williams Hall. 

The first football game on Garcelon Field, against Boston College, ended in a 0–0 tie, a result that was not uncommon in the early days of college football. Then on Saturday, Oct. 14, 1899, Frederick Harold Stinchfield, Class of 1900, scored the first touchdown on the new field during a 12–0 win over Colby. 

The football team finished the 19th century with an impressive record of 30 wins, 13 losses, and three ties. And as the 20th century dawned, so did a new era in Bates athletics. 

Coach Purry

In the early days of Bates football, coaches were part time. Dr. G.L. Crockett took time away from his medical practice to coach the 1893 team. Clarence Hoag was Purinton’s coach but also an English instructor at Bates. And when Purinton became the head coach just two years after he graduated, leading Bates to a 7–2 record in 1902, it was still very much something one did on the side. In fact, Purinton spent the 1903 season traveling throughout Canada on business. His temporary replacement struggled as the football team went 1–6–1 without “Coach Purry” at the helm.

But Purinton returned in 1904 and in 1906 was hired full time as the college’s “Director of Men’s Gymnasium,” early 20th-century language for what we know today as director of athletics. For the next 12 years, Purinton established what it meant to be a Bates student-athlete, running the department while also coaching the football and baseball teams. Purinton “developed an efficient system of running the athletic department at the college,” reported the Student, “and became known country wide as a man of especial value in his chosen field.”

As his great-grandson Nate Purinton ’06 recalled in a 2006 essay for Bates Magazine, “with poor sportsmanship and paid athletes common in the college ranks, he forged the college’s reputation for clean play and high academic standards, which helped put Bates onto the athletic schedules of schools like Harvard and Yale.” The Student noted that “his one ambition was to see real men go forth from the College rather than…prize athletes or winning teams.”

But Purinton also produced winning teams. Nine of his football squads produced a .500 or better record, the most in Bates history. He also inspired his star athletes, encouraging future Red Sox and White Sox captain Harry Lord, Class of 1908, to pursue a career in professional baseball.

In 1918, with war raging in Europe, the 40-year-old Purinton chose to leave Bates, volunteering to serve in World War I with the YMCA. In France, he created playing fields before heading to the front. During his time abroad, he was injured in a motorcycle accident, suffered the death of his young daughter back home, and, at the front, witnessed the loss of 1,800 men in two days. Whether it was post-traumatic stress or another ailment, he returned to Bates a shell of his prior vigorous self. He died unexpectedly on March 25, 1919, of heart failure. 

In its heartfelt tribute to beloved “Purry,” the Student reported that “the many victories that came to Bates have been due in a large measure to his untiring efforts and courageous self-sacrifice. To say that he was the guide and mentor of many a wayward boy would state the case mildly. His relations with the men out of classes, in their games and recreations are to be modelled after.” 

The Bobcat: ‘It Is Small — But Oh! How It Can Fight’

Without Purinton as its guide, Bates football got lost in the wilderness for about a decade, as they cycled through multiple coaches and failed to post a winning season during the 1920s. However, a few notable events did occur during this timeframe. 

In 1924, Bates officially adopted the Bobcat as its mascot. It was a nearly unanimous vote, with 490 out of just over 500 students voicing their support. Only a few people voted for other options such as the panther, chow, leopard, moose, and stork.

The initial idea for a Bobcat as a mascot originated two years earlier, when Jack Williams, Class of 1911, wrote to the Bates Alumnus after seeing “the fight the light Bates football team put up against heavier odds.” Like the Bates football players, he wrote, a bobcat was small, but “Oh! how it can fight!”

That team that inspired the Bobcat nickname was led by none other than Oliver Cutts, who returned to the school in 1922 after coaching stints at Purdue and Washington, leading the Bobcats for two seasons before settling full-time into his director of athletics role and his faculty position as professor of hygiene and physical education, positions he held until he stepped down due to health issues in 1938.

In 1926, the Bates football team made national news when they elected Charles Barrington Ray, Class of 1927, as captain. Ray became the first Black captain of any sport in Bates history. Known as “Charley,” Ray was described in the 1927 Mirror yearbook as “a worthy student, a clean sportsman, and a perfect gentleman.” Standing just 5-foot-7 and weighing 150 pounds, he was named All-Maine three times and All-New England once.

As a halfback on offense, he was a passer, receiver, and ball carrier. On defense, he was a ballhawk, making a name for himself in his first year, 1923, when he sparked a 12–7 victory over Bowdoin by knocking down pass after Polar Bear pass.

In 1928, Bates football hit rock bottom. Not only did the Bobcats finish 0–7, they didn’t score a point all season. But one year later, a man dubbed “The Wonder Coach” turned the program around.

This is the first of a five-part series about the 150-year history of Bates football. A new article will be published the week of every home football game this fall.