Where Athletics is Part of a General Program
This article describes how important the sports are to ECU. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: "Where Athletics is Part of a General Program," The Daily Reflector , May 14. 1958.
In 1948, when East Carolina College was seeking unconditional membership in the North State Conference, the request drew some hard looks and even harsher words.
There was a comment, at the 1948 meeting of the confrence, from represenatives of another member, that "little ECTC" wasn't ready to play with the big boys. The other school's delegates argued that the Greenville school's petition should be set aside and East Carolina granted nothing more than a one-year extension of its conditional membership, granted the previous year.
The argument of the other school is said to have pursued the point that "little ECTC is just a girls' school"and "Johnny-come-lately" to intercollegiate athletics. Some of the conference members knew better, but the opponents of East Carolina's membership doubted the college's ability to handle the rugged schedule demanded of the conference's unconditional members.
It was a biting indictment of East Carolina's athletic program.
It was also irritating to East Carolina's athleitc director, Dr. N.M. Jorgensen, who had been on the Greenville campus for nearly a year at the time of the meeting. Dr. Jorgensen is said to have squirmed in his chair while the other delegates spoke their pieces.
When the others had finished their talks, Dr. Jorgensen is said to have pulled himself from his chair and delivered a short, but pointed, commentary on just what East Carolina had and could do. The argument ended at that point and East Carolina has held unconditional membership in the conference ever since.
Dr. Jorgensen's exact words aren't preserved in any oficial records, but the substance of his comments was that East Carolina's athletic program was no stranger to success. The program could he said, hold its own with any other conference member's program and the conference need have no fear of East Carolina being anything buta fully participating member.
He was right on all counts.
In the years since 1948, East Carolina has become one of the conference's wheel horses.
The football teams have not only held their own with other conference teams, but with strong outsiders as well.
The basketball teams have had only one losing season inconference play since the 1950 season and have represented the conference and the NAIA's District 26 in two national tournaments.
The baseball teams have become permanent contenders for every annual championship, plus being a favorite hunting ground for professional baseball scouts.
The golf and tennis teams have probably won more team and individual championships than any other school in the conference in the past ten years.
The swimming team won the 1957 NAIA national championship, and runs into schedule troubles because of the constant strength of the squads.
The track team annually stacks up with the best in the conference, and takes on any and all comers without any fear and trembling.
Not all of the teams have been great at the same time, or in the same year, but they are all more than acquainted with success. They have proved East Carolina's right to a place in the conference.
Football, on an organized basis, first came to the campus about 1932 when Ken Beatty vounteered to coach the small number of boys who were available for the sport. The next year, Glenn (Doc) Mathis, now basketball coach at Elon College, was named the college's coach and it was under Mathis that the school began taking on opposition from four-year college.
The early days weren't as easy, especially for football. The 1933 record is referred to as "fatalities of 1933" when the team lost all of its six games. (The 1948 football team earned a similiar name with its 0-9 record.)
Mathis stayed at East Carolina until 1936 when Bo Farley, now the Athletic Director at Junius H. Rose High School, was named coach of football, basketball, and baseball. J.D. Alexander followed Farley as football coach, spending two seasons as the boss of the Pirates. It was while Alexander was football coach that boxing and tennis were added to the intercollegiate program, but the two additions were on a volunteer basis. Boxing and tennis team members directed their own work, taking care of scheduling matches and paying expenses out of their own pockets.
Gordon Gilbert also joined the athletic staff in 1938 and stayed through the 1939 season when O.A. Hankner became football coach and head of the Department of Health and Physical Education. After Hankner came to the campus, he coached football, Farley handled the basketball teams and Gilbert coached basketball.
It was in 1939 that boxing first hit the doldrums when the team couldn't find any opponenets. Tennis also had similar difficulties but the entire program was strengthened in 1940 when John Christenbury was named headfootball coach.
Christenbury was the man who first acquainted the football program with unqualified success. His 1941 team won all of its seven games, was one of 13 undefeated teams in the country, scored 162 points and gave up only 20.
Christenbury also coached basketball and baseball before entering service for World War II duty. When he left, the college suspended its intercollegiate athletic program for the duration.
After the war, the college started picking up the pieces to re-instate its athletic program. It wasn't easy.
Christenbury, who had been expected to return to the campus, had been killed. The campus became conspicuously short of male students during the war and all of the former coaches had moved to other jobs.
First step in rebuilding was with basketball in 1945 when Earl Smith, a former star athlete, returned to thecampus as a coach. Smith got the program rolling and then turned it over to Howard Porter who came in 1946 as a basketball coach and assistant football coach.
At the same time Porter joined the athletic staff, Jimmy Johnsonwas named head football coach and the two men put out the college's first post-war football team in 1946. The next year, 1947, the college was admitted to the North Carolina State Conference, on a conditional basis and the general pattern for the athletic program was molded.
Boxing returned to the program in 1948 with Johnson and Johnny Long doing the coaching. Jack Boone was appointed a member of the football staff, and tennis and golf also got back into business.
In 1949, Bill Dole, a football coach with an outstanding record at Fayetteville High School, replaced Johnson. The team that year dedicated the present stadium and began the build-up to the college's present football program.
Dole stayed at ECC for three years, leaving in 1952 to go toDavidson College of the Southern Conference. Boone, who had been an assistant under two head coaches, took the head football job and was the North State's "Coach of the Year" in 1953 when East Carolina claimed its firstfootball championship.
While Dole and Boone were building the football program to and beyond the levels of Christenbury's teams had reached before the war, Porter and Mallory were establishing East Carolina as a basketball and baseball powerhouse. Porter's teams since 1950 have won 90 and lost only 35 in conference play, and for the past seven season[s] the basketball Pirates have had an overall record of 119 wins and 53 losses.
Mallory's first three teams won two championships and a second place, with a 34-9 record.
The basketball team's present playhouse, Christenbury Memorial Gymnasium, was opened in 1953 with a game againdt the University of North Carolina, the only time the Tar Heels have ever played an ECC basketball team. The building provides for not only Porters' basketball teams, but for all the other teams, including swimming.
It was in the gym's swimming pool that Coach Ray Martinez' first 1956-1957 team prepared for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics national meet which they won.
Swimming and track are the latest additions to the athletic program, replacing boxing which fell into disfavor as a college sport shortly after 1950. They are classed as minor sports, as are tennis and golf, but there might be some legitimate question whether there are "minor' and "major" sports programs at the college.
All sports are treated in about the same manner, and contribute to a balanced program that has attracted national attention. It is cited a prime example of a strong program which is not a "tail-wagging-the-dog" situation.
Part of the reason for that was explained in an article by Dr. Jorgensen in the August, 1957, edition of "Coach and Athlete." In that article, Dr. Jorgensen said,
"Here at East Carolina, the administraion adheres to the philosophy that the objectives of physical education and athletics are identical with those of general education; therefore, all members of the staff are selected primarily as educators and ranked by the same standards throughout.
"Thus, it is the duty of those who coach athletic teams to assist in the effort of the department, in the department, in teaching professional courses for our major students, acting as advisors, and participating in every way as certified physical educators in terms of desired educational outcomes."
It is a philosophy that works just as it had for the past 25 years.
