Sports and Education

“Out of the Quietness, a Clamor: ‘We WantFootball!’” The California State Colleges,Educational Opportunity, and AthleticsMarc A. VanOverbekeThe president assembled the students shortly before they were to leavefor winter break. He had a major announcement to make. Earlier thatfall, the students had petitioned the president to develop an intercol-legiate football program, and he had appointed a faculty and studentcommittee to study the matter. He now was prepared to tell the gath-ered students whether he agreed to lead his college fully into athletics.He started slowly and told the students that their college was only sixyears old, much had been accomplished in that time, and many weretired and now hoping to “lie down on the new lawn under one ofthose new trees out there and bask in the glory that is Sacramento StateCollege.” The president, however, was more amused than tired, as hecontinued. “But no! The dust blew and the rains came and then thefog! And out of the quietness and the thickness of the fog—a shout—aclamor:We want football!” The college already had an athletic program,and he tried to understand why the students would clamor for more.But, the fact remained that they had asked for football, and he now hadto tell them what would become of their petition.1On this day in early December 1953, President Guy West told thestudents gathered before him that he would not stand in the way offootball. West was not the only college leader in the postwar years toyield to such demands for football and athletics. The race to competein intercollegiate athletics consumed college and university officials in-creasingly in the decades following World War II.2The pressure forMarc A. VanOverbeke is an Associate Professor and Assistant Department Chair in theDepartment of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations, Northern IllinoisUniversity; e-mail: mvanover@niu.edu. This work is supported in part by the NationalAcademy of Education and the Spencer Foundation.1“Statement Concerning the Initiation of Football Presented to the Student As-sembly on December 1, 1953, by Guy A. West, President,” folder 12, unprocessedcollection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives.2See, for example, John Thelin,Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in In-tercollegiate Athletics(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); JohnSayle Watterson,College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy(Baltimore: The JohnsHistory of Education QuarterlyVol. 53  No. 4  November 2013  CopyrightC©2013 by the History of Education Society

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor431strong athletic programs was particularly acute on the campuses ofthe nation’s state colleges, including Sacramento State, where admin-istrators and faculty hoped to build thriving public institutions. Thesepublic colleges did not have the reputations of the nation’s emerging re-search universities and land grant institutions, such as the University ofCalifornia or the University of Wisconsin. They were smaller and oftenseen as less prestigious, and usually did not offer doctoral degrees ormore than a few masters programs. Some, such as Sacramento State,were only a few years old. Others had started as teachers colleges ornormal schools, agricultural schools, and business colleges in the nine-teenth century. In part due to increased demand for a college educationin the decades following World War II, which the GI Bill helped tospur, and in part due to institutional ambition, these state colleges weregrowing and expanding, and hoping to become multipurpose, com-prehensive institutions with four-year undergraduate programs and ahandful of graduate courses.In this context of growth and expansion, state college officials em-braced intercollegiate athletics as instrumental to their futures. Presi-dent West and his colleagues believed that athletic programs—and, evenbetter, winning ones—would signal that they were no longer teacherscolleges or agricultural schools but comprehensive four-year collegesthat were growing and doing exciting things, and that deserved publicsupport as places where students would want to get a degree. In theabsence of a long history as a comprehensive college, a winning teamcould be crucial to crafting a strong reputation, establishing schooltraditions and spirit, and building alumni support. Increasingly, thesecolleges also discovered that sports teams provided meaningful oppor-tunities to reach beyond the borders of their campuses and engage thesurrounding communities in the development of a regional identity. Ifproperly constructed and maintained, athletics additionally might con-tribute to and reflect these colleges’ educational purpose and mission.Athletics was only one part of the transition to comprehensive institu-tions, but, overall, college officials assumed that athletics would helpthem strengthen their institutions and develop solid reputations. Ath-letics and sports were not marginal players tucked out on the edges ofthe college mission or tacked on as part of an extra-curriculum. Theywere central to these institutions’ developing identities and ambitions;they were star players as these colleges grew and expanded educationalopportunity in the postwar years.The historiography on higher education in the postwar years isstrong and admirably captures, among other themes, the remarkableHopkins University Press, 2000); Ronald A. Smith,Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).

432History of Education Quarterlygrowth of higher education in the United States and the consequentexpansion of educational opportunity. There also is a growing and com-pelling body of research on athletics and higher education. However,this literature looks primarily at the emerging research universities,elite institutions, or higher education broadly.3This article builds onthis work by focusing on the evolving state colleges and their embraceof athletics in the 1950s. It looks specifically at the state colleges inCalifornia as a way to explore the connection between athletics andeducational expansion and to understand the role of athletics generallyin higher education as it transitioned in the postwar years from eliteto mass education.4California public officials were keenly aware of thegrowing demand for a college education and established policies toguide the growth of higher education in the state. As a result, Califor-nia’s state college presidents worked closely together and, while theycould be competitive on and off the field, they also coordinated athleticguidelines to assist them in this expansion. They were ahead of the gamein marshaling sports as a comprehensive part of a state college mission,but their peer institutions throughout the country followed in theirtracks by the 1960s. Thus, these institutions provide a strong case studyof collegiate expansion, athletics, and the meaning of higher educationin the postwar years. The allure of sports, and the hope that alumnisupport, student loyalty, and public dollars would follow winning teamsproved irresistible to many state colleges in California and across thenation. Not surprisingly, then, Sacramento’s president agreed with his3See, for example, Roger Geiger,Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Re-search Universities since World War II(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); JohnR. Thelin,A History of American Higher Education(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Uni-versity Press, 2004); Hugh Graham and Nancy Diamond,The Rise of American ResearchUniversities: Elites and Challengers in the Postwar Era(Baltimore: The Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1997); Arthur M. Cohen,The Shaping of American Higher Education:Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers,1998); Linda Eisenmann,Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945–1965(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); Michael Oriard,King Football:Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels, Movies and Magazines, theWeekly & the Daily Press(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001;Thelin,Games Colleges Play; Watterson,College Football.4As is the case with state colleges in general, the state colleges in California werecomprised of former teachers colleges and normal schools, as well as new four-yearinstitutions. Unlike the emerging research universities in the state and nation—suchas the University of California—these California state colleges were to focus primarilyon undergraduate teaching, with an emphasis on teacher education and liberal/generaleducation. According to the state’s various educational reports and studies in the 1940sand 1950s, the state colleges were to leave much of the research function and graduateeducation to the state’s research universities. These state colleges eventually becamepart of the California State Colleges and then today’s California State University. Formore information on the California state colleges, their growth and function, and therole of the Master Plan, see Donald R. Gerth,The People’s University: A History of theCalifornia State University(Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Public Policy Press, 2010).

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor433students and chose the road that, they all hoped, would lead to gridironglories.Athletics and Collegiate ExpansionPresident West led his college toward athletics during a period ofrapid expansion and transition in higher education. While SacramentoState was only six years old in the early 1950s, other state colleges inCalifornia had longer histories stretching back to the nineteenth cen-tury. All were part of an expansion in higher education and educationalopportunity that marked the postwar years and that reflected increaseddemand among Americans for access to college. As historians have ar-gued, Americans had grand hopes for the future. These hopes includedthe expectation, as the president of San Francisco State put it, thatthe nation’s young would have “a greater opportunity for economicsuccess and for a type of position which carries greater social prestigethan the positions held by their parents.”5A college education increas-ingly offered a popular route to such prestige. Indeed, as early as thefirst half of the twentieth century and as the nation developed tech-nologically and industrially, a college degree—or even some collegeeducation—provided a valuable credential for access to professionaljobs and positions. This trend only increased in the postwar years, andcollege became even more important as one ready source of professionalstanding and expertise.6The state colleges played a crucial role in fulfilling these ex-pectations and hopes. As J. Paul Leonard, San Francisco’s president,explained, the state colleges, “strategically located” in communitiesthroughout the state and subsidized by public funds, made higher ed-ucation easily available and accessible and “thus provided educationalopportunities to many youth in California who otherwise would have5J. Paul Leonard, “College Enrollment: Forecast, Facts and Figures, July 8, 1954,”folder 216, box 13, J. Paul Leonard Papers, San Francisco State University Archives.6James T. Patterson,Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974(New York:Oxford University Press, 1996); David K. Brown,Degrees of Control: A Sociology of Ed-ucational Expansion and Occupational Credentialism(New York: Teachers College Press,1995); Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz,The Race between Education and Tech-nology(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008); David O. Levine,The AmericanCollege and the Culture of Aspiration, 1915–1940(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1986), 19–21; William H. Chafe,The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 105–10, 118; Daniel A. Clark, “‘The TwoJoes Meet. Joe College, Joe Veteran:’ The G.I. Bill, College Education, and PostwarAmerican Culture,”History of Education Quarterly38 (Summer 1998): 174–78; DanielA. Clark,Creating the College Man: American Mass Magazines and Middle-Class Manhood,1890–1915(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010), 18–21, 80–81, 84–89, 94.

434History of Education Quarterlybeen unable to attend college.”7At the same time, by training an abun-dant supply of skilled and professional workers and thus ensuring thatmore Americans had access to well-paying positions, the expansionof the nation’s state colleges and of higher education broadly led togreater economic equality among Americans and, as Claudia Goldinand Lawrence Katz have explained, contributed to the nation’s overalleconomic prosperity.8In many ways then, higher education was re-placing the high school as the route to the American Dream, a dreammarked by the promise that hard work and initiative would lead toeconomic security.Consequently, college enrollments throughout the 1950s and1960s shot up. In 1950, enrollment in public and private colleges (twoand four years) was around 2.5 million, but was about 8 million by1970, with nearly 6.5 million in four-year institutions. This contextof growth and expansion was true across higher education but partic-ularly affected the emerging state colleges. Sacramento State was anexception as a new campus, but many states found it easier to enlargeexisting institutions to meet demand. Expanding teachers colleges andother single-purpose institutions beyond their original focus to includea full range of baccalaureate degrees, and some graduate programs,was often more cost-efficient than building entirely new campuses.9Many of these emerging colleges in California and elsewhere embracedthese opportunities to extend their missions and become integral to thechanging political, social, and economic contexts of postwar Americansociety. As a result, by the 1970s, state colleges and universities enrolledaround 25 to 30 percent of the nation’s college students. Average fallenrollment in the California state colleges, for example, increased fromjust over 31,000 in 1950 to 54,612 in 1955 and then jumped to over95,000 in 1960. By 1970, enrollment was above 240,000 on twenty cam-puses, fourteen of which had been built since the end of World WarII.107J. Paul Leonard, “Purposes and Accomplishments of the State Colleges,” folder379, box 22, J. Paul Leonard Papers, San Francisco State University Archives.8Goldin and Katz,The Race between Education and Technology; Brown,Degrees ofControl; William G. Bowen, Matthew M. Chingos, and Michael S. McPherson,Cross-ing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities(Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 2009).9As Christine Ogren explains, this “mission creep” among the former teacherscolleges started prior to the 1950s. See Christine A. Ogren,The American State NormalSchool: “An Instrument of Great Good”(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 201–09.10“Statistical Abstract to July 1983,” folder 2039, box 8, California State Univer-sity Reports Collection, CSU System Archives, California State University, DominguezHills Archives; W. John Minter and Howard R. Bowen,Preserving America’s Investmentin Human Capital: A Study of Public Higher Education(Washington, DC: American As-sociation of State Colleges and Universities, 1980), 2; American Council on Education,

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor435By the 1950s, these students increasingly demanded strong ath-letic programs to accompany this educational expansion. Sacramento’sstudents were concerned enough about their college’s limited athleticprogram that over 600 of them petitioned the president to expand theprogram by instituting football. Throughout the country in the yearsahead, students in other state colleges flooded their presidents’ officeswith similar calls and petitions, but Sacramento’s students did not justdemand that the president take responsibility for building a footballteam. They agreed to play a key role in ensuring the success of theprogram by supporting it partially through student association feesand, crucially, by selling enough season tickets to make it financiallyviable.11Why would these students willingly agree to sell tickets for a teamthey would never play on, and why did the college readily expand its ath-letic program, given the athletic scandals then plaguing other colleges?In his response at the student assembly, President West suggested thathe was amused or perplexed by the students’ petition, but in reality hewas fully aware of the forces propelling students and colleges towardfootball and athletics.12By 1953, when the students lodged their peti-tion, his college was firmly established, in part because of veterans on theGI Bill. These veterans helped facilitate an educational transformationin the postwar years that contributed to the growth of the Californiastate colleges. The sheer number of veterans who utilized the GI Billfor college education—some 2.2 million by the mid-1950s—pushedcampuses to grow and expand to meet demand, while also instilling inthe public a greater awareness that a college education did not existsolely for the upper classes. Sacramento and the other state collegescapitalized on this shift in public perception to welcome more studentsto their campuses. Many of these veterans, moreover, played collegeathletics—with veterans on average making up 50 percent of most col-lege football teams between 1945 and 1950—and helped solidify a pub-lic belief that colleges and athletics went hand in hand. The studentsHigher Education in the United States(Washington, DC: American Council on Education,1965), 26–27; Thelin,History of American Higher Education, 261; Arthur M. Cohen, withCarrie B. Kisker,The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of theContemporary System,2d ed. (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2010), 202.11“Statement Concerning the Initiation of Football Presented to the Student As-sembly on December 1, 1953, by Guy A. West, President”; Guy A. West to Lysle D.Leach, 13 November 1953, folder 11, unprocessed collection, Office of the President(Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives; “Present Status of the Developmentof the Football Issue at SSC, November 19, 1953,” folder 12, unprocessed collection,Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives; “Minutesof the Student Council Meeting, December 2, 1953,” folder 2, box 4, Student Affairs,Sacramento State University Archives.12“Present Status of the Development of the Football Issue at SSC, November 19,1953.”

436History of Education Quarterlywho came to Sacramento after the veterans in the early to mid-1950ssimilarly saw such a connection and expected the amenities—especiallyathletics—that students enjoyed on other campuses. They wanted awinning football team or athletic program as a source for instilling loy-alty and pride, and gaining recognition for their college. For students,the public, administrators, and, somewhat reluctantly, faculty, footballand athletics had become the ultimate marker of collegiate status.13This prominent role for college football and sports reflected atwentieth century fascination with athletics. As San Diego’s presidentrecognized in the 1950s, “the public interest in sports is great,” andit had been for decades.14Football and sports in general were popu-lar spectacles that had become intertwined in public culture and thatretained enormous public support throughout the century. Athleticsand sports were a winning combination of competition and physicalprowess, and star players, especially those who triumphed against deepodds, came to embody American notions of heroism and success. In thisway, sporting contests provided compelling stories that captured pub-lic attention. Newspapers and radio stations—and eventually televisionnetworks—benefited from and perpetuated this public preoccupationwith athletics and reaped profits from reporting on and broadcastingathletic contests.15This fascination carried over to college sports teams, especiallyin the southern and western regions of the country where fewer pro-fessional teams captured public attention. For many students, as wellas parents, alumni, and community members, college sports, as partof a larger sports culture, offered welcome moments of entertainmentand conquest, and football coaches and athletes were becoming culturalheroes on college campuses. Consequently, it was difficult for thesespectators, as well as college administrators, to conceive of college—especially a public college—without athletics. It was nearly impossible,as President West was discovering, for the California colleges to de-velop their campuses without a stadium or playing fields, without fans13Gerth,The People’s University,38, 42; Patterson,Grand Expectations, 68, 367; DavidD. Henry,Challenges Past, Challenges Present: An Analysis of American Higher Educationsince 1930(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1975), 62–63, 66–67, 101; Goldin andKatz,The Race between Education and Technology,247; Suzanne Mettler,Soldiers to Citizens:The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation(Oxford: Oxford University Press,2005), 7; Oriard,King Football,116; Smith,Sports and Freedom,218; Clark, “The TwoJoes Meet. Joe College, Joe Veteran,” 167–68, 174–78.14“Intercollegiate Athletics at San Diego State College, April 15, 1953,” folder 314,box 18, J. Paul Leonard Papers, San Francisco State University Archives.15Brian M. Ingrassia, “Public Influence Inside the College Walls: Progressive EraUniversities, Social Scientists, and Intercollegiate Football Reform,”The Journal of theGilded Age and Progressive Era10 (January 2011): 61; Thelin,Games Colleges Play, 5–12,91; Thelin,History of American Higher Education, 208–11; Watterson,College Football,266–67; Oriard,King Football, 11–13.

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor437streaming across campus for athletic contests, and without footballsslicing through the fall air as the public cheered.16As the director of the alumni association at San Jose State Collegeexplained, collegiate athletics represented the heart of American soci-ety and its hopes and aspirations. Such sports, he argued, “reflect in alarge measure the American Way. For here we find all the elements ofsuccess seeking, intense competition and gravitation towards bigness.Because of this, big time, colorful, championship athletics teams arevery much a part of our culture and are no less desirable than theircounterparts in our society.”17As part of the American Way, sport-ing events reflected a meritocratic ideal that individuals—regardlessof background—would find success through hard work, ambition, andcompetition. On the athletic fields and courts, as historians have argued,Americans could play out their hopes and dreams, and be rewarded forsuccess against adversity, all while affirming their faith in Americandemocracy.18In this context, athletics and state colleges were an ideal combina-tion. By opening their doors to more students, state colleges similarlypromised success for those with discipline, courage, and strength. Theyrelied primarily on state tax dollars to offer a free or heavily subsidizededucation to more students, and they held out the ideal that all couldsucceed based on merit rather than on one’s family wealth or back-ground. Sacramento State symbolized this trend. In the mid-1950s,between forty and forty-five percent of its students came from homeswhere the father was employed in positions in skilled, semiprofessional,semiskilled, agricultural, and clerical fields, while only about twentypercent were in professional and managerial positions. Through thesestate colleges, higher education was broadening and ensuring accessto greater numbers of students.19President John T. Wahlquist of SanJose State likely spoke for the other college presidents when he stated16Thelin,Games Colleges Play, 5–9, 68–100, 122; Pamela Grundy,Learning to Win:Sports, Education, and Social Change in Twentieth Century North Carolina(Chapel Hill:The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 202–03, 297–301; Ingrassia, “PublicInfluence Inside the College Walls,” 61–62, 69–72; Watterson,College Football, xi–xii,1–4, 241–42, 271–72, 285–87; Oriard,King Football, 143, 365–66.17“Your Stake in Higher Education and Athletics,”Spartan Review,February–March, 1957, book 1, box 36, series VI, Office of the President, John T. Wahlquist, SanJos ́e State University Archives.18Thelin,Games Colleges Play, 68–72, 98–100; Watterson,College Football, xi–xii,1–4, 241–42, 271–72, 285–87; Grundy, 5–6, 202–03, 297–301; Oriard,King Football, 19,163–64, 225–28.19“Statistical Report of Regular Students, Spring Semester 1955 Compared withFall Semester 1954–55,” folder 12, box 4, Student Affairs, Sacramento State UniversityArchives; “A First Partial Report on Student Demographic Characteristics and Finan-cial Aid, October 1967,” folder 8, box 4, Student Affairs, Sacramento State UniversityArchives.

438History of Education Quarterlythat one objective of his institution was “to overcome the usual dis-criminatory practices in higher education, and to admit young peopleof intellectual promise regardless of religion, race, economic or socialstatus.”20With this access to higher education through merit also camethe promise of social and economic mobility, which the state collegestapped into as they expanded their campuses. Athletic programs were avisible representation of this promise. Success on the fields and courtsreflected the skills students would need to thrive in their professionalcareers: sportsmanship exemplified through self control, perseverance,and strength in the face of adversity, as well as hard work, loyalty, andteamwork. But, while the athletes were on the fields honing these skills,other students were in the stands cheering them on, writing about themin the campus newspapers, and marching along the sidelines in theirband uniforms. They too were participating in an athletic tradition that,while new for some of the state colleges, built loyalty among studentsand highlighted a shared culture of hard work, sacrifice, and team-work. As students at Sacramento asserted in their report urging thepresident to embrace football, “The values [of athletics] include thedevelopment of a sense of pride in the athletic phase of the total educa-tional program, the development of tradition and school spirit, sports-manship, and loyalty.”21For these students, and the athletes they cheered on, football andother sports signified that the state colleges were part of a larger aca-demic tradition where students gained the status and character theywould need to successfully climb the socioeconomic ladder. By em-bracing athletics, the students at Sacramento State—and at other statecolleges in California and the nation—further hoped to emphasize thatthey were as capable and deserving of success as were students in thenation’s best universities and colleges. The state colleges were open toall based on merit, but they also promised status, culture, and upwardmobility. Athletics represented both the opening of opportunity and theprivilege that such opportunity afforded. Thus, state colleges, togetherwith their athletic programs, literally and figuratively represented anexpansion of the American Dream to greater numbers of Americans.20John T. Wahlquist, “The Objectives of the San Jose State College,” n.d., [1953?],volume 1, box 36, series VI, Office of the President, John T. Wahlquist, San Jos ́e StateUniversity Archives.21“Policies Governing Intercollegiate Athletics at Sacramento State College, For-mulated Spring, 1953,” folder 9, box 1, Coordinating Executive and Faculty Council,Sacramento State University Archives; Levine,The American College and the Culture ofAspiration, 120; Oriard,King Football, 13–14, 67, 84; Watterson,College Football, 416.

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor439Athletics and sports were not adjuncts to these colleges; they were cen-tral to their purpose and mission.22Athletics gave all students—whether athletes or not—an oppor-tunity to express their allegiances to a college and to signal that theyhad strong character and the ability to succeed. Thus, athletic rivalriesand traditions took on added importance, so much so that students inthe emerging state colleges began to manufacture the traditions asso-ciated with more established teams. In 1956, the student associationat Sacramento State hoped to build a rivalry with the student body atnearby University of California-Davis. “During the few short years thatSacramento State College has been in existence there has developed anintense friendly rivalry between it and the University of California atDavis,” as one student put it. “This rivalry has grown especially in in-tensity since Sacramento State fielded a football team.” The studentswanted to encourage and promote this rivalry. To that end, they soughtto create a new tradition by finding “some appropriate symbol” thatwould “be passed back and forth between the colleges in the manner ofa perpetual trophy for the winner of the annual football game.” Theychanneled their more established peers in hoping for a symbol thatwould have the same cachet “as the Stanford-California Axe, the LittleBrown Jug, the U.C.L.A.-University of Southern California Bell, andother similar traditional symbols.” By 1959, they had their symbol: “asurrey without a fringe on top,” donated by a community member “whohas taken an active interest in school activities.” And with that surrey,they built a rivalry that inspired student support and loyalty and thathighlighted shared traditions with UCLA, the University of Californiaat Davis, and Stanford.23While the students were celebrating their new rivalry and all thatit represented, President West and his colleagues sought to use thesetraditions and college athletic programs—especially winning ones—togain public attention and build their institutions’ reputations. Theyrecognized the potential for intercollegiate athletics to lead to greaterpublic exposure and a fuller embrace of their campuses. As San DiegoState officials declared, “the effect [of athletics] on the morale, spirit, and22Levine,The American College and the Culture of Aspiration, 19, 114, 118–20, 133–34; Oriard,King Football,13–14, 19, 143, 163–64, 226–28; Clark, “The Two Joes Meet.Joe College, Joe Veteran,” 174–78, 189; Clark,Creating the College Man, 14,18–21,80–89, 94–97, 100–102, 109, 116–17.23James H. Morrow to Jer ́e Strizek, 6 June 1956, folder 3, box 4, Student Affairs,Sacramento State University Archives; “Trophy Arrives on Campus,” folder 5, box 4,Student Affairs, Sacramento State University Archives; Oriard,King Football, 13–14, 84;for more information on college life and the development of loyalty and spirit, see HelenLefkowitz Horowitz,Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the EighteenthCentury to the Present(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), 119.

440History of Education Quarterlyloyalty of students, alumni, and other members of the school and com-munity must be recognized.”24College officials did not always knowhow sports might build such loyalty or achieve these goals. Still, theytrusted that athletics would be an effective way to establish an iden-tity and reputation and promote their institutions, since intercollegiatesports easily garnered a significant share of the public attention givento American colleges. For example, in November and December 1952,there were nearly 1,000 stories in local newspapers about San FranciscoState, but over 400 of them focused on athletics.25Consequently, thestate college presidents pushed forward in the expectation that theircampuses would flourish as athletics flourished.As early as 1952 and 1953 when the college presidents and otherofficials were discussing the feasibility of an athletic conference of statecolleges, they had an eye toward public relations and publicity. FerronLosee, the chairman of the division of physical education at Los An-geles State College, proposed calling this new affiliation the CaliforniaCollege Conference. He found ready support for this name, especiallysince “‘Three C’ or ‘Triple C’ would have special appeal for publicitypurposes.” This conference never came into existence, but these of-ficials recognized that such a name easily would be remembered andprovide a ready marketing and branding outlet for the conference andfor the state colleges as a whole.26At a time when sports entrancedthe public and college players were becoming cultural icons, a catchyslogan or title to brand a conference could be a successful way to tapinto that fascination and gain public recognition.President West keenly understood the benefits to be gained froma strong, well-coordinated athletic program. As he worked to build theprogram on his campus, he nurtured relationships with the public andathletic boosters. In one instance, after being berated by “a very staunchsupporter,” he encouraged his athletic director to visit the booster and“chat with him.” After all, as President West put it, this supporter em-ployed “some of our boys from time to time,” and it was in the college’sinterest to maintain friendly relations with him. President West alsorecognized that the booster was getting older and that he was “prettywell situated financially.” Sending the athletic director out to chat withan old man was little price to pay for boosting a citizen’s spirits, keep-ing some of the college’s athletes employed, and possibly reaping larger24“Intercollegiate Athletics at San Diego State College, April 15, 1953.”25“Basis for Budget Request,” no date, folder 52, box 3, J. Paul Leonard Papers,San Francisco State University Archives; Oriard,King Football, 67–70.26“Meeting of the State College Athletic Committee, March 13 and 14, 1952,”folder 11, unprocessed collection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento StateUniversity Archives.

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor441financial rewards later.27Such attention to detail suggested a presidentattuned to sports and athletics on his campus and their potential forbuilding public support.President West further grasped that well-coordinated and con-trolled athletic programs could lead to letters such as the one he receivedin 1962 from an official of the Sacramento City-County Chamber ofCommerce. This official had just returned from watching SacramentoState’s basketball team win a National Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA) divisional tournament. He applauded the president for hav-ing a championship team that made him “extremely proud to be fromSacramento,” and he concluded by claiming that “Sacramento Statemade thousands for friends from coast to coast [with this team], some-thing money can’t buy.”28Such letters were better than the athleticscandals that also could land on presidents’ desks, and these missivesoften had the effect of spurring the state colleges toward bigger and big-ger athletic programs. The presidents were learning that the benefitscould be significant.State Colleges and Athletic ControlHowever, athletics and sports, along with student traditions and rival-ries, could easily take on lives of their own and force the colleges toplay along. The California state colleges struggled to develop a modelthat would harness the benefits of intercollegiate athletics while shield-ing their campuses from the abuses and scandals that could result fromcollege athletic programs. When he agreed to the students’ demand forfootball, President West issued a warning: “For the good of our college,for the good of all of us, and for the good of football as an intercollegiatesport, let’s all keep it clean and decent. Even if we lose the games, wecan grow in spirit and we can still bask in the glory that is SacramentoState College. For we have shown through six years that there are othervalues in higher education that are important, too. Let’s not lose sightof them when some one shouts: ‘We want football!’”29He only had to look at his colleagues in the more establisheduniversities to see that athletics could get out of hand and detract fromthe core educational mission. In the early 1950s, as West and the otherstate college presidents began to debate athletics on their campuses,27Guy A. West to John Baker, 20 November 1957, folder 12, unprocessed collec-tion, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives.28Robert C. Wood to Guy A. West, 20 March 1962, folder 15, unprocessed col-lection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives.29“Statement Concerning the Initiation of Football Presented to the Student As-sembly on December 1, 1953, by Guy A. West, President.”

442History of Education Quarterlyuniversities were caught in point-shaving scandals. Athletic directorsand coaches also repeatedly altered grades and transcripts to get studentsinto colleges and on athletic teams. These and other scandals, at placeslike William and Mary, the second oldest university in the nation, theUniversity of Kentucky, and the United States Military Academy, ledto calls to reform athletics. The American Council on Education, agroup of university and college presidents, organized a committee tostudy intercollegiate athletics and recommend options for reducing theturmoil that plagued sports on these and other campuses.30This committee saw the problem in the increasingly militaristicterms of an evolving Cold War. “Certainly the abuses and suspicion ofabuse now associated with the conduct of intercollegiate athletics fos-ter moral apathy and cynicism in our students—those young men andwomen who increasingly share responsibility for this country’s strengthand freedom.” The committee called for reform of intercollegiate ath-letics for the health and moral well-being of the nation’s young and,indeed, the country as a whole. “In the last analysis, the strength ofour free society depends not only upon armaments but also upon theintegrity of our institutions and our people.” Sports and colleges had sopermeated the American psyche that any scandals or hints of scandal,in the rhetorical tones of the Cold War, threatened the moral fabric ofthe nation.31The report placed the blame for these scandals squarely on exter-nal pressures. “The rewards in money and publicity held out to winningteams, particularly in football and basketball, and the desire of alumni,civic bodies, and other groups to see the institutions in which they areinterested reap such rewards, have had a powerful influence on manycolleges and universities.” To combat this situation, the ACE commit-tee made a number of recommendations, including curtailing boostergroups and their role in providing incentives and subsidies to studentsand potential recruits, ending postseason play, establishing coachingsalaries in line with faculty salaries, and reasserting faculty control,which it saw as having been decimated at the hands of booster clubs andcivic groups. It also proposed that regional accrediting agencies shouldmonitor and control athletics. This proposed reform essentially wouldhave tied college accreditation to athletic policy.32The ACE called on all colleges and universities to embrace thesereforms and to do so before the public lost patience with and faith in30Watterson,College Football, 219–27; Thelin,Games Colleges Play, 100–107.31“Report of the Special Committee on Athletic Policy of the American Councilon Education,” folder 13, unprocessed collection, Office of the President (Guy West),Sacramento State University Archives, 1.32“Report of the Special Committee on Athletic Policy of the American Councilon Education,” 1.

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor443higher education. What the committee may have forgotten, however,was that the public pushed for winning athletic programs and often sawthese teams as the public face of a college. The balance between athlet-ics and academics was tilting in favor of athletics, and the ACE’s callsfor reform, even couched in moral terms, were not going to measurablychange that reality. Indeed, the NCAA quickly went on the defensiveand argued against the need for regional accrediting organizations to beinvolved in college athletics. It essentially recommended self-policing,and the ACE committee, made up of presidents facing NCAA pressuresand significant public expectations, never mustered the courage, con-viction, or strength to push resolutely against strident opposition to itsreforms.33It was in this context of scandal and proposed reforms that Cal-ifornia’s state colleges debated a role for athletics. Many college ad-ministrators feared that scandals would engulf their campuses if theymoved fully toward sports and athletics, but they also knew that athlet-ics might help them grow and expand. They struggled to build athleticprograms that would remain amateur in nature and would adhere tothe spirit of the ACE reforms. For many college officials, the best wayfor athletics to accomplish this mission was to conceptualize sports asa key part of “the total educational service of the institution.”34As SanDiego State asserted in 1953, “The athletics program is a valid partof education only as it contributes to the total education of youth,”and an important part of this total growth, the presidents collectivelyaffirmed, was a focus on “the development of democratic attitudes andpractices.”35In tones that echoed statements from other college presi-dents in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they argued that ath-letics would develop graduates—whether players or spectators—withstrong moral character, leadership skills, and the ability to live pro-ductively in a democracy.36Moreover, athletics would educate studentsand the public to appreciate hard work, cooperation and teamwork, andinitiative.To ensure that athletics supported this goal, the state collegesdeveloped layers of control and supervision that, in reality, created33“Report of the Special Committee on Athletic Policy of the American Council onEducation”; Watterson,College Football, 227–40; Thelin,Games Colleges Play, 107–16.34“Minutes of State College Presidents Conference, April 23 and 24, 1952,” Folder6786, box COU001, California State University Executive Council Meeting Minutes,CSU System Archives, California State University, Dominguez Hills Archives.35“Intercollegiate Athletics at San Diego State College, April 15, 1953”; “Statementof Functions of the California State Colleges, November 10, 1953,” folder 6796, boxCOU001, California State University Executive Council Meeting Minutes, CSU SystemArchives, California State University, Dominguez Hills Archives.36See Grundy,Learning to Win, 5–7, 13, 18–21; Clark,Creating the College Man;Watterson,College Football; Ingrassia, “Public Influence Inside the College Walls.”

444History of Education Quarterlya convoluted authority structure. As was similar on other state col-lege campuses, Sacramento State funded much of its athletic programthrough student fees and the student body’s governing council, whichhad the authority to determine how these fees would be disbursed andspent. This practice meant that the student body, through its electedrepresentatives, expected to have some authority over athletics. How-ever, faculty refused to cede control over this crucial aspect of thecollege and demanded mechanisms for athletic oversight. In practice,this usually meant some sort of joint student-faculty advisory board, inaddition to the normal oversights and structures associated with collegedepartments and programs. It was not always clear who was in con-trol.37Not surprisingly then, as President West of Sacramento Staterecognized, athletic scandals inevitably would land on the president’sdesk. “Wherever football has led to embarrassment,” he said, and hecould have included most sports here, “it has been primarily the ad-ministration rather than the students or faculty that has had to face thepublic.” Students, alumni, and the public pushed colleges and univer-sities to embrace athletics, but Sacramento’s president understood thathe would be responsible for dealing with problems and scandals.38It was in the presidents’ interests, then, to develop safeguards tokeep athletics from deteriorating into a scandal-prone division of thecollege. Conceptualizing athletics as part of the overall educational pro-gram would not be enough, and key to additional efforts was the creationof an athletic conference of the California state colleges in 1952. Thepresidents promoted this conference to ensure that the state collegesplayed only against each other and against teams with similar educa-tional goals and missions. They failed to create such a conference, inpart because the state colleges included newer institutions with weakerteams that feared having to compete against the larger state collegesand their better athletic programs.39Even though they struggled with their conference aspirations, thestate college presidents embraced many of the proposed ACE reformsand agreed to certain stipulations in the development of their athleticprograms. Principally, athletics would be part of the “regular instruc-tional program” and would be housed in colleges of education and37See, for example, “Sacramento State College, Policies for Intercollegiate Athlet-ics,” folder 314, box 18, J. Paul Leonard Papers, San Francisco State University Archives;“Minutes of the Executive Council Meeting, June 4, 1958,” folder 11, box 1, ExecutiveCouncil, Sacramento State University Archives; and “Sacramento State College, Di-vision of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, June 4, 1958,” folder 11, box 1,Executive Council, Sacramento State University Archives.38Guy A. West to Jim Warren and Gene Jensen, 12 June 1953, folder 14, box 1,Faculty Council, Sacramento State University Archives.39“Minutes of State College Presidents Conference, April 23 and 24, 1952.”

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor445physical education departments. As members of these departments,coaches would be “teacher-coaches” and would not have their salariessupplemented by alumni booster clubs or any outside sources, as wascommon among big league university athletic programs. As SacramentoState’s president declared, these faculty-coaches further would not bejudged by their win-loss records. They would be members of the reg-ular instructional staff and have similar salaries, tenure opportunities,and privileges.40The state colleges also claimed that athletics would beopen to all and that any enrolled student would be eligible to play on acollege’s athletic teams. Finally, seasons would be regulated to fit withinthe colleges’ regular academic terms, and no team would be allowed toparticipate in postseason bowl games.41Moreover, as San Diego State asserted, in no way were coachesto be active scouts who would compete for the best high school orjunior college athletes by holding out the promise of special offers andprivileges in financial aid or housing.42Scholarships and other aid wouldbe granted only according to criteria established for all students, and noathlete would receive any special considerations or privileges. Outsidegifts to athletes or athletic teams from alumni or other athletic boosterswould not be allowed.43President West and his ACE counterpartsunderstood that such gifts and privileges had been “the first step downthe path to very undesirable football conditions elsewhere.”44This stipulation hindered the colleges’ abilities to recruit promis-ing athletes. However, in practice, some state colleges worked aroundthis requirement and provided “work aid,” or guaranteed job opportu-nities on and off campus for athletes. Public boosters were essential toensuring that the colleges could provide athletes with such opportuni-ties. The key factor, these colleges announced, was that athletes wouldbe working legitimate jobs and would only be paid for the work theyactually did. While these colleges technically may not have been violat-ing the ban on outside gifts or special consideration for athletes, theywere increasingly engaging in creative options for getting around these40“Sacramento State College, Policies for Intercollegiate Athletics”; see also “In-tercollegiate Athletics at San Diego State College, April 15, 1953.”41“Minutes of State College Presidents Conference, April 23 and 24, 1952”; “Ath-letic Committee Report of Council of State College Presidents, May 27–28, 1952,”folder 9, box 1, Coordinating Executive and Faculty Council, Sacramento State Uni-versity Archives; “Meeting of the State College Athletic Committee, March 13 and 14,1952.”42“Intercollegiate Athletics at San Diego State College, April 15, 1953.”43“Minutes of State College Presidents Conference, April 23 and 24, 1952”; “Ath-letic Committee Report of Council of State College Presidents, May 27–28, 1952”;“Meeting of the State College Athletic Committee, March 13 and 14, 1952.”44Guy A. West to F. Eugene Jensen, 20 November 1953, folder 12, unprocessedcollection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives.

446History of Education Quarterlybans.45Even Sacramento State interpreted these stipulations loosely.As the chairman of the division housing athletics stated, “All of thecoaches and I have put in lots of time developing channels and contactsleading to part-time [off-campus] jobs for athletes.”46These colleges were striving to fit athletics within their educa-tional mission, while also reaping the rewards from successful athleticprograms. It was a delicate balance. They wanted good sports programsthat would build pride and loyalty, and they hoped to encourage studentand public involvement while avoiding the scandals of big-time athlet-ics. Increasingly, they found it difficult to maintain such a balance. Formuch of the 1950s, the state colleges lived within the boundaries stip-ulated by the state college presidents, but as they developed their ath-letic programs, they quickly understood that alumni and boosters wererarely happy with these regulations. In California and elsewhere, alumniassociations and public groups pushed the colleges to shed onerous re-quirements, build stronger programs, and pursue ever more favorablewin-loss records.Alumni Unrest and the Emergence of Big-Time FootballSan Jose State, in particular, chafed against the state college restric-tions, and its president was buffeted by frustrated alumni and citizenswho demanded successful athletic programs. These frustrations helpedprecipitate a crisis in 1957 that marked the emergence of big-time ath-letics for this college. Tracing its history back to 1857, the collegehad an established athletic program with a loyal following of alumniand community citizens, but these supporters, once treated to footballglories, came to expect and demand success. Colleges throughout thecountry used athletics to build support, but boosters could get out ofhand, as San Jose’s president discovered. Vocal citizens in the San Josearea feared that the caliber of athletics was declining on campus, andthey demanded change.San Jose’s president found himself challenged in ways that hispeers across the country certainly understood. The self-styled “Citi-zens Committee for a Progressive San Jose State College” expected thepresident to commit the college to strengthening the program that al-ready existed and live up to its history of success in athletics. “Composedof individuals representing varied interest groups,” this committee had,it stated, “but one objective in mind—to help our college through this45H. J. McCormick to President West, 8 January 1957, folder 14, unprocessedcollection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacramento State University Archives.46Ibid.

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor447difficult period of rapid growth,” as it made the transition to a compre-hensive college. Specifically, it focused on football, which it saw as thecornerstone of a successful athletic program and a strong university.“Sports in general, and football in particular,” the committee stated, “isthe one activity emanating from the campus which commands the mostnotoriety and publicity. For, after all, football is the ‘show case’ of thecollege.” It argued that San Jose had lost its way and had disgraced itsearlier tradition of success. Throughout the 1930s, prior to World WarII, the college had a strong athletic program, with the football teamenjoying an undefeated season in 1939. Those were the glory days, and“for all intent and purpose,” the committee declared, “San Jose Statewas ‘on its way.’”47That situation remained the case until 1952, the committee ar-gued, when the president retired and John Wahlquist moved into thepresident’s office. For the committee, the problem was that the newpresident was not fully committed to athletics and specifically to theheavy recruitment of and subsidies to star players that would be nec-essary to field a winning football team. President Wahlquist arguedthat he had to abide by the new state college rules that expressly pro-hibited such subsidies. As a result, the team’s win-loss record—for thecommittee, the only thing that really mattered—tilted ominously to-ward the loss column. From 1946 to 1951, the team won thirty-sevengames, lost ten, and tied two. From 1952 to 1957, they remained awinning team, although they won only twenty-six games, while losingtwenty-three and tying three. “Obviously,” the committee concluded,“San Jose State is not now ‘on its way.’”48The team was suffering, andsince the committee tied the team’s fortunes to its own, the college andthe community were suffering.The president’s sin, his accusers charged, was to adhere to theseconstraints on recruitment, training, and subsidies while also schedulingbig-time opponents. Such restrictions might have been tenable had SanJose also not had to play against stronger teams—such as Arizona StateUniversity and Iowa State University—that provided scholarships andadditional subsidies. In contrast, the committee claimed, “the coachingstaff [at San Jose] can offeronlythe possibility of a job on the cam-pus,” which created a recruiting imbalance that hindered San Jose fromhaving a realistic chance of beating its big-league opponents. The com-mittee wanted the president to unshackle San Jose from these rules, and,after seeking an opinion from the state’s attorney general and the board47“Citizens Committee for a Progressive San Jose State College, November 7,1957,” folder 14, unprocessed collection, Office of the President (Guy West), Sacra-mento State University Archives.48Ibid.

448History of Education Quarterlyof education, the committee argued that San Jose did not legally haveto adhere to the state college regulations. It demanded that the collegemove toward big-time athletics with tuition payments and subsidies thatmatched its elite peers.49The alumni foundation fully supported this campaign and anymove toward stronger athletic programs. For this group, a college’sreputation was essential to the opportunities available to alumni. It wasnot enough simply to get an education or to gain “basic knowledge andtraining,” as the president of the alumni association put it. Graduatesdeserved more and those additional benefits depended on the stature ofthe college. “Our investment,” he wrote, “should provide the ultimatein economic and social opportunity. No door should remain closed be-cause of the lack of sufficient educational stature, real or imagined.”Students attended college in the hope that they would gain a creden-tial that would unlock professional doors, allow them to move higheron the socioeconomic ladder, or, at least, retain the standing of theirparents. Unfortunately, the alumni president concluded, San Jose grad-uates were not getting all that they should from their education, andthe only way to gain more from their diploma was to improve the repu-tation of the institution. As others had argued, including the students atSacramento, athletics was the answer. A thriving athletic program—inparticular football—would help San Jose State establish a solid reputa-tion that would distinguish it from the other colleges in the state. Inturn, this reputation would benefit graduates looking for jobs. San Jose’salumni and supporters, however, feared that the college’s standing wasdeteriorating with every football defeat. Consequently, the alumni asso-ciation supported calls for a stronger, more robust, and more successfulathletic program, and increased the pressures on President Wahlquist.The stakes were high both on and off the field.50During a meeting to discuss the future of athletics at San JoseState, one alumni—also a member of the citizens committee pushing fora stronger football program—argued that successful football programsnot only enhanced a college’s reputation and opportunities for graduatesbut also united alumni and students, and gave them purpose, hope,and identity. As this former student put it, “We are the poor people.We [at San Jose State] have the greatest inferiority complex of anyinstitution of higher learning” in California. But, he continued, football49Ibid.50Your Stake in Higher Education and Athletics”; Levine,The American College andthe Culture of Aspiration, 19, 114, 118–20, 133–34; Oriard,King Football, 13–14, 19, 143,163–64, 226–28; Clark, “The Two Joes Meet. Joe College, Joe Veteran,” 174–78, 189;Clark,Creating the College Man, 14,18–21, 80–81, 84–89, 94–97, 100–102, 109, 116–17.For a discussion of changes in the college degree in the 1950s, see Horowitz,CampusLife, 187–92.

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor449and athletics had given the college important traditions, as well as hopefor improvement in standing and stature. “I guarantee you,” he said, “theday that every Alumni in San Jose State College rejoiced was the day thatSan Jose beat Stanford. Why? Because we said, for a day, for a weekend,for a week, until next year, we have lost our feeling of inferiority.” Thefuture for the college, he believed, rested on improving the footballsituation. It was one of the few traditions that alumni “can hang theirhats onto.” Athletics, he concluded, was the “heart” of the college. “Ifyou take the heart, the spirit, the essence out of this institution, thenyou have killed it for all time.”51San Jose beat Stanford and, by doing so, gained credibility and,alumni hoped, some of the prestige associated with Stanford. For alumniand students, a victory against Stanford was a way to signal that SanJose was no longer a sleepy teachers college but a strong and legitimateuniversity that deserved to be seen among the nation’s better collegesand universities. Athletics was not simply a game for San Jose’s alumni.It was a serious factor in the development and identity of the collegeand, by extension, the students and alumni. Their standing and theiridentity rested on their college and its success on the gridiron.52This emphasis on the role of athletics in creating alumni and com-munity pride underscored the importance of these colleges to theircommunities. As they wrestled with what it meant to be new—in thecase of Sacramento—or in transition from teachers colleges to compre-hensive institutions—in the case of San Jose and San Francisco—theyemphasized their role in their communities. This focus on regionalneeds had long been part of higher education and had pushed pub-lic universities toward outreach and extension activities—perhaps mostreadily exemplified by the Wisconsin Idea at the turn of the twentiethcentury. The state colleges sought to continue and further these out-reach efforts as they made the transition to comprehensive colleges.53As public institutions where students received a heavily subsidized51“Presentation of Mr. E. F. De Vilbiss, spokesman for the SJSC Alumni Associa-tion and member of the ‘Citizens Committee for a Progressive San Jose State College,’before a community hearing on November 12, 1957,” folder—Athletic Controversy,1957, box 14, series 1, Presidential Office Administrative Records, San Jos ́e State Uni-versity Archives.52For a discussion of athletics and identity, see Grundy,Learning to Win,5–9;Watterson,College Football, 416; Levine,The American College and the Culture of Aspiration,19, 114, 118–20, 133–34; Oriard,King Football, 13–14, 19, 143, 163–64, 226–28; Clark,“The Two Joes Meet. Joe College, Joe Veteran,” 174–78, 189; Clark,Creating the CollegeMan, 14,18–21, 80–81, 84–89, 94–97, 100–102, 109, 116–17; Smith,Sports and Freedom,218.53Laurence Veysey,The Emergence of the American University(Chicago: The Uni-versity of Chicago Press, 1965), 104–11; Thelin,History of American Higher Education,137–38.

450History of Education Quarterlyeducation at taxpayer expense and as relatively young institutions thatdid not command the prestige or have the standing of the state’s flag-ship institutions, the state colleges felt an overriding responsibility inthis area.As the state colleges collectively affirmed in 1953, “each college hasspecial responsibilities as an institution serving the educational needs ofits region,” and this responsibility meant, for example, focusing on theneeds of area citizens, assisting school systems, and serving “businessesand other interests in the region.”54Many did so by developing strongcultural programs and off-campus courses for community citizens. But,one of the best ways to reach the larger public and fulfill an outreachmission was to create a strong sense of regional unity and identity. Thepreferred way to accomplish this goal, they believed, was to concentratethe community’s energies on the college campus and to instill pride andloyalty in the campus through a winning athletic program. In theory,athletics fulfilled many regional needs and hopes by providing leisureopportunities for fans, building connections between college and highschool coaches, supplying teachers and coaches for the lower schools,and giving businesses a reason to cheer as athletics brought money tothe area. Crucially, for alumni and others, athletics solidified a focus forcommunity energies and enthusiasm.The San Jose citizens committee increasingly recognized this out-reach role. Community demands, the committee argued, must be val-ued, and this committee wanted a winning football team as a basis forcommunity identity and pride. “Each of the state colleges is a commu-nity college,” the committee stated. “Each should cater to the needsof that community,” and it condemned the president for not acting“in the best interests of the community” when it came to athletics andfootball.55The problem for the committee was Wahlquist’s adherenceto the state college code for athletics, which essentially obligated eachstate college president to adhere to a broad set of principles, regardlessof the size of the institution, its ambitions, its athletic aspirations, orits community needs. The committee pushed Wahlquist to ignore thecode in favor of building a strong football program for the benefit ofthe community. As the state college presidents had hoped, their insti-tutions were becoming regional colleges that boosted community prideand identity, but, in this case, that pride threatened the authority of thepresident.Wahlquist understood the powerful role that athletics and commu-nity pride could play in the development of his campus. He too wanted54“Statement of Functions of the California State Colleges, November 10, 1953.”55“Citizens Committee for a Progressive San Jose State College, November 7,1957.”

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor451a stronger program and wished to abandon or, at least, loosen the statecollege code and facilitate athletic growth. He pushed for greater flex-ibility that would allow San Jose State to recruit and subsidize playersand be more in line with the athletic conference he hoped to join.But, the state college presidents consistently rebuffed such efforts, andWahlquist argued therefore that he was bound to adhere to the statecollege athletic code.56Nonetheless, Wahlquist hoped to build a strong football programas a way to separate his college from the other state colleges, whichwere continuing to grow and compete with San Jose for students andpublic support. The state opened new campuses and proposed new onesthroughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. While demand was great forspots on these campuses, Wahlquist was concerned with his institution’sstanding and ability to recruit top students, and he sought to strengthenhis institution’s standing and reputation. Building a better football andathletic program, without the constraints of the state college code, hebelieved, would assist in these efforts. Joining the more prestigiousPacific Coast Conference would further distinguish his institution.He concluded that this conference and its teams were more in linewith San Jose State’s goals and aspirations. As the oldest public collegein the state, he argued that his institution “in terms of enrollmentsand facilities” was “more than comparable with most of the collegesin the P.C.C.,” such as the University of Washington, the Universityof Oregon, and the University of California campuses in Los Angelesand Berkeley.57As was the case among other state colleges throughoutthe nation, Wahlquist angled to use conference affiliation to stress hiscampus’s aspirations. Joining a larger conference with better teams fromprestigious universities, especially those from outside the state, woulddistinguish his institution from California’s state colleges and give SanJose an identity as a major player, which, in turn, would appease thealumni.The faculty agreed. “Recognizing the rapid growth and academicachievements of San Jose State,” the faculty recommended “that ev-ery attempt be made to affiliate with a major athletic conference sothat competition in all sports will be with schools of similar size andachievements.”58San Jose State would remain part of the California56“Frank Leahy Recognizes San Jose State Bid to Reach Football ‘Big Time,’”SanJose Evening News, 25 November 1955, box 20, series III, Office of the President, JohnT. Wahlquist, San Jos ́e State University Archives.57John T. Wahlquist to Victor Schmidt, 8 February 1957, book 1, box 36, seriesVI, Office of the President, John T. Wahlquist, San Jos ́e State University Archives.58Faculty recommendation quoted in “Sparta Goes Major League,”Spartan Review,April–May 1957, box 1, series 1, University Archives Publications Collection, San Jos ́eState University Archives.

452History of Education Quarterlysystem of state colleges, but it also would work diligently to be at thetop of the state colleges and be comparable to the larger public univer-sities throughout the western states. Competition on the football fieldamong the California colleges carried over to competition in generalfor students, stature, and identity.59San Jose’s alumni were correct inrecognizing the potential role of athletics, and Wahlquist worked toensure that they lost their “feeling of inferiority” and could be proud oftheir alma mater.However, Wahlquist disliked the citizens committee and its threatto his leadership and control of the campus and athletics. This citizensgroup was becoming the type of booster club that the ACE and the statecollege presidents had warned against in the early 1950s, and Wahlquistfeared a vocal alumni association and booster group that sought todictate college athletic policy. Therefore, he had to maneuver carefullythrough these demands, but he used this discontent to his advantageas he pushed for greater flexibility for his campus’s athletic program.He did not protest when the citizens committee petitioned the stateto release San Jose from the state college athletic stipulations. Thegroup essentially argued that San Jose could not be held accountableto such policies since the state college presidents had no authority asan informal group to develop policies for all state colleges. Wahlquistused this pressure similarly to push the state to release his college.Through his repeated efforts and the fervor of alumni and citizens,the state eventually released San Jose State from the restrictions of thestate college code. By this time, the Pacific Coast Conference was em-broiled in multiple scandals and close to collapsing, but it had not beenreceptive to Wahlquist’s earlier inquiries on membership.60He mayhave hoped to affiliate with this conference but that did not mean thatthe conference wanted to accept him or his institution. Consequently,he pushed his campus toward the West Coast Athletic Conference,which encouraged the kind of tuition payments and other subsidies thatWahlquist hoped would allow the college to compete effectively againstlarger and better teams as a big-time football player.61The college hadfirmly embraced athletics and now increased that drive and focus to59“A Case of Sour Grapes,”Spartan Daily, 14 May 1957, book 1, box 36, series VI,Office of the President, John T. Wahlquist, San Jos ́e State University Archives; “SpartaGoes Major League.”60Thelin,Games Colleges Play, 129–47, Watterson,College Football, 281–83.61“SJS Athletic Meet Tonight,” n.d. and no publication name, box 31, series V,Office of the President, John T. Wahlquist, San Jos ́e State University Archives; “DanCaputo President of SJS Foundation,”San Jose Mercury, 16 January 1958, box 31, seriesV, Office of the President, John T. Wahlquist, San Jos ́e State University Archives.

Out of the Quietness, a Clamor453improve the football team and, by extension, he and alumni hoped, thecollege and region as a whole.62Once it had started to play the game, San Jose State found that itcould not easily step off the field. Its only choice was to play even harderand more aggressively in response to student, alumni, and public de-mands. To assist in these efforts, the college supported the developmentof an athletic foundation to raise funds for the football program andathletics generally. The college needed these efforts to be successful sothat it could afford to provide tuition and other subsidies to players in aneffort to recruit stronger athletes for its big-time program.63San Josewas moving quickly toward the policies and programs that PresidentWest in Sacramento had warned against when he granted the students’wish for football. Wahlquist found that, if he wanted to compete in thebig leagues, he had to embrace the very booster groups that the statecollege presidents had argued were detrimental and that had causedconflict on other campuses throughout the nation. He was setting hisinstitution on a path toward big-time athletics, but that also meant thatthe threat of scandals, turmoil, and conflict would be even greater.ConclusionWahlquist and many alumni and community citizens wanted a betterfootball program. They all argued that big-time football would increasethe college’s reputation and allow the institution to better meet theneeds of greater numbers of students as it continued its progress towardbeing a comprehensive institution. The allure was too strong to resist.The college determined that it could only be a big league school ifit competed in big-time athletics, but San Jose’s experiences were acautionary tale for Sacramento and the other colleges that were buildingathletic programs and traditions. These programs, while encouragingcommunity interest and support, could quickly become dominated bythose community expectations and by a public that was accustomed toand demanded winning seasons. As San Jose State learned, alumni andcitizens zealously guarded a football program’s reputation.Once San Jose and the other state colleges had gained a repu-tation on the field, they had to maintain that or face the wrath oftheir supporters. These colleges had an opportunity to develop a newmodel of athletics and academics, and they had tried to follow therecommendations of the ACE committee as they sought to build strong62“Frank Leahy Recognizes San Jose State Bid to Reach Football ‘Big Time.’”63“Dan Caputo President of SJS Foundation”; “Spartan Foundation,”Campus Di-gest, 14 February 1958, box 33, series VI, Office of the President, John T. Wahlquist,San Jos ́e State University Archives.

454History of Education Quarterlyathletic programs that also contributed to institutional goals and aspi-rations. Rather than crafting a new approach, however, they furtherenshrined athletics as part of American colleges and popular culture,and promoted the notion that athletics and college were synonymous.Once that happened, it was almost inevitable that state colleges wouldmove toward ever more successful athletic programs and push againstpolicies that threatened success. Once they had started to play the game,the state colleges had to continue playing it, and the stakes increasedevery season. Once President West granted the students’ petition forfootball, it was difficult for him and the other college presidents to stopand objectively examine what athletics really could accomplish. Fromthe first kickoff on Sacramento’s new campus, the institution and itspeers were committed to a game they could not afford to lose.