As a sophomore at Kenyon College in 1965, I ignored the opportunities offered by the college’s eminent teaching faculty, the many vibrant service organizations, an inclusive athletic program, several ambitious journals, and the excellent theater department. I was what was then known as a “wastrel”, a squanderer, a ne’er-do-well, a profession I maintained in part for the subsequent four decades. I did enjoy music however, particularly a cappella music, and had just enough initiative to dragoon a dozen unwary associates into the “Kokosingers”, a name referencing the college’s setting above the Kokosing River in Central Ohio. The group still exists; more than sixty of us, including the current group, assembled from across the decades to perform at the college’s 200th birthday celebration. 

A few of us from my generation live in New England and rehearse and perform as “Koke Klassics”, trotting out old tunes and a number of relatively new numbers for the edification or amusement of captive audiences, most of whom meet us in resident facilities for seniors. The pleasure in singing  is ours, no matter how responsive the audience; Our program includes standards from The Great American Songbook, a few relatively contemporary numbers, and a few old college songs. I returned from a college reunion with a “fight”song that appears to have emerged at Kenyon at the turn of the Twentieth Century.  It’s been fun recovering the four-part “Stand Up and Cheer For Dear Old Kenyon”, including what was apparently a boisterous college cheer, “Hika, Hika, Hey!”, but my attempts to track down the origin of that cheer have not brought much success.

It’s clear it was a football cheer, and, in fact, seems to have been a common expression of greeting when meeting on the college’s historic Middle Path, maybe up to the 1930’s. I intend to offer it when I next walk Middle Path; we’ll see if it catches on again.

I did find some good information in the December 15, 1905 edition of The Collegian, including the identification of “The Big Six Conference” – Kenyon, Wesleyan, Oberlin, Case, OSU, and Western Reserve. In the 1905 season Kenyon beat Wittenberg (2-0), Otterbein (17-0), and Ohio Wesleyan (20-0), but got pretty well thumped elsewhere, losing to Ohio State 23-0. In 1898, Kenyon played both Ohio State and Michigan. 

Hika Hika Hey!

I went back to the 1905 Collegian again in the hope of finding a guide to Kenyon’s cheers at the turn of the (last). century and realized that the entire issue was directed toward the viability of football at Kenyon and in collegiate life. I did find a “Hika” reference as well as a reference to “Wahoo” as the comparable rejoinder from Ohio State, but also came away surprised and impressed by the quality of journalism the paper offered.

The Collegian was printed every other Friday in 1905. Fred J. Hartman ’06 was editor. Here’s two paragraphs from the lead story describing what was then a national conversation, the second of which contains the Hika reference:

“Kenyon has closed its fifteenth season of intercollegiate football. The termination of the season finds the game of football in a position which demands an answer to the question the Collegian of eight years ago asked, “Shall the game be crushed out of American schools , or shall it, altered and improved, to be continued as the great American game?”

The piece continues –

“As to the antagonistic spirit aroused in the intercollegiate games, the experience of the past season calls for an absolute denial. For never before, since Kenyon has been a member of The Big Six, has such a friendly disposition been awakened in her contests with other members of that organization. In her games with Oberlin, Case, Ohio State, and Ohio Wesleyan, sincere and genuine good feeling was a marked feature. It is seldom that the “Hika” and the “Wahoo” are exchanged in that spirit which was so manifest on the Columbus gridiron as the case on November 4th. Consequently, the Kenyon followers have no flaw to pick along this direction.”

I suspect “genuine good feeling” is less commonly observed in the contemporary experience of football at Michigan or Ohio State, but I have no flaw to pick in my observation of the great rivalries among colleges not tangled in the frantic semi-professionalism of major market collegiate sports. “Stand Up and Cheer” was adapted by E.W. Peake, Class of 1911 and includes the line, “For today we raise the Mauve above the Red and Gray,” “Mauve” denoting Kenyon’s signature hue, purple containing more gray and blue than magenta, and Ohio State’s colors, now more commonly known as Scarlet and Gray. 

I don’t mourn the loss of rivalry with Ohio State, a fool’s attachment, but I regret the absence of the sort of rivalry my wife’s alma mater, Williams, enjoys with Amherst, a college of similar size, tradition, and ambition. I had written a sentence that began, “Nobody gets very excited on the eve of …”, intending to pick a name from the contemporary ranks of football opponents, chose Oberlin as the most similar in terms of academic reputation, went to the Oberlin athletic site to make sure they were as unenthused as I suspected we were, only to find this article:

“Recounting Oberlin’s Storied Rivalry with Kenyon College,” wherein the author suggests: “It is often said that familiarity breeds contempt, and this has certainly been the case for Oberlin and its longtime rival, Kenyon College. Formed from frequent athletic matches and the similarity between the two schools, this rivalry has been embedded in the cultures of both schools; the Yeomen and the Owls have been close competitors for as long as students and faculty can remember.”

Oberlin’s first football team was coached in 1892 by John Heisman, of Heisman Trophy fame, an outstanding player and coach who led Oberlin to an undefeated season, both coaching and occasionally playing, defeating Ohio State twice and the University of Michigan once. This dominant team was known as The “O” Men. I remember being pretty impressed with “Yeomen” as a team name, assuming it came from somewhere in the various iterations of the tales of Robin Hood, as virtuous land owners stood up to the cabal headed by a rapacious and usurping Prince John. Turns out, just an upgrade on “O” Men. On other hand, Kenyon’s teams, like Amherst’s, were nicknamed “The Lords”, after a founding benefactor, Lord Kenyon. A generation of “Lords” and “Ladies” played before good sense prevailed and Kenyon’s team became The Owls, referencing the owls that call from the depths of the Kokosing River.

An interesting and unexpected window into the absence of “genuine good feeling” with regard to Kenyon, however, opened as I parked my car displaying a Kenyon license plate at an event in Williamstown honoring the former coach of the Williams swimming and diving program, a wonderful man and an important figure in my wife’s time at Williams. Kenyon won something like 31 consecutive NCAA swimming championships during the years that many of those swimming for Williams had competed. For one fleeting moment, as a former Williams swimmer spotted my Kenyon plate, I felt the pull of rivalry.

“Gambier is so NOT a town compared to Williamstown!” The reference to Kenyon’s location may be the least injurious slight to which the college will ever be victim, and I walked away unscathed, slightly puzzled, but aware that for some, my college had provided a meaningful rivalry. 

This dive into college rivalries has been diverting and has given me just enough momentum to post the first article in several months.

Just to provide a slight touch of perspective, however, the most impressive team of the late 1800s were the 1899 Sewanee Tigers, winner of 12 games between October 21 and December 2, defeating:

Georgia, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Southwestern Presbyterian, Texas, Texas A&M, Tulane, LSU, Ole Miss, Cumberland, Auburn, and North Carolina.

The 18 “Iron Men” of Sewanee played all 12 games on the road.

Oh, and they were unscored upon.