Early History of Lacrosse at Hobart College
By John Marks, Curator
My April blog post ended in 1867 with the surge of Canadian non-Native interest in lacrosse. Geneva newspapers of the time didn’t mention lacrosse. However, with Haudenosaunee reservations and Canada nearby, it’s highly likely that people knew about the game.
The Geneva papers did report early college lacrosse games. The first was November 22, 1877 between New York University (NYU) and Manhattan College. By 1882 other teams included Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Yale.
Lacrosse came to Hobart in the fall of 1897. Dr. Joseph Leighton (1870-1954) was hired as the college chaplain and professor of philosophy. He was an Ontario, Canada native and graduate of Toronto University, which had one of the best non-Native teams. Although little is written about his college playing, Leighton is credited with starting Cornell’s team in 1892 when he attended graduate school.
The 1898 Hobart lacrosse team.
Dr. Leighton recruited his team in the fall, and they played their first game on May 5, 1898. The Hobart Herald wrote, “A new department in athletics has shown itself very much alive in college. On Thursday, May 5th, the Hobart Lacrosse team played the Cornell Lacrosse team by a score of 2 – 1… It is seldom that so many men have been found on the campus taking regular exercise as this year, and lacrosse deserves its share of credit for bringing about this condition…all encouragement to Dr. Leighton in introducing the game.”
The 1898 captain was senior Jay Byington Covert. The Geneva native was a standout athlete in football, baseball, and track. Although he only played lacrosse one season at Hobart, he played at Columbia University where he attended medical school. Dr. Covert returned to Geneva and played a large role in developing and supporting lacrosse here, but that will wait for another post.
Dr. Leighton coached the team until 1906, leading them to their first winning season in 1902. Although a 30-something year old faculty member, he was allowed to play as well. In 1910 Leighton left Hobart for Ohio State University where he was head of the Department of Philosophy until his retirement in 1941. He was inducted into the Hobart Hall of Fame in 2003.
For more information about lacrosse in Geneva, watch this video.
John, Great Series that you are doing on Lacross. Thanks for taking the time to do all of the associated research. Much appreciated!!