became head coach for 1920-21. For both coaches and players no one was more helpful than Jack F. Rourke who came to Colgate in 1910 as athletic trainer and track coach. His understanding and kindly Irish wit were as important for morale as his massages, wintergreen oil, and miles of tape for injured arms and legs.
The World War I period was only an interlude in Colgate’s history and the University resumed its normal role easily and quickly at its end. Soon after the declaration of war in 1917 students were drilling on Whitnall Field and an unsuccessful attempt was initiated to have the War Department establish a training unit on the campus. As tension mounted approximately three-fourths of the student body of about 600 left by May to join the armed services or go into some form of “war , work,” especially farming, and the year closed on the 25th with no commencement. The University opened in October with an enrollment of 434 in the College, a reduction of about 20 percent from that in 1916. Under the direction of Lt. Col. James Ballentine, D.S.O., of Canada, all able-bodied students were required to take military drill. As far as possible classes and other activities went on as usual with the year ending early in May. From October to December 1918, however, Colgate was a military installation with a unit of the Students’ Army Training Corps under the command of Major L. B. Lawton, a West Point graduate who had served in the Spanish American War and in China, and a staff of eight officers. Of the 400 students in the College, 388 met the physical requirements and were inducted. In addition to two army units there was a naval section of 50 men. The dormitories became barracks, the Commons the mess hall, the Phi Kappa Psi house the naval quarters; the officers occupied the Delta Kappa Epsilon house and the gymnasium was the headquarters. Cooperation between the military staff and the faculty was cordial and Major Lawton sought to preserve some semblance of the spirit of peace time by such means as daily chapel, student “sings” and brief fraternity meetings on weekends. Athletics and most extracurricular activities were suspended.
Colgate’s war record shows that of about 3,000 living alumni 1,440 saw some form of service including S.A.T.C. Of these 363 held commissions: 283 in the Army, 55 in the Navy, 2 in the Marines, and 23 in the Chaplains Corps. Casualties among Colgate men numbered 22, the first of which was 1st Lieutenant Lloyd Ludwig, ’17, who was killed when his plane crashed on February 28, 1918.
With the war over, plans immediately went forward for Colgate’s
