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POLO MEMORABILA |
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There
was a heck of a bronze statue of two polo
players on horses going for the ball, probably
about 14" tall, looked 1930's...I don't
know what the significance was, that is, if it
was a trophy, it was partially covered up by other items
in the case...but it was out there!....I'd sure
liked to have examined it out of the
case...But I could see it well enough to know
I'd never seen it before...My first reaction
was it looked like it was done by Herbert
Haseltine....or maybe Frederick Roth....as it
looked American. Phew, it was great! There was
a flag on the wall behind it that said 1901.
There was a pair of tan riding boots and a
polo mallet in the same case along with a
letterman's sweater and a Yale cap that said
25 on it...the whole case was extremely Ralph
Lauren..except it was the real deal LOL.
There
was a boat load of bronze sculptures by R.
Tait McKenzie ...There was a shot putter, a
discus thrower, and a
huge diver overlooking
the room, to name three...most were nudes which McKenzie was
really into, which I wouldn't want in my
collection if it were free...He's been called the sculptor of
Athletes....he should be called the
Sculptor of Nude Athletes he was so bent on
them.... However,
McKenzie did do a few clothed ones that were
great...His greatest work was "The
Onslaught" copyright 1911...a group of two football
teams in a scrimmage...15 inches tall,
36" wide, 21 inches deep. He
spent five years working on it. The Yale University Art Gallery has a bronze
example which should be displayed right in the
middle of the trophy room...I've never seen
one in person but I've studied photos of it and
it's definitely a contender for the finest
football sculpture ever made. I've never seen
another work with that many football players...I
count at least ten...And at 36" wide I
don't know of any football sculpture that
big....it's an
absolutely incredible work! I haven't any idea
it's production...at that size I'd be surprised
if a half dozen were cast ...Phew!!....take it
from me...football statues don't get much
better!
The
Onslaught was part of a collection of sports
art that was bestowed to Yale by Francis P.
Garvin in 1930, which he named The Whitney
Collection of  Sporting
art, after his two friends Payne Whitney, and Harry Payne
Whitney. According to a 1994 article
written by Mark Alden Branch the collection
encompassed "49 paintings, 20 sculptures, and close to 900 prints".
I saw on the description card that the afore
mentioned Muller baseball statues were part of
the Garvin collection...and I think many other
bronzes in the Yale Trophy room are part of it
as well. Probably most of the R. Tait McKenzie
works were Garvin pieces. That collection is
likely the world's finest of it's kind...at
least for American sports art here in the
United States...The British were so d'amored with their sports art, probably a better
exists there...But for American art....I say
all this as if I've seen it all, which I
haven't...I know some of the works and can
tell just from those. But Garvin and his Sporting
art collection is a story for another time...
I
honestly don't know about most of the things in
the room...We're talking about 45 minutes tops
that I was in there....that's why I shot fast
and furious...I knew I just had a short time to
capture it all...I live 3,000 miles away and
there would be no coming back if I forgot
something.
A
funny scenario went down during my visit...Duke
told me at the beginning he was a little short on
time...He let me shoot away for 20 or so
minutes, then started gently saying I should
probably start wrapping it up, he had stuff to
do...OK I said....and then people started coming
in with pizza's and stuff and setting up a
luncheon...The gym staff was having a lunch and
then a staff meeting afterwards right there in
the Yale Trophy Room...Then Duke left to go do
something and said I could stay a while longer
so I was happy to get an extension...A couple of
pizzas and a salad were spread out on the tables
and it was a buffet....So there I was wandering
around the room shooting away and their they all
were chowing down oblivious to me....I felt a
little odd but nothing was going to slow me down
and I just kept shooting away.
Earlier
I had asked where Handsome Dan was....In the
membership office I was told...Handsome Dan
was/is a bull dog  and
the school mascot...the first school mascot in
the country back in 1890....They stuffed him and
he's still with us so to speak...I'd heard about
the stuffed Handsome Dan 20 or so years
ago...that he was their in the gym....and their
I was in the gym....so I wanted to see him...So
as they were wrapping up their lunch and about
ready for their meeting Brian DiNatale the
membership coordinator found the most gracious
way to give me the boot LOL....You can see
Handsome Dan in my office he told me....and off
I went for the finale of my visit...Below are
the shots I took....
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Yale's
Mounted Original C1890
HANDSOME
DAN
First
College Mascot in United States
Displayed
in Payne Whitney Gymnasium
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c1900
Handsome Dan Tobacco Tin |
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...It
was also in 1889 that Andrew B.
Graves, '92 Sheffield, espied an
animal in a New Haven blacksmith's
shop that looked like a "cross
between an alligator and a horned
toad"
What
kind of animal is that? he asked the
blacksmith
"A
bulldog" said the blacksmith.
Graves
offered fifty dollars for the dog.
The blacksmith wanted seventy-five
dollars. They settled for sixty-five
dollars and the blacksmith threw in
a three-pound dog collar. Graves
took the animal to his room, put him
in a tub of warm water, and scrubbed
him savagely for almost two hours.
The bull dog made no protest. He
seemed to realize he had come to the
crossroads of his life. When Graves
finally finished the scrubbing, he
stood back and surveyed the result
with surprise and delight. The
bulldog was a beautiful brindle and
white.
"Why,
you're positively handsome,
fellow." said Graves, patting
him. "We'll call you Handsome.
Handsome Dan. C'mon Handsome!"
Handsome
Dan followed his master to classes,
waited patiently outside the
classrooms, and was his constant
companion at Yale's football and
baseball games. He seemed to
understand sports. At least, he
barked whenever Yale scored. This
habit soon got him adopted as the official
mascot.
After
Graves graduated, Handsome Dan
stayed on the campus with his
master's brother and remained Yale's
mascot until 1897, when he joined
Graves in England. Mascoting was not
his only claim to fame. He won first
prize in the New York Dog Show and
thirty other first prizes in America
and Canada before he barked his last
in 1898. Today he sits stuffed in
Payne Whitney Gymnasium. Fifty-odd
years have passed since he last saw
his favorite team. He inspired Cole
Porter's Yale song,
"Bulldog".
EXCERPT
FROM "THE YALE FOOTBALL
STORY"
BY
TIM COHANE, 1951, PAGES 72 & 73
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Handsome Dan I
1889-1898
When Princeton used to have a real tiger cub and Harvard always brought along, the "Orange Man" as a stand-in for Puritan John Harvard, Yale undergraduates thought they were due for a mascot and finally one came to Yale in 1889 in the custody of Andrew B. Graves, '92S (crew and football tackle) who, as an undergraduate, had seen the dog sitting in front of a shop and purchased him from a New Haven blacksmith for $5.00. The students dubbed him the "Yale mascot". He was always led across the field just before football and baseball games would begin. "In personal appearance, he seemed like a cross between an alligator and a horned frog, and he was called handsome by
some," eulogized the Hartford Courant. "The title came to him, he never sought it. He was always taken to games on a leash, and the Harvard football team for years owed its continued existence to the fact that the rope held." The Philadelphia Press recalled that "a favorite trick was to tell him to 'Speak to Harvard.' He would bark ferociously and work himself into physical contortions of rage never before dreamed of by a dog. Dan was peculiar to himself in one thing - he would never associate with anyone but students. Dan implanted himself more firmly in the hearts of Yale students than any mascot had ever done before."
"He was a big white bulldog", history relates, "with one of the greatest faces a dog of that breed (English) ever carried". Actually this magnificent specimen was one of the finest specimens of his breed in America, who went on to win hundreds of ribbons, many in competition with contenders from England.
In 1897, Graves and Handsome Dan I set out for a trip around the world, according to the Yale Alumni Weekly. He died in 1898. His stuffed body long stood in the old Yale gymnasium. When it was torn down, he was sent to the Peabody Museum for reconstruction. He now is in a sealed glass case in one of the trophy rooms of Yale's Payne Whitney Gymnasium, where "he is the a perpetual guardian of the treasures which attest to generations of Yale athletic glory". (Stanton Ford) Andrew Graves died of tuberculosis, February 18, 1943, in Paris, France.
YaleBulldogs.com
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YALE TROPHIES FEATURE |
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