Springfield College Football Ends, 1956

A photograph of the defensive ends on the Springfield College football team during the 1956 season. The people in the photograph [from L to R]: Jack White (class of 1958), Tom Flubacher (class of 1959), Alan Estey (class of 1959), Jim Batchelor (class of 1959), George Benedict (captain, class of 1957), and Walt Dunbar (class of 1959).The team finished the 1956 season with a record of 8 wins and 1 tie under head coach Ossie Solem. The only tie of the season game against Brandeis, with a final score of 20-20.In 1890, Amos Alonzo Stagg, a Yale all-American and major league baseball pitching prospect, came to Springfield College (then known as the YMCA Training School) and started the college’s first football team. A grad student in a one-year program to become a YMCA Physical Director, he served as Coach, Manager, Captain, and Player on this original team often called “Stagg’s Eleven” or “The Stubby Christians.” The team finished the first season with a record of 5 wins and 3 losses, playing Yale strongly in the first indoor football game ever played in Madison Square Garden. Among other greats to coach the football team was James Huff McCurdy. McCurdy came to Springfield in 1895 and headed the team till 1917. He is largely responsible for helping to grow the Springfield College football team’s reputation and startiPhotograph originally misidentified as 1979-1980