Refined Baggataway

The old Iroquois game of baggataway was a brutal pastime with one main object: to get the braves toughened up for the warpath. Squaws standing on the sidelines with switches whipped any laggards into mauling activity. Nowadays, with a few genteel refinements such as padded gloves and helmets, the Iroquois' old game is known as lacrosse.*

Last week, rushing up & down a 110-yard field at Annapolis with rough & tumble abandon, the men of Army and Navy were on the warpath again. Object of the game: to hurl a 5-oz. India rubber ball into a 6-ft.-square net, using a webbed hickory stick as a combination scoop and sling. If a member of one of the ten-man teams happened to clobber a rival with a stick, or send him sprawling on his face, it was all part of the game. The stakes of honor were considerable, involving not only the traditional Army-Navy rivalry but also the national collegiate title. Army, favored to win the game, needed a victory to wind up ahead of Princeton on a complicated point scale; Navy could win a second-place tie with Army by an upset. Sitting plunk in the center of the Navy cheering section was Princeton's Lacrosse Coach Ferris Thomsen. He and the Middies had plenty to cheer about.

Navy drew first blood when Midfielder Jack Horner intercepted a pass, wove his way down the field 50 yds. to Army's goal, and expertly flipped the ball past the Army's goalie John Johnson. Moments later, Navy's Horner and Army's Charles Lavender almost drew real blood with a sticks-jabbing row. At halftime, underdog Navy held a slim 4-3 lead. In the dressing room, Army Coach Morris Touchstone bluntly told his players: "If we can't beat this team, we don't deserve the title."

Pep-talking was not enough. Navy's deft team play, with crisscross aerial passes, won two quick goals early in the second half before Army could get moving. Final score: 10-7. Navy's jubilant players, rushing to the Severn River seawall, gave happy Coach William H. ("Dinty") Moore a hearty heave ho into the river--then exuberantly jumped in after him. Princeton's Coach Thomsen hurried to a telephone to tell his men that they were the national champions.

*So named by French explorers, after a fancied resemblance between a baggataway stick and a bishop's crosier.

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