Franklin & Marshall's Grand Tradition

It has been a grand history of success and adulation for the Franklin & Marshall football team as the Diplomats have been among the most successful programs in the history of college football.

The first non-Division I school to play 1,000 games when the Diplomats faced Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania on September 28, 2002, Franklin & Marshall has begun every season since 1889 with the green grass of the gridiron alive with the excitement of football.

The birth process of the sport at the College began in 1886 when Franklin & Marshall joined the University of Pennsylvania, Lehigh University, Lafayette College, Swarthmore College and Haverford College in founding the Inter-State Athletic Association. However, interest waned in football leading to the program agreeing to begin competition the following season.

On October 18, 1887, the Nevonians (as all F&M teams were known until 1935) boarded Conestoga Wagons and traveled to the York YMCA for the first recorded game in the program’s history. The result, a 9-0 loss, was the first of two games (the other being a 6-4 loss versus the York YMCA in Lancaster) the team played to begin the program’s history. The following year, politics took precedence over play as the scheduled 12 game season was cancelled to focus on the 1888 presidential election.

The program has come a long way from the days of Conestoga Wagons and coaches on the sideline dressed in long coats and bowler hats, but what made Franklin & Marshall successful then continues today, the players who take the field.

The ancestry of the Diplomats’ success can be traced back to William Irvine who entered the Reformed Theological Seminary in 1889. Irvine, who led a campaign in Lancaster to raise funds to construct a $7,000 gymnasium on the campus of the College in 1892, built a legacy that still stands to this day.

The most important element that Irvine brought to campus was a winning attitude. In his first year as head coach (with F&M driving up and down the field behind his patented “revolving wedge” offense), Franklin & Marshall went 5-1-1 and picked up the program’s first win in a 60-0 romp over Millersville University.

In 1891, Irvine stepped down and handed over the coaching duties to Bruce Griffiths, a new seminary student, who went 6-7 over the next two years.

The program continued to grow from 1893–1914 under head coaches such as H. S. Wingert (1899), J.H. Outland (1900), W.P. Bates (1904–05) and a distinguished gentleman by the name of Charles Mayser (1913– 14), considered to be the father of athletics at Franklin & Marshall College.

Mayser, who returned to the football sidelines from 1924–25 and 1944– 45 while compiling a 25-21-3 record, engineered the first major event in F&M football history, a 10-0 win over the University of Pennsylvania in 1914 at Penn’s historic Franklin Field.

For Franklin & Marshall, the win was the first step to recognition as a dominating force in college football. The F&M Weekly reported, “The bloody carnage now taking place in Europe could not be compared to the awful havoc by the wearers of the Blue and White upon the sons of Ol’ Penn within the very walls of the City of Brotherly Love…it is the greatest football win in F&M’s history.”

With the kindling of respect and notoriety, the embers of the program’s infancy began to spark, as did the field’s grandstands. In 1916, a pep rally bonfire lit by fans to help build widespread enthusiasm about the Nevonians became uncontrollable and burned down the grandstands at the football stadium.

The 1935 football game in which Franklin & Marshall nearly upset national powerhouse Fordham University stands as one the highlights in the College’s sports history. Not given a chance against Fordham—which was considered one of the best teams in the country and featured future NFL Hall of Famers Vince Lombardi and Alex Wojciechowicz—the Franklin & Marshall squad led 7-0 entering the final period at the Polo Grounds, before succumbing 14-7.

Coming off an 8-1 record in 1934, Franklin & Marshall was considered among the country’s elite small-college teams. But nary a soul felt the boys from Lancaster could compete with the mighty Fordham Rams and their legendary “Seven Blocks of Granite”—picked by many experts as a sure bet to advance to the Rose Bowl, the only post-season game in 1935.

With a surprising 7-0 halftime lead, F&M huddled in its locker room listening to Coach Al Holman map out strategy for keeping the Rams at bay during the second half. And, strangely, that’s when one of the turning points of that Sept. 28 game occurred.

F&M was a few minutes late in returning to the field for the second half. Because of its tardiness, the team was slapped with a little-used delay of game penalty that gave the ball to the Rams at the F&M 35-yard line. Though Fordham didn’t score on that possession, the penalty helped shift the momentum of the game. The heavily favored Rams went on to score twice in the fourth quarter to eke out a victory.

Following the game, the New York press lauded the talent and determination of the Franklin & Marshall team, cementing F&M’s place in the top tier of small-college football programs.

In addition to boosting the program’s reputation, the game held further significance. Legend has it that the team name “Diplomats” was born after the Fordham game. Prior to this season, common nicknames were Nevonians, which honored the College’s second president, John Williamson Nevin, as well as Big Blue or Blue and White, which are the school colors.

Tracing the citations back, a Dec. 12, 1939, Student Weekly editorial credits the nationally renowned sportswriter Eddie Dooley with being the person who dubbed the team the “Diplomats,” following the Fordham game.

Other reports credit a different New York writer—Arthur Daley of the New York Times—with coining the name when he wrote about the notorious penalty: “The Diplomats’ downfall could be traced indirectly to their penchant for oratory, conference, or just plain gas in the clubhouse, a failing customary in the diplomatic services of both hemispheres.”

As is often the case with legend, however, the facts bear out a different truth. The story that contains the now-famous phrasing actually appeared in the New York American and was penned by Lewis Burton. In the second paragraph, he writes: “The Diplomats from Lancaster, Pa., as the F. and M. boys are known, buckled under the strain.”

But Arthur Daley does play an important role in the Diplomat debates. He did in fact write about the F&M-Fordham game for the New York Times—and what he wrote proves to be significant. That’s because he used the name “Diplomats” in a story before the Fordham game, thus overturning the legend that the name was born after the game.

On Sept. 27, 1935—the day before the showdown—Daley wrote: “The meeting of the two institutions on the gridiron will be the first played since 1907, when the Rams downed the Diplomats 51-0.”

In his game story the next day, Daley repeatedly referred to Franklin & Marshall as the Diplomats. And he was not alone. Stories citing the “Franklin and Marshall Diplomats” also appeared in the Sept. 29 editions of the New York Sun and Lancaster Intelligencer Journal, in addition to the aforementioned New York American. Therefore, since so many sources mention Diplomats, it proves that the name preceded the Fordham contest.

So when did Diplomats really make its first appearance? Digging a little deeper, one finds that the name “Diplomats” had been bandied about for more than a year before the Fordham game—and not just by New York writers.

Back in 1934—a full year before the F&M-Fordham game—“Diplomats” popped up in F&M’s student newspaper. A Nov. 21, 1934, commentary in the Student Weekly called for the student body to come up with a new name for the sports teams: “Wanted—A Name: There is one urgent need at F. and M. . . . It is a nickname for our intercollegiate athletic teams.”

The following week the paper printed a letter from Ira Honaman ’18, who put forth the use of Diplomats. “May I suggest the nickname ‘Diplomats,’ which was used for our football team in this year’s issue of the Annual Illustrated Football Classic and also in the program of our game this year with Lafayette,” he wrote. “This name well fits our college . . . and is a name that will not change with new administrations, new coaches, or good or indifferent teams.”

The Illustrated Football Annual was a national magazine that rated college teams. Its 1934 issue —one year before the Fordham game—does refer to Franklin & Marshall as the Diplomats. The magazine ranked the 1934 team 150th in the country and said: “F&M plays steady, heady football, and the man-power is well up to standard.”
Lafayette program - 1934

The Oct. 13, 1934, Lafayette–Franklin & Marshall football program book contains the word “diplomats” (with a lowercase “D”) when referring to the Lancaster team, though it was anything but official-sounding: “For visiting here today is a delegation of diplomats that doffed their gloves and high-toppers long enough last Saturday to prove how essential the word [perhaps] is to the vocabulary of all prognosticators.”

Honaman’s suggestion so amused the student editors that they ran a lengthy piece lampooning the name “Diplomats.” In a Dec. 12, 1934, parody, the F&M players hand out cards to opponents, carry briefcases, and use flowery, “diplomatic” language about the sporting way to compete. In the end, the editors implored the student body to “think up a good rip-snorting nickname.”

However, College officials seemed to have taken notice of “Diplomats” and began using it at the start of the 1935 season. Exactly when this decision was made is unclear, but if
“Diplomats” was suggested at the end of the 1934 football season, then the first time the name could really have been put into effect would be the 1935 season.

The Fordham program book—which would have been written by Fordham staff—referred to F&M as the Nevonians and Blue and White. But in F&M’s first home game of the season—Oct. 5 against Philadelphia Military College (PMC)—“Diplomats” appears in the program: “Last year under Coach Holman, the Diplomats went through one of the most successful seasons in its history.”

A few days after that PMC game, it’s finally made clear to the world that “Diplomats” is the official nickname, as reported in the Oct. 8 Student Weekly. “After several unsuccessful attempts which were made during the past three years to find a suitable moniker for all of Franklin and Marshall’s athletic teams, one has been found,” the editors wrote. “Henceforward all varsity teams at the Blue and White institution shall be known as ‘The Diplomats.’ This title has been used for some time by newspaper scribes and football magazine editors throughout the East, and recently ‘Uncle Charley’ Mayser gave his stamp of approval.”

All subsequent stories used Diplomats as the primary team name, and the Lancaster papers picked up on the name later that same season.

So while the name “Diplomats” was circulating for some time, the near upset of Fordham and all the press the team received seemed to have reinforced the name in the minds of the press and fans. Maybe that extra attention was the final, gentle, “diplomatic” push the name needed to become official. 

With its new moniker, Franklin & Marshall continued to find success on the gridiron. The 1940 football team outscored their opposition 142-69 en route to a 7-2 record with four shutouts. The team posted what is arguably the greatest victory in the program’s history with a 23-21 win at Dartmouth.

The 1940 yearbook posited, “The win over Dartmouth has replaced the famous Penn victory as the culmination of Diplomat football tradition.”

Mayser, coach of the 1914 football squad that handled Penn, offered the following remarks to the crowd of 3,000 that greeted F&M at the train station, “This is the greatest victory in all time.”

Ten years later, the Diplomats were still on top. Widely considered to be one of the greatest assemblages of talent and athleticism ever to grace Lancaster County, the 1950 team became the first undefeated grid gang in Franklin & Marshall history. It was also the first F&M team to utilize the “two platoon” system, in which independent offensive and defensive units are used.

S. Woodrow Sponaugle and an assistant coaching staff that is legendary in Lancaster led the team. Sponaugle was assisted by his brother Boyd, track coach Bill Iannicelli, wrestling coach Roy Phillips, and swim coach, George McGinness. As a team, the Diplomats were unstoppable, downing opponents by an average of 21.22 points per game. The season started with a win a 13-7 win over Lebanon Valley in the Hershey Chocolate Bowl game. The team set a program record with six shutouts to earn a chance at a bowl game.  Although considered for the Cigar Bowl along with teams like Florida State, the Diplomats did not receive a bid.

Running back John Tomasko’s 1960 season ushered in another decade of success and the first Conference MVP award in F&M history. The 1960’s saw three Middle Atlantic Conference MVP awards and two championships come to Lancaster. Quarterback, Seiki Murono won back-to-back MVP crowns in 1964 and 1965. His 1964 team won the school’s first-ever conference championship with an 8-0 (7-0 MAC) record. The 1968 squad shared the MAC title, posting a 6-2 record. The Diplomats took a two-year downturn after that title, but responded with a decade of dominance.

Under the direction of first-year coach, Bob Curtis, the Diplomats went 6-2 (6-1 MAC) en route to the first of four-straight league championships. The ’72 squad posted a 9-0 regular season record in winning the second of the aforementioned four. The Diplomats earned the Division III Lambert Trophy that season, the era’s most coveted football award, keeping Franklin & Marshall in the company of Penn State and Delaware as the top teams of the East.

Coach Curtis and his captains, Craig Marks, Bob Olender, and Dan Truskey accepted the trophy from Mr. Henry Lambert in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Commodore on Park Avenue and 42nd Street. The F&M contingent shared the dais with Joe Paterno and his Nittany Lion Captains, as well as Harold “Tubby” Raymond and the captains of the Fighting Blue Hens.

The 1973 team continued the streak, while the 1974 squad went unblemished at 9-0. Curtis stepped down following the season, making way for Tom Gilburg’s unrivaled 28-year run. Highlights of Gilburg’s 28 years at the forefront of the F&M gridiron include a 7-2 record in his first season, followed by the team’s fifth Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Southern Division title in six years with an 8-1 record in 1976.

Gilburg and the College celebrated the 100th season of football in 1987 by winning the Centennial Conference (CC) title with an undefeated record (7-0 CC) and finished with a 9-1-1 overall mark, including a 21-0 victory over Kean College in the ECAC Division III South Championship game for the program’s first post-season victory. F&M shared the CC title with Muhlenberg in 1986 and Dickinson in 1988, and defeated St, John’s in the 1989 ECAC Division III South title game.

Franklin & Marshall played in four ECAC post-season “bowl” games during Gilburg’s tenure, compiling a 2-2 record. Over the final 10 years of his coaching career, Gilburg continued the tradition of F&M football. In 1993, the Diplomats rallied from a 1-4 start to win their final five games of the season and tie Dickinson for the CC Championship.

In 1995, F&M completed their “first-to-worst-to-first” three-year cycle with a 6-1 Conference record for the CC title. Gilburg celebrated a personal milestone in the second week of the 1989 season, when the Diplomats rallied from a 14-0 deficit in the final 12 minutes to capture a 15-14 victory at Ursinus on their way to a 10-1 season, the most wins in F&M football history. The victory marked the 100th of Gilburg’s coaching career in just 134 games.

During the 1992 campaign, F&M became the fourth team in NCAA Division III history to reach the 500-win plateau with a 41-27 victory over McDaniel College during the Alumni Weekend. In 1998, the Diplomats secured Gilburg’s 150th career win in the first home game of the season, a 26-12 triumph over CC rival Ursinus College.

The former Syracuse standout and Baltimore Colt hung up his whistle in 2002, but can still be found at Sponaugle-Williamson Field on a football Saturday. Since his retirement, F&M has won one conference championship, sharing the 2004 Centennial title with four other teams. The quirky five-way championship  marked only the third time in the history of college football that a league finished in a five way tie.