Tomorrow Wabash again meets DePauw in a football game.
And tomorrow nothing matters but “Play Ball.” The Monon bell, according to D. P. U. (official DePauw news agency) has been somewhere in Greencastle for the last three years. It must be getting mighty homesick. A united Scarlet Front is pledged to bring it back.
The bell was donated to the two colleges in 1932 by Frank Lewis, general superintendent of the Monon Railroad. In that year the two teams fought to a scoreless tie and each kept the bell for six months. DePauw gained possession in 1933. Then Wabash held the ball for three years, until DePauw again carried it to Greencastle. Since that time, and our present seniors were freshmen then, DePauw has kept the Monon bell somewhere in Greencastle.
This rivalry between Wabash and DePauw has lived through nearly half a century. There have been forty-six games. Wabash has won 21, DePauw, 20. There have been five ties. The rivalry is the oldest continuous one west of the Allegheny mountains. Its fame and prestige have not been concealed somewhere in Greencastle. The yearly game causes much more than a ripple of excitement in both schools. Indiana newspapers play it up; sports writers are very careful to hedge in their predictions on the outcome of the game. Such phrases as “an old rivalry” and “unpredictable” are frequently employed.
The tradition of this rivalry is deep. Old grads would rather see this game than any homecoming game – and they come to see it. The talk about when they played the game, and how rough the game was then.
Tomorrow Wabash men, as one, will go to Greencastle for the game. They will try to rescue the Bell, by fair play, from the depths of somewhere in Greencastle. Wabash men will strive, by fair play, to deprive DePauw students of the extra day of vacation they are hoping for.