Category Archives: Williston Academy

A Brief History of Williston Northampton Basketball

By Douglas Stark '90

March 27, 2015 Rick Teller '70 1 Comment

This is adapted from an article that originally appeared in the January 1999 Williston Northampton Bulletin. At that time Doug Stark was Librarian and Archivist at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. Today he is Museum Director at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, RI. He is the author of The SPHAS: The Life and Times of Basketball’s Greatest Jewish Team (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011) and coauthor of Tennis and the Newport Casino (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2011).

On a cold, wintery northeast night in 1898, a group of five Williston Seminary students “lined up for the first time . . . in a regular game, and defeated their opponents, the Y.M.C.A. of Northampton, by a score of 12-10.” The Jan. 29, 1898 Willistonian reported that Williston’s first basketball game “excited much interest in the school. The fellows turned out to a man, also several members of the faculty were present, as well as a representation of townspeople” to witness first hand this “new and intriguing game.”

In 1898, basketball was still in its infancy, having been created just seven years earlier at the School for Christian Workers (now Springfield College) in Springfield, MA. In the winter of 1891, Dr. James Naismith, a recent graduate of McGill University, enrolled as a student-instructor in a school that trained YMCA general secretaries and physical education instructors. Asked to create a game to occupy a class of “incorrigibles” between the football and baseball seasons, Naismith invented basketball. After hanging two peach baskets at both ends of the gymnasium balcony and dividing the 18-man class into two nine-man teams, Naismith put the first ball, a soccer ball, into play. Legend has it that only one basket was scored in that game.

Almost immediately, the game took off and spread quickly through the YMCAs. Within a few years, the game was being played in 15 different countries and in colleges from the East to West Coasts. Due to the rough play associated with the early game and the growing need for more court time, the YMCA banned basketball from its gyms in 1898. Later that year, basketball was introduced at Williston Seminary, one of the first high schools in the country to embrace the game. Continue reading →

Posted in: Archivist's Bookshelf, Guest Bloggers, Northampton School for Girls, Sports History, Williston Academy, Williston Northampton School, Williston Seminary

Un-Alma Mater

by Richard Teller '70, Archivist

January 1, 2015 Rick Teller '70 5 Comments

Happy new year from the Williston Northampton Archives!

Not long ago someone asked about school songs. She was a bit surprised that Williston has had several “official” alma maters¹ — that would be almae matris for the Latin purists among us — over the last century or so. Many of us recall “God Preserve Our Alma Mater” (insufficiently secular for today’s Williston, and with a controversial tune), “Arise, Sons of Williston” (we’re fully coed; are our girls supposed to sit?), “As We Put Long Years Behind Us” (from Northampton School; includes the line “Our Girlhood Days Are O’er”), and a few others less memorable. Today’s anthem of record is “O Williston,” also known as “Hail to Williston Northampton.”² The traditional and ageless “Sammy,” of course, remains ubiquitous. Long may we cherish it. Him. Whatever.

All these songs share a kind of sentimental reverence. Well, almost all. Back in 1966, when Williston Academy was celebrating its 125th anniversary, legendary music teacher Richard Gregory, no doubt cringing over the mawkish encomiums such events tend to inspire, penned the following lyric for the Caterwaulers. The piece became one of their signature tunes during the sixties and into the seventies.

We need no songs about your Founder.
We mourn no matriarchal elm.
The mists of time that rise around her
Somehow fail to overwhelm.

Five hundred cynics, all austerely
Unsentimental every one.
We’d rather die than speak sincerely,
But when all is said and done,
We do confess we love you dearly,
You old relic, Williston!

Continue reading →

Posted in: Faculty, Fine & Performing Arts, Williston Academy, Williston Northampton School

Loyalty

by Richard Teller '70, Archivist

November 29, 2014 Rick Teller '70 1 Comment

As the summer of 1953 was ending, the United States was extricating itself from the Korean War. An armistice agreement had been signed at Panmumjom on July 27, ending active hostilities on the Peninsula but doing nothing to abate the Cold War nor to dampen anti-communist fervor at home. Indeed, what is now remembered as the Second Red Scare (1947-1954) continued to dominate the political news. But in quiet little Easthampton it was, perhaps, relatively easy to ignore the issue as a phenomenon centered in Washington, Hollywood, and New York. Then, just as school was about to begin, Headmaster Phillips Stevens received the following letter:

Continue reading →

Posted in: Faculty, Opinions & Rants, Williston Academy

Barry Moser’s Theater Posters

May 26, 2014 Rick Teller '70 3 Comments

Barry Moser at the press — Barry Moser in 1972, adjusting the second of Williston’s two printing presses. By 1969 the Castalia Press was producing broadsides and other fine printing from its home in the old Easthampton railroad depot.

Some of this is necessarily in the nature of a personal reminiscence. Barry Moser spoke at Williston Northampton’s Commencement on May 25th. (Listen here!) Today he is recognized as an artist of international preeminence; in September 1967, for this writer and about 400 other once-young men, he was a rookie faculty member taking over a visual arts program that was, quite frankly, on life support. Its transformation was swift and spectacular. And those of us fortunate to have been in Barry’s classes were transformed as well. Ever the iconoclast, he challenged every assumption any of us might have had about art, not to mention literature, music, psychology . . . all the while demanding that we see, not just look. Any student from his 15 years on the faculty will tell you that his were lessons for a lifetime.

In the late sixties the Williston Theatre was entering one of its golden ages under the direction of Ellis Baker and Richard Gregory. Barry was soon involved as a set designer. He also began to produce handbills for the plays — visual miracles for which the word “poster” is possibly inadequate. Often the central images were executed in the intricate and sometimes unforgiving media of woodcut or etching. Here are a few examples. (All items are by Barry Moser for Williston Academy or The Williston Northampton School; reproduced with the gracious permission of the artist.)

John Brown’s Body, Spring 1969. “I tried for something that looked like a wanted poster.” (Click all images to enlarge.) Continue reading →