On the 21st day of March as Harold with the other members of the squads
was in the dressing room after practice, the head coach came into the
room with a slip of paper in his hand which he posted on the Bulletin
Board. There was a rush to read the notice as soon as the coach had
departed, and several faces, as they turned away, wore a look of
disappointment, while others seemed proud and happy.
Hagner and Case finally finished dressing and turned to the board to
read the bulletin before going out. This is what they read:
VARSITY TRAINING TABLE--The training table will start in the
morning at Prettyman’s and the following men for the first
squad will report there for breakfast--Everson, Delvin, Larke,
Gibbs, Black, Hagner, Robb, Talkington, Dill, Case, Radams,
Ross and Huyler. About the first of next month the list may be
increased or changed. Breakfast at eight o’clock sharp. Members
are required to be on time.
HUGH JENKINS, _Manager_.
“Guess I’ll get a chance to pitch after all,” said Harold. It was a
great day for him and he was highly elated. The 19-- Varsity had begun
to take definite shape, and being named on it meant recognition by the
great student body as possessing something worth while in the line of
ability. The news spread rapidly through the University and wherever
the boys who had been named went they were treated with honor and
respect.
Breakfast the first morning at the training table was a good deal of
a get-together, get-acquainted affair. I do not know what it is that
makes the choice of nicknames or how it is that it comes easier to
know some fellows by either their first or last names, others by an
abbreviation of one or the other, and still others by adoption of
something entirely different, but when boys get to a certain stage of
acquaintance with each other there comes a spontaneous desire to bestow
a nickname and these names generally fit in a remarkable way. Harold
Case went to breakfast known as Case and came out to be forever known
to Lowell men as Hal.
John Hagner started to drink his coffee that morning as Hagner and
when he had folded his napkin he was known as both Hans and Honus, why
nobody ever could tell, and the names stuck to him for life.
Charles Radams came away with the nickname Babe and as Babe he went
down into the Lowell Book of Heroes.
Everson had always been Everson before. He was Everson when he sat
down to the table that morning, and he was still Everson when he left
the room, though why this little brainy Crab should have gotten off
without a nickname is far beyond me.
You would think that Larke, who was always jolly, either whistling or
singing when not eating or asleep, would have been named The Lark years
before, but no, they called him just Cap., yet they had always called
Gibbs, Gibbie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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