"The
longest living rivalry west of the Mississippi"
As long as there has been football at Coe,
there has been the rivalry between Coe and Cornell College,
located in Mount Vernon, just a few miles east on Highway 30. The
first game between the two teams was in 1891, Coe's first season
of football, when the Rams beat the inexperienced Coe team 82-0.
Coe at 125 tells the story of that initial match-up: "Almost none
of the Coe men had played football before, while Cornell had had
several games under its belt. The Coe students (including George
Bryant and Fredrick Murray) trooped onto the freight train heading
for Mt. Vernon for the inaugural game. These innocents put on
their unpadded canvas uniforms, fluffed their heavy hair in lieu
of helmets, and hastily looked at a rule book. .. The field was a
cattle pasture with a creek running along the 50-yard line and the
cows had to be driven off before the game could start."
The 1894 season brought about Coe' first
victory over the Cornell eleven with a score of 28-6. This first
decade of football rivalry was fueled by the 1903 game, in which
the score has long been refuted. According to guy Simons, '94, who
wrote The History of Coe College Football. "In that 1903 contest,
Coe claims a 6-5 victory over Cornell, while the Rams say that
they won the game 11-6. Most contests at that time consisted of
two halves, thirty minutes each, but before this particular game
both squads and the referee agreed to play two, twenty-minute
halves. However, the timekeeper was unaware of this change and
allowed an extra four and a half minutes to expire in the opening
half before anyone realized the mistake. Coe had already led 6-0
at the conclusion of the twenty minutes when Cornell scored, which
was during this extra four and a half minute span. Cornell's
touchdown, five points, along with a second half touchdown made
the score, according to Cornell, 11-6."
For the next few years, the victories Were
shared pretty evenly between the two schools. In 1913, however,
the Coe "1000% team" was in full action. During the entire season,
no team had scored a point against them, and this was the case in
the Cornell match as well, as the teams tied at 0-0. The year 1914
was another banner year for the Coe eleven. This was Moray Eby's
first year as coach, and the team became known as the
"Point-A-Minute" team for their incredible action in their five
Iowa Conference games. Cornell was the last of the teams to be
played, and the Crimson and Gold polished off their regular season
with a score of 19-7.
Before Coe was the Kohawks, before the
Victory Bell had been put up, even before Coe had existed for ten
years, there was a fierce rivalry between Cornell and Coe. The
Cosmos from October 25, 1918 states: "The Coe-Cornell game is
without a doubt the most important on the schedule, for a Coe
season is not complete without administering a defeat to Cornell."
The rivalry continues today, serious on the field, but often
entailing pranks and high jinks. It is rumored that in 2001, mice
that had been dyed Cornell's purple were let loose in one of the
building on Coe's campus. The 2001 Acorn describes that year's
game: "Coe had been unvictorious against rival Cornell for the
past five years, but this year would turn out to be different.
They ended the first quarter with a 140 lead over the Rams, and
followed by humiliating them in the second quarter, sending
Cornell into the locker room with a score of 42-0. The third
quarter proved to not be any better for the Rams, when Coe
proceeded to score again ending the third quarter at 49-0. By the
end of the game, the Kohawks handed Cornell a defeat they will not
soon forget. With a final score of 56-13, Cae stomped Cornell with
the biggest victory they had ever had against this rival team
since 1897."
