Charles, the Team Could Use You Today

"This has been an exciting week for Dartmouth. We played a game of foot-ball Wednesday with Amerst. It was the first game we ever played." So begins a letter from student Charles Oakes, class of 1883, to his mother in

Maine. Dated November 11, 1881, it describes the thrill of a lifetime for the young Oakes and an historic moment for Big Green football: the scoring of the College's first touchdown. As Charles put it (the spelling is his own):

"We beat them one touchdown to nothing, surprising everyone. I expect I was the hero of the occasion. I made the touch-down and several good runs and at the end of the game the boys rode me around the cornfield on their shoulders. Everyone was nearly crazy during the game. The Proffessors ran around, clapped their hands, shouted, jumped up and down and were fairly mad."

Charles' handwritten letter has been in the possession of his grandson, Abner Oakes III '56, for the last 40 years. Abner, who resides in Hamden, Connecticut, also has one of his grandfather's letters from 1880. In it the future star explains why his feat didn't come earlier.

Turns out the College had originally been scheduled to play its first football game against Harvard, but the contest was cancelled due to faculty objections.