[1894 Football Team]

Throughout the 1880s Vanderbilt students occasionally played football against opposing colleges but most often competed against each other in inter-class rivalries.  Little is known about the 1887, 1888 and 1889 teams; although rosters do exist, no mention of any games survive in publications.  The momentous 1890 game against the Peabody Normal School (University of Nashville) serves as the true beginning of football at Vanderbilt.  Peabody, which had been fielding an intramural team for a number of years, invited Vanderbilt to play on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1890. Vanderbilt hastily put together a team to field, and with shoddy burlap uniforms went on to beat Peabody 40-0.

The 1894 season was momentous for two reasons: the team went 7-1 and hired its first paid coach, Henry Thornton, for the sum of $400. The season concluded on Thanksgiving Day with a match on Dudley Field against the much-vaunted University of the South (Sewanee) which during these early years was a football powerhouse.  In front of a crowd of over 3,000 the Vanderbilt eleven beat Sewanee’s best 12-0.

First row, left to right: William Stone Fitzgerald, James Bell Hildebrand, William W. Hughes, Lucius Edward Burch, Thomas Gentry Kettrell

Second row, left to right: W. Y. Elliott, Howard M. Boogher, Frederick William Dortch. 

Third row, left to right: William Wesley Craig, Thomas Walker Davis, William Phillips, Connell, Henry Thornton, William Battle Malone, John Brand Pitman, William Johnson Keller, Robert G. Tuttle