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Full-Time Football Coach to Probate Judge: Arthur Hall and his Artifacts

Cleats from the Arthur Hall Collection after visiting Conservation. Found in Record Series 28/3/24.
Cleats from the Arthur Hall Collection after visiting Conservation. Found in Record Series 28/3/24.

Written by Leanna Barcelona

After a semester at the University’s Conservation unit, the artifacts donated with the personal papers of the Illinois football coach Arthur Hall are now back at the archives and a part of his collection. The collection donated from his family contains several newspaper clippings spanning from the beginning of his football career to the end of his term as probate judge. Artifacts such as team sweaters, football uniforms, cleats, hats, and baseballs from his time here, as well as small Illini memorabilia, are also part of the collection and over a century old.

Postcard of Coach Hall, c. 1907. Found in Record Series 28/3/24.
Postcard of Coach Hall, c. 1907. Found in Record Series 28/3/24.

Arthur Raymond Hall was born in 1869 in Tonica Illinois and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1897-1902, graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Law and a Master’s Degree of English and Rhetoric from the College of Literature and Arts. As a student, he played on the Varsity baseball team in 1899 and the Varsity football team from 1897 through 1900, serving as the captain in his last season. In addition to varsity athletics, Hall was involved in the English Club, the Langdell Law Club, the Y.M.C.A., and the Philomathean Literary Society.[1]

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Fight, Illini! The Stadium Song

Cover for the sheet music to "Fight, Illini!" 1921
Cover for the sheet music to “Fight, Illini!” 1921

Written by Denise Rayman

The University of Illinois’ Memorial Stadium turned 90 years old last year, as it was officially dedicated in 1924, but planning and fundraising to build the stadium began long before that. The Memorial Stadium was intended as both an athletic field and memorial to the fallen soldiers of WWI, whose names are inscribed on the columns around the stadium, and it was built through the donations of UIUC students, alumni, and others, including corporate donors from Illinois. While both the need for a new athletic facility and a desire for a campus WWI memorial had been recognized before, in December 1920 the students voted to combine plans for a war memorial and new athletic field into one project [1]. The fundraising campaign to build Memorial Stadium started shortly thereafter. Fundraising efforts took different forms, but one particularly unique fundraising push was a song contest, the winning song then used to raise money through sheet music sales, and this resulted a newly composed Illini fight song – “Fight, Illini! The Stadium Song.” Continue reading “Fight, Illini! The Stadium Song”

Rose Bowl, 1947

Written by Angela Jordan

The Rose Bowl, nicknamed “The Granddaddy of Them All,” has been played on January 1 or 2 every year since 1916. The Big Ten (then the Big Nine) did not allow their schools to participate in bowl games, until a Pacific Coast Conference agreement for the 1947 Rose Bowl. In the first Rose Bowl under the Big Nine-PCC agreement, the University of Illinois routed UCLA, 45-14, in an unexpected victory.

Ray Eliot, 1959. Found in record series 28/3/23
Ray Eliot, 1959. Found in record series 28/3/23

Winning head football coach Ray Eliot (Raymond Eliot Nusspickel, 1931) succeeded legendary Bob Zuppke in 1942 with little fanfare. The athletic board searched for seventy-two days before settling upon Eliot, and according to Tom Siler, “the applause was less than deafening.”[1] Though a non-entity to the public, the players were elated. His squad, predominantly war veterans, responded well to Ray Eliot’s principle: “This is your team; the coaches are only the guides.”[2]

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