Star-Gazette from Elmira, New York • 76

PENNSYLVANIA Star-Gazette, www.stargazette.corn 4G Sunday, January 13, 2008 Ex-Motintie led LSU to first title Orchestra Africa, i dancers to perform fcV 1 l. I 'rf- A Thursday at MU Provided Members of the 1905 Mansfield State Normal School football team included George "Doc" Fenton, front row at far right; Karl Van Norman, second row on the left; and Martin Lally, third row on the left. Even though it didn't end is until early in the morning this past Tuesday, I sure many Twin Tiers fans stayed up to watch Louisiana State beat Ohio State in the national championship football game. I'm also sure those same fans may be surprised to know that the star player on the Tigers' first national title team in 1908 was George Ell- MU Sports Steve McCloskey wood "Doc" Fenton. It was the same Doc Fenton who was also the star player on the 1906 Mansfield University (then Mansfield State Normal School) football team.

Back then, there were no NCAA eligibility rules, so players often attended one school for a few years and then went on to another and played again. Most news agencies claimed Tuesday's win was LSU's third national championship. But according to the National Championship Foundation, it was actually the Tigers' fourth national crown after posting a 10-0 record 100 years ago during the 1908 season. Known to everyone as Ell-wood or more commonly "Doc" during his Mansfield days, the nickname would stick with him for the remainder of his life. Doc Fenton was known as a star athlete from the moment he stepped off the passenger car at the Erie Railroad station in Mansfield in 1904.

Doc was one of those "tough" kids from the Pennsylvania coal fields around Scran-ton. Little did he know the trip that day to Mansfield would forever take him away from those coal fields and propel him to national glory. He left a life filled with black coal to create one full of black gold as an oil tycoon in Louisiana. Doc wasn't the only stud on those Mansfield teams of the mid-1900s. According to MU football historian Karl Van Norman himself the quarterback for the 1904-06 Mountaineer teams Doc was one of five players who would go south to find fame and glory after their playing days were over at Mansfield.

Martin Lally would team up with Doc again at LSU while other fellow Mansfield teammates formed the core of the football team at Mississippi State. In fact, during that undefeated 1908 championship season, all five former Mansfield players were on the field when LSU handed Mississippi State a 50-0 defeat. The 1906 team was considered then and still today as one of the best teams in Toby Foyeh and Orchestra Africa will perform in Straughn Hall at Mansfield University at 8 jn. Thursday. Led by founder Foyeh, Orchestra Africa has performed all over the world, bringing the genre of world music they call "AFRIJAM" to music lovers.

The orchestra features Foyeh on guitar and flute, a bass player, a drummer, MU News keyboards and a host of percussionists. They are by dancers, whose Terry Day rhythmic and joyful traditional African dance adds a special exotic quality, beauty and happiness to the whole experience. The orchestra is adorned in their African costumes and depict a scene of an African royal court music group in action. The concert is free and open to the public. Celebrating violist Violist Timothy Deighton, accompanied by pianist Ann Deighton and harpsichordist Amanda Maple, will present the first concert of the Mansfield University "Celebrating Strings" Series of the spring semester at 3 p.m.

Saturday in Steadman Theatre. Deighton will perform a program of music by Bach, new works by Australian composers Lilburn and Lodge and American composer Rebecca Clarke. An associate professor of viola at Perm State University, where he teaches viola, chamber musk, viola literature, pedagogy, and orchestral excerpts classes, Deighton also directs the Penn State Viola Ensemble. The concert is free and open to the public. It will also feature a reception by the MU student chapter of the American String Teachers Association.

Scholars' spotlight Scott DiMarco, Library Information Resource Administration, had his review of the audio version of "The Secret Servant" by Daniel Silva published in the Nov. 15 issue of The Library JournaL Azizur R. Molla, Social Work, Anthropology Sociology, had his paper "Power of Culture in Conference (SIAA) in the middle of the 1909 season. Wingard is credited with soaking Doc's woolen football jersey in a mild acid solution before games, and Doc finished the game in Havana and many others during his career with a shredded jersey because of the weakened fabric. I guess it was the first tear-away jersey.

LSU won the game 56-0, and the next season Doc played the first two games at end before moving to quarterback, where he set a school record for points scored, 132, in leading his team to LSU's fist undefeated season and national championship. The team, which also included Lally, was so good that only three of their 10 opponents scored points on them and they shut out Texas (26-0) Mississippi State (50-0) and Baylor (89-0) before beating Arkansas 36-4. They outscored their opponents 442-1L Doc would quarterback the 1909 team as well and held the school record of 298 points scored before graduating. He was one of the first players inducted into the LSU Hall of Fame and in 1971 was inducted into the National Football Foundations and College Football Hall of Fame. He was inducted as a Legend into the Mansfield University AlumniAthletic Hall of Fame in 1995 one year after his friend Karl Van Norman was inducted.

poc died in Baton Rouge in 1968 but is still remembered as the first great player in LSU history. So ends another incredible story. How Doc Fenton, a former Mansfield football player, had a major impact on one of the most storied college football programs in the country. Steve McCloskey is sports information director at Mansfield University. For more on the university: www.mansfield.edu.

Mansfield history. The "Normal Boys" as the team was called before adopting the Mountaineers nickname in 1927 outscored their opponents 114-15, losing only to Bucknell by a 5-0 score in the season opener and shutting out their opponents in five of their seven wins. Doc is also credited with catching the first forward pass in Mansfield history. The forward pass became legal in 1906 although it was a 15-yard penalty for an incom-pletion and Doc caught the ball for his friend Karl Van Norman. The football stadium on campus today is named in honor of Van Norman.

In his history of the first 50 years of football at Mansfield, Van Norman credits Doc as one of the all-time greats in school history. A fiery redhead, Doc was as fast as the wind and tougher than nails. He was also a damn fine punter and place kicker. There's no account of how or why five members of that 1906 team found their way to Dixie the next year. The most plausible explanation may be some type of connection between LSU head coach Edgar Wingard and one of the Mansfield boys.

Wingard was a 1902 graduate of Susquehanna University and went to LSU in 1907 after serving as the head coach at the University of Pittsburgh in 1906. Pennsylvania was the Mecca of tough football players in that era with many schools across the country vying for Keystone boys, Many a Mansfield player had already gone on to Ivy League schools before Doc and the others went south. However he got there, Doc made an instant impression at LSU. The starting end, Doc was also the punter and place kicker. He became legendary for his broken-field nmning down in the bayou and quickly helped the Tigers to a 7-3 record in 1907, leading the team in scoring with 107 points.

At the end of that season, Doc and the 12 other members of the team, traveled to Havana, Cuba, to play against the University of Havana in the Bacardi BowL It was the first football game ever played on "i foreign soil by an American team, -i According to written accounts of the game, it was something to behold. The University of Havana team was undefeated and was comprised of many former American players along with some very large for the day Cubans. The center of attention was 300-pound A.C. Infante-Garcia, who it was reported was recruited just for the game to handle LSU's 200-pound big man. The crowd of 10,000 includ- ed many American sailors and servicemen stationed in Cuba since the country earned independence from Spain just 10 years earlier after the Spanish-American War.

It also seems the Cuban players fortified themselves with extra courage by drinking wine from large glass demijohns during warm-ups. Doc told an LSU player to just bury his unhelmeted head into the belly of the 300-pound Cuban on the first play and he won't have any trouble after that According to the game accounts, it worked with the Cuban player "spouting wine oat his mouth like a fountain" -j after the hit. It seems as if Coach Wingard, a notorious rebel-rouser as an undergrad at Susquehanna, wasn't above some questionable methods to give his team an advantage. Wingard would be banned from coach football in any Southern college by the South-1 era Intercollegiate Athletic Selecting Health Care i Providers in Rural Bangladesh An Ethnoscientific Analysis" published as a book chapter in the Review of Economic Anthropology, 26, The Economics of Health and Wellness: An Anthropological Perspective. ') (Molla also presented a pa- per on "Effects'of Pond Water Contamination on Incidence 9 of Diarrhea hi Bangladesh An Ethnoscientific Analysis," at the 2007 American Anthropological Association Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Three students majoring in sociology-anthropology Jennifer Cheddar, Logan Kinch and Shannon Horning attended the conference with Molla to gain exposure to an international level professional conference. Student scene The Department of Education Special Education presented the fall 2007 Graduate Capstone Project Reports on Dec. 4 at North Hall Library. The capstone course is EDELE 5592, "The Teacher and Educational Leadership." Lynne Hammann was the instructor, and graduate students and topics were: Marisa Allen, "Understanding Motivation of At-Risk Students For Pre-Service and Beginning Teachers." Ryan Broughton, "The Effects of Teachers' Technology Usage on Student Attendance and Student -Achievement." i Sarah Buynak, "Exploring the School and Museum Relationship." Anna Ezzolo, "The Transition Challenge for College Bound Students with Disabilities." Jamie Gorman, "Bridging the Reading Gap: Are Pre-K Programs Ann Gotschal, "Writing in the Social Studies Classroom: Beyond the Research Paper." Nina Lucero, "Preparing Students to Teach in Urban Schools. Branch" Mase, "Problems of Low SES in Today's Classrooms: Opportunities for Teacher Leaders to Make a Difference.

Geralyn Mitchell, "D.A.R.E. to Be Different: Alcohol Prevention Programs in the Schools." Bruce Newman, "Integrating Technology Through Professional Development" Christopher Reed, "The Demise of American Mathematics: What's Wrong and How to Fix It." Staff notes Barbara Corrigan, director of Law Enforcement Training and Certification Programs-Center for Lifelong Learning, and Christine Shegan, director of Police Services, attended a presentation on the Virginia Tech mass shootings given by Chief Wendell Flinchum of the Virginia Tech Police Department and Col. W. Steven Flaherty of the Virginia State Police on Dec. 11 in Annandale, Va.

More than 500 law enforcement personnel attended "Planning for, critical incidents is a high priority on all campuses, particularly in the aftermath of Virginia Tech, with the fervent hope that implementation will never be needed," Shegan said. Flinchum and Colonel Flaherty shared ideas and suggestions that we will consider and apply to our planning and training here at Mansfield University." According to Corrigan, "The information I garnered by attending this presentation will be extremely beneficial to our training at the Municipal Police Training Academy at Mansfield University." Terry Day is assistant director of public relations at Mansfield University. For more on the university: TwinTiersMoms.com is the place to connect with other moms in your area. Share, learn, get advice and join the conversation. Easy to use and all in one place.TwinTiersMoms.com Online Discussions Family-Friendly Calendar Kid Pics Best Bets Expert Advice The new online community for, byf i and about moms,.