COLUMN: Florence’s first football team quite successful

Football was still a pretty new game, and Florence was still a pretty young community in 1912. That was when Florence had its first football team.
A group of local men who were interested in the game got together and discussed organizing a Florence football team. They were Col. E.L. Baskin, Bernard Early, a former college football player, and Doc Thompson, assistant manager of the YMCA.
The “Y” agreed to furnish uniforms and equipment for such a team, and they also arranged for a place to play. The football field was described in a Morning News article years later as having been across the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad tracks from the YMCA which was on Ravenel Street where it dead ends at the railroad yards. There now is a McLeod Regional Medical Center building at the old YMCA site.
It was unclear whether the field was across the Charleston tracks, west of the “Y” or across the tracks to the north. The article said, however, the players put up goalposts and marked off the field.
At first, crowds were small and apparently just curious about what this game was like or maybe they wanted to see how badly some of the participants might get hurt. Maybe they were a little like those who go to car races to see wrecks.
As the Florence team became successful, however, the crowds became bigger, and apparently there was quite a bit of excitement generated about the team. Finally, they had to rope off the field to keep the spectators off the field where apparently they were ready to interfere with play. Whatever the fans’ motivation, YMCA football team game days became big, exciting days for Florence.
Early was the head coach, and they reportedly met teams from military academies and military units’ football teams.
Baskin helped with the coaching, and he apparently came with a bunch of tricks up his sleeve. He had been a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania shortly before that and had seen Jim Thorpe and his Carlisle Indians play a number of times. Baskin had hidden ball tricks and some other trick plays he had learned from Thorpe, which he taught to the Florence team.
They must have worked pretty well, because the Florence team was very successful. Perhaps their greatest rivalry was with a team from the Rocky Mount YMCA, which was operating under conditions similar to theirs. Rocky Mount won their first match, but the Florence team came back in a game played here and evened the score. They never got around to playing a third game to break the tie.
Perhaps the most heated game was with a Coast Guard team from Charleston which reportedly came up here having much to say about how they were going to “fix” the Florence team. They must not have done much, because according to the clipping, Florence won the game. The score was not included in the item. It was said the Coast Guard team refused to play Florence again.
Among other victims were Porter Military Academy from Charleston and Donaldson Military Academy in North Carolina.
It was said the Florence team tried to schedule state colleges but could not. However, the Wake Forest University football history lists a game against “FlorenceYMCA,” which Wake won, 80-0. If that was the local team, the old article did not mention that game.
Some former college players joined the Florence YMCA squad and probably some local high school boys. It is said the Florence team was not above using “ringers” to assure success. One was said to have been an all-star college fullback from Virginia who could run the 100 in 10 seconds dressed in full football gear. Another was a player of some note from Walla Walla, Wash., of all places.
The YMCA football team just played a few years. Then, Early became coach of the Florence High School football team that was organized shortly after the YMCA team. Perhaps it was Early’s coaching. Perhaps it was the inspiration of the YMCA team. Perhaps it was experience of high school boys playing for the “Y,” but Florence High School won four straight state football championships between 1916 and 1919.
Later, Early became secretary of the University of South Carolina alumni association.

— Thom Anderson is a retired journalist who has 40 years experience with South Carolina newspapers, including the Morning News. He can be reached at THIDBIT@ aol.com.