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Cardinal & Gold - History - Calvert Hall
Football
In the Baltimore Sunpaper October 28, 1973 paper,
Mr. Buettner writes “Up until 1920, football was considered too rough
for the boys at Calvert Hall and the faculty was against it. But we
held a secret meeting in the washroom and decided to field a team….”
For the next forty years, Hallmen would board busses from Cathedral and
Mulberry to practice at Walbrook Junction, Clifton Oval and Herring Run
Park until the new school opened in 1960. Cardinal football can be traced
back to 1898 and maybe earlier, but no records are preserved earlier than
1920 when yearbooks started. One of those early yearbooks mentions
football in 1898, but that was probably club or intramural type competition.
Loyola Game Sites
There have been seven game sites of the Thanksgiving game against Loyola.
The first one was played at 3500 Clifton Ave and Chelsea Terrace, the
current site of Walbrook High School. That game ended (0-0) and was
called on account of darkness with three minutes left. Walbrook Oval
was a gift by Patrick Flanagan who bought the field for Calvert Hall so
that our teams could have a field to play on. Neither Calvert Hall nor
Loyola had a field to play on in those days, and the intense rivalry
between the two has developed because of the proximity to each other in
the 1920s and 1930s. Loyola was on Calvert Street, just a half mile
away from The Hall at Cathedral and Mulberry. Ha! Loyola was on
Calvert Street, the site of the current Center Stage Theater and school
of St. Ignatius. Other cites for “The Game” included Evergreen (Loyola
College) in 1921, Gibbons Field Mt St. Joseph High School and Homewood
Field of The Johns Hopkins University. Between 1944-1954, the game was
played at Old Oriole Park on Barclay and 29th Street until it
burned down. Then, the game moved to Municipal Stadium which became called
Memorial Stadium in 1954. In 1993, the game was played for one year at
Towson University because a filming contract prevented the use of Memorial
Stadium. In 1999, The Baltimore Ravens opened their stadium in the inner
harbor area, and the game has seen four years there played between the
Cardinals and Dons.
Loyola Game Dates
Just as you probably thought that we always played
at Memorial Stadium before moving to Ravens’ Stadium, you may have
thought that we always played Loyola on Thanksgiving Day. There have been
fifteen other dates other than Thanksgiving, all of which occurred prior
to the 1950s. In the early 1920s, we played Loyola first (what a letdown!).
One year, the game was played on December 1st. In 1925, we played
Mt. St. Joe on Thanksgiving. Since we played Loyola in some years as the
first game, obviously we played someone else on Thanksgiving.
People
Several individuals deserve mention throughout the 83 years of football
history at Calvert Hall. John Sanborne came to Calvert Hall in 1950 and
was the school trainer, equipment manager and bus driver until his death
in February 1987. For thirty eight years, athletes would receive their
aspirin or all tears, cramps and breaks and be told to walk it off. John
would always yell about misbehaving on the team bus but he held a dear
place in the hearts of thousands of athletes who visited his trainer room.
Brother Andrew Donoto (Little Andy) came to Calvert Hall in 1947
as the Athletic Director and held that position until poor health forced
him to retire in the 1970s. Brother would call you “child of God”
first before he issued his voice of discipline
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