Claud's Seen It All

What was Collegiate like back in September 1968 when Claud signed on to deliver the campus mail and assist with security?

 

Vastly different in many ways, of course. After all, that was 52 years ago, before a good many of his modern-day colleagues were even born. There’s been plenty of reconfiguration, refurbishment, reinvention, and turnover, and Claud has been around to witness it all.

 

Just as it is now, the world was a far-from-perfect place when the Claud Whitley Era began, but we’ll save the history lesson for another time, another column. To offer a bit of context, though, when Claud reported for duty, Lyndon B. Johnson was President, so his tenure spanned all or part of 10 administrations. Gas cost 34 cents per gallon, a first-class stamp set you back just a nickel, and Neil Armstrong was 10 months from walking on the moon

But Collegiate? Let’s begin by talking buildings, and you can’t talk buildings without talking people. Today, many of the campus facilities which were unnamed in the late ‘60’s celebrate the icons who served back then, and Claud, an icon himself, had a special connection with each of them.

 

In 1968, Malcolm U. Pitt Jr. headed the Boys School. His base of operations, the present-day Upper School, is named in his honor. Catharine Stauffer Flippen headed the Girls School. Her home away from home, which now houses the Middle School, bears her name. Elizabeth Burke led the Lower School. Burke Hall, first a cafeteria and later a center for engineering, math labs, and instrumental music groups, was named in her honor in 1980, two years after she retired.

 

In 1968, A.L. “Petey” Jacobs served as boys athletic director, coached both varsity baseball and basketball, and instilled the ideals of loyalty, fair play, competitive spirit, and sportsmanship. In 1988, seven years after his retirement, the Jacobs Gym assumed his name.

 

Then there’s the Jim Hickey Track which surrounds the Grover Jones Field. In 1968, Jones coached football on the same stretch of real estate that now bears his name. Coached soccer there too. It was a winter sport then, and by November the grass was sparse and the mud often deep, cold, and nasty, which only enhanced the fun. Old timers have often wondered what Jones would think of the pristine turf that the today’s generation enjoys.

 

Hickey, Jones’s long-time football assistant and head coach from 1983-1985, directed the track program from 1968 until he retired in 2005. Except for a season or two here or there, he continues to show up at practice to add expertise, wisdom, and humor. A couple of years ago, the track received its second state-of-the-art synthetic surface. Hickey coached on its predecessor, which was asphalt, and convinced his charges that every day was a great day to run track for the Cougars.

 

McFall Hall and the Hershey Center are centerpieces north of the creek. In 1968, Charlie McFall was two years removed from his student days at Randolph-Macon Academy where, as a three-sport athlete, he spent season after season trying to beat the Cougars. Two years later, he began a 43-year career at Collegiate that included long stints as athletic director and football and baseball coach. And Rob Hershey, ’66 Collegiate graduate, was a student at Williams College en route to a long career as a teacher, coach, and administrator that would include a 10-year stint as head of his alma mater.

 

You’ve probably noticed the large bronze cougar statue situated near the well-traveled footbridge over the creek. It honors Alex Smith, a ’65 alumnus who was a senior at Principia College the year Claud came on duty. The next fall, he returned home and began a 47-year career, most of which he spent as vice-president for development.

 

Finally, there’s the Reeves Center. Built in 1987, it was first called the Student Activities Center. Bill Reeves, whom it has honored since 2014, headed the Boys School for 10 years and the Middle School for five before shifting his emphasis to teaching ethics. He arrived at Collegiate eight years after Claud did.

 

So there you have it: a very brief trip through just a small bit of the past half-century of Collegiate history.

 

While the school and the landscape have changed, Claud Whitley hasn’t. His dedication, devotion, joyous nature, and commitment to all things Green and Gold have remained the constant, year after year after year after year.

   ~ Weldon Bradshaw