"Nobody Ever Died for Dear Old Rutgers"
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
Even at this late date I am sure that the parents of Mark Mills and Robert Smith wish that it was true.
High Button Shoes - 1947
Phil Silvers standing middle-left.
Actor playing Rutgers football player on extreme left.
Just to clarify why it's called "Nobody Ever Died for Dear Old Rutgers," the plot involves Phil Silver's character betting heavily on Princeton in the annual Rutgers-Princeton game of 1913. When Rutgers is leading at the half, Silvers goes to the Rutgers locker room to plead his case why the team shouldn't care that much about winning. Hence the song which is the opposite of why team's try so hard. The con artist doesn't convince in the end as Rutgers defeats Princeton 40-0.
New Brunswick native Stephen Longstreet wrote the story. He was born in 1907 and later hung out in the Voorhees Library reading material that would inspire his writings.
New Brunswick native Stephen Longstreet wrote the story. He was born in 1907 and later hung out in the Voorhees Library reading material that would inspire his writings.
High Button shoes will have a limited revival of 7 or 8 performances in New York in May as part of the Encores program.
Thank you for explaining. I always meant to google this, but never got around to it!
As for the song: I die each time we play a game... regardless of the outcome.
Nice job of explaining. I always thought it was related to something that Leggett said?
Of course RU didn't beat Princeton again until 1938! Though they didn't play every year, it was 68 years between victories.
MO
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High Button Shoes 727 performances made the show “… the longest-running musical about football in theatre history,” according to a Playbill.com article in 2005.
High Button Shoes debuted at the New Century Theatre in New York on October 9, 1947 and had picketers from Princeton protesting its plot. Two days after its opening, life imitated art as Rutgers defeated Princeton for only the third time in school history 13-7.
High Button Shoes debuted at the New Century Theatre in New York on October 9, 1947 and had picketers from Princeton protesting its plot. Two days after its opening, life imitated art as Rutgers defeated Princeton for only the third time in school history 13-7.
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1892 - A Rutgers legend is created when the Princeton football team breaks the leg of Rutgers' biggest player, Frank "Pop" Grant. While being carried from the field, Pop is claimed to have mumbled, "I'd die for dear old Rutgers." The saying, spread across the country when it was satirized in the play "High Button Shoes," became a slogan for school spirit and the old college try. Many alumni have since offered their own versions, including the alumnus who swears Pop really said, "I'll die if somebody doesn't give me a cigarette."
I'd like to think the second bit is the truth.It would have been even better if he had said "I'd kill for a cigarette."
I'd like to think the second bit is the truth.It would have been even better if he had said "I'd kill for a cigarette."
Princeton was invested in football then and Rutgers was more of a club team. Princeton was a much larger college.. and most of those 68 years of games were played AT Princeton. Of the 32 games in the streak, 7 were played in New Brunswick. And after our victory.. the next 32 games.. guess what.. ONE was played in Piscataway. That left just 12 more games until the end of the series and 9 of those were played in Princeton.
That means.. of the entire history.. 71 games.. Rutgers had just 12 home games and 1 neutral site game (Meadowlands). F Princeton.
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The expression "I'd die for dear old Rutgers" started to get national attention as a slogan for school spirit and the old college try and was being popularized around WWI. By the time High Button Shoes hit Broadway, the expression nationwide had hit its apex and hasn't been used much in the latter half of the 20th century (except, of course, by Rutgers alumni in the know).
Seems fair to me....if I'm a Princetonian!
We were RU SCREWED!
Glad we won the 1st game....they can't take away from us: can they?
MO
Nov 14, 1892:
Well.... it's becoming more known every day!
Thanks for posting.
Curiously though, Rutgers played its final game on November 7 in Washington, D.C. So perhaps this was a class football game (senior, junior, sophomore and freshman each had their own football teams and would play an annual interclass game championship tournament after the season was over.
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wait.. so he broke a leg in October.. but was playing again in November? How did they treat that first broken leg.. a couple leeches and a crutch and he's good to go?Nov 14, 1892:
Played with his leg still splinted per the article and broke it two inches below the previous break
