![]() "Substituting a great battery of searchlights for the sun, the University of Cincinnati eleven introduced a new game to pigskin followers and one which was the first to be played in gridiron history under similar conditions, when it defeated Kentucky Wesleyan at Carson Field last night, 17 to 0. The Bearcats beat Kentucky Wesleyan by a 17-0 final score that night, but the real story was the spectacle: The Bearcats face Kentucky Wesleyan at Carson Field on SeptemThe first college football night game "And if it is as successful as these photos indicate it will be, night football games early in the season are likely to become common in a year or two." "Other schools located in large cities throughout the country are watching the experiment closely," reported The Cincinnati Post. ![]() Cincinnati invited Kentucky Wesleyan to be its opponent and offered them the field one night to get themselves acclimated to the lights, then they grabbed a white football and put their idea to the test. The Cincinnati Post sent a photographer to Carson Field the night before the game to stage photographs of the team "without the aid of a flashlight" just to prove the whole thing was real, and it was. They felt their system was reliable enough, and the team was used to the concept, though outsiders remained skeptical. In 1923, Cincinnati set out to play the first intercollegiate night game in the Midwest, fourteen years after it began practicing under the stars. If a team could practice at night, why not play a game? The lights were good enough that university officials had an idea. "They make the field almost as bright as day after dark," claimed The Enquirer. The new array consisted of 28 light towers, providing five times the illumination as the original setup. In 1921, electrical engineering student Jack Bernard Silverman designed an incandescent lighting system as his co-op thesis––the genesis of a problem crafting its ultimate solution. The system incrementally improved until the university decided to spring for something bigger. Eventually, it became normal-a way of life for kids wanting a blue-collar education to go with their blue-collar sport. They even painted the ball white so they could see it. Head coach Robert Burch made a habit of keeping an electrician on site at practices to attend to any needs, adjusting the carbon arc lights on the fly to provide optimal illumination. The lights did not give forth expected rays … No punting can be done by the present system." Things continued this way for a while. "About a half dozen electric poles have been erected in the hollow, each suspending large electric lights. "They went through a stiff workout, lasting over two hours," wrote The Enquirer. The team first practiced at night on September 27, 1909. They'd set up lights and practice in the dark.Ī 1914 photo shows carbon arc lights––used for practices––dangling from poles surrounding Carson Field The solution proved to be both obvious and unprecedented. Unfortunately, that still wasn't enough to provide adequate time for game preparation. Schneider did what he could, putting boys interested in playing football on the same rotation, meaning the co-op students (half of the roster at the time) would spend their days in factories one week and attend classes the next. And so by 1909, Cincinnati football had a problem: The team needed to practice, but many of its players were down the hill working in factories until sunset, leaving no daylight hours to prepare for Saturdays. What was originally a one-year trial that only narrowly received board approval quickly caught on. Faculty pictured grimy-fingered factory boys in class." "Business owners worried about fraternity boys mangling their machinery. ![]() " Herman Schneider's contemporaries ridiculed his plan to send university students to work in factories," wrote UC Magazine. To this end, in 1906, the university invented cooperative education, providing students real-world experience by sending them to workplaces during the day. It was chosen first by students for intramural athletic events––an overlooked, sunken marshy area perfect for roughhousing-and then by a fledgling athletic department, for its naturally surrounding hills that provided a vantage point for spectators.Ĭincinnati was a public school established for its people with a mission of educating the masses. Sixteen years after the program's first season, the Bearcats began playing football on campus in 1901 in the "Burnet Woods hollow" we now call Carson Field.
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