Back in the Day

Sports have always played an integral part of life on campus. Like everything else through the years here at Lycoming College, they have evolved and changed. In this photograph from 1870, when Lycoming was in its infancy as the Williamsport Dickinson Academy, children are shown in physical education class where they pumped up their muscles with the likes of batons, bowling pins, and weights.

By 1959 Lycoming had not only grown into a four year college, but the bowling pins were being used in a more traditional manner. Today there no longer is a bowling alley on campus, although we have acquired one of the bowling pins in the archives.

Another unusual sports sighting from back in the day is this photograph from 1932, of seven female archers poised for target practice out on the lawn.

Every inch as conspicuous as flying arrows on the lawn was the football field that was located on the quad. In 1962 the David Person field was built, moving football from the quad, scoring a touchdown in 1998 when the 1.95 million dollar Robert Shangraw Athletic Complex was dedicated.

Before the Lamade Gymnasium, which became the site for the college's many major athletic events after its dedication in 1980, there was the Hilltop Gymnasium. In this picture from 1924 there is a volleyball net, as well as several pieces of gymnastics equipment.

A photograph of the swimming pool that was in the Hilltop Gymnasium. The tile pool was twenty by sixty feet and was equipped with a sterilization and filtration plant that necessitated changing the water only four times a year. The Hilltop Gymnasium was dedicated in 1924, and eventually in 1983 the gymnasium was renovated as the Fine Arts Building.

Some sports have fallen off the map; others have emerged victorious- moving to bigger and better facilities as our college has grown.