Union College: 2022-2023

[Lost_Husky]

SHHHHHHH! Dont tell anyone that. The word might get out and ruin this whole "we REALLY care about righting past injustices" narrative. Not many Dutchmen around to complain to Union, but plenty of hand-wringing Libs around to whitewash (bad pun) history...... and keep the Yale name because "difficult to prove he was involved all these years later".

I actually heard a high ranking Yale alum say the Yale=slave trader story "has all the marks of a Russian Dis-information campaign". Oh wait, I am getting this mixed up with other wonderful tall tales.

Good luck with the name change Union. Gatorade definitely coming for trademark infringement. Siena did this a long time ago with Indians. Shenendahowa did it by removing the mascot but keeping Plainsmen. Who is next?

The older we get, the more things change. That's just a fact of life. Teams changing names has been going on for decades.

Really, does it matter? I didn't choose the university I graduated from or developed a love for the hockey team based on their mascot.

 

[Ralph Baer]

I vaguely recall that the trophy name was a joint decision by the two schools, honoring the heritage of both schools. Thus I don't think that Union could change the name unilaterally although RPI would probably be willing to change it if Union wanted to.

 

[Chuck Murray]

I vaguely recall that the trophy name was a joint decision by the two schools, honoring the heritage of both schools. Thus I don't think that Union could change the name unilaterally although RPI would probably be willing to change it if Union wanted to.

Precisely, Ralph. I'll set the over/under on the demise of the DST at five years - thoughts on sooner vs. later?

 

[kurt stutt]

I vaguely recall that the trophy name was a joint decision by the two schools, honoring the heritage of both schools. Thus I don't think that Union could change the name unilaterally although RPI would probably be willing to change it if Union wanted to.

That may not be correct. The trophy name may have been chosen by the newspapers, in some fashion.

Back in 2012 a question came to the RPI Athletic Department regarding the name of the trophy. A fan felt the trophy name, as listed on the football schedule, was wrong. It said "Dutchman Shoes". The writer felt it was historically and grammatically incorrect and should say "Dutchman's Shoes".

The question was forwarded to the RPI Archives. They did some research and couldn't definitively answer the question as to the correct name. The archivist did find references to the "Dutch Shoe" series and the "Dutch Shoe Trophy" in the Polytechnic. This was the summation from the archivist:

"I get the impression the trophy wasn’t really given a formal name, at least not right away. That’s just a guess, though. When I searched the name on Google and in RPInfo, several variations come up, including Dutchman’s Shoes (the most common variant), Dutchmen Shoes, and Dutchman Shoes (the latter is more often used at Union than at RPI). I guess that’s a long-winded way of saying I really don’t know what the correct name is, or even if it has a formal name."

The athletic department contacted me, asking if I had any information. I did some further research. This is my slightly-edited reply (I took out some personal references):

---

I decided to start at 1950 and move forward. I only checked before and after each game, since microfilm doesn't have a Google feature. Also the newspapers didn't have a Sunday edition, so all game stories came out on Monday.

Here we go:


1950 - No mention of the trophy.

1951 - The Monday, October 8 edition of the Troy Morning Record has (quotes are in the original text):
Union extends its possession of the traditional "Dutch Shoes" by capitalizing . . .

1952 - No mention of the trophy, but this game was televised on WRGB, probably the first RPI football game televised, if not the first RPI sports event.

1953 - No mention of the trophy.


I quickly got frustrated and jumped ahead a few years.


1960 - The Monday, October 17 edition of the Troy Record has (quotes are in the original text):
An injury-riddled RPI football team held favored Union to two touchdowns Saturday in Schenectady, but could generate little offense of its own as the "Dutchman's Shoes" returned to the Union campus for the first time since 1957 on the strength of a 14-7 Garnet victory.

1961 - The Friday, October 20 edition of the Troy Record has:
At stake in the RPI Homecoming test are the Dutchman's Shoes, instituted after the 1948 battle.


Now I jumped back.


1959 - The Friday, October 16 edition of the Troy Record has:
Beginning with the 1949 ball game, the Capital District rivals have been struggling for possession of the Dutchman's Shoes Trophy. From '49 through '57 the trophy remained at Union. In fact, it had become so much a part of Union, that nobody thought to present it to RPI for its 20-19 win in '57 until several days after the game.


Back again two years.


1957 - No mention of the trophy. I went to this year because the game was held on a Tuesday in November.


Just for kicks, I now jumped ahead 13 years.


1970 - The Friday, October 16 edition of the Troy Record has (quotes are in the original text):
The winner of Saturday's game will receive the "Dutchmen's Shoes" Trophy.


At this point the name interested me less than the year it started. Were the 1948 & 1949 references in 1961 & 1959 correct or a misinterpretation? So I jumped back to 1949.


1949 - No mention of the trophy. Of note though, this year was the 125th Anniversary of RPI and the crowd for the game that year was estimated at 7,500. That's probably not the largest crowd at an RPI game, before World War II game accounts talk about 8,000+ at games. But I think it shows both that football was once more popular at RPI and that in those days there wasn't much else to do.

My guess on this question is that 1950 is correct. The phrase "since 1949" can be interpreted two ways. I suspect someone asked "Hey, how long have they had this trophy?" The response was "Since 1949" and that person means 'starting after 1949'. The other person interprets it as 'starting with 1949' and therefore the trophy was established after the 1948 game. I'm not too worried about that.

As to the trophy name, unless there is something written on it I don't know what to tell you. If I had to put money on what they would call it in 1950 my guess is "Dutch Shoes". How relevant is that now? I don't know.

---

We did check the trophy that year and there was no name written on it.

Can an item be renamed that has never officially been named?

 

[rpi82]

The Dutchman's Shoes will survive. Rivalry trophies last forever. There are games to win buckets, jugs and barrels; golden, bronze and wooden boots; various kitchen items; bells of all sorts; even a golden screwdriver and a brass spittoon (if you apply a gold or brass coating even the most basic and disgusting things can be trophies). Nothing has to make much sense. It just has to be traditional and awarded for beating a rival. That works here.

 

[Waite21]

I remember writing a question addressed to the RPI athletic department about this issue. I can't remember exactly when I sent it in, but it may very well have been 2012.

I graduated from RPI in 1970. Page 161 in my copy of the 1970 Transit (RPI's yearbook) clearly refers to the "battle for the Dutchman's Shoes." That is the name by which I knew the trophy during all of my four years. I always thought the name made perfect sense, since a shoe is not a Dutchman, nor are two shoes a Dutchman, but two shoes can belong to one Dutchman and be the Dutchman's shoes.

I actually saw the trophy at Union's gym when I went there for a basketball game while I was a student, and the plaque on the base of the trophy clearly identified it as the Dutchman's Shoes trophy. However, in response to my question, I was shown a more recent photo of the trophy, and the photo showed the plaque clearly identifying it as the Dutchman Shoes. Somebody in the intervening 40-odd years must have decided to rename it and replace the original plaque, though I have no idea who made that decision, why, or when.

Could be that the October 1970 Troy Record article, referring to the trophy as the Dutchmen's Shoes (rather uncharitably toward the team from Troy), was slyly referring to the fact that Union had won the matchup for the previous ten years in a row.

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

That's a pretty arrogant presentation for a response that discloses you know nothing about this decision and are making an assumption based on the latest political buzzword. You do present an interesting theory though, as colleges are very interested in appealing to the Gen Z world that represents their current and, for the next 5-10 years, future client pool. If "3 Elijahs with nose rings" represent that generation, then their opinions on this matter are undoubtedly far more important than yours.

Yeah, there’s a pretty heavy “old man yells at cloud” energy going on here.

No evidence offered that it’s a PC thing vs a “hey, there isn’t exactly a Dutch equivalent to the market that Notre Dame has with Irish Catholics, so… ?\_(ツ)_/?”. Just pure, unadulterated whiny person on the internet.

 

[NCAA watcher]

Yeah, there’s a pretty heavy “old man yells at cloud” energy going on here.

No evidence offered that it’s a PC thing vs a “hey, there isn’t exactly a Dutch equivalent to the market that Notre Dame has with Irish Catholics, so… ?\_(ツ)_/?”. Just pure, unadulterated whiny person on the internet.

That's unfairly ignoring the powerful Anti-Dutch lobby that controls the US. If you recall, the woke crowd came after New Amsterdam, before settling in Pennsylvania and forcing the German community there to be renamed the Dutch.

 

[Wicked Slappaahs]

That's unfairly ignoring the powerful Anti-Dutch lobby that controls the US. If you recall, the woke crowd came after New Amsterdam, before settling in Pennsylvania and forcing the German community there to be renamed the Dutch.

And more locally, the City of Albany just recently tore down a statue of Philip Schuyler which stood in front of City Hall for decades...only blocks away from his mansion which still stands and today is a state-operated museum... I suppose its just a matter of time before the bulldozers arrive.....because there is nothing to be learned from history of course !

 

[Lost_Husky]

That's unfairly ignoring the powerful Anti-Dutch lobby that controls the US. If you recall, the woke crowd came after New Amsterdam, before settling in Pennsylvania and forcing the German community there to be renamed the Dutch.

Woke being English speakers who didn't know Dutch from Deutsch.

 

[Chuck Murray]

And more locally, the City of Albany just recently tore down a statue of Philip Schuyler which stood in front of City Hall for decades...only blocks away from his mansion which still stands and today is a state-operated museum... I suppose its just a matter of time before the bulldozers arrive.....because there is nothing to be learned from history of course !

We need WAY more Philip Schuylers than (what in the holy F is a) "Garnet Chargers", that's for sure ...

 

[tony/troy]

1952 - No mention of the trophy, but this game was televised on WRGB, probably the first RPI football game televised, if not the first RPI sports event.

Very small part of a much longer post that I can probably shed some light on simply due to both being around this area long enough and actually knowing original RPI hockey fans who date back to the dawn of indoor hockey at RPI in 1950. While most of them are now obviously deceased, a handful, who obviously started attending at a young enough age, are both still around and still attending.

A) Any televised RPI sporting event prior to the fall of 1952 would have also had to have been on WRGB whose inception was in 1942. The other three local stations are off the table as they did not even exist until 1953, 1954 and 1982.

B) As for the old timers, a number of them stated that the RPI game on night three of the Christmas Tournament was televised every year through the first ten to a dozen years the tournament was held. Though no serious interest in hockey by myself would develop for another four or five years, positive I remember watching at least a part of one of those telecasts circa 1960 or so. However, only the very first tournament was played prior to the fall of 1952 and night three of that one was December 29, 1951, a 7-3 RPI win against Loyola.

Unfortunately, I don't have (or care to pay for) one of those newspaper archive subscriptions to check the actual TV listings for that or any other date.

 

[Lost_Husky]

And more locally, the City of Albany just recently tore down a statue of Philip Schuyler which stood in front of City Hall for decades...only blocks away from his mansion which still stands and today is a state-operated museum... I suppose its just a matter of time before the bulldozers arrive.....because there is nothing to be learned from history of course !

People/events get romanticized/demonized depending on perception/values of that current generation. This isn't unique to America or the "woke" crowd. Nothing stays the same.

 

[Dutchman]

Union has just disenfranchised thousands of alums.

New York City and the Albany area were first settled by the Dutch (1640s), and New York City was first known as New Amsterdam. Union and RPI have rich Dutch ancestry, and it was appropriate to celebrate that heritage. Fort Nassau, on Castle Island along the Hudson, near present-day Albany, was founded in 1615. George Washington's Continental Army ranks were filled with many Dutchmen.

Many remember "Bob Ridings" dressed as the Dutchman firing the canon after every touchdown. You can see him in some old videos (below). We paid this price for hiring a super "woke" president. We should have expected as much from someone whose pedigree included a stay in Ithaca. When President Harris arrived, one of his first actions was to decry the treatment of a gay student who went to a working-class Schenectady bar with his pink fingernails and got harassed. President Harris made this a "cause celebre" and painted his fingernails in support.

My concern with President Harris was focus. I had hoped the new president would focus on strategic issues like the long-term survival of the school. Harvard Business School (Christensen) warned a few years back that many colleges and universities will not survive past 2030, and I was hoping Union might be one of them. If, however, the president's focus is on pronouns or deleting the words "men" and "women" in some sick attempt to placate gender fanatics, then he was the wrong man for the job. The forces at work will put great stress on today's colleges. It's already starting to happen.

I wonder if working-class Schenectady will still support the hockey program. Another "Bud Light" moment?

President Obama focused on ensuring biological men could use ladies' rooms and did not focus appropriately on Russian aggression in Ukraine and Crimea. The job required Free World Leadership which he elected not to exercise. We now see the effects. President Harris's focus is on gender neutering. His job requires some strategic thinking, direction and leadership.

I have met RPIs new president Schmidt, and he gets it. We don't.

https://studio.youtube.com/video/L5jb9B-URe4/edit
https://studio.youtube.com/video/32Y4F3XbyOs/edit

 

[Wicked Slappaahs]

Union has just disenfranchised thousands of alums.

New York City and the Albany area were first settled by the Dutch (1640s), and New York City was first known as New Amsterdam. Union and RPI have rich Dutch ancestry, and it was appropriate to celebrate that heritage. Fort Nassau, on Castle Island along the Hudson, near present-day Albany, was founded in 1615. George Washington's Continental Army ranks were filled with many Dutchmen.

Many remember "Bob Ridings" dressed as the Dutchman firing the canon after every touchdown. You can see him in some old videos (below). We paid this price for hiring a super "woke" president. We should have expected as much from someone whose pedigree included a stay in Ithaca. When President Harris arrived, one of his first actions was to decry the treatment of a gay student who went to a working-class Schenectady bar with his pink fingernails and got harassed. President Harris made this a "cause celebre" and painted his fingernails in support.

My concern with President Harris was focus. I had hoped the new president would focus on strategic issues like the long-term survival of the school. Harvard Business School (Christensen) warned a few years back that many colleges and universities will not survive past 2030, and I was hoping Union might be one of them. If, however, the president focused on pronouns or deleting the words "men" and "women" in some sick attempt to placate gender fanatics, then he was the wrong man for the job. The forces at work will put great stress on today's colleges. It's already starting to happen.

I wonder if working-class Schenectady will still support the hockey program. Another "Bud Light" moment?

President Obama focused on ensuring biological men could use ladies' rooms and did not focus appropriately on Russian aggression in Ukraine and Crimea. The job required Free World Leadership which he elected not to exercise. We now see the effects. President Harris's focus is on gender neutering. His job requires some strategic thinking, direction and leadership.

I have met RPIs new president Schmidt, and he gets it. We don't.

https://studio.youtube.com/video/L5jb9B-URe4/edit
https://studio.youtube.com/video/32Y4F3XbyOs/edit

Can't say it any better than that DM ! Well said.

 

[Dutchman]

By the way, the locker room at the Achilles Center was completely modernized six months ago and included the appropriate labels for Dutchmen and Dutchwomen lockers. Each locker has a U and, of course, does the athletic equipment (football helmets, etc.). How much will the reimaging of the new logo alone cost the school?

 

[Chuck Murray]

Union has just disenfranchised thousands of alums.

New York City and the Albany area were first settled by the Dutch (1640s), and New York City was first known as New Amsterdam. Union and RPI have rich Dutch ancestry, and it was appropriate to celebrate that heritage. Fort Nassau, on Castle Island along the Hudson, near present-day Albany, was founded in 1615. George Washington's Continental Army ranks were filled with many Dutchmen.

Many remember "Bob Ridings" dressed as the Dutchman firing the canon after every touchdown. You can see him in some old videos (below). We paid this price for hiring a super "woke" president. We should have expected as much from someone whose pedigree included a stay in Ithaca. When President Harris arrived, one of his first actions was to decry the treatment of a gay student who went to a working-class Schenectady bar with his pink fingernails and got harassed. President Harris made this a "cause celebre" and painted his fingernails in support.

My concern with President Harris was focus. I had hoped the new president would focus on strategic issues like the long-term survival of the school. Harvard Business School (Christensen) warned a few years back that many colleges and universities will not survive past 2030, and I was hoping Union might be one of them. If, however, the president's focus is on pronouns or deleting the words "men" and "women" in some sick attempt to placate gender fanatics, then he was the wrong man for the job. The forces at work will put great stress on today's colleges. It's already starting to happen.

I wonder if working-class Schenectady will still support the hockey program. Another "Bud Light" moment?

President Obama focused on ensuring biological men could use ladies' rooms and did not focus appropriately on Russian aggression in Ukraine and Crimea. The job required Free World Leadership which he elected not to exercise. We now see the effects. President Harris's focus is on gender neutering. His job requires some strategic thinking, direction and leadership.

I have met RPIs new president Schmidt, and he gets it. We don't.

https://studio.youtube.com/video/L5jb9B-URe4/edit
https://studio.youtube.com/video/32Y4F3XbyOs/edit

Fantastic post. We need many more like you chiming in on the Woke overreach pervading Academia.

 

[Thomas Kaine]

Union has just disenfranchised thousands of alums.

New York City and the Albany area were first settled by the Dutch (1640s), and New York City was first known as New Amsterdam. Union and RPI have rich Dutch ancestry, and it was appropriate to celebrate that heritage. Fort Nassau, on Castle Island along the Hudson, near present-day Albany, was founded in 1615. George Washington's Continental Army ranks were filled with many Dutchmen.

Many remember "Bob Ridings" dressed as the Dutchman firing the canon after every touchdown. You can see him in some old videos (below). We paid this price for hiring a super "woke" president. We should have expected as much from someone whose pedigree included a stay in Ithaca. When President Harris arrived, one of his first actions was to decry the treatment of a gay student who went to a working-class Schenectady bar with his pink fingernails and got harassed. President Harris made this a "cause celebre" and painted his fingernails in support.

My concern with President Harris was focus. I had hoped the new president would focus on strategic issues like the long-term survival of the school. Harvard Business School (Christensen) warned a few years back that many colleges and universities will not survive past 2030, and I was hoping Union might be one of them. If, however, the president's focus is on pronouns or deleting the words "men" and "women" in some sick attempt to placate gender fanatics, then he was the wrong man for the job. The forces at work will put great stress on today's colleges. It's already starting to happen.

I wonder if working-class Schenectady will still support the hockey program. Another "Bud Light" moment?

President Obama focused on ensuring biological men could use ladies' rooms and did not focus appropriately on Russian aggression in Ukraine and Crimea. The job required Free World Leadership which he elected not to exercise. We now see the effects. President Harris's focus is on gender neutering. His job requires some strategic thinking, direction and leadership.

I have met RPIs new president Schmidt, and he gets it. We don't.

https://studio.youtube.com/video/L5jb9B-URe4/edit
https://studio.youtube.com/video/32Y4F3XbyOs/edit

There goes Dutchman telling his Pres. Harris painted fingernails story for the fourth time on these boards. I think the name change is dumb and Harris is a poor president, but for the record, not all Union fans are homophobic dinosaurs like Dutchman.

 

[Whalers]

There goes Dutchman telling his Pres. Harris painted fingernails story for the fourth time on these boards. I think the name change is dumb and Harris is a poor president, but for the record, not all Union fans are homophobic dinosaurs like Dutchman.

Me thinks Kaine aint Able ..... to have a true conversation. Is there a USCHO limit on how many times one can use/reuse a story? Must have missed that in the Terms & Conditions on the sign-up page. Then toss in the ultra wide Label brush (maybe Libel?) depending on the strength of your argument - homophobic, misogynist, transphobe, anti-vaccer, neanderthal, and the widest of all brushes, RACIST! - to round out the post.

If Harris is a poor president of Union, and the name change occurred under his watch, he owns it.

 

[Thomas Kaine]

Me thinks Kaine aint Able ..... to have a true conversation. Is there a USCHO limit on how many times one can use/reuse a story? Must have missed that in the Terms & Conditions on the sign-up page. Then toss in the ultra wide Label brush (maybe Libel?) depending on the strength of your argument - homophobic, misogynist, transphobe, anti-vaccer, neanderthal, and the widest of all brushes, RACIST! - to round out the post.

If Harris is a poor president of Union, and the name change occurred under his watch, he owns it.

Most every time Dutchmen discusses Harris, he criticizes him for showing solidarity with a student who was harrased in a Schenectady bar for being gay. You can live in whatever alternative reality you wish, but here on planet earth, factually speaking, that criticism is homophobic. My post simply reminds the various readers of this forum that Dutchmen's views on that point don't represent the average Union alumni, who in my experience are rarely homophobic. And, as my post made clear, there are many reasons to think Harris is a poor president. But the fact that he doesn't think people should harrass his students for being gay isn't one of them.

Let me know if any of that is unclear. If so, I guess I could try to do it with stick figures for you.