Today's Tidbit... Harvard's Kicking or Graduates' Cup

Arthur Cumnock was Harvard's football captain in 1890 and is best remembered as the inventor of the nose guard, a forerunner of the face mask. As captain, Cumnock was the first to train his team during the spring (giving us spring practice) and to practice tackling indoors using what became known as a tackling dummy. (Amos Alonzo Stagg developed a similar device that year while captaining Yale.)

Cumnock at Harvard

As someone consumed with improving his team, Cumnock sought a way to improve the state of drop and placement kicking at Harvard and worked with several Harvard alums to create the Graduates' Cup. The alums donated $250 for a silver cup with gold lining. Unfortunately, I could not locate an image of the cup, but it was ten inches tall and ten inches across at the mouth and was to be awarded each year to Harvard's best kicker, as determined by contest. The plan was for each year's winner to have their name engraved on the cup and, after ten years, the player scoring the most points in a given year was to take possession of the cup.