North Carolina State University Athletics
EXCERPT: NC State's First Basketball Team
10/13/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Oct. 13, 2010
Basketball was introduced to the North Carolina School for Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in the fall of 1908, when John W. Bergthold became the general secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). He helped the students at the campus YMCA learn the rules of the game on the unpaved gravel drill fields on the grounds of present-day Pullen Park.
He borrowed a set of uniforms from the football team and sent a team representing the A&M YMCA to face Bingham Military School, a game that was played outdoors and was delayed while players and students swept snow off the dirt court, and to face Guilford College varsity team in a game that was played indoors.
The A&M team won the first contest, but lost the second.
According to school records, that first non-varsity team included Percy Bell Ferebee of Elizabeth City, N.C.; John W. Bradfield of Charlotte; Frank Lee Crowell of Concord; Davis A. Robertson of Portsmouth, Va.; J.C. Small of Elizabeth City; Harry Hartsell of Asheville; Henry Spooner Harrison of Enfield, N.C.; and J.R. Mullen of Charlotte.
Bergthold appointed senior Guy Kader Bryan to head a committee made up of Ferebee, several faculty members and representatives of the Athletics Association to study the possibility of adding basketball as a varsity sport. Though the committee couldn't assure that basketball would be a profitable sport, it continued to gain popularity on campus, as each of the school's four classes and the agricultural short course each had teams that played a round-robin schedule in the fall of 1910.
A handful of players were chosen from those teams to represent A&M in the school's first intercollegiate game, scheduled against Virginia Tech for Wednesday, Nov. 23, 1910, the night before the two schools met in their traditional Thanksgiving Day football game in Norfolk, VA. But that game had to be cancelled because two weeks of rain leading up to the inaugural game prevented A&M's team from practicing on its outdoor courts.
On Jan. 17, 1911, the faculty approved a single game to be played in Pullen Hall against the University of North Carolina, which was also just starting its program. But the game never developed, as the teams could not agree on the terms of the game. Instead, the basketball team scheduled two contests against the much more experienced Baptists of neighboring Wake Forest.
Richard "Red" Crozier came from Evansville, Ind., in 1904 to become the baseball coach at Wake Forest College. Two years later he organized the first college basketball team in the South at the school. By the time the Baptists hosted A&M's first game on Feb. 16, 1911, the Wake Forest players were far more experienced at playing the game. So it's not surprising that the Baptists won the initial contest in the unbroken rivalry, played in its own gymnasium, by an overwhelming score of 33-6.
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In the first game of college basketball ever played in Raleigh, A&M turned the tables on
Wake Forest for its defeat of last Thursday night (February 16) in Wake Forest, by a score of
33 to 6, and came back strong, defeating the Baptists 19 to 18.
The game was hotly contested throughout, but owing to a slippery floor both teams were at a disadvantage. The score at the end of the first half stood 15 to 11 in favor of A&M. The Baptists played hard in the second half, keeping the Red and White on the jump. Every man on the A& M team did good work, while for Wake Forest, B. Holding and McCutcheon and Dowd did particularly good work.
Time of halves - 20 minutes. Referee - Crozier of Wake Forest. Umpire - Freeman of Wake Forest. Timekeeper - Stafford of A & M. Goals from fi eld - A&M 9; Wake Forest 8. Goals from foul - A&M 1, Wake Forest 3. Attendance - 550. The Red & White newspaper (March 1911)
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The first game of the series garnered little attention. However, the teams played again two nights later at Pullen Hall on the A&M campus. And the outcome was vastly different, as the below account shows.
More importantly, the game made money. Special street cars were arranged to deliver girls from Meredith, Peace and St. Mary's and the temporary stands that were set up in Pullen Hall were filled. The spectacle certainly caught the eye of school administrators, who quickly agreed to take over sponsorship of the sport.
"At the beginning, the Athletic Association would not recognize the basketball team and would not allow us to state that we represented the college but rather that we represented the YMCA of the college," Ferebee wrote in the April 1948 issue of the State College News. "After the Wake Forest game, however, Dr. Riddick called me over and stated that the Athletic Association had decided to sponsor the basketball team and would finance it from then on. We were to turn over to the Athletic Association the funds that we had on hand which amounted to two or three hundred dollars, net proceeds from the Wake Forest game."
For their work, both Ferebee and Bryan earned the praise of Bergthold and their fellow members of the campus YMCA.
"Ever since the spring of 1909 we have been trying to establish basketball as one of the college sports, but not until just recently have we met with any encouragement. Last fall, the association [YMCA] appointed an Athletic Committee, with Guy Bryan as chairman, and through his efforts and those of his committee and P.B. Ferebee, all of whom have worked cheerfully and with dogged determination in face of the most discouraging conditions till their efforts were finally crowned with success in the recent magnificent game with Wake Forest, the first game on our own floor, which disproves the claims of some of our number that the game would never be successful, financial or otherwise. Never was there a more enthusiastic crowd, and never was a crowd more highly entertained. "Basketball, thanks to Ferebee and Bryan, has come to A&M to stay; and after long years the history of this great college sport at A&M shall have been written, the names of G.K. Bryan and P.B. Ferebee will stand out in glaring letters as the pioneers on the frontier of this form of athletics at their Alma Mater. To the able manager of this year's team, W.H. Davis, will be given the credit of the financial success of this, the opening of basketball."
Ferebee was born in Elizabeth City, N.C., in 1891 and became a prominent banker in the western part of the state following his graduation from A&M with a degree in electrical engineering. He was on the board of directors for the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development, the State Highway Patrol Commission and a member of the Consolidated UNC System board of trustees. College scholarships are still given in his name to deserving students from Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon and Swain Counties and the Cherokee Indian Reservation pursuing studies at a North Carolina university or college.
Tampa-native Bryan, the drum major in the college band and a pole vaulter on the A&M track team, earned a degree in civil engineering in 1912 and returned to Florida. What exactly happened afterwards is not known, but he was admitted into the Florida State Hospital for the Insane in Chattahoochie, Fla., prior to World War I and died there in 1920.
A century later, their names still stand in glaring letters for their efforts in bringing the sport to NC State.
From NC STATE BASKETBALL: 100 YEARS OF INNOVATION by Tim Peeler and Roger Winstead. Copyright © 2010 North Carolina State University. Distributed by the University of North Carolina Press. www.uncpress.unc.edu
