The Boisterous Past

Boys will be boisterous. When Kenyon was a stag affair, traditions often emerged from the urge to lock horns. Starting in the 1920s, the first weeks of the academic year included a freshman-sophomore fight. There was also a frosh-soph tug-of-war, with the classes facing each other from opposite banks of the Kokosing River.

For sheer mayhem, however, nothing matches Cane Rush, which sometimes took place at Benson Field, at halftime during a football game, and sometimes on the lawn north of Ascension Hall. Greenslade provided a description in Kenyon College: Its Third Half Century:

"A cane was placed upright in the middle of the field and the sophomores and freshmen lined up at opposite ends. At a given signal there was a rush for the cane. The class having the greater number of hands on the cane at the end of a certain time interval was declared the winner."

The description doesn't do justice to the chaotic nature of the event, which generally ended in a pile of writhing bodies. The incentive to "win" was strong: If the freshmen prevailed, the restrictions imposed on them (beanies, etc.) would be relaxed.

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