The Pomona-Claremont Era

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A schedule for the Pomona-Claremont varsity and freshman football teams for the 1950 season.

Founded in 1946, Claremont Men’s College quickly sought to establish a college identity during its first year, as both a premier liberal arts institution and one with a robust campus culture. It was believed that fielding competitive athletics teams not only would attract prospective students, but also would help to establish a college culture and build student camaraderie, essential components towards a successful undergraduate environment. Following its first year, CMC joined Pomona College to operate a joint varsity athletics program, competing in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) beginning in 1947-48. In SCIAC, the Pomona-Claremont athletics teams would face other nearby small to middle-sized institutions, such as Whitter College, the University of Redlands, Occidental College, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and La Verne College (now University of La Verne), also playing at various times San Diego State University, Cal Poly Pomona, Santa Barbara College (now UC Santa Barbara), and a number of military teams. The joint athletics program was popular amongst students of both colleges and experienced early success, especially in mainstream varsity sports like football, baseball, basketball, and track and field.

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A 1949 football game between Pomona-Claremont and Occidental. The rivals would meet again the following year for the 1950 SCIAC Championship. (Read full story here)

Throughout the 1950s, football quickly grew as the most popular sport across the campuses and provided great spectator enjoyment. In the fall of 1950, for instance, fans packed the chartered car of a rooter’s train to travel to San Diego for a game against San Diego State. The team would go on to capture its first SCIAC title later that season with a pivotal win against rival Occidental College. From 1953 to 1955, Pomona-Claremont football won three SCIAC titles in a row (Read full story here). Throughout the decade, The Analyst student newspaper provided extensive coverage of football games and attendant festivities and by the mid-1950s, the well-attended Saturday football game had become an important component of homecoming weekend.

Outside of football, basketball became an equally popular sport in the winter and Pomona-Claremont consistently fielded a strong water polo team, emerging as a local power. In addition to the athletics teams, the joint Pomona-Claremont program included compulsory physical education sessions for undergraduate students, while an intramural program consisting primarily of touch football, basketball, and baseball flourished amongst the dormitories at CMC and helped produce a spirit of competitive rivalry that enriched college life.

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An article in The Analyst discusses the newly chosen mascot of Claremont Men’s College, the Stag.

While the joint Pomona-Claremont program helped to establish a reputable athletic culture at CMC, there soon emerged some difficulties and disagreements between the two colleges. From the outset, the Pomona identity tended to overshadow that of CMC and oftentimes sportswriters and event programs left the impression that the team was only made up of Pomona students, much to the annoyance of CMC President George Benson, who took pride in the fact that many CMC students were earning varsity letters across all sports. President Benson also was dissatisfied that the Pomona-Claremont team was fielded under the Pomona mascot, the Sagehen, rather than a jointly shared identification–Claremont Men’s College had chosen its own mascot, the Stag, and adopted maroon and white as its official college colors during 1949-50 academic year. Benson also requested that there be more CMC songs and yells included in cheering during games to adequately capture a joint team atmosphere.

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Despite its partnership with Pomona College, Claremont Men’s College showed great interest in developing its own athletics facilities on campus as early as 1950. In January 1951, the Claremont Men’s College Board of Trustees announced a five-year plan to develop property east of Mills Avenue acquired from Pomona College into tennis courts, a basketball pavilion, field house, swimming pool, baseball diamond, volleyball courts, and a full-sized football field surrounded by a running track. The outdoor stadium complex was completed in 1954 and, in hindsight, was the first signal of Claremont Men’s College’s desire to move away from the Pomona-Claremont partnership and form its own athletics program. (Read full story here)

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A new gymnasium was built on the CMC campus and ready for use by the fall of 1957. Constructed at the end of the Pomona-Claremont era, the gymnasium would provide an important venue for athletics events following the ending of the joint athletics program. (Read full story here)

The matter came to a head with the founding of Harvey Mudd College in 1957. President Benson and several CMC board members played a major role in the founding of the new college and hosted the entering Harvey Mudd class in its dormitories, dining commons, and other facilities. Pomona College, however, would not agree to expanding its two-college athletic program to include Harvey Mudd under the argument that SCIAC would not allow three schools to field a combined team, which would constitute unfair competition. In fact, a number of conference members were already calling for an end to the Pomona-Claremont team, which was meant to be temporary. After a request by the CMC Board of Trustees for a new three-college team to be played under a mutually acceptable name was refused, a Pomona faculty committee concluded in early 1957 that existing arrangements were not permanent, but transitional and the future lay elsewhere. In June 1957, CMC officially dissolved its relationship with Pomona, providing a one-year notice to terminate the program, with an eye towards establishing a new athletic alliance with Harvey Mudd College.

Ted Ducey CMS Hall of Fame Inductees

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Stanton P. Welsh '50

Class of 1950: Stanton P. Welsh

Class of 1955: John Whitham

Class of 1956: Gary Biszantz; Ernie Smith

Class of 1957: John Devereux; Rusty Grosse

Class of 1958: John Poer; Bill Van Horn

The Pomona-Claremont Era