PIRATES SHOCKINGLY MEETING CAMELS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE BEFORE WWII
Despite being close regionally and making a lot of sense travel wise, the Pirates have not met the Fighting Camels on the gridiron since October 7th, 1939 in what was then, “3rd Street Stadium” in Greenville, NC. The Pirates then known as the “Teachers” would get shut out by Campbell, 13-0, ending a short lived series and not meeting again until this Saturday, September 17th, 2022. In the all-time series, the two would only meet four times, with the Pirates only grabbing one win, which just so happened to be their very first program win for the football program, back on November 11th, 1933. It was ECU’s first meeting against Campbell, with it only being the second year of their football program’s existence. The “Teachers” would claim a 6-0 victory and after searching through ECU’s Digital Collections, we here at 94.3 The Game were able to find a newspaper article from the time giving details of how the matchup went down, the following is an exact copy of what was written in that article about the win.
The Teco Echo, Tuesday, Nov. 22nd 1933
Teachers Win First Football In History
“Locals win tilt with Campbell by A 6-0 Victory.
Whole Team Working As A Well Organized Machine Played Best Game of Season: Rogerson Scores The Touchdown.
Humphries, Quarter-back Shines For Visitors.
In keeping with the spirit of Armistice Day, the local football boys fought their way to a hard won victory over Campbell. The Teachers by far surpassed their usual game and they were able to threaten in every period and score in the third.
The locals started the game off with a nice march down the field that ended on Campbell’s 4 yard line. Then both teams settled down to a punting duel in which the Teachers held a slight edge.
The second half seemed to lend new life to the locals and they were able to score early in the third period. The score came after the Teachers received a punt on Campbell’s 35 yard stripe, Puckett returned the kick for fifteen yards and then the fireworks started. A pass, Morgan to Rogerson gained 10 yards and a first down. Rogerson circled right end for six yards then he repeated for 3 3-4 yards. On the next play Campbell was penalized for five yards: this put the ball on Campbell’s 1 yard strip. Rogerson scored on an off tackle play. The toy for point failed.
In the last quarter the teachers staged a march which started on their own 40 yard line and ended on Campbell’s 11 yard strip, here they lost the ball on downs. Campbell then vainly attempted to pass their way to a tally but their efforts were cut short by the ending whistle.
It would be impossible to pick any star from the twelve men that played for the Teachers. Each and every one of them was playing heads-up football; the teamwork was perfect. For the visitors Humphries stood head…”
The newspaper then says to continue to page four but whoever scanned the papers, accidently scanned paged four for the next day’s paper, leaving the rest of the recap lost to time. Check out the article for yourself, a lot of interesting gems included on the page including a background of the football program’s head coach at the time in Ken Beatty as well as some of the female student body chiming in and writing into the paper congratulating the football team.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE LINK: https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/38010
–Ben Byrum, Producer 94.3 The Game/The Patrick Johnson Show