The 1896 Holy Cross football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented the

College of the Holy Cross The College of the Holy Cross is a private, Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts, about 40 miles (64 km) west of Boston. Founded in 1843, Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England and one of the oldest ...

as an independent in the

1896 college football season The 1896 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the ''Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book'' listing Lafayette and Princeton as having been selected national champions. Lafayette finished with an 11–0–1 record whil ...

. In their first year under head coach Alfred C. N. Petersen, the team compiled a 2–2–2 record. John J. Finn was the team captain. Holy Cross' record book considers this its first season of varsity football play. It also featured the first game in the

Boston College–Holy Cross football rivalry The Boston College–Holy Cross football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Boston College Eagles and Holy Cross Crusaders. Though the rivalry has been largely dormant since the 1980s, it was once contested annua ...

, as well as the most controversial game in the history of the rivalry – and of Holy Cross football. BC and HC each claim to have won the November 14 rematch game, after both teams refused to follow referees' instructions following a controversial play with three minutes remaining in the game. Holy Cross was leading 6-4 when Boston College scored what its players, and a raucous home crowd, asserted was the go-ahead touchdown; Holy Cross maintained the runner had been tackled for a loss. Officials initially ruled in favor of Holy Cross, and Boston College's players protested by refusing to take the field, leading the officials to declare a 6-4 Holy Cross win. Under pressure from the South End Grounds crowd, however, they reversed their decision and asked Holy Cross, whose players were already celebrating their win, to resume play. Holy Cross refused. The game restarted with only Boston College players, who promptly scored a touchdown (then worth 4 points) to end the game with an 8-6 victory. Decades later, the two colleges continued to disagree on who had won the game. Because of the disputed win, some statisticians list Holy Cross with a 1–3–2 record in 1896. One of Holy Cross' star players this year was

Louis Sockalexis Louis Francis Sockalexis (October 24, 1871 – December 24, 1913), nicknamed the Deerfoot of the Diamond, was an Americans, American baseball player. Sockalexis played professional baseball in the National League for three seasons, spending h ...

, a multi-sport athlete who later found fame as the first Native American player in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. Holy Cross played its home games at two off-campus fields in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...

, the

Worcester Agricultural Fairgrounds Worcester Agricultural Fairgrounds was a site in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the 19th century. The grounds are mainly known for having hosted the Worcester Worcesters, a professional baseball team of the National League from 1880 to 1882. As a m ...

and the Worcester College Grounds.

Schedule

References

Holy Cross Holy Cross Crusaders football seasons

Holy Cross football The Holy Cross Crusaders football team is the collegiate American football program of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Patriot League, an NCAA Division I conference that participates in the F ...

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