T R A D I T I O N

. . . the newsletter of the Fordham College Alumni Association Fordham University at Lincoln Center, New York 10023 

February 1991Ramology. The science of earthquakes began to be studied at Fordham in 1910 in the basement of the Administration Building. Rumblings from the offices of the University president apparently disturbed the sensitive instruments, and in 1923 the University constructed a new seismic observatory, donated by William Spain and dedicated to the memory of his son William. The observatory was built on the site now occupied by Loyola Hall and was moved first to the site of Keating Hall in 1927 and in 1931 to the present site east of Freeman Hall. According to Dan Kern '30, for several years no machinery was used to cut grass in the area of the observatory because the grass cutting machinery would have disturbed the instruments. Instead, a horse was kept on campus for the specific purpose of trimming the grass in the area of the observatory. On June 24, 1991, Founder's Day, alumni and friends of Fordham will celebrate a worldwide prayer breakfast to commemorate the University's Sesquicentennial. Those interested in attending, hosting or simply knowing more about a prayer breakfast should contact Celeste Manuli of Alumni House (212-841-5340) for details.University president Rev. Joseph A. O'Hare, S.J. has announced the John LaFarge, S.J. fellowships. Named for a long-time editor of "America" who founded the Catholic interracial movement in the United States, the fellowships will provide financial aid and residential life aid for minority students. The Alumni Association's Minister of Religious Matters, Nick O'Neill '55, announces that the Fordham College Retreat will be held at Mt. Manresa on Staten Island and at St. Ignatius in Manhasset on the weekend of March 8-10, 1991. Contact Ed Buckley of Alumni House (212-841-5340) for details.College dean Rev. Gerard Reedy, S.J. announces that Dean's Day, the Homecoming for the Mind, will be celebrated at Rose Hill on April 13, 1991. As part of the celebration, Alumni Achievement Awards will be presented to Richard M. Mills, Ph.D. '55, Philip A Pizzo, M.D. '66 and Loretta Tofani '75. Contact Ed Buckley of Alumni House (212-841-5340) for details. We have often walked on a hot, sultry summer day in the shade of the towering elms, oaks and chestnuts that grace Rose Hill and remembered the Jesuits who had the vision to plant them many years ago. Happily, the vision of the early Jesuit planters still lives at Fordham. Jesuits, including former dean Rev. Edward Dowling, S.J., planted a total of 62 maples, pin oaks, Japanese maples, blue spruces and pine trees in strategic places on campus this past summer. The continued greening of Rose Hill seems assured.Among the many stars in Fordham's athletic firmament, Earl "Zev" Graham '28 shines perhaps the brightest. Earl came to Rose Hill from Akron, Ohio on a baseball scholarship in late August 1924. He immediately walked onto the football field and won a spot on the roster. In his first start as a running back, Earl was spectacular. On that same day Zev, a great speed horse, won a race in spectacular fashion, and a New York sportswriter (or was it a Fordham undergraduate with a penchant for the ponies) gave Earl a nickname. A dynamic quarterback, flashy basketball forward and deadly batsman, Zev thrilled spectators on Rose Hill during every sports season. A preeminent breakaway runner, Zev's greatest thrill as a Fordham athlete, a 55 yard sweep against Georgetown, arose, he said, not from his accomplishments but from those of his teammates: "It wasn't the gain so much as the way the whole defense seemed to have fallen into a hole. The blockers did their work perfectly, and all I had to do was run."The Sports Page. Baseball Coach Dan Gallagher has won both the American Baseball Coaches' Association Northeast Region Coach of the Year Award and the Diamond Region Coach of the Year Award for his team's fine 1990 performance. . . . Eric Schweiker '91, co-captain of the football team and a four year starter at center, has been named First Team Academic All-America. A political science major, Eric maintains a 3.95 cumulative grade-point average. . . . Linebacker Mark Blazejewski's '92 reputation precedes him. Mark led the Patriot League with 15.7 tackles per game in 1989 but was injured in the 1990 pre-season and did not play a down in 1990. Nonetheless, he was named by the nation's sports information directors to the NCAA Division I-AA All-America football team. Given the fact that he did not play, Mark "didn't expect" the honor. Red-faced SIDs concede that, given his reputation, Mark is likely to repeat as an All-America, particularly if he plays. . . . Dan O'Sullivan '90, co-captain of last year's 20-13 roundball team, now plays for the Utah Jazz. . . . Michael Taromina '93 captured the United States Powerlifting Federation National Bench Press Championship in the junior division 165 lb. class.Charlie Y, Jack, Billy, Sully, George, KC and Bart . . . That championship basketball season of 1970-71 will be celebrated at a reception at O'Reilly's Restaurant on West 31st Street before the Dayton game at Madison Square Garden on February 23, 1991. Contact Ed Buckley of Alumni House (212-841-5340) for details.RAMembrances. Bill Healy '30 corrects a statement in a recent TRADITION that the 1989 footballers scored Fordham's first points this century against the Princeton Tigers: Needing a "breather" on its schedule, Eastern football power Princeton chose tiny Fordham as its sacrificial lamb in 1909. However, Fordham carried the fight to Princeton on both offense and defense, and, late in the final quarter, the Rams had battered the ball down inside the Tigers' two-yard line. On fourth down, a hand-off to the Rams' explosive fullback, "Bull" McCarthy, produced a four-yard gain and an apparent Fordham victory. However, without explanation (but apparently to preserve the Tigers' ranking), the referee did not signal the touchdown and spotted the ball on the one-yard line as time expired. Record books show the final score as: Princeton 3, Fordham 0. Congratulations to Wellington Mara '37 and his family, owners of the New York Giants, whose team has again won the world football championship.Reader Bob Atkinson '50 reminds TRADITION that among the many honors earned by Alex Wojciechowicz '38 was the selection as Best Lineman of the Year by the Heisman Committee. . . . Alex Wojciechowicz '38 remembers the Seven Blocks of Granite with pride and praises his teammate Ed Franco '38, who, because of a need and for the good of the team, switched from his natural guard position to tackle, thus opening a starting position at guard for Vince Lombardi '37. Tom Mullaney '66 advises TRADITION to "keep up the good work." . . . Andy Metil '80 writes that "TRADITION is a pleasure to read." For the third time in its long and many faceted history, the University Church has been rededicated, complete with a refurbished interior and a new central altar. Bishop Patrick V. Ahern dedicated the new altar which is built from the marble of the two altars that formerly were maintained on either side of the sanctuary. The structural history of the University Church dates back to 1845 when King Louis Philippe of France donated the stained glass windows of the Four Evangelists and of the two saints, Peter and Paul, to Archbishop Hughes of New York. These windows were to be installed in the Old St. Patrick's Cathedral in downtown Manhattan. Unfortunately for the cathedral, the windows were the wrong size, and they were promptly shipped to the University Church at Rose Hill which was under construction. (At its initial dedication, the University Church was Our Lady of Mercy parish on the Rose Hill campus). The windows remain in the University Church to this day. Many years later, on December 4, 1893, the University Church was rededicated after Our Lady of Mercy was relocated to a newly constructed off-campus church on Marion Avenue. Then, in 1948 the University Church was rededicated for the second time by Francis Cardinal Spellman as a memorial to World War II veterans.During this, the four hundred fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Society of Jesus, TRADITION is reminded of the words of Rev. Timothy Healy, S.J., Fordham's first alumni director: "(the) gap between Jesuit seeming and Jesuit being is enormous. (For example, i)n its government, the Society is an absolute autocracy mitigated by the total insubordination of its subjects." On Jesuit Learning. In about 1910, the Jesuit Father Provincial is reputed to have written to all his subordinates: "In the future, when Jesuits appear on public platforms they are to take care to have the letters 'D.D.' printed after their names on the program. . . . We will determine at some future date from which institutions these titles will be derived."A brilliant scholar, a war hero and proud son of North Carolina, Professor Samuel "Spicy Sam" Telfair delighted Fordham history students in the '30's and '40's with uproarious anecdotes of the scenes behind the scenes. Telfair's lectures were witty, descriptive and lively, and, according to Al Broderick '48, he was the only professor who could hold a student audience's attention after 3:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.The Faculty. G. Richard Dimler, S.J., professor of German and editor of "Thought," spoke on "Recent Developments in Emblem Theory" at the 25th annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. . . . Quamrul Haider, assistant professor of physics, published the paper "Dynamics of peon double-charge-exchange reactions," co-authored with L. C. Liu of Los Alamos National Laboratory, in "Zeitschrift fur Physik A-Atomic Nuclei." . . . Carmen Bambach Cappel, assistant professor of art history, climbed to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to prove a Michaelangelo drawing she first studied nine years ago was actually a full-scale working drawing for a character in the ceiling. The discovery not only demonstrates that Michaelangelo worked hard to achieve his artistic genius but also places him in the workshop tradition of the 15th and 16th centuries. Reader John Eriksen '39 advises that TRADITION is "welcomed and appreciated for its conciseness of language, scope of subjects and occasional tongue in cheek comments." John remembers "Fr. Ignatius Cox whose burning desire was to make principles of Ethics, in his words, 'as clear as crystal, or the noonday sun, or a mountain lake in springtime.'"Alumni and friends of Fordham are invited to join Rev. George J. McMahon, S.J. as he leads the Fordham family up Fifth Avenue in the Saint Patrick's Day Parade on Saturday, March 16, 1991. Contact William Spencer Reilly of the Sesquicentennial Office (212-FORDHAM) for details. More Seismic Observatory. John Shepard '29 recalls that, when the seismograph machine donated by William F. Spain arrived on campus from its place of manufacture in Germany, workmen did not know what to do because all directions for assembly were in the German language. Mr. Edward Tivnan, S.J., then a Jesuit scholastic and later president of the University, was required to translate the directions into English before assembly. During the '20's, the Seismic Observatory was cared for by Mr. J. Joseph Lynch, S.J. who became a national authority on seismology. Fordham exhibited three seismograph machines in the Hall of Industrial Science at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The seismograph machines were the only individual university exhibits at the Fair.Still More Seismic. Gerry Haggerty '60 insists that the Great Arthur Avenue Earthquake of 1959, which the Fordham seismograph purportedly recorded as a 7.4 on the Richter scale, did not occur at all. According to Gerry, the reading was caused by a group of sophomores who were returning to their dorm rooms from a night of debauchery by way of the seismic observatory and who deliberately stomped their feet on the lawn outside the observatory to induce the reading. Gerry advises that such stomping to attempt to create a record of non-occurring natural disasters was an activity frequently indulged in by the sophomore class whose members had nothing better to do anyway.How Camp! If your children would be interested in attending Coach Dan Gallagher's baseball camp, Coach Nick Macarchuk's boys basketball camp, Coach Lou Kern's girls basketball camp, Coach Larry Glueck's football camp, Coach Frank Schnur's soccer camp or Coach Don Mills' girls' softball camp on Rose Hill, contact Dan, Nick, Lou, Larry, Frank or Don c/o TRADITION - SUMMER CAMP.Run for the Roses from Lincoln Center to Rose Hill on April 21, 1991 in Fordham's 13.1 mile pledge walkathon. Contact William Spencer Reilly of the Sesquicentennial Office (212-FORDHAM) for details.Fordham students can help you as business interns during the school year and summer vacation or as they begin their careers on graduation from Rose Hill. Please contact Greg Pappas of the Career Planning and Placement Center (212-579-2152) to find out how you can hire one of Fordham's best.Tradition joins its readers in a prayer for peace.TRADITION: Minister of Propaganda: George P. McKeegan '69; Contributing Editor: William J. Healy '30