Sixteen Backs, Confederate Flags, Touchdowns Mar Virginia Episode

Charlottesville, a university town of very old traditions and very new football talent, hadn't had such a time since Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed a line and laid the foundation for a permanent sectional psychoses.

Rooming houses and likker stores were all sold out last Christmas and Friday night found the city's trees decorated in a Confederate flag motif. From many of these same trees hung nooses and signs saying, "For the first Damn Yankee who touches this flag."

Choruses of Dixie sprung up at the drop of a northern accent. Dixie, in fact, won out over Hey-bop-a-re-bop as the most popular song of the weekend. At the football game, its initial chords elicited correct posture even in the Negro stands behind the end zone. At the pregame rally, Dixie brought every Southerner to his feet. The Cavalier football squad remained seated.

Civilian Halsey Slips

The National Anthem fared less favorably, however, as Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, wearing civilian togs in the president's box with Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., forgot to doff his top-piece.

Some visitors felt the Wahoos were still fighting the Civil War. This is not so. They are merely still enjoying it. One Southerner definitely did not enjoy it, however.

He was Lester E. Eliott '23, a Negro who was forced to join his dark-skinned compatriots in the temporary end zone stands.

According to reports gleaned at pre and post-game debaucheries, all of Virginia University is divided into three parts: Faculty, Fraternity men, and "outsiders" whose only ambition is to become fraternity men.

Virginia Two-Track Mind

Most of the 3000 Crimson fans, students and alumni, who joined in the Charlottesville festivities eventually realized that Virginia had only two stories for foreigners.

Years ago, Esquire magazine ran a survey of drinking at college. Harvard, Princeton, and Yale were rated tops in consumption. But a footnote clearly stated that Virginia had been disqualified because of professionalism.

The other story concerns a young dean who walked into the DKE house one night to find "a young lady with nothing on but the radio."

Virginia's high-type extroversion naturally has led to an immense school spirit. After the game, every home-state license plate read "Virginia 47."