A Student and a Gentleman
This student-written editorial in the Technician expressed indignation that Dr. Poteat had said the morals of the NC State student body had declined.
Late nineteenth-century proponents of football asserted that football and athletics were critical to the “sobriety, manliness, healthfulness and morality” of southern men, and students at NC State during the 1936 Anderson-Sermon expressed worry that they and their peers lacked these important qualities. Concerns about NC State students, student athletes, and the development of their gentlemanly behavior focused on profanity, behavior toward women, and alcohol consumption.
Dr. McNeill Poteat publically noted a rise in profanity use among students, which upset some who opined in The Technician that “profanity is not consistent with the character of a gentleman” and urged their fellow students to clean up their language. Clerical assistant Bea Rowe also conceded this ungentlemanly trend, as she noticed that in recent years men “don’t seem to care about using it [profanity] in the presence of ladies.”
Prohibition—the moral and legislative battle to abolish alcohol use nation-wide—officially ended in 1933 with the 21st Amendment. However, many southern counties and towns remained dry, and alcohol use was still an issue in North Carolina. Alcohol use among students concerned council members, alumni, and some students discussed rumors of beer kegs and parties in football players’ dormitories, as well as alcohol-infused parties after out-of-town football games. Even students acknowledged that alcohol use have negative ramifications, as former football player Howard Bardes observed that fellow player Carl Goode was “not a top notch football player but he got to drinking and broke training and I don’t blame Mr. Anderson for not playing him.” Thus the idea of alcohol use among students was contentious and often drew criticism from adults and students alike, who perhaps felt that players were not teaching other students proper values and practices through such habits.
What place did venereal disease have among morality concerns at NC State? Athletic Council members questioned former campus nurse Mrs. Hanks about friction in the relationships between campus physician Dr. Campbell and Dr. Sermon and Coach Anderson. Amidst this questioning, Hanks expressed frustration that she was not always allowed to treat football players’ venereal diseases properly in the infirmary. She stated that “the whole time I was there, athletes were being treated for gonorrhoea that were not able to play foot-ball, yet they were on the field. That weakens them very much.” This reference to venereal disease did not seem to cause great concern among the council—they focused on Sermon and Anderson’s professional relationships with the doctor. It remains unclear why venereal diseases and the sexual activity they entail did not merit concern in this discussion of an athletic program's morality. However, in the other aforementioned areas, the Anderson-Sermon controversy illuminated football’s educational and character-building role.
Visit other Exhibits in the Under Review: The Anderson-Sermon Controversy and Football's Role on the College Campus.
Miss Bea Row, a clerical worker for the Departments of Intercollegiate Athletics and Physical Education testified about the improper language she heard male students use toward women on campus. She also asserted that Coach Anderson used profanity in letters he dictated to her.