The Rivalry That Once Was

With this years rendition of the Roosevelt-Ravenna football rivalry now long behind us — with ! — it's pretty easy to see what the big game is for both schools. 

Ask just about anyone who follows high school sports in Kent who Roosevelt's biggest rival is, and you'll almost always hear "Ravenna" as the answer (with Stow-Munroe Falls second). Ask a Ravenna fan the same question and chances are they'll reply with "Kent." The Kent-Ravenna rivalry at the high school level goes back beyond 100 years, and the rivalry between the two cities goes back more than 200 years. 

It's a deep-rooted rivalry that has a lot of connections between the two cities — two cities that are quite different but in many ways are very similar. Believe it or not, there was a time not so long ago that neither school was considered the principal rival of the other. While the Kent-Ravenna game today is sometimes called a "cross-town rivalry," as recently as 1960 both cities had true crosstown rivalries. Ravenna had a rivalry with the Ravenna Township High School Bulldogs, and Kent Roosevelt had a crosstown rivalry with the Kent State High School Blue Devils, later known as the Statesmen. 

There is a large but dwindling number of people who even are aware that once had an actual high school on campus. It was part of the Kent State University School, which at its height included grades preschool through 12. The University School was initially started as a teacher training school for pre-service teachers in the days before student teachers were sent out into existing schools. Having enough students to operate such a school was one of the requirements for cities interested in hosting the normal school. The training school was housed in a succession of buildings on campus, including Merrill Hall from 1913-1915 and Science Hall (now called Kent Hall) from 1915-1927.  In 1927 it was moved to its own building, originally known as the William A. Cluff Teacher Training School (which is still engraved in the top of the building), now known as Franklin Hall. 

The school was at Franklin Hall until 1956, when it moved to a new facility at the corner of Morris Road and East Summit Street, which is now the Michael Schwartz Center that houses a number of university student service departments including the bursar's office and the registrar. By 1960, the school was no longer being used as a teacher training school for pre-service teachers and had instead evolved into a labratory school for the college of education. Many educational innovations we now use today in education on a regular basis — like curriculum integration, team teaching, and block scheduling — were tested at the University School (though I would imagine there were many other ideas tested that didn't work out so well). 

In any case, while it was attached to a public university, the school was for all intents and purposes a private school with very low tuition. Students mainly came from Kent, though not exclusively. In the early days of the school, it also enrolled some high school students from Brimfield and Franklin townships as neither township had an accredited high school, and other Franklin Township students went to Roosevelt. Franklin merged with Kent Schools in 1959. 

The rivalry between Kent State High School and Kent Roosevelt dates back to the early 1900s. The University School (then known as the Teacher Training School) began adding high school grades (9-12) one year at a time in 1914, graduating its first class of 14 students in 1918. The first football team was organized in 1917.  By 1919, both schools were charter members of the new Trolley League along with Ravenna, Kenmore, and Cuyahoga Falls. As far as I can find, they remained together as members of the Trolley League, later known as the Western Reserve Leauge, at least until 1950, when Kent State joined the Metropolitan League. Kent State remained in the Metro until 1953 and Roosevelt joined the Metro League the next year.  Early Roosevelt and Kent State High yearbooks refer to Kent State High School simply as "Normal" or "Kent Normal" because Kent State was still known as Kent State Normal College until 1929, when it became Kent State College. By 1924, it was simply called Kent State High or "State" for short. Kent Roosevelt, which was known as Kent High School until 1922, was referred to as "Kent Central" or just "Central" until becoming Roosevelt.  The "Central" name was because of its location in the old Central School, which stood behind the location of the current at Park Avenue and North Mantua Street. 

The first game between the two was Oct. 30, 1917. Where the game was played is not mentioned, but the 1918 Kent Normal High School yearbook, Hilife, records a 20-7 score in favor of Kent High School. Early Kent High School games were played at DePeyster Field, the large field behind the DePeyster School (current Kent City Schools ) that is still used as a site for pick-up football games. No games were played between the crosstown rivals in 1918 or 1919. The 1918 game was likely canceled (no record if it was even scheduled) due to an outbreak of the flu, which canceled all but two of Kent Normal High's football games that season. The 1919 game was simply not on the schedule. 

For most of the early years, the game was the last game of the season or near the last game. In 1920, the series resumed on Nov. 25 with Normal posting a 13-7 win over Kent High. I found the description of this game and its aftermath rather telling of the nature of the rivalry between the two. From the 1921 Kent Normal High School yearbook: "Then came THE game of the season, with our old rival, Kent High, on Thanksgiving Day. This was the first time we had played against each other in three years." After a description of the 13-7 Normal win, this followed: "The Monday following we had a snake dance to celebrate our victory over our bitter opponents. In this parade we marched through town and to their school, where we had cheers for the boys who won the victory." 

Kent High took a 21-0 win in 1921 and emerged victorious as Roosevelt High in the 1922 game, posting a 39-0 win in the season finale ("We were again victorious over the Blue and White") at what they refer to as "Normal field" (which may have been the field the Kent State University football team used that was located behind Merrill Hall near the present day site of Oscar Ritchie Hall and The Commons). In the events section of the 1922 Roosevelt yearbook, The Kernel, is written after the mention of the game with Normal: "Big parade was held in the evening. Many a tear was shed as we buried Normal." Up through the end of the 1920s, the rivalry seemed to be competetive and close. Following the 1929 game, a 7-6 win for State, the series stood 6-5 in favor of Roosevelt.

From there, though, the rivalry began to turn one-sided. The touchdown scored by the Blue Devils in 1929 would be the last offensive points they would score against Roosevelt until 1938. From 1930 through the 1937 game, Roosevelt shut out State in every game except 1932, where State scored on a safety (2 points). Kent State was able to return the favor by posting two consecutive shutouts of their own in the 1938 and 1939 games, but those would be the last State victories in the series until 1957. Only two scoreless ties — one in 1951 and another in 1954 — interrupted Roosevelt's complete dominance of Kent State High for the remainder of the series existence.  This included the most lopsided win for either school, a 54-0 Roosevelt romp in the 1948 game. The Statemen, as they were renamed in 1957, scored their next, and final, victory in the series, a 14-0 win on Sept. 15, 1957 at Kent State's old Memorial Stadium. After that, the remaining seven games all went to Roosevelt by lopsided scores, the closest game being a 26-6 Roosevelt win in 1959. The final meeting between the two schools was played in 1964 at Bowers Field behind what is now , with the Rough Riders posting their second-consecutive shutout over the Statesmen 34-0. In total, the series lasted 46 games with 45 of them played consecutively. Roosevelt ended up winning 38 of the games, State 6, and 2 ties. 

Similar to how the Record-Courier publishes the results of the Roosevelt-Ravenna rivalry since 1922 (a year it erroneously lists year after year as the first year of the rivalry!), the R-C also published a list of the all-time results of the Kent State-Roosevelt rivalry leading up to the game. Interestingly, though, like regarding the complete ignorance of the pre-1922 meetings of Kent and Ravenna High Schools, the R-C consistently didn't include the 1917 meeting between Kent High and Normal High, instead starting the series at the 1920 meeting. Not sure why, especially considering the score is readily available in the Kent Normal High School yearbook. I have also noticed some small discrepencies between the R-C's running total and what are in some of the yearbooks, though.  I guess I will need to do some more digging in old newspapers to find out who was right!

In any case, the rivalry in football officially ended after 1964, though the basketball rivalry — which was also hotly contested for a period — endured through the 1967-68 season.  By then, the rivalry had already been displaced by the rivalry with Ravenna (which seems to have happened by the 1940s) as that series was much more competitive. Kent State High closed at the end of the 1971-72 school year, due mostly to university budget cuts. It could be argued that the University School was an indirect casuality of the Kent State shootings as the budget cuts followed enrollment declines in the years after the May 4, 1970 shootings.  Although a private school in terms of selective admissions, there were virtually no tuition costs and it was attached to a publicly-funded university.  The argument was that the university could not afford nor justify subsidizing the elementary and secondary education of only a select number of students, so the school was phased out. Most KSHS students came to Roosevelt after the closure, which affected grades 10-12. The junior high portion of the school (grades 7-9) closed in 1978 and the elementary portion (K-6) in 1982.

The last remaining vestige of the University School is the Child Development Center located at the corner of Loop and Rhodes Roads on the Kent State campus.  It is essentially the preschool portion of the University School and like the school it functions as a teacher training institution.