During the spring of 1941, Kenyon sophomore Robert Weaver headed up the formation of the first college lacrosse team west of the Appalachian Mountains. He took it upon himself to build the fledgling program from the ground up.
Weaver's love of lacrosse developed while he was prepping at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. When the Ohio native returned to his home state to attend Kenyon, he maintained his enthusiasm and took advantage of his still blooming, yet vital, lacrosse network.
Receiving no funding from Kenyon for the lacrosse start-up, Weaver utilized what connections he did have and enlisted the aid of Benny Havilland, his former coach at Deerfield. Havilland responded by giving Weaver used equipment and goals. From there, Weaver went to work assembling a team, starting first with Ed Chamberlain and Bill Lane, teammates from Deerfield who were now with him at Kenyon.
"As great a game as lacrosse is, I knew there would be no trouble getting a turnout," Weaver said, "but we thought we should get some fellows who would pick up the game quickly so we went after a few 'natural athletes' that we thought would be interested. Then we raided the football team."
Meanwhile, a similar lacrosse scenario was unfolding at Oberlin College near Cleveland and the two teams eventually scheduled a game. That contest took place on an oversized field in Oberlin on April 12, 1941, with Kenyon pulling out a 9-5 victory.
According to the
Kenyon Collegian, "Close to three hundred people watched the game and expected to see murder committed any minute. The Oberlin team, heavier than the Kenyon club, tried to sweep Kenyon off the field and failed to do so only because of the superior team play shown by the Lords."
Most importantly, that game, promoted heavily to Ohio media by Weaver, marked the beginning of the Midwestern expansion movement in collegiate lacrosse.
The University of Michigan also formed a team in 1941 and found a way to play Kenyon, which recorded an 11-9 win over its neighbor to the north. From that point on, interested media writers officially credited Kenyon with being the "Lacrosse Pioneer" in the Midwest.
Unfortunately, a few months later, the outbreak of World War II quickly put an end to Weaver's work, and the game of lacrosse did not resume at Kenyon until 1947. That year, however, Weaver's brother, Pete, resurrected the club, organizing the first Midwest collegiate team to resume play after the war.
One year later, lacrosse became a varsity sport at Kenyon. Roy Styers, hired previously as a trainer, was tabbed the team's coach. On Saturday, April 10, 1948, at Benson Field, Styers directed the Kenyon men, including Pete Weaver, to a 7-6 win over Oberlin. That contest went down in the books as the first official varsity intercollegiate lacrosse game in the Midwest.
Pete Weaver ended up leading the Kenyon team with 16 goals during that 1948 season. Kenyon had difficulty playing against some of the established teams from the East, losing to Sampson, Hobart and Penn State. At home, however, Kenyon twice defeated Ohio State before falling to Oberlin in the season finale.
In addition to Pete Weaver, that 1948 Kenyon team included George Alliegro, Harvey Basinger, Leonard Burrows, Tony Faust, Al Grantham, Dave Jensen, Jim Miller, Sheldon Nichols, Art Sherwood, Al Smith, George Striebing, Ralph String and Walter Van Sickle and Dick Welty.
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