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What were we?

B

Brave4life

New member
ISU used to be the "Teachers" - nothin' strikes fear into the hearts of you opponents like playing against teachers.

I know that we've been the Braves for well over 50 years...but what were we before we donned the head dress?
 
B4l, you have come to the right place, and I have your answer.

I have quite possibly the most exhaustive collection of Bradley yearbooks, press guides, basketball programs, lineup cards, and other stuff. I have bought collections from old folks who went to BU as far back as the 1920's and even earlier.
And I have checked it all over and here is your answer.

From the founding of BU in 1897, through 1946, Bradley was officially known as Bradley Polytechnic Institute.

Nicknames for schools were very unofficial for the first 30 years or so of last century, just like nicknames for people, which won't appear on your birth certificate or in official documents.
So only rarely did the nickname of Bradley Polytechnic Institute appear in print up through the 1920's.

But there were actually THREE different nicknames used alternately and interchangeably up through the 20's.

The first nickname to appear, was the "B-men". It isn't hard the figure this one out, as the Bradley athletic teams all wore uniforms with a BIG LETTER "B" on the front.
(I have many pictures if anyone is interested in seeing them)
So frequently, the BU teams were called the "B men".
But pretty much simultaneous to that, another name began to appear in use, as the team was called the "Techmen"
(obviously because the "Polytechnic Institute men" was a little too cumbersome)
.......and at times the "Techs" for short. All three of these nicknames appear often in the Bradley literature and yearbooks all the way up through the 1930's.
Never once in all the year books, literature, and game cards, was the name "Braves" used any time before the mid-1930's.

Then sometime around 1936 Bradley not only adopted the "Braves" nickname, but they also began emblazoning the picture of an Indian Chief in full regalia with feathered head dress on all their literature and even on the covers of the yearbooks, and the athletic teams were invariably referred to only as the Braves. No mention of Techmen, Techs, or B Men appear after 1934-35.

Once the name of the school changed in 1946, they were and have ever since been the "Bradley Braves".

I will be happy to show my stuff to anyone interested, but even for the Bradley Athletic Dept. people I have the names of all the rostered basketball players all the way back to 1908, and most of the yearbooks also include the scoring totals for all those players, which is way more detail than the BU yearbooks with "All Time Rosters" have. Some day if I get the time, I can cull all the info out and put it online.
Let me know if anyone is interested!
 
Hey T,
I found this in the Journal Star - provided by BU's own Tim Conley.

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/103005/OP__B7UDC2IA.059.shtml


I was thinking that it'd be a nice throwback to return to what we were before being the Braves. I think that Techs is probably a little too far off and can you imagine if we were the B-"MEN"...oooh Lordy.

Thanks for the info. I'd love to see some pictures, I myself am trying to amass a little collection.
 
I saw that article a month ago or so, and I must admit, that the stuff that I have somewhat contradicts a couple things in that article, although I don't know anything about what went on in the 30's through the 60's first hand.

First, I cannot find any time in any publications I have, either game cards (scorecards were apparently given out for the BU games in the 30's. kind of like the single sheet they use now with player names and a little info), the scorebooks, yearbooks, press info, and other clippings that I have where the Bradley teams were ever referred to as the "Indians". I would like to see where Tim found that.

Second, the BU teams in the 60's were still strongly asociated with the Indian logos, the Papoose logos, and the Braves name, and the term "Tommy Hawk" just simply did NOT occur in the 60's at all as far as I can tell, but appeared much later in the 80's, and even appeared in person in the Hawk costume to perform at games and visit with the kids. Tommy Hawk also disappeared around 1990.

Bradley had a student dressed as a Chief who did a halftime dance at the basketball games (much like Illiniwek) all the way through the mid 1970's because I was there as a student and accurately recall it, and the guy who was selected to be the Chief had lived right next to me in the dorm in 1971.

Tim's history from the mid-80's is accurate, but before that, I believe I have the publications to assure that my version of things is definitely more accurate, with no disrespect to Tim who did a nice job.
 
tornado said:
Bradley had a student dressed as a Chief who did a halftime dance at the basketball games (much like Illiniwek) all the way through the mid 1970's because I was there as a student and accurately recall it, and the guy who was selected to be the Chief had lived right next to me in the dorm in 1971.
Click to expand...

I tried out for the Chief as a BU student in 1975 or 1976, but didn't get the "gig". I remember tryouts were held in the Student Center Ballroom. It wasn't just a halftime show like Illiniwek performs.....it was before and during the game as well.
 
While I was looking though all my old BU stuff I ran across something I thought was interesting, and I hadn't really noticed it before.

On March 10 of 1947 was the final home BASKETBALLgame for one of the all time BU greats, Ray Ramsey, who went on to a fine career in the NFL after leaving BU as a three sport athlete.
The handout game card had a nice tribute to Ray and the game was against Colorado College (now University of Colorado).

But on the back of the game card was a typed a story about the game by the guy who obtained the lineup card when he went to the game.
The story related a bizarre series of events that quite possibly makes this game one of the oddest of all time, and the details might be somewhat lost to history, so I will present them here just in case anyone cares.

At one point during the game the mechanical game clock got stuck, and the game played on for a minute or so until someone noticed the game clock wasn't running. They got the clock going again and played on.
Then later, at the final tick in the game, Bradley scored and won the game, 57-56. The refs left the floor and BU was officially the winner. But a long discussion carried on after the game, and the BU officials finally agreed that had the clock not stopped and malfunctioned, then Colorado would have won in regulation. Therefore, the BU personnell VOLUNTARILY offered to award the game to Colorado with the score 56-55, and Colorado accepted.
BU ended up with a 25- 7 record, and went to the NIT, and lost in the 1st round, ending their season.

So, this was a game that Bradley actually won, but at present time it sits in the all time loss column, even though the officials deemed BU the winner. This was done as a gentlemanly thing back in 1947 and I suspect we'd never see the same action nowadays! A very strange story.
 
it's boogie time said:
Thanks for the stories. Wasn't Bradley a watchmaking school? How could they have a malfunctioning clock?
Click to expand...

That is a great comeback!
Bradley had a School of Horology until just after WWII, and had one the outstanding training programs for watchmaking and repair for nearly 50 years until the industry went south (or in this case went to Germany and Switzerland), but right from the beginning there were other trades tought at Bradley Polytechnic Institute (thus the "Poly" meaning many technical trades)

Because BU is indeed up the Hill from downtown Peoria, it has unofficially been called the "Hilltop" for decades, but the school itself has apparently never laid claim to that nickname.
 
So do these colleges-
Ohio University-Chillicothe Campus (Chillicothe, Ohio)
St. Edward's University (Austin, Texas)
Western Kentucky University (Bowling Green, Kentucky)
West Liberty State College (West Liberty, West Virginia)
 
tornado said:
While I was looking though all my old BU stuff I ran across something I thought was interesting, and I hadn't really noticed it before.

On March 10 of 1947 was the final home BASKETBALLgame for one of the all time BU greats, Ray Ramsey, who went on to a fine career in the NFL after leaving BU as a three sport athlete.
The handout game card had a nice tribute to Ray and the game was against Colorado College (now University of Colorado).

But on the back of the game card was a typed a story about the game by the guy who obtained the lineup card when he went to the game.
The story related a bizarre series of events that quite possibly makes this game one of the oddest of all time, and the details might be somewhat lost to history, so I will present them here just in case anyone cares.

At one point during the game the mechanical game clock got stuck, and the game played on for a minute or so until someone noticed the game clock wasn't running. They got the clock going again and played on.
Then later, at the final tick in the game, Bradley scored and won the game, 57-56. The refs left the floor and BU was officially the winner. But a long discussion carried on after the game, and the BU officials finally agreed that had the clock not stopped and malfunctioned, then Colorado would have won in regulation. Therefore, the BU personnell VOLUNTARILY offered to award the game to Colorado with the score 56-55, and Colorado accepted.
BU ended up with a 25- 7 record, and went to the NIT, and lost in the 1st round, ending their season.

So, this was a game that Bradley actually won, but at present time it sits in the all time loss column, even though the officials deemed BU the winner. This was done as a gentlemanly thing back in 1947 and I suspect we'd never see the same action nowadays! A very strange story.
Click to expand...

GREAT STORY T!!! I had forgotten all about that. My father and a friend of the family had told me that story a couple times over the years. Details were foggy from them and thanks for the acute details.
 
I guess I didn't realize that Marcus Pollard was not a new phenomenon at BU, as 45 years earlier one of BU's best basketball players went on the star in the NFL.
 
tornado said:
While I was looking though all my old BU stuff I ran across something I thought was interesting, and I hadn't really noticed it before.

On March 10 of 1947 was the final home BASKETBALLgame for one of the all time BU greats, Ray Ramsey, who went on to a fine career in the NFL after leaving BU as a three sport athlete.
The handout game card had a nice tribute to Ray and the game was against Colorado College (now University of Colorado).

But on the back of the game card was a typed a story about the game by the guy who obtained the lineup card when he went to the game.
The story related a bizarre series of events that quite possibly makes this game one of the oddest of all time, and the details might be somewhat lost to history, so I will present them here just in case anyone cares.

At one point during the game the mechanical game clock got stuck, and the game played on for a minute or so until someone noticed the game clock wasn't running. They got the clock going again and played on.
Then later, at the final tick in the game, Bradley scored and won the game, 57-56. The refs left the floor and BU was officially the winner. But a long discussion carried on after the game, and the BU officials finally agreed that had the clock not stopped and malfunctioned, then Colorado would have won in regulation. Therefore, the BU personnell VOLUNTARILY offered to award the game to Colorado with the score 56-55, and Colorado accepted.
BU ended up with a 25- 7 record, and went to the NIT, and lost in the 1st round, ending their season.

So, this was a game that Bradley actually won, but at present time it sits in the all time loss column, even though the officials deemed BU the winner. This was done as a gentlemanly thing back in 1947 and I suspect we'd never see the same action nowadays! A very strange story.
Click to expand...

Good stuff, Tornado. There was an incredible amount of drama surrounding that game.

It was senior night for Ray Ramsey.

It was viewed as a must-win given BU had played a demanding slate as an independent, and a loss could cost them a postseason bid. To give you an idea of how demanding the schedule was, they played either the winners or runner-up of all three national postseason tournaments (NIT, NCAA, NABC).

The opponent was Colorado College and has no association with the University of Colorado.
http://www.coloradocollege.edu/index.asp

Following the game, one of the score or timekeepers had been then president of Toledo, Peoria, and Western Railroad. He was gunned down on High Street about a block from his home while walking home from the Armory. While I haven't been able to research yet if the incidents were in any way related, it did add to the gravity and weight of the controversial win, and Bob Leu infers in "Good Evening Bradley Basketball Fans" that news may have been a motivation for BU formally conceding that particular contest.

The New York Times followed the story closely and ran numerous followups and editorials that spoke glowingly of Bradley University, with one column even calling Bradley "Sportsmanship College."

The clock malfunction is probably one of the most ironic incidents in college sports history. Bradley's dedication Horology school was believed to be the first and even at its closing, the "finest" such institution in the nation.
 
tornado said:
B4l, you have come to the right place, and I have your answer.

I have quite possibly the most exhaustive collection of Bradley yearbooks, press guides, basketball programs, lineup cards, and other stuff. I have bought collections from old folks who went to BU as far back as the 1920's and even earlier.
And I have checked it all over and here is your answer.

From the founding of BU in 1897, through 1946, Bradley was officially known as Bradley Polytechnic Institute.

Nicknames for schools were very unofficial for the first 30 years or so of last century, just like nicknames for people, which won't appear on your birth certificate or in official documents.
So only rarely did the nickname of Bradley Polytechnic Institute appear in print up through the 1920's.

But there were actually THREE different nicknames used alternately and interchangeably up through the 20's.

The first nickname to appear, was the "B-men". It isn't hard the figure this one out, as the Bradley athletic teams all wore uniforms with a BIG LETTER "B" on the front.
(I have many pictures if anyone is interested in seeing them)
So frequently, the BU teams were called the "B men".
But pretty much simultaneous to that, another name began to appear in use, as the team was called the "Techmen"
(obviously because the "Polytechnic Institute men" was a little too cumbersome)
.......and at times the "Techs" for short. All three of these nicknames appear often in the Bradley literature and yearbooks all the way up through the 1930's.
Never once in all the year books, literature, and game cards, was the name "Braves" used any time before the mid-1930's.
Click to expand...

Maroons was also used, and likely the first unofficial name given to Bradley's teams.

A Tech article from c. 1904-06 refers to the team as "Bradley's braves"

Indians became the common name towards the late 1920's, but I have not been able to establish an exact date.

Robbymen and Techsters had also been used quite frequently between 1920 and the common use of Indians, which became more prevelant in the late 1920's.

Then sometime around 1936 Bradley not only adopted the "Braves" nickname, but they also began emblazoning the picture of an Indian Chief in full regalia with feathered head dress on all their literature and even on the covers of the yearbooks, and the athletic teams were invariably referred to only as the Braves. No mention of Techmen, Techs, or B Men appear after 1934-35.

Once the name of the school changed in 1946, they were and have ever since been the "Bradley Braves".
Click to expand...

David Blair Owen who became Alumni President in the 1930's played a major role in developing alumni relations in the ten or so years before he led the school through its change into a full-fledged university as the school's President.
 
On the subject of watches, the Springfield Watch Company built a 9" refractor telescope just after the turn of the century to assist them in setting the correct time. Yes, this was some time ago. Anyway, in the 30's the company went bankrupt and denoted the scope to Bradley. It sat under the bleachers at the field house until 1956 at which time it was donated to the Peoria Astronomical Society. They still have it out at Northmoor Observatory located on Donovan Golf Course on Knoxville in Peoria. The observatory is open for viewing free to the public on Saturday evenings during the summer weather permitting. I'm hosting October 7th.
 
Mike Radigan said:
On the subject of watches, the Springfield Watch Company built a 9" refractor telescope just after the turn of the century to assist them in setting the correct time. Yes, this was some time ago. Anyway, in the 30's the company went bankrupt and denoted the scope to Bradley. It sat under the bleachers at the field house until 1956 at which time it was donated to the Peoria Astronomical Society. They still have it out at Northmoor Observatory located on Donovan Golf Course on Knoxville in Peoria. The observatory is open for viewing free to the public on Saturday evenings during the summer weather permitting. I'm hosting October 7th.
Click to expand...

I'm tailgating at the soccer game, but afterwards I'll stop by and see if you're still there, Mike.
 
Mike Radigan said:
On the subject of watches, the Springfield Watch Company built a 9" refractor telescope just after the turn of the century to assist them in setting the correct time. Yes, this was some time ago. Anyway, in the 30's the company went bankrupt and denoted the scope to Bradley. It sat under the bleachers at the field house until 1956 at which time it was donated to the Peoria Astronomical Society. They still have it out at Northmoor Observatory located on Donovan Golf Course on Knoxville in Peoria. The observatory is open for viewing free to the public on Saturday evenings during the summer weather permitting. I'm hosting October 7th.
Click to expand...

What time is the viewing schedule?
 
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