yaleuniversity

"Notice by the faculty that five of the best oarsmen in the freshman eight have been placed on probation in their studies came as a shock to the Yale rowing officials." Boston Evening Transcript 13 May 1915. news.google.com/newspapers?id=GUwnAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7AMGA...

The Yale banner and pot pourri, Volume 8 books.google.com/books?id=JC3OAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA205&l... lists the same freshman crew as racing Harvard on June 25, 1915. Yale won. The report of the regatta in the Harvard Crimson is at www.thecrimson.com/article/1915/9/24/yale-gained-aquatic-...

www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/U28257INP... could be taken at the same time. If so, this is on June 10, 1915, "At New Training Quarters Of Yale Oarsmen at Gales Ferry On The Thames: Yale freshman crew. Left to right: Lawrence, stroke; Coombe, 7; Coleman, 6; MacNaughton, 5; Glover, 4; Converse, 3; Lovejoy, 2; Rockefeller, bow, and Lashar, cox." One of the orderings must be wrong. The Bain photo has the names (apart from the cox) in the opposite order.

These freshmen would have been in the Yale class of 1918. That class included a William A. Rockefeller. See www.millionairesunit.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp... for a photo, which could be the guy at the right-hand end or the left-hand end of the line. The page also has a picture of Reginald G. Coombe who was the captain of the crew team here. Again, it is not possible to say definitively which he is. George Francklyn Lawrence is also pictured. These initials match those provided in the Harvard Crimson (in my comment above): "Yale freshman eight.--Stroke, G. F. Lawrence, 7, R. G. Coombs ;6, R. L. Coleman, Jr.; 5, L. M. McNaughton; 4, J. L. Glover; 3, R. R. S. Converse; 2, F. H. Lovejoy; bow, W. A. Rockfeller; cox., T. H. Lashar."

www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=52847363 appears to be anothe of these young men, Ensign Leslie Malcolm MacNaughton. Converse appears to be Rob Roy Stearns Converse. books.google.com/books?id=xwIcAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA10-PA108&... suggests that the cox is Thomas Holmes Lashar who applied for a patent for method to prevent tarnish on silver. His father Thomas. B Lashar was a designer of silver flatware.

Coach Guy Nickalls of Yale University crew en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Nickalls

wow, perfect image [http://www.flickr.com/photos/stemarcos/5537774419/]

Boy, he looks like quite the party animal.

Richard Allen Norton: Thanks for pointing out Nickalls' connection to the Yale University crew. And thanks, Wystan, for highlighting the date on the negative. It appears, from an article in the New-York Tribune for June 14, 1914 that I found online through Chronicling America, that Yale was gearing up to face Harvard in June of that year: chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1914-06-14/ed-... . We'll add information when we next update the description.

These could be former Yale football players of the Class of 1908, in a skit at commencement, 1914, satirizing reports of injuries sustained by lightly-padded players of the era in rough-and-tumble play. In 1902, for example, college play was so rough that several players died, while others were severely injured -- a crisis that provoked intervention by then-President Theodore Roosevelt. (The 18th-century militia outfits were 1908's costume du jour, and had no connection with the gridiron theme.) Other Bain/LOC photos of the 1914 Yale Class Day activities: