Sport: Fire in Princeton

One of the world's best sports libraries went up in smoke last week, when Princeton's gymnasium burned down. Collected by Dr. Joseph E. Raycroft, Princeton's retired director of physical education, the 2,500 volumes harked back to the Minoan age, included a complete record of the Olympic Games in classic Greek, Latin and modern sports-page jargon.

It was the second time Princeton's gym had burned down. In 1864 Princetonians deliberately put the torch to their first gymnasium after it was discovered that a hobo in the last stages of smallpox had spent the night there. But last week's $500,000 conflagration was much costlier in every respect. Lost with the library were the medical files on Princeton undergraduates for the last 40 years, most of the records of Princeton's Army and Navy training units, $10,000 worth of playing equipment, and a collection of cherished athletic records and trophies. Alumni grieved most over the ashes of:

†A football used in the first Yale-Princeton game in 1873. A round ball, punctured during the game, it was presented ten years ago to victorious Princeton (3-0) by an anonymous Yale man who picked it off the field after it had been discarded.

¶The stern of the shell in which Princeton freshmen rowed to victory in the first intercollegiate regatta, in 1874. The shell bore the first public display of Princeton's orange & black, chosen, on a draper's bad advice, as the colors of the House of Nassau, which were really buff and blue.

¶The Childs Cup, oldest intercollegiate rowing trophy in the U.S. It was established by Philadelphia Publisher George W. Childs in 1879, to spur competition between Columbia, Pennsylvania and Princeton, with Navy joining the annual race after World War I. Princeton won it last year.

¶Princeton's only full-length portrait of her longtime track coach and trainer, Keene Fitzpatrick, who died two days before the fire (see MILESTONES).