Fun Fact Friday: November 25

The phrase “Ivy League” was originally used  to describe several colleges football teams. New York Herald Tribune sportswriter Stanley Woodward, first used the word “ivy” in a 1933, article referring to “a proportion of our eastern ivy colleges” meeting lesser powers in football games. The eight schools Woodward included in his nonexistent league were Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton, Army and Penn (Cornell wasn’t included). The first use of the exact phrase “Ivy League” in print occurred in a 1935 story by Associated Press sports editor Alan Gould. By that fall, Herald Tribune sportswriter Jesse Abramson, had gone so far as to publish standings for the fictitious 10-team “Ivy Conference,” with Cornell and Navy thrown in.