Early Years (1873-1954)
The first Washington and Lee football team assembled in the fall of 1873 to compete against their cross-town rival, the Virginia Military Institute. The contest marked the very first intercollegiate football game played in the South and W&L defeated VMI via a score of 4-2. The two teams competed against each other once more in the fall and two more times in the spring. W&L came away victorious in all four games. In the 1873/74 season, only eleven colleges across the country competed in organized football games (Smith).
After a few decades of growth in the sport, Washington and Lee entered the 1905 season prepared to compete in one of the most organized seasons ever. W&L was not able to achieve the national champion status that was awarded to Yale and Chicago, as acknowledged by the official NCAA Division I Football records book, but the Generals did have their most successful season to date. W&L, who competed as one of the southern college football independents, racked up eight wins in ten games and outscored their opponents 171-36. They cemented the success of their season with an exciting 17-0 victory over George Washington University on Thanksgiving Day.
After some more years of success, Washington and Lee took another trailblazing step for college football in the south and helped form the inaugural Southern Conference. Representatives of W&L traveled to Atlanta’s Piedmont Hotel on February 25, 1921 and met with thirteen other southern institutions. There they established the Southern Conference, and the original charter members joining W&L included Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi State, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Tennessee, Virginia, and Virginia Tech. The Southern Conference is the fifth-oldest major college athletic conference in the United States, and W&L competed in the conference through the 1954 school year (Soconsports.com).
Washington and Lee’s football success as a Southern Conference member came to a climax in the 1950 season. W&L outshined their Virginia college contemporaries by becoming the first intercollegiate football program from the commonwealth to compete in a New Year's Day Bowl game. Much of the General’s success came in part by their senior All-American fullback, Walt Michaels. However, when W&L traveled to Jacksonville, Florida to compete against the University of Wyoming Cowboys in the Gator Bowl, Walt Michaels was unable to play due to appendicitis. W&L ended up falling to the Cowboys via a score of 20-7 (New Year, New First).
2009. NCAA Division I Records (FBS). [ebook] Available at: http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/DI/2009/2009FBS.pdf
2020. New Year, New First. [Text on Wall]. Richard L. Duchossois Athletic and Recreation Center. Lexington, VA.
Smith, M., 2008. Evolvements of Early American Football: Through the 1890/91 Season. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, p.62.
Soconsports.com. 2021. The History of the Southern Conference - Southern Conference. [online] Available at: https://soconsports.com/sports/2008/6/30/177772.aspx