Urban Legends are fascinating things – they can spread across the globe like wildfire, or they can occupy a small but important place in the culture of a local community.

At Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, there’s a story that is told to explain why the University cancelled its football program many years ago.

According to Dr Bill Garvin, a popular version goes something like this:

A persistent “campus legend” here at Drury is that Drury’s football program was canceled after a student was killed playing in a game.  One common variation of the story is that a rich alumnus was so horrified by the death of the student that she gave a million dollars to the college on the condition that Drury’s football program would be shut down.

There is something oddly charming to me in this tale. Yes, at it’s core, there’s the sad death of a young man, but there’s also the sense of an unofficial tradition of passing the story from one year to the next, until it has very probably outlived anyone who was alive at the time the tale is thought to have taken place.

Dr Bill Garvin again:

Like many urban legends, this campus legend does have a grain of truth to it. A Drury student was killed playing football in 1899. It would be decades, however, before Drury’s football team would be disbanded, and by that time the death of John C. Allen would be a faint memory.

Urban Legends often grow to fill a void, as though the collective conscious demands, even hungers for an explanation; any explanation. Of course, the truth is often much less stranger than fiction.

Dr Bill Garvin:

Campus legend to the contrary, the death of John Allen had no effect on the football program at Drury. The sport wasn’t dropped until 33 years later, after the 1932 season, when the hardships brought on by the Great Depression made it increasingly difficult for Drury College to field and fund a winning team.

I’m sure almost every institute of education has its own ecosystem of extraordinary explanations — if you happen on this post and you’d like to share a similar tale from your own days at university or college, please feel free to do so in the comments below!

Link to Dr Bill Garvin’s article: Reflections from the Past

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