Professor Hamilton's Diary: Sept. 24, 1935

He watches football practice; "Brown Bomber" Joe Louis flattens Max Baer

It was a jam-packed Monday for Professor Hamilton. He taught his classes in the morning, then took Margaret and Mary Elizabeth to the Thomas Jefferson Tea Room — a favorite, you will remember — for the mid-day meal. The rest of the day he spent on campus, preparing for his classes, attending a meeting of the International Relations Club at which the guest speaker talked about Java, and even spending a few minutes in the stadium watching the varsity football team practice. Hmmm. Was he sizing up that student athlete he had declared was not college material? Was he admitted anyway?

I seriously doubt Professor Hamilton was even aware of the big fight that took place that evening in Yankee Stadium between a young African American boxer named Joe Louis and former world heavyweight champion Max Baer. Louis would go on to dominate boxing for almost fifteen years.

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This cartoon about the Louis and Baer match-up appeared in the Sept. 25 edition of the Reading Times, accessed via newspapers.com.