This day in 1917 in The Record

Saturday, Nov. 17, 1917. Trojans get a look at the latest U.S. Navy submarine chasers as they pass down the Hudson River this morning, The Record reports.

A flotilla of a dozen vessels pass through the area en route to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The sub chasers signal their arrival in Troy waters with “their shrill whistles, which kept continually piping until the city was passed.

“Crowds attracted by the whistling, and knowing it to mean the arrival of the expected submarine chasers, were scattered along shore, and found the boats, with their graceful lines, good to look upon,” our reporter writes.

These vessels were built in Ohio and reached Troy by way of Oswego. They’ll be mounted with guns in Brooklyn before heading into the Atlantic to defend shipping from German U-boats.

“The boats, painted a dull battleship gray, and with little showing above their decks but the pilot houses, appeared to the watchers who lined the docks as they passed the city as if they would be able to give a good account of themselves when equipped with the proper armament,” our writer notes.

“While passing this city the craft traveled at a rate of twelve to fifteen miles an hour, but gave the appearance of being capable of a much higher speed.”

RPI Football

Despite aggressive special teams play in the first quarter, the RPI football team takes a 41-13 beating from Holy Cross in Worcester to end their season on a losing note.

The Cherry and White jump out to a 13-0 lead on turnovers. They score their first touchdown after a Holy Cross player fumbles a punt return in his own end zone, where RPI halfback Smith recovers. When it’s Holy Cross’s turn to punt, RPI center Jack Richards blocks the kick, and right tackle McClelland runs it in for the Troy team’s final score of the game. Holy Cross scores 41 unanswered points afterward.

The loss gives RPI a 3-4 record for the fall. They beat NYU, St. Lawrence and Hobart but fell to Williams, Worcester Polytechnic, Union and Holy Cross.

After the game, Richards is elected captain of next year’s team. The sophomore out of Dover NJ is light for a center but our sportswriter notes that “his work has been a feature of most of the games this year and stamps him as being one of the best centers in the game in America.”

RPI coach Jack Reed is a Holy Cross alumnus who’s turned the football program around after the dark days of 1915. The Polytechnic student paper credits him with whipping his men “into formidable shape” this year.