Saturday, November 22, 1919

Cool damp day with some rain in A.M. and evening. To college 9-11 A.M. Candled and delivered eggs. Frosh peerade [sic] in P.M. Union R.P.I. football game. Union outplayed all the way through but failed to score. To Van Curler at nite with D.W.S.

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I think Stanford is trying to be funny by calling the Freshman parade a pee-rade. It's customary for upperclassmen to look down upon freshmen, after all. The parade must have had something to do with the football game that Union lost.  This was not an unusual occurrence, apparently. I'm not sure if Stanford is saying that Union was the team outplayed or did the outplaying, but in any case, they "failed to score." Ah, well. More questions that will never be answered.

However, I did learn that Union and RPI were and continue to be big rivals. Their football game is a major event each year, at least according to one person commenting on his YouTube video of the final minutes of the 2012 contest:

Published on Nov 10, 2012

This is usually the biggest game for each team each year. They've been at it for 110 years. This one was a barn burner. RPI was down by 8 with less than a minute to go...you can watch the video to see what happens. Shot with a Sony HX5V. Played on November 10, 2012

Here is a link to the video if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmagIZajY-o

As testament to the rivalry between the teams, there is a collection of football programs available on the RPI site (The Art of Football) that includes many from Union-RPI games over the years.  Below are a couple of them. The first is from 1916; the second is from 1959, though it looks older. I'm not sure what year that program's drawing is meant to depict, but the '86 Field was the field paid for by the class of 1886 and was first used in 1906.