Chestnut Hill College goes for the sprint-football glory

Where can a small, formerly all-women's Catholic college beat - well, actually trounce - an Ivy League university in its inaugural outing?

On the football field.

The sprint football field, that is.

In its first game ever, Chestnut Hill College, which went coed in 2003, beat Princeton, 48-13, Saturday at a field in Plymouth Meeting.

Sprint football is played the same as the regular version, except that players can't weigh more than 172 pounds, leading to faster action in which even a trim 5-foot-3 Raevon Floyd-Bennett could land a spectacular tackle for the Griffins.

With the first touchdown, loudspeakers blared the college's newly written "fight" song: "High on the Hill. We Stand Tall. Fight Griffins Fight."

The bleachers, packed with about 600 students, alumni, and staff, many wearing the college's signature red, erupted into applause and cheers. They were led by the new cheerleading squad, with "CH" tattooed on their cheeks, and entertained by the Griffin, the school's half-eagle, half-lion mascot.

Finally, Chestnut Hill had football.

It's the latest sport the school has added to boost enrollment, as many small private colleges struggle. The sport has attracted more than 30 new students to the Philadelphia campus from Massachusetts, New York, Alaska, even Australia. And what better way to bring back alums and build school spirit than to have a football team, said the college's longtime president, Sister Carol Jean Vale.

"Football is - no pun intended - a game-changer for an institution," said Sister Carol, a big sports fan. "It has the potential to be a unifying event that brings people together who ordinarily might not gather."

David Montgomery, chairman of the Phillies, was there, along with his wife, Lyn, a Chestnut Hill alumna and member of the college's board of trustees.

"That last throw was incredible!" he said of the touchdown pass the team executed near the end of the first half. "That was about 60 yards in the air, it seems."

Sprint football is a nine-school, somewhat elite league. It was started by the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton in 1934 as a way to give smaller players a shot. Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld played for Princeton. Nathan Self, an Army hero who garnered a Purple Heart for his service in Afghanistan, played for West Point. Other teams include Cornell and the Naval Academy. Recent additions include Mansfield University, a Pennsylvania state school.

Only 65 players are allowed on a roster, and players have to weigh in twice a week. This is a league that doesn't value a super-beefy line. Thin is in. The league raised its weight limit to 172 pounds, from 150, to equate with the average size of a 19-year-old male, said Gene McIntyre, league commissioner.

The reigning champ is Navy. Army is a powerhouse, too. Princeton, however, has struggled. The Tigers haven't won a game in years, McIntyre said.

"By design, we had Chestnut Hill play Princeton first, so they can see league play but not walk into a firestorm," he said.

In other words, it could get harder for the Griffins. But Saturday, they soared.

"I am blown away," said Mary Katherine Ortale, 21, a senior early-childhood education major and president of the Student Government Association. "We've seen the college community come together more than ever before."

Chestnut Hill also added women's bowling this year, after track and field in 2012 and men's lacrosse in 2009. The sports have helped to keep the college's overall enrollment, now at about 930 undergraduates, steady at a time when similar schools have seen declines, Sister Carol said.

Jonathan Baldwin enrolled at Chestnut Hill because of sprint football. "At the end of the day, it was the deciding factor," said Baldwin, 22, a freshman criminal-justice major and Army veteran.

Margaret McCaffery, '77, a special-education teacher from San Francisco and chair of the board of trustees, underscored the importance of football: "All these schools in our area are suffering from enrollment declines, and we were able to bring in 34 student athletes."

She was joined on the field for the coin toss by her husband, Mike, an investment manager and a '75 Princeton grad. He wore a Princeton hat but confessed he would cheer for the Griffins.

"I know how important it is to the college," he said. "So I'm going to make an exception."

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