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Vanderbilt
Commodores
History
The University was founded in 1873 through a gift from Commodore
Cornelius Vanderbilt, who hoped that it would "contribute to
strengthening the ties that should exist between all sections of our
common country."
Cornelius Vanderbilt was born to a family of modest means. At the age of
sixteen, he borrowed $100 from his mother to begin a ferry service from
Staten Island to Manhattan. Soon he had a small fleet, later, steamboat
lines, and later still, a trans-Atlantic steamship service that operated
successfully until the outbreak of the Civil War.
At the age of retirement and having achieved a considerable fortune, he
turned to railroads and boldly expanded them until he had created the
vast New York Central System and the largest fortune in America. Himself
unschooled, Vanderbilt once said, "though I never had any education, no
man has ever felt the lack more than I have, and no man appreciates the
value of it more than I do and believes more than I do what it will do
in the future."
The million dollars that Commodore Vanderbilt gave to build and endow
Vanderbilt University was the financier's only major philanthropy. His
young second wife, Frank Armstrong Crawford, is credited with moving him
toward this particular generosity. She was a cousin of Mrs. Holland
McTyeire, whose husband, Bishop McTyeire, was leading a movement within
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to establish "an institution of
learning of the highest order."
In 1872, a charter for "Central University" had been issued in Nashville
to petitioners representing nine Methodist conferences located in the
mid-South. But their efforts failed for lack of financial resources in a
region so recently ruined by the Civil War. Early in 1873, the Bishop
went to New York for medical treatment. While there, he stayed with the
Vanderbilts, and, before he departed, he won the Commodore's admiration
and support for the project.
Commodore Vanderbilt never visited Nashville; instead, he trusted Bishop
McTyeire to choose the site for the campus and administer the
institution. At that time, Nashville had a population of 40,000. The
campus was part cornfield with few residences on the site, and the stone
wall surrounding the campus was built to keep cows off the University
grounds. The Bishop himself planted young trees over the original
seventy-five-acre campus and supervised the planning and construction of
the buildings. Vanderbilt University opened for classes in October of
1875 with 192 enrolled.
Nashville’s Commodores
The name "Commodores" was first applied to Vanderbilt teams by William
E. Beard, quarterback on the 1892 football team, when he was a member of
the editorial staff of the Nashville Banner in 1897.
Why Black & Gold?
Opinions vary as to the reason for selection of black and gold as colors
for Vanderbilt’s teams.
Some say the original colors were orange and black, given to the
university by Judge W.L. Granbery of Princeton. Others credit alums of
Princeton with furnishing the colors to the Commodores.
When questioned about the subject in the 1930s, the few remaining
members of the school’s first football squad from 1890 did not recall
why they suddenly began appearing in black and gold.
The Fight Song:
Dynamite, Dynamite
When Vandy starts to fight
Down the field with blood to yield
If need be, save the shield,
If vict’rys won, when battle’s done
Then Vandy’s name will rise in fame,
But,win or lose, The Fates will choose,
And Vandy’s game will be the same,
Dynamite, Dynamite
When Vandy Starts to Fight!
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