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Historic Happenings
A Look at Events in the University's Past

An early 1923 rendition of one of many designs for the Cathedral that is rejected by Pitt President John Bowman.
1908 — Joe Thompson, after graduating from Pitt law school, becomes coach of the Pitt football

team. In 1910, his team is the first to attract national attention when it not only defeats all nine teams on its schedule but also does so without being scored on. Thompson, who became a World War I war hero and a state legislator, was inducted into the National Football Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 1971.

1924 — University President John G. Bowman, after rejecting numerous designs presented by architect Charles Z. Klauder for the Cathedral of Learning, has dinner at Klauder’s home. Following dinner, the two sit on the living room floor, Klauder sketching designs while Bowman watched. “(Klauder) kept that up until 1:00 or 2:00 o’clock in the morning. The floor was pretty much covered with sketches.”
Tired and cross at Bowman continuous rejecting his designs, Klauder puts on a record, Magic Fire Music from Die Walkure. The music filled the room: “One climax after another!” Bowman wrote later in Unofficial Notes: “The music is the building. And it did not get its height, it meaning, its awful power by one leap. It took many. Isn’t each leap a buttress, a buttress on a tower?”
By 4 a.m., Bowman left Klauder’s home, convinced “for the first time after two years of effort and discouragement …that we really made a start.”

Source: Pitt: The Story of the University of Pittsburgh
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