When the Leopard football team defeated Lehigh in the season finale Nov. 17, it marked a streak of four straight victories over the Mountain Hawks – a feat that hadn’t been accomplished since 1946-1949.

The day also marked the end of perhaps an even more impressive run by James Carter Schaub ’59 – a half-century of watching every Lafayette-Lehigh football game in person. Instead, he viewed the game at a telecast party in Florida, one of about 60 coordinated in conjunction with alumni affairs this year.

“It has been said that anyone can start something in life, but it takes a smart person to bring that something to an appropriate end,” he says. “Fifty consecutive years has been a good run! From here on in, I will be watching from Florida.”

“It was a pleasure to enjoy the company of friendly fans in a warm room with good food and drink before a widescreen television,” he adds.

Schaub shared the following thoughts on his streak after watching last year’s win over Lehigh in Easton:

“This last November, I was on campus for my 50th, yes 50th consecutive viewing of the Clash of the Classic—the Lafayette-Lehigh game. After four years in the Naval Reserve,

I completed my last two years of college at Lafayette, starting in the fall of 1957. That year was the 93rd game of the series, with the program costing 50 cents and the tickets $3.50 each. Last November, the program set me back $3, and the single-ticket price stunned me at $20 per fan. I still hold all my ticket stubs and programs, so I can easily trace the decline in the dollar’s value over the last half-century!

“The game of November 30, 1963, was quite dramatic, in a unique way. It was to have been played on November 23, but the events in Dallas, Texas, on the 22nd [President John F. Kennedy’s assassination] caused a week’s delay. Also, Lafayette did not want to cancel the game, as that might have caused the 100th game, which was scheduled for November 21, 1964, to be played at Taylor Stadium instead of Fisher Field. Perish the thought! The 30th of November fell during the Thanksgiving holiday, so there were very few students around that afternoon and, with the somber mood of the country at that time, the loudest sounds were made by the players themselves. An undertaker’s parlor would have been more upbeat!

“It is quite something to be able to be somewhere at the same time each year, in my case at a game, EVERY Saturday before Thanksgiving, without interruption, for half a century. Some things could have gotten in the way of such a record. I had to overcome a car breakdown, deaths of close friends, National Guard drill dates, and being out of the country, but I always made it back to the Best Old Place of All, often with a now deceased family member, Francis Shunk Brown III, and other members of his Class of 1940.”