Sports During Economic Crisis

Article in the Saint Edward's Echo describing the upcoming Homecoming football game against Trinity University. [Figure 8.1]

The 1930s were a difficult time for universities. Financial problems were very apparent at public universities who relied heavily on government funding. For larger universities, like the University of Texas, sports became a solution to some of their financial woes. In historian Brad Austin's book Democratic Sports: Men's and Women's College Athletics During the Great Depression, he discusses how large, public universities stayed afloat during the 1930s by implementing athletic programs. Although St. Edward's does not fall into the category of large, state school, their Depression-era practices bore a resemblance to their larger counterparts.

Austin describes the major cuts that occurred at public universities during this period. The 1931-32 academic year at the University of Texas at Austin brought about “a total of $206,696 [of cuts] from the university’s teaching budget, which funded tutors, maintenance, equipment, and salaries, and $190,515 from the non-teaching budget." [17] The only program that did not receive budget cuts was athletics. For many, sports were a means for escape during a time of economic turmoil. St. Edward’s was not excluded from the hold of escapism. Although some families were struggling to pay tuition and to make ends meet, students themselves, and their families, deeply desired to have the college experience they had envisioned during the prosperous '20s. 

People of all ages rallied around sports. As stated in a 1930 issue of the St. Edward's Echo, the student newspaper, the year's Homecoming game against Trinity University was expected to "draw the largest crowd of friends and former students of St. Edward's that has ever before assembled on the university grounds for a similar occasion." [Figure 8.1] Not only did sports give people a chance to escape the stresses of everyday life, but it generated a sum of much needed revenue for the university.