A replica of the Bronze Derby on display in the Newberry Museum.
Andrew Wigger | The Newberry Observer
NEWBERRY/CLINTON — In the trophy case inside the Templeton Gym on the campus of Presbyterian College sits a bronzed hat, a trophy from a 59 year long rivalry between Presbyterian College and Newberry College.
Although the schools played each other starting in 1913, the rivalry known as the Bronze Derby didn’t begin until a basketball game on Newberry’s campus in 1947. Each side has their own story as to what started the rivalry, but both schools agree it started with the snatching of a derby hat.
According to Presbyterian College alumni, Reverend Jim Banbury and his son Bruce Banbury, the hat was snatched off the head of student Jimmy Kellett during the second half of a basketball game.
“Jimmy Kellett was just a kid on campus that dad was friends with that wore a derby all the time; that was his trademark…Unfortunately, he went down to Newberry…to a basketball game we were playing, and next half of the game some guy comes by and snatches the hat,” writes the Blue Stocking.
The Presbyterian students attempted to get Kellett’s hat back, but it quickly turned into a scuffle that ended with the hat remaining in Newberry’s hands.
“According to Banbury, about 20 PC students entered the dormitory, and emerged Derby-less after a scuffle with Newberry students,” the Blue Stocking reported.
The story that Newberry tells is different. They claim that PC students had brought a banner that said, “Beat H____ out of Newberry.” During the game, a few Newberry students decided to steal the banner while PC students were focused on the game.
“When attention was riveted on the action on the court, some Newberry students obtained a ladder and climbed outside the gym wall. Gaining access through a window, they ripped the banner off the wall behind the P.C. students, and climbed back out into the night,” writes The State Magazine in Nov. 1958.
After PC students noticed, they sought to retrieve their banner when the game ended. With both sides of the school feeling heated, a scuffle broke out in which a student snatched the derby hat from Kellett and disappeared with it.
“After the game, the Presbyterian students were insistent about having the abducted banner returned. Tempers flared and a scuffle ensued. In the midst of all the commotion, a Newberry student got the prize of all the spoils, a derby snatched from the noggin of one of the fashionable Presbyterian youkers. It would have taken a pack of bloodhounds to track down either the derby or the abductor that night,” explains The State Magazine in Nov. 1958.
Although the origins of how the rivalry began, both schools agree that it was Newberry’s former athletic director, Frank E. Kinard, who suggested that the stolen derby be used as symbol of rivalry between the two colleges.
“It was the athletic director of Newberry who suggested the hat be passed to the victor of each PC v. Newberry athletic event in order to ease tensions over the theft and use the Derby as a positive symbol of the rivalry,” Blue Stocking explains.
The hat was then bronzed and at the end of each Thanksgiving Day football game, was passed to the winning team. The rivalry took off as both schools would compete to see who would be represented according to an alumnus.
“There was a large rock on the hill along I-26 that PC and Newberry would paint. It was always a big deal to see which school was represented,” said a PC graduate.
The game would keep many students on campus to see who would win the game and bring the bronzed derby home, even to the point of enjoying the thanksgiving meal later.
“As a freshman, I attended one of the last Bronze Derby games that took place on Thanksgiving Day in November of 1990. I remember my family ended up having a late Thanksgiving dinner that evening because they would not eat until the game was finished and I had driven the two-hour trip back home,” another alumni explained.
The Bronze Derby serves as a reminder of the long competitive history between PC and Newberry. The Derby stopped being on Thanksgiving Day in 1992 and ended in 2006 after Presbyterian College changed divisions. In the final game between the schools, PC won with a score of 10-0, walking away with the Bronze Derby that remains displayed in the Templeton Gym.
Orion Griffin is a student at Presbyterian College and is an intern with The Newberry Observer.