Birth of an institution

This page Examples of club organisation and early matches Opposite The University of Virginia Polo Club with Donald Hannah front centre, alongside co-founders of the polo programme

In the autumn of 1950, I was sitting in the den of our house in Hinsdale, Illinois, with my parents, watching the NBC evening news when the broadcaster announced that, each month, the US defence department was going to draft 40,000 18-year-olds into the army. My mother looked at my father and my father looked at me. Instead of going to Hotchkiss for a year and then to Yale, they said, why didn’t I go to college for a year, sign up for the Reserve Offcer Training Corps (ROTC), then transfer to Yale?

My parents decided on the University of Virginia (UVa) and so, soon after, I few to Washington DC with my father, then went on by train to Charlottesville, which was to be my home for the next fve years. My father was a 4-goal polo player and served as President of the Oak Brook Polo Club for 30 years so, of course, my brother Jim and I were placed on horses before we were two years old, and it followed that we began to play polo at 14.

Oak Brook was the centre of polo in the United States at that time, and top 10-goal players such as Cecil Smith, Stewart Iglehart, Mike Phipps and Bob Skene played and practised at the club. Not only did Jim and I have the opportunity to play against these and many other top international players, but we were also tutored by a British 7-goal player called Harry East.

On arrival at university, I had a 1-goal rating and an intense desire to continue playing polo. I quickly fell in love with Charlottesville and the UVa, and had no desire to complete the plan and transfer to Yale. Despite the fact that Charlottesville was at the centre of East Coast equestrian activity, there were no active polo clubs in Virginia. Due to the effects of World War II, the number of collegiate teams was dwindling and intercollegiate polo faced a troubled future. Despite that, I was keen to start a team.

In November 1950, I placed an ad in the UVa college newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, inviting all students interested in playing polo to attend a meeting at Madison Hall. Twelve students came along. Some were excellent equestrians with steeplechase or jumping experience, but none had ever lifted a mallet or been on a polo feld. Then I approached the Dean of the athletics department and asked his permission to start a team. He turned me down. He felt it would inadvisable, he said, because of the Korean War. When I reminded him that the department was continuing to sponsor other sports such as swimming, tennis and golf, he relented somewhat, agreeing that

we could be organised as a ‘club’ – and so the University of Virginia Polo Club was born. In 1993, 40 years later, the university fnally recognised the club as a sporting team and awarded all the founding players the varsity letter ‘V’ – an honour, usually in the form of an embroidered patch of the school’s initial, that is earned for excellence.

Nonetheless, at the start, we had a challenge: we had no feld, no horses, no equipment and no money – but we soon hit on a plan. During the Fifties, the University of Virginia was an all-male school, so its students visited nearby women’s colleges for female companionship. The men would bring their dates to Charlottesville for football and basketball games and the big college dance weekends. Friday and Saturday were active party days, but there were no activities scheduled for Sunday that they could attend before the departure of the early Sundayevening ‘freedom trains’. Our determined group recognised this need and decided we would capitalise on it. We designed and developed a Sunday-afternoon polo schedule that would gain student attendance at our home games and provide us with income from the sale of tickets and programmes.

Our away games, in the meantime, were giving us press as well as some credibility and even notoriety, and a chance for me to attempt to train our players.

One of our biggest supporters was George Sherman, chairman of the US Indoor Polo Association. George spread the word nationally about our endeavours, and as a result, Malarkey Wall became a UVa student. Malarkey had polo experience and became not only a key part of the team but a co-founder of our polo programme. Another co-founder was Sandy Bowers, a married architectural student. Sandy was an excellent horseman and dedicated himself to becoming a skilled polo player, while his wife, Flip, kept us all focused and in line.

Our group held weekly meetings, continued our away-game strategy and developed our growth plan. Malarkey and I concentrated on raising money – we sold charter membership and patron cards to local tradesmen and equestrians and secured fnancial contributions and donations of horses and equipment.

Having located a cornfeld not too far from town, we convinced the owner to rent us the space and spent our frst funds on hiring a bulldozer. Its surface was sandy marl, which, when dragged and watered, provided a great playing feld, and we installed curved outdoor boards. We played six-period three-on-a-side matches using an indoor infated polo ball. Because we couldn’t afford a PA system, I made a deal with the local stock-car racetrack that, in exchange for me announcing its Saturdaynight games, we could borrow its publicaddress system on Sundays.

Sandy designed the stables and our group provided the labour to build the facility. Our tack room and clubhouse consisted of wooden shacks donated to us by local construction companies, that we then refurbished.

Horses were our biggest challenge. We were able to rent a string of polo ponies from David Weidner, a polo player and horse trainer from Camden, South Carolina. We also benefted from some donated horses and were able to purchase others as we earned more money.

Above The construction of the UVa polo feld, tack room and the arrival of the horses. The team was also beginning to generate press cuttings

Ronnie Mutch was a great addition to our club. He became a UVa student in 1953 and immediately joined the team. He had been a top member of the US equestrian team and, although not a polo player, learnt quickly. Almost all of our team rode ‘forward seat’. In order to change their habits, Ronnie and I asked that all players join us on our new feld and gallop at full speed while riding bareback. As they improved, they were required to lead two other horses with halters – one on each side – around the feld. Needless to say, all of them soon learnt to ride ‘deep in the saddle’. I served as the coach and leader of the team, and taught polo and stick-handling techniques. In 1953, I was rated a 2-goal and, in 1955, was raised to 3-goal, which was the highest collegiate rating in the US.

Our frst home season began in the spring of 1953. Everything was ready: the feld, the horses and the players. We recognised we needed to sell a lot of tickets and we did extensive poster, radio and newspaper advertising and came up with all sorts of creative marketing concepts. The students loved the experience, which combined the atmosphere of competitive action with pure fun. We had Dixieland jazz bands and all sorts of half-time events: greased-pig races, parachutists, air shows and even sports cars racing against horses. We printed sophisticated numbered programmes, and gave away prizes including a horse, a car, and a $100 ‘pot of gold’ that we buried in the feld! Over the next two years, we developed a great group of followers – our biggest crowd was over 3,500.

The most unique half-time event was a donkey-polo game we organised. I’d talked three UVa lacrosse players into playing against three UVa football players and had arranged for a local rancher to deliver six donkeys. A truck pulled in and, sticking out way above its sides, I saw the biggest animal head I’d ever seen. These were not six donkeys – they were six mules! They were about 17 to 18 hands, with no saddles and nothing but rope halters. Luckily, all the players had had a few drinks and those who were able to get on a mule were either bucked off in front of the crowd or held on for dear life as the mules took off across the feld and into the cornfelds. At my 20th UVa class reunion, Joe Mihalek, one of the football players, approached me and said, ‘You SOB – you almost killed me! ’

Our frst home game, on 9 May 1953, was against the New York Athletic Club, and my brother Jim was in the opposing team. We had an enthusiastic crowd of more than 800 and had advertised ‘action, thrills and spills’, but, by the fnal period, there had been no falls. I couldn’t let this happen, so I drove my horse into Jim’s horse and threw myself off. The announcer called for the ambulance and I stayed where I was, sprawled on the ground. Jim jumped from his horse to help me and asked if I was alright. ‘Yes, I’m building the crowd,’ I whispered. In retaliation, he tried to pull my riding britches off. I recovered and we lost by one goal, but the event was an enormous success. That game was the beginning of what was to become a Sunday tradition at the University of Virginia.

Sandy and I encouraged older local horsemen to learn to play and this was the start of the Charlottesville Polo Club (CPC), to which polo-playing students moved when they graduated. Experienced equestrians Rodger Rinehart and Dr Doug Nicoll were the keystones of this important phase of our development, Rodger and his wife Bobo providing steady hands and wise advice, support and direction to the annual groups of new players. Doug, meanwhile, was an excellent referee, offciating at many of our matches and his son Raymond became a fne polo player. After he was tragically killed in a car accident in 1975, Doug and his wife Molly started the Raymond Vere Nicoll Scholarship Fund, which has attracted many young players to the university. Indeed, my youngest son, Mark Hannah, was accepted at UVa because of the Nicoll programme.

After I graduated, I was thrilled to receive a letter from George Sherman that said, in part: ‘Don, I want to personally and on behalf of the US Indoor Polo Association, let you know how much the outstanding efforts you have made by starting the University of Virginia Polo Club have meant to the re-birth of Intercollegiate Polo in the United States.’

The challenge of bringing polo to UVa was an experience that has benefted me countless times over the years – the skills I developed have proved fundamental in business as well as in my personal relationships. I am delighted by the success the University of Virginia Polo Club has enjoyed over the years and proud of the fact that it has benefted the university as well as hundreds of young polo enthusiasts from all over the world.

Left A selection of the original posters used to promote the UVa’s Sunday polo events in the Fifties

STRATSTONE