The Mount’s forgotten athletic heroes

Steve Morano
MSMU Class of 2024

(7/2023) The second oldest Catholic university in the United States is in Emmitsburg, Maryland. For most of its history, it has been known as Mount Saint Mary’s College and Seminary. Today, the Mount now plays host to more than twenty Division 1 athletic programs and a multitude of club sports. Over its 215-year history, the Mountaineers have compiled quite an athletic resume, with the most well-known piece of silverware being the 1962 Men’s Basketball College Division National Championship. The Mount has also had 12 of its student-athletes compete in the Olympics, with Peter Rono winning the gold medal during the 1988 Summer Olympics in the 1500 meters event. The Mount in recent years has also added Super Bowl winning player and head coach Todd Bowles to the ranks of its alumni, with Bowles earning his bachelor’s degree in 2023.

Among Bowles and Rono, names like Phelan, Carter and Deegan echo in the athletic arenas of the institution. But sports have been played at an organized level at the Mount since 1871, so it would be disheartening to the thousands of athletes who have participated on athletic teams through the years if some of their stories weren’t retold. This list of "forgotten Mount greats" is by no means comprehensive. But it is a recognition of some of the countless athletes over the years who have played on Echo Field, Memorial Gym, and the ARCC.

John Chapman – In the early 20th century, the Mount had very few organized sports. Still an all-male institution at the time, football, baseball, basketball, and tennis were among the more popular sports at the Mount at that time. John Chapman just so happened to play three of those sports. Excelling at football, basketball and baseball, Chapman earned varsity honors in all three of those sports. Excelling as a fullback on the university’s football team, he was named the team captain during his junior season in 1920; he was also named to the All-Maryland collegiate team that year. Chapman also played as a guard on Monsignor John Sheridan’s basketball team in the early 1920’s, earning a varsity letter for the program.

But Chapman excelled highest at one particular sport, baseball. Having a .462 batting average for the Mount in his senior season, Chapman was a power leaning third baseman for Coach Edwin Hooper’s team in the early 1920’s. After playing 38 games for the Eastern League New Haven Profs in 1924, his .319 batting average landed him a contract with the Philadelphia Athletics. Chapman only played in 19 games for the Athletics, but across those games, he accrued a .282 batting average and 7 RBIs. Even though Chapman does not have the most appearances in Major League Baseball by a Mount graduate, (that honor goes to Dan Costello, who played in 154 games for the Pittsburg Pirates and the New York Yankees from 1913-1916) his accolades in football and basketball, as well as his service to the baseball program, landed him a spot in the Mount Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 1973.

Virginia O’Donnell Cole – Mount Saint Mary’s University only started admitting female students in 1973, merging with the all-female St. Joseph’s College located in the town of Emmitsburg. In the early days of the implementation of Title IX, women’s sports were not organized under the NCAA, still an all-male institution until the late 1970’s; at that time, the AIAW, or the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, was the governing body for women’s sports. In the late 1970’s, there was one standout tennis player that ruled the AIAW’s Small College division, Virginia O’Donnell Cole of Mount Saint Mary’s College.

A member of the Mount Class of 1980 and a member of the Mount Athletics Hall of Fame’s Class of 1986, O’Donnell Cole was the first woman inductee of the Hall of Fame. She was truly dominant on the court: from the beginning till the end of her career at the Mount, O’Donnell Cole complied a record of complied a record of 65-3. The Women’s Tennis records only go back to the late 1980’s, as the Mount switched from Division III to Division I, but if O’Donnell Cole was included on that list, she would rank sixth in all-time wins for the Mount and surely would be at the top in winning percentage, with hers being .955% career. The most impressive statistic of her career would surely be her multi-year wins streak, peaking at 48 wins in a row, the longest in program history.

Trond Skramstad – In its 215-year history, the Mount has produced twelve Olympians, eleven of those being track and field athletes. The Mount has always had good track and field program, having three athletes go to the NCAA championships this year alone. And that legacy of success dates all the way back to the 1980’s, where nine of the eleven Mount track and field athletes were at their peak. One of those nine track and field Olympians was Norwegian, Tron Skramstad.

Skramstad, a native of Norway, competed with the Kongsberg track and field team, a sporting organization that had all kinds of endurance-based sports teams. But at the Mount, Skramstad was dominant in every event that he competed in. His main events were running, competing in the 100m dash, and the 110m hurdles, but he also competed in field events such as shot put and the discuss throw. He was also a talented indoor runner, competing in the 55m hurdles. But some records set by Skramstad may never be broken, that of the outdoor decathlon and indoor pentathlon, two events that are no longer recorded in the NCAA. Skramstad is 8th all-time in Mount Pentathlon runners, with a score of 3,978 and a score of 8097 in the Decathlon, leaving him 2nd on the all-time at the Mount.

The Mount has always had a rich athletic history, dating all the way back to the late 19th century when baseball was first played on Echo field and when hundreds of students, staff and spectators crowded in front of the seminary to watch the football team play on Saturdays. There is certainly no evidence of it slowing down by any means, leading to the conclusion that there will be more excellent athletes inducted into the Mount Athletics Hall of Fame. These three featured athletes are shining examples of the excellent athletic history the school has, and a model for what is to come.