The traditional freshman-sophomore contest will be in a new location — the college’s Buys Athletic Fields — that will be within earshot, if not within sight, of the 127-year event’s original location.  Accounts of the earliest Pulls place them across a small creek near Holland’s Pilgrim Home Cemetery, which is adjacent to the athletic complex.

This year’s Pull will feature members of the sophomore Class of 2027 and freshman Class of 2028, continuing a rivalry that began in 1898 with the Classes of 1901 and 1902.  The contest will start at 3 p.m. and take place alongside the Brewer Outdoor Track north of Ray and Sue Smith Stadium at 301 Fairbanks Ave. near 13th Street.

The public is invited.  Admission is free.

The new location is intended to be a long-lasting home for the longtime tradition, which since 2019 had been held about a block away, along 11th Street on the other side of Fairbanks, following several decades at the Black River about a mile from the campus.  High water levels had prompted the move to 11th Street as a temporary measure, with continued uncertainty of conditions at the river site leading the college to seek an enduring alternative.  A committee consisting of students involved in the Pull, staff and faculty spent most of the 2023-24 school year considering possibilities — beginning with the need for a space capable of accommodating the event’s 600-foot span.

“There are a limited number of places on campus where it’s even possible for the Pull to take place, but our experience since the move to 11th Street has been that more people have been able to attend than when it was more remote,” said Andrew Haggerty, who as assistant director of student life at Hope is staff adviser for the Pull.  “We hope that providing the Pull with an enduring home at the center of the college’s athletic complex helps it continue and grow as a tradition that spectators and participants alike can enjoy for years to come.”

History hasn’t recorded exactly which nearby creek hosted the first Pulls, and in development across the past century-plus has changed the landscape such that it may no longer exist in its original form.  However, while the new site does not cross a waterway (as was also true at 11th Street), it is flanked by the tree-lined stream that runs parallel to Fairbanks.

In the competition, freshman and sophomore teams, entrenched in shallow pits on opposite sides, attempt to gain the most rope through their strength and stamina, their efforts coordinated by an upperclassman who provides signals from the front of the team.  Each team has the same number of members, with up to 18 students apiece on the rope as “pullers” and an equivalent total acting as guides and morale boosters, or “moralers.” The freshmen are coached by the junior class while the sophomores are instructed by the seniors. The coaching arrangement also leads to a rivalry between the even-year and odd-year classes.

The new location will be the fifth on record for the event.  As best as can be gleaned from memory and period accounts, the Pull took place in the vicinity of the cemetery and Smallenburg Park through 1909.  It was held across the Black River near U.S. 31 and M-21 from 1910 through 2018, with the exception of 1952, when wet conditions at the usual site prompted it to be moved upstream at the former American Legion golf course.

Although it’s been around for 127 years, this won’t be the 127th Pull.  There have been five known cancellations, and there’s no record of whether or not there was a Pull during some of the earliest years after the first.

The Pull was canceled most recently in 2020, because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The other four cancellations were during the world wars (1918, 1943 and 1944), and because of a campus-wide flu epidemic (1957).  There is no information about contests from 1899 through 1908.

In 1977, the Pull set a record for length and uniqueness. The freshmen and sophomores tugged for three hours and 51 minutes before judges called a tie due to darkness. In contrast, the shortest Pull lasted two minutes and 40 seconds in 1956.

New rules were implemented in 1978, following the 1977 marathon, limiting the event’s duration. The rules now allow the judges to determine the winning class by measuring the amount of rope pulled from the other team if one team has not claimed all of the rope within three hours.

The sophomore Class of 2026 won the 2023 Pull, held on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023. Through the years, the sophomores and even-year classes have held the edge in the win-loss column. Since 1909, the sophomores have taken 72 contests to the freshmen’s 34; the even-year/odd-year split for the same period is 59 to 47.  There are three draws on record: in 1916, 1952 and 1977.

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