Plainfield Teacher's College

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plainfield Teacher's College was an imaginary college, created as a hoax, that fooled the New York Times sports department and college football fans across the country.

In 1941, stockbroker Morris Newburger and radio announcer Alexander "Bink" Dannenbaum concocted the idea of a mythical college football team. Using the name Jerry Croyden, the duo phoned the Times with fantastic stories of Plainfield's lopsided victories over several (equally nonexistent) schools. When the Times started printing the scores week after week, Newburger and Dannenbaum invented other details, including a sophomore running back named Johnny "The Chinese Comet" Chung, whose amazing ability on the gridiron was chalked up to the rice he ate on the bench between quarters. Hop-Along Hobelitz was named as Plainfield's coach.

After six weeks of Plainfield victories (raising speculation that the team might secure a bid to a small-college bowl game), a reporter from the New York Herald-Tribune (who by this time was also reporting the fake scores) decided to actually go to Plainfield, New Jersey to try and find the college. Of course, there wasn't one. (New Jersey then had teacher's colleges in Jersey City, Newark, Paterson, Montclair, and Trenton, none of them fielding football teams as their student bodies were largely female.)

Finally, Newburger and Dannenbaum had to fess up, and "Jerry Croyden" wrote his final press release, stating that Plainfield had cancelled its remaining schedule as Chung and several other players were declared ineligible after flunking exams. The Tribune took it in good humor, reporting the hoax; columnist Franklin Pierce Adams even wrote a song for Plainfield, to the tune of Cornell's "Far Above Cayuga's Waters": "Far above New Jersey's swamplands / Plainfield Teacher's spires! / Mark a phony, ghostly college / That got on the wires...!"