Yeomen

John Heisman spent two seasons on the sideline at Oberlin, and in 1892, his first as head coach, he served as head coach. The name that would eventually attach itself to the program — Yeomen — did not exist yet; it grew out of "O Men," a shorthand for Oberlin Men that circulated in the early 1900s and was only fixed in place after a contest held in 1926. By then the college had been fielding a team since 1891, when it played its first intercollegiate game against Michigan on 24 October.

The high point, in terms of what outsiders remember, has nothing to do with a trophy: in 1921 Oberlin beat Ohio State 7–6, and no Ohio college has beaten the Buckeyes since. Two Ohio Athletic Conference titles, in 1943 and 1945, sit in the record book, but they came decades before the years that actually defined the program for a generation of its own players and fans — between 1990 and 2001, the Yeomen won four games in twelve seasons. A 1997 victory over Thiel College, buried in the middle of that stretch, drew national notice simply because it broke the pattern.

Among the men who passed through the program without ever playing a down, one stands out: Clarence Hemingway, who worked as a trainer and whose son Ernest would go on to write for a living rather than tape ankles. On the field, the rivalry that has mattered longest is with Kenyon, known on campus as the Little Rivalry, with Hiram supplying the other regular fixture.

Games are played at Dick Bailey Field, part of the Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex, which holds 3,050 — a ground built for a college town, in a college town, where Oberlin itself is as much the subject as the team that carries its name onto the field.