The Pull Hope College's Legendary Tug-of-War, 1898-2023

The Pull: Hope College’s Legendary Tug-of-War, 1898-2023
The “tug-of-war the gods gather ’round to watch”
The Hope College Pull is an annual tug-of-war contest that traces its roots back to 1898,
making it one of the longest-running traditions on any college campus in the entire United States.
The Pull is certainly the longest-running tug-of-war held in an American collegiate setting. The
Pull’s longevity alone makes it worthy of study since we can reasonably conclude that an
understanding of the Pull opens the door to a further understanding of the history of Hope
College, as well as of American higher education, sports, the state of Michigan, and even society
and culture in general.
This history of the Pull is a narrative that covers seven eras:
1. The Origins of the Natural Rivalry, 1898–1918
2. Passion and Excitement, 1919–45
3. The Pull in the Postwar Era, 1946–61
4. The First Chink in the Armor, 1962–76
5. Change and Challenge, 1977–93
6. The Pull Enters the Twenty-First Century, 1994–2018
7. The Historic Pull of 2019 and After
E. Bruce Geelhoed relies on unpublished sources from the Hope College Archives;
newspapers; other published sources; interviews with former pullers, moralers, coaches, and
administrators at Hope College; and some electronic correspondence. Although they are
traditional sources, Geelhoed is the first historian to conduct an extensive examination of them,
hoping this study will lead to further scholarly investigations of this unique event that has
become a mainstay of Hope College.