If you’re at Homecoming this fall (Oct. 17 - 19), no doubt you’ll belt out – or at least hear – the Oil Thigh more than a few times. The ʹ’s song is probably sung the most during the annual weekend return to campus. But have you ever stopped to listen to or read the full lyrics?
If you have, you might have noticed that the third verse is the only one to mention an actual person. It’s also the only one that asks you to do something: “Remember Captain Curtis and the conquerors of Yale.”
So who was Captain Curtis and why should you remember him?
Turns out, it’s Guy Curtis, one of the most famous athletes in ʹ’s and Canadian sports history. The football and hockey star led the university to glory not just against other schools but the top teams in Ontario, Canada, and the U.S. at the end of the 1800s. This included a Canadian football title and two Stanley Cup finals.
The 1893 football champions of Canada. Guy Curtis is seated beside the trophy, holding the ball.
Born in 1868 and raised in Delta, Ont., northeast of Kingston, Curtis began playing for ʹ’s teams in 1886. He’d continue to pull on a ʹ’s jersey for another astonishing 15 years.
Of all the triumphs Curtis and his ʹ’s teammates enjoyed, none was bigger than the one in in 1893, when he captained and coached the football squad to its first national championship on Thanksgiving Day in Montreal against the powerful Montreal Amateur Athletic Association.
“We were a queer looking combination going on the field in Montreal all covered with pads, bandages, etc. but the old veterans swept everything before them and gained a glorious victory,” wrote Curtis to his mother after the decisive 29-11 victory. (Editor's note: In this historical context, “queer” is used in its original sense, meaning unusual or odd.)
Back in Kingston, it was pandemonium at ʹ’s and throughout the city. Thousands of people greeted Curtis and the winning team at the train station, and there was a parade to City Hall.
Before challenging for the 1895 Stanley Cup, ʹ’s won that year’s Ontario championship. Guy Curtis is seated, second from the left.
In 1895 and 1899, Curtis was also on the first ʹ’s teams to try for the Stanley Cup. In fact, they would be the only university teams to ever make an appearance in the Stanley Cup final.
Facing off against the home team Montreal Victorias in 1895’s decisive game, ʹ’s lost 5-1 after three disallowed goals that would have counted if they were playing by Ontario rules.
ʹ’s lost again in 1899 in Montreal against the Shamrocks – this time 6-2 – in a game that Curtis played with a broken wrist.
“The Shamrocks are altogether overestimated, and I am sure that if we had been playing in the Quebec League with them this year we could have won out without much trouble,” said Curtis after the 1899 loss. “The greatest drawback to ʹ’s was the size of the rink, which difficulty could be overcome with a few practices upon it.”
In 1897, no excuses were needed. Curtis and his teammates earned one of the biggest hockey victories in ʹ’s early history, beating Yale University to claim the unofficial title of North American intercollegiate hockey champions – a “conquering” forever cemented in that famous Oil Thigh line.
Guy Curtis’ ʹ’s hockey jersey from the 1894 season. Now enshrined in the Original Hockey Hall of Fame in Kingston, it’s believed to be the oldest existing hockey jersey. (Original Hockey Hall of Fame)
As sharp as Curtis was on the field and ice, he was, as the ʹ’s Review noted in his obituary, “untouched by the studious life of ʹ’s.”
Between 1886 and 1892, he failed philosophy, physics, and math four times each, and English five times. And this despite the efforts of ʹ’s Principal George Grant trying to steer the star athlete toward academics.
By 1893, Curtis was listed simply as an “extramural student in regular attendance,” meaning he was there mainly to play sports. This wasn’t unusual for the time. University teams often included players who weren’t even enrolled.
After leaving ʹ’s in 1902, Curtis returned to his hometown of Delta, where he ran an inn.
But he clearly never forgot his alma mater – and it never forgot him. On the few returns he made to campus to watch the next generation of athletes, he often got the fanfare you’d expect for a guy name-dropped in the Oil Thigh.
His final visit to ʹ’s was in Oct. 1928, just two years before his death, for a football game against the University of Toronto.
ʹ’s lost to its bitter rivals, but as the ʹ’s Journal reported in an article titled “Capt. Curtis cheered to echo”: “It must have been a thrilling moment in Guy Curtis’ life when he was carried around the track on Saturday and fifteen hundred student voices rang out with the old ʹ’s song.”
So, this fall at Homecoming, when the Oil Thigh kicks up, take a moment to remember the man who wore the tricolour for 15 glorious years. The field general. The hockey warrior. The ʹ’s legend.
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