row2k Features
The Wakamole Trophy
The "Brief" History of the Most Prestigious Croquet Trophy in Rowing
April 1, 2009
The Boz

The Wakamole Trophy

See the 2023 Wakamole Trophy - Rigger's National Croquet Championship gallery here.

To see Wakamole Implement hacks, read Tool Hack - Wakamole Implements.

The history of rowing is liberally checkered with epic struggles for some of the most evocative trophies in sport. The Lady's Plate, the Jope Cup, the Worcester Bowl, the Zwartkops Tankard, even the Bloody Stump Award are revered by all who have striven for them, and are the permanent tributes to the hard work and dedication of all who have held them. Yet there is one trophy that not only rewards fierce competition, dedication and sportsmanship, but, unique among sports trophies, has done so over the wide domain and fertile history of two different, and seemingly dissimilar, sports. This is the story of that trophy, and the man for whom it is named - the Wakamole Trophy.

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Guy Wakamole was the most famous and influential croquet champion during the classic era of French croquet, a period that spanned most of the seventeenth century. Wakamole invented or perfected many of the techniques we now consider inherent in the game, such as the leave, the rush, and the tice, and was a compelling personality as well, helping to popularize a pastime that was previously thought of only as penance doled out to Cistercian monks. Wakamole produced unlikely caroms, crushing send shots, remarkable banks, and streaks of consecutive hoops that would often see him finishing games before his opponents even started their turn. He helped standardize rules for the game, designed his own equipment, and helped establish one of the first pension systems for aged croquetiers, a system that remains the envy of sports leagues to this day. He even got his face on a series of promotional cards that were the forerunners of the bubble gum card. He did all this with a wit, charm and style that endeared him to almost everyone who met him, and he was, in fact, the closest thing to a Joe Namath or Tiger Woods the golden era of croquet ever had.

Wakamole was a Belgian Walloon, grandson of a man who had originally been a mussel herder from Oostende. His family roots were Norman. The earliest Wakamole found in the public records of the St. Lo region of France listing one "Jaques au Moule" as a mussel rustler in the twelfth century. His great grandfather moved east when the vast mussel banks of Dieppe played out, but moved to Thuin before long, hearing that the swamp mussels there were especially fecund, and under exploited as well. Wakamole's father took over the family business and taught young Guy how to stalk mussels in the early, fog shrouded morning hours, muffling his boat's oars to avoid spooking the nervous mollusks. Young Guy learned quickly to scoop his prey with a savage stroke that later held him in good stead when he took to the croquet circuit.

Unfortunately for the family the swamp mussel market was overworked in the years of Guy's grandfather, and their fortunes were not helped by a drinking habit that the boy's father picked up to ease the pain of decreasing harvests. Young Guy was often farmed out by his father to Flemish suet merchants in Gaasbeek and Geraardsbergen, heart of the lucrative Belgian suet industry, but Guy's heart wasn't in suet. He was rarely invited to return for the following season's production run by the same merchant. Instead of buckling down and applying himself he would often find his way into the seedy croquet "gardens" that dotted the Schelde River valley. But in these gardens he would find himself, and transform his sport.

By the time Wakamole hit his stride croquet was big time. Enormous sums were wagered on matches, and often Wakamole would have to take long odds just to get into tournaments. Professional croquet leagues were cleaning up the sport, and it was this legitimacy that allowed Wakamole to flourish and make his name. By the time he won the Antwerp Open he was a household name in every duchy and principality in Christendom, and his Grand Slam of the Antwerp, Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg Opens became his passport into a world never known by croquetiers before.

Wakamole rubbed elbows with royalty, dated theater stars, and had his face sketched outside of show openings and restaurants by what passed for the paparazzi of the time. He could afford long vacations in Nice, had a house in Bern, and his tour of the Papal States was a triumph of good croquet and better publicity. He even went on croquet's version of the "Three Tenors" tour, holding semi serious exhibitions with two other croquet lights of the time, Giancarlo Ghibelline and Alain of Nimes.

During a "friendly" at the court of Louis XIII, Wakamole pulled off his most compelling, and most foolhardy, stunt. Down a wicket with three to play, he hit Cardinal Richelieu with a poison ball. The court onlookers were stunned into silence by Wakamole's temerity, and for a moment no one knew what would be the outcome of this rash act. Wakamole was saved, however, when Louis himself offered a royal pardon on the spot, and the act became the most noted bon mot of his entire career.

Unfortunately for Wakamole it also became his downfall. Richelieu was not one to take this slight without response. Although the cardinal took the act in what appeared to be great good spirit, Richelieu was a fellow who knew how to bide his time. When at last that time came, it meant the end for Guy Wakamole.

Several years after the "Holy Bonk", as the event came to be known, Louis put together an expedition to the New World. A flotilla of four ships was outfitted to discover, and claim for France, the mouth of the Mississippi River. Richelieu coaxed Wakamole onto the voyage as the cruise director, confident that no good would come of the trip. While at sea Wakamole worked on some of his patented carom shots, keeping the crews entertained for hours, and even used the pitching deck to develop new shots. But time was running out for him.

The expedition was ill prepared at best, and hurt its chances even more when, unsure of their longitude, the leader of the expedition, Jean Adrienne Blemus, Sieur de Guizot, put his people ashore too far west. One ship was lost on an uncharted sandbar, and a second abandoned the expedition, returning to France with all of the expedition's snail forks. Short of Perrier, and forced to pick snails from the shells with penknives, conditions in the expedition became even worse. The French were in territory full of residents who were hostile to Europeans, and the Spanish also claimed the area, putting Wakamole and his party in a bad place indeed.

What happened in the end is a subject of speculation to this day. Only one survivor of the expedition reached France, eight years after the last contact with the group, and he was so overwrought by the experience that he was shut up into the Chateau dIf for the rest of his life. Of the party of sixty seven men, thirty seven were landed near what is now Galveston Bay. Four were captured by the Spanish, starving and almost naked, and were taken to Tampico, where they were tried and executed for trespass. Resident aboriginals enslaved four men, and only one of them made it out alive. As for the rest of the expedition, only rumors remained.

The rumors were horrific. One story said that Wakamole was playing a croquet-like Indian game with some of the local tribesmen. This game, Claxalatl, ended with the death of the losers. Wakamole, unaware of this twist, was a very congenial fellow, and the story has it that he let the Indians win as a gesture of good faith. Another story has it that members of his own expedition murdered him, apparently over an argument as to whether or not a ball had completely cleared a wicket. As there were certainly factions in the fragmented party, and as Richelieu was not the sort of man to leave things to chance, some have seen the Cardinal's hand in this explanation. There have even been dark tales of unspeakable acts committed by men made ravenous from starvation. The truth, so far as could be determined from the unnamed survivor, may well remain hidden by the French Navy, part sponsors of the enterprise, deep in their records vaults in Brest. No examination of these papers to date has turned up anything definitive. To even further muddy the waters, there are rumors of a secret naval archive deposited in Prisse-la-Charriere, but inquiries about this archives' existence has always met with official denials.


The eighteenth century was the golden period of the Wakamole Trophy, and to win it was considered the acme of croquet achievement. No competitor of that era was more successful than Admiral Louis Guillouet, comte dOrvilliers, who held the trophy seven times in his twenty-two year competitive career, including a run of four consecutive titles. His last title was considered his best, coming as it did seven years after his sixth title, and at an age when most good croquetiers were hanging up their mallets. dOrvilliers was known for powerful ground strokes and shattering collisions between his ball and those of his competitors. Game theorists of the time attributed dOrvilliers' stunning power to his expertise at the ancient Breton game of flopdoudelle. A good doudellier built up enormous forearms, and this, combined with his early career rowing garbage skiffs in the French navy, made the comte an overwhelming opponent. dOrvilliers was stationed at Cherbourg during the Seven Year's War, assigned to intercept the British Amada, suspected by another King Louis of lurking just off the coast of Normandy. He was playing flopdoudelle when he heard of the approach of the British. He did not follow the example of Drake, abandoning his game to report to his duty station. Upon investigation, de Orvilliers discovered that the armada consisted of three oyster smacks and a Bristol Channel pilot cutter. When intercepted, they turned out to be smugglers interested in cigarettes and Calvados. After making short work of the British, dOrvilliers returned to finish his doudelling a few days later. But he discovered that the heavy scoring tiles had been appropriated by a Valognes contractor, and incorporated into a patio in Brix. A fad for pink patios, followed by the Reign of Terror, brought about a quick decline of interest in and ultimate extinction of flopdoudelle.


Exhausted by war, weighed down by debt, and watched with suspicion by every European country, post Napoleonic France turned inward as a nation. Huge losses of young men, cut down in their prime, pressed heavily on the Gallic psyche. For years after the emperor's downfall, the country had neither the heart nor the finances for the life sportif. However, it was inevitable that, with the passage of time, France would recover a semblance of the ordinary, and amusements unthinkable in the time of disaster began to reassert themselves, as the bad memories began to fade.

Croquet saw as much a revival of spirit as the French people themselves, but the game entered an unusual, and thankfully short lived, era. Young men who had only just missed knowing the horrors of the continental upheavals, and who started to hear legends told by old veterans of the struggle, began, as young men often do, to express themselves in more forceful ways that those of their elder, exhausted countrymen. Frustrated by what they perceived as an attitude of passivity and war weariness, and wanting an outlet for their aggressions, full contact croquet developed a following in parts of the country, particularly in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and in some other pockets where the emperor had found esteem. Only lasting a few years, the popularity of the fad could be observed by an increase in the numbers of men walking with noticeable limps, a result of an element of the game which allowed both players to simultaneously strike a ball being sent. As both players placed, and then hit, two balls together, it was inevitable that debilitating injuries would occur. Indeed, the croquet limp was as much a part of the game at one time as the tennis elbow is in some circles today.

Thankfully, this fad began to wane as the game matured. Yet an element of it exists today, and in an unlikely place. The great French chef, George-August Escoffier, took an interest in the game in his youth, and was well thought of, working his way through the maze of regional and sectional qualifiers and player rankings of the time. His name was mentioned on occasion as a possible replacement for the left-handed specialist Jacques Jourquin on Gascony's regional powerhouse, Dubonnet Unitee, but his disappointment at being left off the team at the last minute (allegedly because of recriminations from rumors of an affair, never proven, between Escoffier's sister and the team's powerful equipment manager, Jean-Marie-Anne Tapette) so affected the young Escoffier that he set his energies towards cooking, where he found lasting fame. Yet Escoffier never forgot his roots on the 'moquette vert', as one of his earliest dishes shows. Made with the meat of club-footed roosters, the master named his creation the "Chicken Croquette"


The most notable character in the post-Napoleonic era of the Wakamole Trophy was Major General Charles Tristan, Marquis de Montholon, comte de Lee, comte de Semonville, aide de campe to Bonaparte himself, and fellow exile on St Helena. Montholon served briefly as a brigadier under yet another King Louis, but his greatest heroics were reserved for only the croquet pitch and the emperor. He won a sword of honor in the Hohenlinden campaign, was wounded at Jena, saved Savary's division from certain annihilation at Heilsberg, and led a gallant cavalry charge at Eckmuhl. He protected the payroll of his corps from the Austrian army at Clermont-Ferrand for over four months, and, if that was not enough, was well known for his card playing skills. De Montholon appointed himself guardian of Napoleon in the emperor's exile.

De Montholon strenuously labored to remove everyone he could from contact with Napoleon, and was successful in finally removing anyone he considered a threat to the safety of Bonaparte. He worked diligently to see to it that no one, absolutely no one, got closer to the emperor than he. No one. Alas for de Montholon, despite his unquestionable success at totally and completely isolating the emperor from everyone, and I mean everyone, he could not keep Napoleon from being poisoned to death. Suspicion fell on the British.

De Montholon consoled himself with the two million franc bequest that Napoleon's will left him, the largest legacy made by the emperor. Bonaparte obviously knew how to chose personnel who would look out for his best interests, and was willing to reward them accordingly. After Napoleon's death, de Montholon took the Wakamole three times in ten years, and then retired to an estate in Sardinia.


As republicanism took greater hold on French society, remnants of the old ways became less revered to the French. The Wakamole Trophy slowly faded in significance in the middle years of the nineteenth century, so that, when another Napoleon (Napoleon III) lost the trophy as plunder to Moltke in the Franco-Prussian War, no one gave much notice. The trophy became part of the war reparations exacted from France, and was deposited for a while in Sans Souci, home to the Hohenzollerns. But Prussians don't do croquet, and the trophy was merely a dusty whatnot in a darkly lit corridor. It took the rivalry between Germany and the British Empire to bring the trophy back into the light again.

Kaiser Wilhelm's love/hate relationship with his British royal cousins is history's best example of a dysfunctional family. As the 'me, too" grandson of Queen Victoria, Wilhelm went to great lengths to assert himself in the eyes of his royal relations. Being rather ham fisted, however, his efforts had all the charm of a fart in church. But he was a gamer, and had a lot of money, so the royal family let him play with them. Wilhelm regularly attended yacht races at Cowes, and instituted a croquet match at Osborne House during periods when his sailors were too seasick to race. As croquet was popular in England at the time, Wilhelm's royal cousins added in, anxious, as they were, to avoid embarrassing the Kaiser and precipitate an international incident. Wilhelm's withered right arm and the impressive girth of King Edward VII required proxy fight the contests, young naval officers of the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine. This suited Edward just fine, as he preferred the company of Lily Langtry to his egregious cousin, and it upset him to see the Kaiser's spurs drill tiny hole in the lawn of Osborne House.

The prize, of course, was the Wakamole Trophy. Wilhelm (or rather, his proxy) was remarkably successful in retaining it; reputedly because Edward found it to be most unhandsome, and demanded his champion lose every time. The only English officer to win it during Edward's reign found himself posted to the Falkland Islands until the king's death. During the reign of George V, however, things were warming up between Britain and Germany. Sub-Lieutenant Nigel Birdstall won the final trophy challenge in the summer of 1914. Alas, the lights went out all over Europe that autumn. The Wakamole remained in England,

Croquet lost its hold on the English mind at about that time, and it was probably the Wakamole Trophy that did it. The connections to the Hun were too great, and the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club won't let anyone pound in a peg within a hundred yards of center court, Wimbledon, these days. The disdain for Germany was so great that Sub-Lieutenant Birdstall was given the trophy, and a small coffee plantation in Rhodesia, on promise that he would never bring the trophy back to the Isle of Wight again. But Birdstall didn't want it, as his sea chest was only so big, and lumping that great whopping trophy all over the empire was putting his batman's nose out of joint. Birdstall had been an Eton boy, and he knew that on the playing fields of Eton there were a few wickets. He gave the trophy to his alma mater.

Unfortunately, Eton didn't want it either. German sentiment was running very high, and the faculty felt great discomfort with the gift. Birdstall pointed out the royal connection, and so Eton felt obliged to accept the gift, but took it with little enthusiasm.

The trophy was eventually awarded on an intramural basis to the house that accumulated the most points in the yearly Swithywhindle competition. This event pitted the houses against each other in three events ? croquet, quoits and rowing. After the first year the quoits competition was dropped, as the quantity of good Brazilian quoit reed needed for a first rate competition fell off dramatically, the result of unrestricted submarine warfare. Croquet and rowing still held firm at Eton, so the trophy became associated with these two competitions exclusively.

Even then the Wakamole Trophy did not receive the sort of dignity that had once been its due. The Eton lads were of the same mind as their sovereign, and weren't all that enthusiastic about taking possession of the hardware. But the boys came up with a novel way of motivating each other. During the war the government, eager to prod all good Englishmen to do their duty to the utmost, and trying to eliminate any influences that might affect war production, ordered all pubs in the realm be shut down in the middle of the day. Disgruntled at the thought that their athletic efforts would go dry, the students contracted with the one person they knew who would feel their pain, and who would help them deal with their raging thirst: Colin Taptwist, the under-rigger in the Eton boathouse. Taptwist's uncle had been a publican in Datchet, at the Plow and Hearth, a favorite watering hole for the Eton rowers for years. Knowing this, and knowing that all riggers like shiny, jingly things, the Eton boys made their offer, which was accepted. From then until the end of the Great War the rowers slaked their thirst courtesy of Taptwist's connections, and Taptwist got something sparkly to hang on his wall.


Upon cessation of hostilities in Europe the Kaiser went into exile. The whole continent went through a profound era of soul searching, struggling with the meaning of it all. At Eton, as at so many other places in Europe, the gloomy days of the war were swept aside in a huge wave of relief, denial, and hedonism, and events that had taken on meaning during the war were all but abandoned. Although trade with Brazilian quoit reed traders was renewed, the cloud of Prussian "frightfulness" that still hung over the Wakamole Trophy meant interest in "whindling" disappeared almost overnight. Thus, in 1919, no one was the least upset when the Wakamole Trophy was actually destroyed.

Post-war rowing theory briefly flirted with the notion that "bigger is better". Eton coaches, having seen battleships, aero planes, and artillery shells get bigger during the war, figured that the heaviest boats on the river, by virtue of inertia, should be the fastest. Colin Taptwist was enjoined by his coaches to ballast down boats to see to the truth of the matter. As it was difficult to find lead in a post war environment, and as no one really liked the Wakamole Trophy anyway, Taptwist melted the trophy down into ingots. He then installed the metal into the boats that, according to the theory, should have been the fastest boats on the river. Thus was born the "Dreadnought" class of coxed pairs. The class did not last long, though, and neither did the theory. While blisteringly fast, the boats took forever to get up to speed, and steering them was an occasional thing. The collision and sinking of two "Dreadnoughts" at the weir above Romney Lock, and subsequent closing of the river to all traffic for three days, brought about threats of Parliamentary inquiries, and the boats were quietly scrapped. The wooden parts became mulch, and the metal, most of which came from the Wakamole Trophy, went to a scrap dealer in Slough.

Thus the old world lost something as a result of the tragedy of the Great War, a wonderful something that might have been lost forever. It took the vitality of the new world, and a mother's grief, to restore it.


Nancy Sluicewyk was a lucky young woman indeed. Well raised, of the Seattle Sluicewyks, educated as best a young girl of her station could expect in that day and time, well married to English nobility, she had it all going for her. But the events of the Great War would forever darken her life, and would take the Wakamole Trophy story in yet another direction entirely.

Nancy's father, Obediah Sluicewyk, came to Puget Sound from the rich hop growing regions of Delaware, but a religious conversion persuaded him that the growth of an ingredient destined for no other use than brewing alcohol was not his way. Obediah instead dedicated himself to harvesting the rich runs of salmon for which the Pacific Northwest was famous. Rowing his Whitehall skiff around the sound, Obediah came to notice for his work ethic, fair trade practices, and uncanny ability to find the wily salmon in abundant numbers. No one was quite sure how Obediah managed to do so well, but his mother's side of the family had a connection with a Springfield, Massachusetts, hand grenade company, and grenadiers are famous for their ability with rod and reel. Obediah opened the largest salmon cannery in the Dabob Bay, and, when his wife Myrt gave him a daughter, Nancy, his life was as complete as any man had a right to expect.

Young Nancy wanted for nothing in her youth, and yet grew up unaffected, warm and whimsical by nature. A lover of animals, she was often seen just downwind of her father's cannery, gently scooping up the small parr and helping them work through the rapids to the sea. Such an enchanting young lady could not only have whatever she wanted, everyone agreed that she deserved it. Realizing that no institutions of higher learning worthy of the name exist in the Pacific Time zone, her parents agreed that an east coast education was just the thing for such a sensitive and artistic young lady.

After graduation from St Norbert's, hard by the east coast of Wisconsin, Nancy went on the Grande Tour, sweeping through all the capitals of Europe. In Venice she met Elliott Park-Neetley, Lord Windemere, son of the seventh Earl of Yate and his wife, Elspeth. Lord Windemere and Nancy hit it off, and before the summer was out the two were engaged. The union was much anticipated by both Obediah and Myrt, but the earl was cool to the prospect. Lady Elspeth brought him around to the notion, however, when it was pointed out to her husband that the union would not only bolster the family's bank account but their genetic makeup as well. One brother of the earl had already been shunt off to a sheep station in New South Wales, and the rents from the earl's estates in Westbury-sub-Mendip weren't adequate for the expenses of keeping his name out of the papers. If not for new veins of coal found in his mines in Cyffylliog the earl would have been destitute, and the prospect of marrying his son off to the heiress of a prosperous salmon wrangler was too great an opportunity to pass up. Upon meeting Nancy for the first time he was charmed by her, his remaining doubts were dispelled, and Elliott and Nancy were happily wed with the blessings of both families.


Lord and Lady Windemere were graced with a son within a year, but a difficult birth and a subsequent touch of dengue fever meant that their first-born would be their last. Nancy responded to the situation by pouring all her maternal efforts into the rearing of young Lionel, and it was in the child's nature to take after his mother. Curious, magnanimous, charming and strong, young Lionel grew to be the pride of both the Windemeres and the Sluicewyks, and he excelled in nearly everything he did. The young boy immersed himself in outdoor activities such as riding and shooting, and his proud American grandfather often said that no one could gut smelt as quickly and cleanly as young Lionel. Eton accepted the boy readily, where he surpassed nearly everyone in his grasp of the ancient languages, the sciences, music, and, particularly, accounting. His sporting interests led him to be one of the best athletes in Eton's Whimbish House, and he was top drawer in rowing, running, and croquet. Everyone said that young Lionel had a bright future ahead of him.

The rape of Belgium put paid to all that. In Lionel's first year at Oxford the grumblings on the continent became a roar. The summer of 1914 saw Great Britain wondering what role, if any, they would have in the coming cataclysm, and Lionel wondered as well. With dual citizenship in both Britain and the United States Lionel could easily have sat aside, and his doting mother desperately urged him to consider giving war a pass. But an unfortunate incident made his noble mind up for him. Lionel had taken as his companion at Oxford a beautiful parrot, a rare Norwegian Blue, named Percy, and developed the kind of relationship with it that would have left them both happy for the rest of their lives. Lionel would often hum tunes from the fjords of Norway whenever Percy pined for his homeland, and Percy would groom Lionel's hair with his nimble beak. But Percy's constitution was frail, and, when his friend sickened and died in August, Lionel was inconsolable. Percy had died of a precursor of the disease that would ravage the world in only a few years, the Hartz Mountain bird flu. Lionel took this as a sign that he was to crusade against the evil Hun and, despite his mother's pleadings, he signed up.

His accounting skills put him in the Royal Motor Pool, but Lionel was unhappy changing spark plugs for Sir John French, and, helped by his father's connections, sought a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps. With his transfer came a posting to Italy, as the Italians were by now involved in the war, and it was thought that a little help by the RFC would be appreciated in Rome. While flying over the front in April, 1917, Lionel got his first Hun, an Austrian observation plane taking aerial photos of an Italian nurse's barracks near Lake Como. Three more victories occurred, and Lionel was mentioned in dispatches. But, just as it looked as if Lionel was about to be promoted and given his own flight wing, it all fell apart for him, for Nancy, Lord Windemere, and the whole family.

On July 17th, 1917, Flight Lieutenant Lionel, Baron Budleigh of Furrowborough, was scrambled to intercept a flight of Rumplers taking off from the Austrian aerodrome in Trento. A close ground fog made his take off difficult, but observers heard his motor running soundly until it faded away into the distance. He did not return.

No evidence of Lionel's final moments were ever found during any of the actions that occurred around the Italian front, and no trace of him was found after the war. He was officially listed as missing, presumed killed by enemy action. Post war examination of Austrian flight records show no activity in Lionel's sector on the date he disappeared. There was a report from a Trieste octopus fisherman who said that he heard the sound of an engine over the Adriatic on the morning Lionel disappeared, but the RFC discounted the possibility that Lionel had flown the wrong way and run out of gas, and awarded him the DFC posthumously.


Nancy Sluicewyk was devastated. Never had her life been disrupted by ill fortune, and it seemed that this blow wiped out all the good that had occurred to her. Between bouts of frantic crying she sank into deep periods of solitude so complete that no one could rouse her from her bed. Lord Windemere took it just as hard, requesting a transfer from his post as the King's Royal Stamp Licker to a position in the front lines. While he got closer to the front than he had been before, his request for trench duty was denied, on account of his age, and he served as health officer for the 16th Lancastershire, lecturing the Tommies about the dangers of trench foot. This activity gave him a measure of solace, but Nancy found none, sinking deeper into the depression that would scar her for the rest of her life.

Nancy fled England, returning to the shores of Dabob Bay, where the sights, sounds and smells of pine trees, salt water and fish offal slowly helped her regain her resiliency. While walking along the shores of the bay she came to a new appreciation of the wonders of the Pacific Northwest, and of its people. When America sent her finest off to the war Nancy was struck by the dedication and commitment of the youths of the Lumbee tribe of Native Americans, young men with whom she had played on the shores of Dabob many years ago, and who signed up for service in prodigious numbers. The Lumbee so impressed her in their devotion to the country that she determined to do something to commemorate both her lost son and the Lumbee fortitude. As the tribe had a considerable history of seafaring ability in the waters of Puget Sound, and, as Lionel had been a star in the Eton eights, it slowly occurred to her that a connection existed between the waters of Dabob Bay and the Thames.

Nancy returned to Eton as the war drew to a close, and discussed her ideas with the proctor of Eton, Dr. Enos Slabwhit. Dr. Slabwhit had a lot of similar discussions with upset parents, and by the time Nancy got around to talking with him he was pretty much out of ideas for memorializing deceased Etonians. Somewhat discouraged by her interview with Dr. Slabwhit, Nancy was about to leave Eton when she met Colin Taptwist at the train station. Taptwist remembered being treated with kindness by Lionel while the boy was in the boathouse, and Taptwist appreciated Lionel's generosity. Suggesting that the Wakamole Trophy was gathering a lot of dust, and knowing of Lionel's prowess in both croquet and rowing, Taptwist suggested that the Wakamole Trophy be rededicated in Lionel's memory. Nancy was smitten by the idea, as the Lumbee had played a game similar to croquet as part of their whale hunting ceremonies. Their game involved whalebone mallets and balls made of ambergris, and scoring was less important to them than not stepping in anything nasty on the beach, but the spirit was, Nancy felt, the same. Combining the trophies would serve as a fitting way to memorialize her lost son and pay proper tribute to the efforts of the American boys who struggled for Europe. It worked on so many levels for her that she left the train giddy with the notion, and deeply indebted to Taptwist for the idea. It was only after leaving her at Paddington that Taptwist, who had sobered up by then, remembered that he had melted the trophy down a few weeks before.


Correspondence between Nancy and Dr. Slabwhit continued to work out details of what the reconstituted Wakamole Trophy would mean. Discussions centered on the rowing aspect of the trophy. Slabwhit was reluctant to involve the Lumbee in any croquet activity at Eton, as his groundskeepers had warned him of the negative effect that ambergris would have on the lawns. The Lumbee themselves were also shy, as their version of croquet was seen by them as more religious than sporting in nature. Both sides agreed that the Lumbee game, Wapato Onanogan, was impractical if played in England, as it demanded the winner sacrifice a walrus in victory, and there were precious few in Windsor at the time. But both cultures could embrace the nautical aspects of the award, so it was agreed that the trophy would be put up for a boat race between the two institutions.

While discussions went on, Taptwist worked furiously to cover his ass. He extorted the help of the coaches who had insisted on developing the Dreadnaughts, enlisting their aid in creating another trophy. One of them, Basil Tump, had a cousin in Blackpool, who knew a wool carder from Scotland, who was friendly with a journalist on the Isle of Man, who had done a story on an economist in Luxembourg, who was related by marriage to a grocer in Boulogne, who delivered mung beans to a vivisectionist near Ghent, who knew a jeweler, who was the nephew of Marie Curie. Yuri Curie had an exclusive shop in Amsterdam, was interested in the commission, and had been a semi pro Dutch croquetier during the war, so a deal was struck. Contacting his Aunt Marie, Yuri obtained a particularly heavy alloy that, he was assured, would give to the trophy the proper heft and stability needed for an art object likely to be roughly handled. That it glowed in the dark was another benefit, making presentation particularly impressive. The Wakamole Trophy was reborn.

The Wakamole event was appended to the Royal Henley Regatta; at the event, but not of it, as it were, much as the Jesus Cup is run today. The race would occur as a side bet to the race for the Finchamstead Trough (which has now been retired), fought over in the category of young public school war orphans. The event was to be run between the Eton top eight and the Lumbee top war canoe, with no allowance for the fact that the Lumbee would be paddling and not rowing. It was felt that, since the Lumbee would be fielding a crew of seventeen paddlers, they would not be overly burdened by being able to see where they were going.

The new Wakamole Trophy was first contested in 1920, the Lumbee winning by "a moose pelt", as this was the material the paddlers used to cover the foredeck of their canoe. In 1921, Eton retrieved the cup, the coxswain of the Lumbee boat being unable to strike out a consistent rating on his tom-tom, on account of the wet weather that year, which caused the skin of the instrument to stretch. But the Americans came back the next two years to win by significant margins.

In 1924 the cup was contested for the last time. The terms of the contest allowed that the victor of three consecutive events would retire the trophy, and the Lumbee came loaded for bear. Literally. Their medicine man had conducted an ancient Lumbee war ceremony in which a bear was sacrificed by the paddlers to enrich their chances of victory. Carrying the bear's gall bladder on the end of a willow branch, the Lumbee out sprinted the Eton boys to the line, and the Wakamole left Europe, never to return.


The Wakamole Trophy now entered an era of uncertain ownership and unclear provenance. The Lumbee were not a particularly competitive people, and the northwest traditions of Indian ceremony further confuse the history of the trophy. It is possible that the trophy was lost in a paddling contest between the Lumbee and Seattle's Green Lake club, the Lakers keeping the trophy when the Lumbee simply neglected to challenge for it the next season. It is also possible that the Lumbee merely gave it away in a Potlatch. At any rate, mention was made of the trophy in the "Amarillo Intelligencer", in the early thirties, in connection with a bank robbery by John Dillinger. Dillinger had been a coxswain in his schoolboy days, but a growth spurt had ejected him from the cox's seat. Too big to yank lanyards, and exasperated with his tumescence, he may have found satisfaction in his life of crime. Apparently the trophy was recovered from Dillinger's gang, although when and where is not entirely clear. The trophy then appeared in the "Detroit Free Press", associated with the LeBlanc sculling dynasty of that town. But the Second World War was occurring at about the same time, and all sorts of athletic events were suppressed. The last public mention of the trophy was in 1947, in association with the Maumee Sprints, held between high school rowers from Ohio, Michigan and Arkansas, in the rowing hot spot of Brunersburg, Ohio. Then, mysteriously, the trophy disappeared from view.


Among his many talents as Commodore of the Schulykill Navy, Clete Graham is well known for his uncanny ability to discover long lost trophies. He is famous for his involvement in the recovery of the trophy awarded to the world's best sculler, the trophy awarded to the runner up in the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee competition, and the brokerage of the sale of the Trump Cup to Rupert Murdoch. Unknown until now, however, is his vital role in the rediscovery of the Wakamole Trophy.

Graham's dog, a Bichon Frise named "Chauncey", was a well known fixture on Boathouse Row in 1989, and, when he decided that a new water bowl would be just the thing for the dog's first birthday, he began to peruse the want ads in the Philadelphia newspapers, looking for something of distinction for his faithful friend. Finding himself at a garage sale in Bala-Cynwyd, Graham was eyeing some attractive Bobby Sherman albums when, from the corner of his eye, he noticed something that looked out of place. Moving a bottle of Ortho Weed-B-Gone, he realized that the long lost Wakamole Trophy was within his grasp. Working his magic on the disinterested wife of the trophy owner, Graham closed the deal for five dollars, getting the trophy as a throw in with the Bobby Sherman records.

Graham knew he had something, but he wasn't quite sure what. But all became clear to him a few years later. His maiden grand aunt, Miss Parchaby Tump, who resided in the Spatterdock Eldercare Center, in Bergen, New Jersey, was visiting Graham one Thanksgiving, and was taken aback when she saw the trophy. None other than Colin Taptwist had once courted Miss Tump, when she visited her cousin Basil, as she made her way across Europe on the Grand Tour. The romance collapsed, however, when it became evident that Taptwist's true love was single malt, and the heartbroken Miss Tump never married. She did, however, retain vivid memories of her romantic interludes with Taptwist, and the sight of the Wakamole Trophy brought back to her a flood of memories. Graham put her recollections to good use, piecing together an outline of the history of the trophy and letting the rowing world know of its return to prominence.

Unfortunately for the memory of Guy Wakamole, the rowing community wasn't all that enthusiastic. Taptwist had felt the most excitement, when he enjoyed the play of light glistening off the trophy in his workshop. For most rowers it brought back disturbing memories of the Dreadnought class. Thus, the trophy remained, rediscovered but obscure, until the advent of the Rigger's Croquet Tournament, instituted at a prominent regatta, held every spring in the United States. This regatta, which shall remain nameless, so as to avoid the slightest hint of a connection between itself and the "Non Collegiate, Athletic or Academic" Croquet Tournament, has proven to be a boon to the distaff side of rowing, even thought, sadly, the event has been unable to find a permanent home for itself. But, as the event wanders forlornly throughout the countryside, it drags with it the involvement of the riggers of the participant institutions, who give prominence and an air of respectability to the event by their mere presence.

And so the Wakamole Trophy returns to the eyes of the public the name of a great and noble character. Loved by many, respected by all, enemy of only one (but what an enemy, that one), the name of Guy Wakamole rightly returns to the pantheon of heroes of the two sports touched by the genius of his gifts.


Note 1:
There exists another alternative for the derivation of Wakamole's name, an explanation completely unrelated to his family history. The story is told that Wakamole was really Emile Flournoy, the third son of a Liege tollgate attendant, and assumed a nom de guerre after enjoying a mid day snack in a Brussels tapas bar. Making friends with a waitress, Wakamole was allowed into the food prep area, where he was introduced to a sauce made from the chocolate bean of Central America called "Oaxaca Mole". Spanish influence was still felt in the Low Countries, and the story cannot be entirely discounted. But no one has come forward with any explanation why Flournoy would want to assume an alias, and no one has been willing to undertake further examination of his relationship with the waitress, if any. Considering the evidence to the contrary, and considering that this tale has never been backed up with any documentation whatever, it is the opinion of the author that this story is entirely apocryphal.

Note 2:
That the Third Republic took the game less seriously than previous generations is illustrated by noting only two significant croquet events occurring in France after the collapse of the Commune. Manet committed oil to canvas with two works, "La Partie de Croquet", in 1871, and "Croquet a Boulogne-sur-Mer" of 1873. The older work is in Kansas City, Missouri, while the 1873 version is in Frankfort. The youngest winner of Olympic gold was a twelve-year-old wicket setter, Roland Pflimlin, stuffed into the coxswain seat by the French of the winning eight at the last minute. Aside from these two minor events, serious interest in French croquet had died out.

Note 3:
As a side note to the story of Lionel's service in the RFC, it should be of some interest to the motoring fan to know that his mechanic was one Enzo Frenzi, who later gained minor fame in auto racing circles. Frenzi was gassed in the umpteenth battle of Isonzo, and could only fight in ground service, where he received a solid education in the mysteries of the internal combustion engine. After the war Frenzi raced, then built cars under his own name. Many was the voiturette race of the time contested by the puce cars of the Scuderia Frenzi, and his symbol, the Scrofa Rampante, narrowly missed the winner's circle on a number of occasions. Sadly, Frenzi's company failed as a result of both Great Depression pressures and his concurrent attempt to market a lawn mower with desmodromic valves, an alarmingly overpowered apparatus. After bankruptcy, Frenzi's name and company evaporated into the mists of time.

Note 4:
Anthropologists have noted the similarity between the Pacific Northwest game of Wapato Onanogan and Claxalatl, particularly in the necessity of bloodletting at the end of each game. Considering that croquet can get a bit rough as well, there is talk of cultural connections between the old world and the new that transferred over the land bridge between Asia and the Americas. Research continues.

Note 5:
It should be pointed out that the Wakamole Trophy made by Madame Curie bore no resemblance to the trophy known throughout the first two centuries of its existence. The original was a large bronze plaque, rectangular in shape, approximately one cubit high by one and a half cubits wide. The winners' names were engraved on the plaque for a few years, but lack of space meant that additional plates needed to be hung below the plaque. As time went on the number of plates became so numerous that the trophy had to be rolled up like a scroll to be moved, and, when unfurled, look like nothing so much as an eleven foot long Venetian blind.

Lady Windemere's trophy is much more transportable, but the necessity is not there, as it does not travel. The trophy currently reposes in Clete Graham's basement rec room, on top of the foosball table he won in a college drinking game. The Lady Windemere version is made of the finest Dutch Bakelite, gilt with candy wrappers from the very best confectioners of Amsterdam. The base is of the finest Balsa from the old Dutch colony of Guiana, and the mallet is carved from a toothpick from the collection of King Leopold of Belgium.

The traveling trophy currently in circulation is a hollow copy of this magnificent creation. The figure itself is made only of 38.4 pounds of solid 24 karat gold. The base is a hunk of disused wood that, at one time, was part of the One True Cross. The mallet is of mistletoe, a part of the arrow used by Loki to kill Baldur. The interior is of pure milk chocolate surrounding a nougat center. Winners are expected to keep ants away from the trophy.

Note 6:
It should be pointed out that many of the pronunciations with which we of the English speaking races are familiar are not necessarily well served by their spellings. Curious to relate, the English themselves are most likely to confuse the issue with their peculiar pronunciations of otherwise simple words. Thus, to help the reader, it should be noted that words such as Cholmondeley and Featherstonehaugh, in England, are pronounced as "Chumley" and "Fanshaw". It follows that, for the true student of both rowing and croquet, such proper names as Lancastershire, Furrowborough and Finchamstead, which figure in this story, are properly pronounced as "Lankasheer", "Furber" and "Feed". This note is offered as a guide to those who would wish to avoid being seen as provincial. As for Cyffylliog, the gentle reader is on his own.


The author of this piece, "Boz", is the author of many popular works, and readers are urged to pick up his newest effort, "The Pickwick Papers", when it comes to the newsstands in June. When not devoting himself to his art he can be found, muttering to himself, rigging boats for Brown University.


Clark, Christopher; Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, Cambridge, 2006

Julie Cote: What's Que, Vous Dites? Prononciation de Francais de XVIeme siecle, Putnam, 2008

Fine, Reuben; Chess, the Easy Way, Philadelphia, 1942

Graves, Robert; Goodby to All That, London & New York, 1929

Horne, Alastair; La Belle France: A Short History, London, 2004

Martin, H. Christopher; Virginia Crew 1877-1997, Charlottesville, 1998

Massie, Robert K.; Castles of Steel, New York, 2003

Phillips, Almarin, A. Paul Phillips, Thomas R. Phillips; Biz Jets, Dondrecht, 1994

Schor, Alan; Bonaparte, Napoleon, New York, 1997

Solem, Karen Ann, Ed.; American Rower's Almanac 1996, Washington, 1996 (!)

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Comments

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dr.brown
05/18/2012  6:50:43 AM
Is this for real?


bderegt
04/01/2009  9:08:27 PM
Epic!



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