You may have heard rumors that Geneva College once triumphed over Harvard College in football. This “David and Goliath” story is quite true —100 years ago, on October 2, 1926, Coach Bo McMillin and his Covenanters defeated the Harvard Crimson on their home turf in Cambridge by the score of 16-7. Geneva celebrated by canceling classes and having a huge bonfire on Reeves Field.

At the time, Geneva not only had a new football field (dedicated October 3, 1925), but also a new coach. It was quite a feat to acquire Alvin “Bo” McMillan, an All-American, as athletic director. In 1921, quarterback Bo McMillin scored the winning touchdown for his team from Centre College (a tiny Presbyterian men’s school in Danville, Kentucky) against Harvard. The Harvard Crimson had been undefeated for six years and was supposedly invincible. The win of 6-0 was one of the biggest all-time upsets in college football history. Bo was given the Heisman Trophy for 1921.

Bo arrived at Geneva in February 1925 and immediately began training the boys for next fall’s football team. Arriving along with Bo was his wife, Marie, and little daughter, Fleurette. Because of difficulty in finding a home nearby, the McMillin family resided in McKee Hall for several months. As Mrs. McMillin’s understanding and sympathies seemed naturally inclined to college girls, it was not long until she was loved by every girl in the dormitory, and from this to faculty parties, pep meetings, and gridiron contests, her pleasant smile made her and her little daughter always welcome guests.

The spring after the McMillins came to Geneva, tragedy struck his young family. On March 21, 1926, Bo’s wife, Marie, was stricken with pneumonia and passed away, leaving the campus to grieve with and for her husband and Fleurette, just-turned-three-years old. Fleurette was also stricken but recovered. Geneva students had lovingly given Fleurette the nickname “Bo-Peep.” The nickname that originated with Geneva students when she was just a toddler was included on her gravestone when she died in 2019 at age 96.

Still coaching at Geneva the season following Marie’s death, Bo again faced Harvard College, and once again saw his team defeat Harvard. In the March 1997 Geneva Alumnus, Barbara Booth Palmer, whose father, Pip Booth, was a freshman member of the team that year, recalled the glory of the 1926 Geneva football team. She said: “It may have seemed like an ordinary bunch of guys that took the field for Geneva College on October 2, 1926, and left victors over Harvard. Small to medium in stature, if you left out Robert ‘Cal’ Hubbard (the giant of the team at 240 pounds), they numbered less than 30, but this team compiled a season to remember and lifted Geneva into national prominence…. Besides winning the Tri-State Conference for the second straight year, beating Harvard on a cloudy day in Cambridge, Mass. before 25,000 Crimson fans, and losing just two games by a total of nine points, the 1926 team was the first Geneva squad to go to a post-season game. The Covies…traveled by train to Jacksonville, FL that winter to play Oglethorpe University in the Orange Blossom Classic [the first Orange Bowl game ever played]. Geneva won the game 9-7.”

Bo moved on to a stellar career, eventually being named College Football Coach of the Year for 1945, and going on to coach on the professional level for the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951, shortly before his death in March 1952. Cal Hubbard, a member of the 1926 team, was inducted into both the Pro-Football Hall of Fame (1963) and Pro-Baseball Hall of Fame (1976).

Throughout the years, the memorable football victory over Harvard in 1926 has been celebrated and the 1926 team honored at Homecoming. This is one case of a rumor being absolutely true.

This article originally appeared in the October 28, 2026, issue of The Cabinet.