The Origin of the MSU Fight Song

After the turn of the century, with the development of intra-school rivalries in football, schools found that they needed something beyond the available musical repertory for their partisans to sing and rally around. Out of this came a surge of original & distinctive school Fight Songs, most notably the Univeristy of Michigan's and Notre Dame's.

Here at Michigan State College the Fighting Aggies (later to be rechristened The Spartans) settled upon a song written by Bay City engineering student Francis Irving Lankey, class of 1916. Mr. Lankey had the designation of Yellmaster, equivalent to today's head cheerleader.

The words today are pretty much as they were when he wrote them in 1914 or 1915 with the exception of the changes growing out of the school's change in status from a College to a University (from M.A.C. to M.S.U.).

While the words are Mr. Lankey's the bulk of the melody appears to have been lifted from a hymn from the early part of this century "Stand Up, Stand Up For Jesus" (words by George Duffield & music by Adam Geibel). An image from the 1938 Cokesbury Worship Hymnal appears to the right showing the musical score. Over the years various band members and directors have "enhanced" the tune to give us the big musical event that you hear at every Spartan home game.

Following the United States' entry into World War One Mr. Lankey entered the military and was killed on May 1st, 1919 in a plane crash in the United States while on a War Bond tour. A memorial to all of the fallen M.A.C. students from that war is found west of Williams Hall about 20 feet off the Beal Entrance Drive.

Here are the words to the song:

On the banks of the Red Cedar Is a school that's known to all; Its specialty is winning, And those Spartans play good ball; Spartan teams are never beaten, All through the games they fight; Fight for the only colors, Green and White. Go right thru' for MSU, Watch the points keep growing. Spartan teams are bound to win, They're fighting with a vim. RAH! RAH! RAH! See their team is weakening, We're going to win this game. Fight! Fight! Rah! Team, Fight! Victory for MSU.

Our thanks to MSU chemistry professor William McHarris who came across the "Stand Up..." music in a hymnal from his church and loaned us the book.
The original Cokesbury Worship Hymnal was copyrighted and published in 1938 by Whitmore & Smith; the copyright was renewed in 1966 and the book reprinted (ISBN 0-687-08863-1) by Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tennessee. The photographs of Mr. Lankey come from the 1916 MSU Annual The Wolverine.

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