Also known as Ernest DeEspa the circus performer.
ERNEST MARVIN MOONEY
Ernest Marvin Mooney's career was a paradoxical one: because he was determined to break the pattern of entering the ministry or the teaching profession - vocations that had attracted the three preceding generations, he entered upon a circus career* at a time when a strict Methodist family deplored such a connection.
And yet in the final analysis of his life accomplishment, he too was a teacher. A major contribution was in the field of physical education, where his high standards for excellence in character and physique molded the lives of thousands of boys and young men in Y. M. C. A.'s, Athletic Clubs, and Boys' Clubs. And his wife recalls that even after his retirement from circus and gymnasium, he was frequently visited by young circus performers seeking his technical advice on perfecting difficult routines.
He was educated at the Mooney School in Franklin, Tenn., operated by his older brother, William Dromgoole Mooney, at Southwestern Presbyterian College, and at Vanderbilt University. He later taught physical education at all three of these institutions.
Most of his circus career covered the period prior to the birth of his son, Ernest Gordon Mooney, in 1914.
*The Editors are including some highlights from this circus career, in the thought that younger members of the family will be interested in his unusual life, and in the belief that no history of the circus in America can be written without reference to material touching the contribution he made.
His interest in gymnastics - and in boys - took him to coaching and athletic direction in the Southern Athletic Club in New Orleans, La., Chattanooga Athletic Club, Y. M. C. A.'s in Bristol, Jackson, and Memphis, Tenn., and in Albany, Ga., where he coached a basketball team to national championships for a period of several years, and for about ten years (at various periods) at Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Ga. His last active position was again with the Albany, Ga., Y. M. C. A., where he worked for four years until his retirement in 1948.
Unable to enlist in World War I because of a defective eye, he managed to get overseas with the Y. M. C. A., where his service was unique and valuable, according to those with whom he worked - partly because of his experience with intricate circus equipment and his ability to work with the French and speak their language.
Of his earlier war experiences in the Spanish-American War when he was in Cuba, no one remains who knows details of his service.
While most of his career recalled by family now living is identified with the physical training of boys and young men, it would be impossible to ignore his contribution to the world of the big top at the turn of the century and in the first decade and a half of the twentieth century. One of his earliest connections was with an Arabian acrobatic act of the classic type which may still be seen today, consisting of tumbling and pyramid building. He was among the first in the United States to use a trampoline - at least 60 years ago - and old letterheads found among his effects show his use of this equipment.
He was for many years billed as the world's champion double somersault leaper, and the version performed by him is regarded as far more dangerous than the "watered-down" version current today. It involved a run down a steep incline, taking off from a springboard, performing a double forward somersault over elephants; in his leap he cleared five elephants at a distance that others duplicated only occasionally, never consistently as he did.
Regarded as one of the most versatile of performers, he performed at various times on Roman rings, on single, double and flying trapeze, and on horizontal bars; and he appeared as acrobat, tumbler, double somersault leaper and caster. Early in his career he used the name of Ernest Belmont, but he is best known and remembered as Ernest DeEspa.
An excellent and daring rider, he rode two horses abreast in the Roman standing races, and he demonstrated his tremendous stamina by participating in the then popular man versus horse races when big Hippodrome tracks were available.
Among circuses with which he appeared were the Forepaugh-Sells, Barnum and Bailey, Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, Sells-Floto, the Wirth Circus in Australia (when Will Rogers was a performer), circuses in Cuba, South America, Mexico and Europe, and Ringling Brothers, the latter only in Madison Square Garden. He was booked in vaudeville through Pantages, Kelth-Orpheum, and Sullivan and Considire.
For the most part, he was inclined to keep his circus and teaching careers separate, and he seldom taught circus type gymnastics in the school room.
But from the school gymnasium and the big top, there are men and boys from many areas of life who remember this man who taught them how to be physically strong and gave them the discipline to enable them to build a vital, ethical code with which to govern their lives.
*****
Column from the Bristol Herald-Courier
Bristol, Virginia-Tennessee November 24, 1961.
LOOKING AT SPORTS
With Gene Thompson
E. M. (Mike) Mooney, physical director of the Bristol Y. M. C. A. during two different eras, died Wednesday at Gainesville, Fla.
News of his death was wired to Frank L. Marney, general secretary of the YMCA by Gordon Mooney, his son, who is teaching...in the University of Florida.
Anyone who had known Mike Mooney, who had been taught basketball, swimming, boxing or gymnastics by him, never forgot him. For he was not a person who can easily be forgotten. He was too dynamic and forceful for that. He was the most versatile individual from a standpoint of athletics I have ever known. Teaming with Bob Kelly at guard I played two years of YMCA basketball under Mooney. I have never known anyone who could equal his knowledge of footwork, position, ball control and basic fundamentals of the game, combined with the ability to teach what he knew.
Circus Star
Mooney was a standout in everything he put his hand to. He played professional basketball with the old Canton Bulldogs, fought professionally as a lightweight, and for more than 30 years...was one of the famed acrobats and 'leapers' in circus history. He played the 'big ones' including Ringling Brothers, where he had top billing.
From a coaching standpoint Mooney perhaps is best known for the championship teams in boxing, swimming and basketball he produced at Georgia's Riverside Military Academy - and for the sensational Albany, Ga., YMCA Blues, who cut a wide basketball path through Southern circles. The Blues played anybody who'd take them on, including touring pros and such powers as Georgia Tech, Auburn, Georgia and Florida.
One of those who learned basketball at the feet of Mooney, and brought it to this section, was Dr. C. M. Eyler, who gained fame for the tremendous teams he produced at Milligan College. Dr. Eyler, later superintendent of Bristol, Tenn., schools, while at the University of Georgia officiated for Mooney at the Albany YMCA. Eyler studied Mooney's system, and from it developed his own version which he employed with great success.
Developed Gymnasts
Here in Bristol during his first tenure as physical director, he had three of the South's greatest gymnasts in Hugh McNew, Ed Faucette and the late Bill Fillinger. Later he had three other standouts in Buck Pettigrew, Cody Vance and Bill Boyd. His basketball teams were solid, if not spectacular, as Buck Barnes, Milton Green, Arnold Roe and Woody Vance can tell you. And it would be hard to total the number of persons he taught to swim.
Mooney came from a prominent Tennessee family. His father was a Methodist minister, his mother a school teacher. One of his brothers founded the famed Mooney School for boys near Nashville.
Frank Marney said yesterday: "Mr. Mooney was one of the sincerest Christians, greatest teachers and dearest friends of boys and men that I have ever known...."
Also known as Ernest DeEspa the circus performer.
ERNEST MARVIN MOONEY
Ernest Marvin Mooney's career was a paradoxical one: because he was determined to break the pattern of entering the ministry or the teaching profession - vocations that had attracted the three preceding generations, he entered upon a circus career* at a time when a strict Methodist family deplored such a connection.
And yet in the final analysis of his life accomplishment, he too was a teacher. A major contribution was in the field of physical education, where his high standards for excellence in character and physique molded the lives of thousands of boys and young men in Y. M. C. A.'s, Athletic Clubs, and Boys' Clubs. And his wife recalls that even after his retirement from circus and gymnasium, he was frequently visited by young circus performers seeking his technical advice on perfecting difficult routines.
He was educated at the Mooney School in Franklin, Tenn., operated by his older brother, William Dromgoole Mooney, at Southwestern Presbyterian College, and at Vanderbilt University. He later taught physical education at all three of these institutions.
Most of his circus career covered the period prior to the birth of his son, Ernest Gordon Mooney, in 1914.
*The Editors are including some highlights from this circus career, in the thought that younger members of the family will be interested in his unusual life, and in the belief that no history of the circus in America can be written without reference to material touching the contribution he made.
His interest in gymnastics - and in boys - took him to coaching and athletic direction in the Southern Athletic Club in New Orleans, La., Chattanooga Athletic Club, Y. M. C. A.'s in Bristol, Jackson, and Memphis, Tenn., and in Albany, Ga., where he coached a basketball team to national championships for a period of several years, and for about ten years (at various periods) at Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Ga. His last active position was again with the Albany, Ga., Y. M. C. A., where he worked for four years until his retirement in 1948.
Unable to enlist in World War I because of a defective eye, he managed to get overseas with the Y. M. C. A., where his service was unique and valuable, according to those with whom he worked - partly because of his experience with intricate circus equipment and his ability to work with the French and speak their language.
Of his earlier war experiences in the Spanish-American War when he was in Cuba, no one remains who knows details of his service.
While most of his career recalled by family now living is identified with the physical training of boys and young men, it would be impossible to ignore his contribution to the world of the big top at the turn of the century and in the first decade and a half of the twentieth century. One of his earliest connections was with an Arabian acrobatic act of the classic type which may still be seen today, consisting of tumbling and pyramid building. He was among the first in the United States to use a trampoline - at least 60 years ago - and old letterheads found among his effects show his use of this equipment.
He was for many years billed as the world's champion double somersault leaper, and the version performed by him is regarded as far more dangerous than the "watered-down" version current today. It involved a run down a steep incline, taking off from a springboard, performing a double forward somersault over elephants; in his leap he cleared five elephants at a distance that others duplicated only occasionally, never consistently as he did.
Regarded as one of the most versatile of performers, he performed at various times on Roman rings, on single, double and flying trapeze, and on horizontal bars; and he appeared as acrobat, tumbler, double somersault leaper and caster. Early in his career he used the name of Ernest Belmont, but he is best known and remembered as Ernest DeEspa.
An excellent and daring rider, he rode two horses abreast in the Roman standing races, and he demonstrated his tremendous stamina by participating in the then popular man versus horse races when big Hippodrome tracks were available.
Among circuses with which he appeared were the Forepaugh-Sells, Barnum and Bailey, Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, Sells-Floto, the Wirth Circus in Australia (when Will Rogers was a performer), circuses in Cuba, South America, Mexico and Europe, and Ringling Brothers, the latter only in Madison Square Garden. He was booked in vaudeville through Pantages, Kelth-Orpheum, and Sullivan and Considire.
For the most part, he was inclined to keep his circus and teaching careers separate, and he seldom taught circus type gymnastics in the school room.
But from the school gymnasium and the big top, there are men and boys from many areas of life who remember this man who taught them how to be physically strong and gave them the discipline to enable them to build a vital, ethical code with which to govern their lives.
*****
Column from the Bristol Herald-Courier
Bristol, Virginia-Tennessee November 24, 1961.
LOOKING AT SPORTS
With Gene Thompson
E. M. (Mike) Mooney, physical director of the Bristol Y. M. C. A. during two different eras, died Wednesday at Gainesville, Fla.
News of his death was wired to Frank L. Marney, general secretary of the YMCA by Gordon Mooney, his son, who is teaching...in the University of Florida.
Anyone who had known Mike Mooney, who had been taught basketball, swimming, boxing or gymnastics by him, never forgot him. For he was not a person who can easily be forgotten. He was too dynamic and forceful for that. He was the most versatile individual from a standpoint of athletics I have ever known. Teaming with Bob Kelly at guard I played two years of YMCA basketball under Mooney. I have never known anyone who could equal his knowledge of footwork, position, ball control and basic fundamentals of the game, combined with the ability to teach what he knew.
Circus Star
Mooney was a standout in everything he put his hand to. He played professional basketball with the old Canton Bulldogs, fought professionally as a lightweight, and for more than 30 years...was one of the famed acrobats and 'leapers' in circus history. He played the 'big ones' including Ringling Brothers, where he had top billing.
From a coaching standpoint Mooney perhaps is best known for the championship teams in boxing, swimming and basketball he produced at Georgia's Riverside Military Academy - and for the sensational Albany, Ga., YMCA Blues, who cut a wide basketball path through Southern circles. The Blues played anybody who'd take them on, including touring pros and such powers as Georgia Tech, Auburn, Georgia and Florida.
One of those who learned basketball at the feet of Mooney, and brought it to this section, was Dr. C. M. Eyler, who gained fame for the tremendous teams he produced at Milligan College. Dr. Eyler, later superintendent of Bristol, Tenn., schools, while at the University of Georgia officiated for Mooney at the Albany YMCA. Eyler studied Mooney's system, and from it developed his own version which he employed with great success.
Developed Gymnasts
Here in Bristol during his first tenure as physical director, he had three of the South's greatest gymnasts in Hugh McNew, Ed Faucette and the late Bill Fillinger. Later he had three other standouts in Buck Pettigrew, Cody Vance and Bill Boyd. His basketball teams were solid, if not spectacular, as Buck Barnes, Milton Green, Arnold Roe and Woody Vance can tell you. And it would be hard to total the number of persons he taught to swim.
Mooney came from a prominent Tennessee family. His father was a Methodist minister, his mother a school teacher. One of his brothers founded the famed Mooney School for boys near Nashville.
Frank Marney said yesterday: "Mr. Mooney was one of the sincerest Christians, greatest teachers and dearest friends of boys and men that I have ever known...."
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