A World Famous Prank
Whether you call it “stuffing,” “cramming” or the British term – “phone box squash” – the 1959 Life Magazine photo of 22 Saint Mary’s College students squished in a phone booth lives forever in our collective memory.
But few people know the real story – that the iconic stunt was actually a re-enactment of an after-dark prank in Aquinas Hall. It was March of 1959 when the news of a world record stuffing spread to Moraga. Twenty-five students in Durban, South Africa, had packed into a phone booth. The gauntlet had been thrown down.
“Saint Mary’s had just lost to Cal in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament,” says Paul Desrochers, class of ’61, “so everyone was kind of feeling down.” He remembers being in his dorm room when the call went out. “I heard this knock on the door and they were looking for all the short guys and chanting ‘Beat South Africa.’” Apparently, an unsuspecting Father Patrick LaBelle, then a sophomore student, was making a call in the old wooden booth when students started piling in.
Trifone Pagone ’62, remembers the commotion as his friend, John Riccione, ran through the halls recruiting bodies. “He had a piece of paper in his hand and he yelled at me ‘Pagone, Pagone – come here!’ Then I see all these guys stuffed in the phone booth and he’s got a diagram in his hand and says, ‘There’s room for two more.’” Pagone squeezed in and a big guy got on top of him and he swears that made 27, although no one seems to remember for sure. “They closed the door to make it official, and then took pictures.”
Al Cattalini ’61, doesn’t remember the count as much as the discomfort. “Bodies were getting contorted and poked and twisted,” he says, “and we were crouched in a cannonball position with our knees up against us.”
Couple this chaos with the fact that, in those days, dorms had quiet hours, with a study break from 9 to 10 p.m. “At 9 p.m. the cell doors opened and all the inmates burst out and things happened,” says Cattalini. By all accounts, the stuffing was done during this late study break, but the powers that be were still none too pleased. “There we were in the booth, and here comes Brother Carl,” says Pagone, who adds that things broke up pretty quickly after that.
Stunts like these were the price of fame in an era when kids swallowed goldfish and turned Volkswagens sideways in parking spaces. “We were always doing kind of weird and fun things,” says Desrochers, who recalls how his VW Beetle ended up in the laundry room in Mitty Hall the next year. In the case of the Aquinas Hall cram, it made news as far away as England. “It was in Coronet magazine,” says Pagone, “and later, Associated Press called and so did some paper in London. We had to give our height and weight for both stories.”
As to how the famed Life Magazine photo came about, Saint Mary’s Professor Ted Tsukahara ’62, says it was campus public relations wiz Walt Defaria who decided that more could be done if the stunt were re-enacted in daylight. “So a phone booth was brought in – roughly where Garaventa Hall is now – and it was Walt who probably got the photographer [Joe Munroe] interested, and the photographer sold the idea to Life.”
Twenty-two students piled into the booth on the lawn, using a system called cross-hatching. It was an unusually warm day, and while no record was broken, the photo became a symbol of happy days and hijinks for college students worldwide.
There have been two more re-enactments since, including one in 1984 that set the official campus record, with 24 students stuffing into a phone booth.
In 2009, a 50th anniversary event took place that saw hundreds of alumni, staff and students turn out to recreate the iconic stunt once again. As fate would have it, the Plexiglas popped on the final attempt, with just 21 students stuffed in the booth.
The number pales in comparison to the estimated 27 men of Aquinas Hall, who risked life and limb to cram into that old wooden booth back in 1959. More than any other feat (arm, or other extremity), it served to bring the Saint Mary's student body together.