#TBT: Queen Elizabeth II & UNC football

On October 19, 1957, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip saw their first football game, and it starred UNC and Maryland.

Queen Elizabeth II (second from right) with University of Maryland President Wilson Elkins (center) and University of Maryland football coach Tommy Mont at the 1957 UNC vs. Maryland football game, held in College Park, MD. William Friday, President of the University of North Carolina, is on the far left.

The football game, held at Maryland, was part of the Queen’s first state visit to the United States. In honor of the visit, UNC arranged for a BBC broadcast of UNC songs such as “Hark the Sound” to air the day before the game. At halftime, students presented the Queen with a banner, the 1957 Yackety Yack, and stuffed rams for her children.

Read more in the Daily Tar Heel:

Photograph credit:
Queen Elizabeth II visit, in the Hugh Morton Photographs and Films #P0081, copyright 1957, North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.