Trivia question: Who wrote “Fight on for Bates,” the song sung by Bates sports teams after a win?

Answer: Harold Hunter ’55.

Second question: Who just found out that the teams sing “Fight on for Bates”?

Same answer: Harold Hunter.

A member of Bates’ state championship quartet in his day, Hunter penned the song, gave it to his music professor, D. Robert Smith, and forgot about it. The Alumni Association published it in Songs of Bates in 1960, and the Bates teams adopted it as their victory song at some point in the 1960s or 1970s. Over the summer, Hunter was surprised to learn that his song is the exclamation point for each Bates football victory.

“I wrote the fight song on a whim,” says Hunter, who lives in Amissville, VA. “I liked ‘The Bobcat,’ except for the ‘fighting-smiting’ rhyme, so I wrote my own”. Hunter also heard it performed for the first time recently via the Bates Web site. Various Bates songs, including two versions of “Fight on for Bates,” can be heard at www.bates.edu/sounds.xml.