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[Illustration: THREE VICTORIOUS PRINCETON CAPTAINS
HILLEBRAND, COCHRAN, EDWARDS]




FOOTBALL DAYS

MEMORIES OF THE GAME AND
OF THE MEN BEHIND THE BALL


BY

WILLIAM H. EDWARDS
PRINCETON 1900


WITH INTRODUCTION BY
WALTER CAMP
YALE 1880


MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
1916


Copyright, 1916, By
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
NEW YORK




Dedicated to John P. Poe, Jr.
Princeton '95


HONORED AND BELOVED BY HOSTS OF FRIENDS, HE REPRESENTED THE HIGHEST
IDEALS OF AMERICAN FOOTBALL, NOT ONLY IN LIFE, BUT IN HIS DEATH UPON THE
BATTLEFIELD IN FRANCE.

AS I THINK OF HIM, THE STIRRING LINES OF HENRY NEWBOLDT COME TO ME AS A
FITTING EULOGY:


    VITA LAMPADA

    There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night--
    Ten to make and the match to win--
    A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
    An hour to play and the last man in.

    And it's not for the sake of a ribboned-coat
    Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
    But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote,
    "Play up! play up! and play the game!"

    The sand of the desert is sodden red--
    Red with the wreck of a square that broke,
    The gatling jammed and the Colonel dead
    And the Regiment blind with dust and smoke.

    The river of death has brimmed its banks,
    And England's far, and honor a name--
    But the voice of a school boy rallies the ranks,
    "Play up! play up! and play the game!"

    This is the word that year by year
    While in her place the school is set
    Every one of the sons must hear,
    And none that hears it dares forget.

    Thus they all with a joyful mind--
    Bear their life like a torch in flame--
    And failing, fling to the host behind,
    "Play up! play up! and play the game!"




GREETING


I value more highly than any other athletic gift I have ever received,
the Princeton football championship banner that hangs on my wall. It was
given to me by a friend who sent three boys to Princeton. It is a
duplicate of the one that hangs in the trophy room of the gymnasium
there.

How often have I gazed longingly at the names of my loyal team-mates
inscribed upon it. Many times have I run over in my mind the part that
each one played on the memorable occasion when that banner was won.
Memories cluster about that token that are dear and sacred to me.

I see before me not only the faces of my team, but the faces of men of
other years and other universities who have contributed so much to the
great game of football. I recall the preparatory school days and the
part that football played in our school and college careers. Again I see
the athletic fields and the dressing rooms. I hear the earnest pleading
of the coaches.

I see the teams run out upon the field and hear the cheering throng. The
coin is tossed in the air. The shrill blast of the referee's whistle
signals the game to start. The ball is kicked off, and the contest is
on.

The thousands of spectators watch breathlessly. For the time the whole
world is forgotten, except for the issue being fought out there before
them.

But we are not dressed in football suits nowadays. We are on the side
lines. We have a different part to play. Years have compelled a change.
In spirit, however, we are still "in the game."

It is to share these memories with all true lovers of football and to
pay a tribute to the heroes of the gridiron who are no longer with us
that I have undertaken this volume. Let us together retrace the days in
which we lived: days of preparation, days of victory, and days of
defeat. Let us also look into the faces of some of the football heroes
of years ago, and recall the achievements that made them famous. And let
us recall, too, the men of the years just past who have so nobly upheld
the traditions of the American game of football, and helped to place it
on its present high plane.

                                                  William H. Edwards.

[Illustration: MY CORNER

"Fond memory sheds the light of other days around me."]




PROLOGUE


They say that no man ever made a successful football player who was
lacking in any quality of imagination. If this be true, and time and
again has it been proved, then there is no more fitting dedication to a
book dealing with the gridiron heroes of the past than to a man like
Johnny Poe. For football is the abandon of body and mind to the
obsession of the spirit that knows no obstacle, counts no danger and for
the time being is dull and callous to physical pain or exhaustion. It is
a something that makes one see visions as Johnny saw them!

There is no sport in the world that brings out unselfishness as does
this great gridiron game of ours. Every fall, second and scrub teams
throughout the country sacrifice themselves only to let others enter the
promised land of victory. It is a strange thing but one almost never
hears any real football player criticise another's making the team,
either his own or an All America. Although the player in this sport
appreciates the loyal support of the thousands on the stands, every man
realizes that his checks on the Bank of Cheers can never be cashed
unless there is a deposit of hard work and practice. Perhaps all this in
an indistinct and indefinite way explains why football players, the
country over, understand each other and that when the game is attacked
for any reason they stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of what they
know down in the bottom of their hearts has such an influence on
character building. And there is no one better fitted to tell the story
of this and of the gridiron heroes than Big Bill Edwards, known not only
as a player but far and wide as one of the best officials that ever
handled the game. "A square deal and no roughing" was his motto, and
every one realized it and accepted every decision unquestioningly. His
association with players in so many angles has given him a particular
insight into the sport and has enabled him to tell this story as no one
else could.

And what names to conjure with! The whistle blows and a shadowy host
springs into action before one's misty eyes--Alex Moffat, the star of
kickers, Hector Cowan, Heffelfinger, Gordon Brown, Ma Newell, Truxton
Hare, Glass, Neil Snow and Shevlin, giants of linemen. But I must stop
before I trespass upon what Bill Edwards will do better. Here's to them
all--forty years of heroes!

                                                  Walter Camp.

[Illustration: WALTER CAMP

Yale's Captain, '78-'79.]




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


Hillebrand, Cochran, Edwards                        _Frontispiece_

My Corner

Walter Camp, Yale's Captain '78-'79

The Old Fifth Avenue Send-Off                                    1

Old Yale Heroes--Lee McClung's Team                              5

We Beat Andover                                                 11

Lafayette's Great Team                                          24

House in Disorder                                               30

Hit Your Man Low                                                32

Repairs                                                         34

The Old Faithfuls                                               39

Jim Rodgers' Team                                               45

Cochran Was Game to the End                                     48

On to New Haven--All Dressed Up and Ready to Go                 54

Hillebrand's Last Charge                                        60

Al Sharpe's Goal                                                64

Touching the Match to Victory                                   67

Alex Moffat and His Team                                        82

Old Penn Heroes                                                100

Pa Corbin's Team                                               108

Breakers Ahead--Phil King in the Old Days                      125

Lookout, Princeton!                                            130

Barrett on One of His Famous Dashes; Exeter-Andover
Game, 1915                                                     142

Bill Hollenback Coming at You                                  147

"The Next Day the Picture Was Gone"--Jim Cooney Making a
Hole for Dana Kafer                                            158

Johnny Poe, Football Player and Soldier                        181

Northcroft Kicking the Field Goal Anticipated by the
Navy and Feared by the Army                                    200

Cadets and Middies Entering the Field                          224

Two Aces--Bill Morley and Harold Weeks                         251

Vic Kennard's Kick                                             255

Sam White's Run                                                261

King, of Harvard, Making a Run; Mahan Putting Black on
His Head                                                       268

Princeton's 1899 Team                                          272

"Nothing Got by John DeWitt"                                   277

John DeWitt About to Pick Up the Ball                          280

The Ever Reliable Brickley--A Football Thoroughbred--Tack
Hardwick                                                       284

The Poe Family                                                 296

Just Boys                                                      298

Hobey Baker, Walter Camp, Jr., Snake Ames, Jr.                 303

The Elect                                                      310

How It Hurts to Lose                                           337

Cornell's Great Team--1915                                     344

One Scene Never Photographed in Football                       349

Harvard, 1915                                                  354

The Greatest Indian of Them All                                357

Learning the Charge                                            363

Billy Bull Advising with Captain Talbot                        367

Michigan's Famous 1901 Team                                    370

Columbia Back in the Game, 1915                                381

Close to a Thriller. Erwin of Pennsylvania Scoring
Against Cornell                                                386

Crash of Conflict. When Charge Meets Charge                    407

Ainsworth, Yale's Terror in an Uphill Game                     416

Two to One He Gets Away--Brickley Being Tackled by Wilson
and Avery                                                      422

Snapping the Ball with Lewis. "Two Inseparables"--Frank
Hinkey and the Ball                                            428

Marshall Newell                                                434

McClung, Referee, Shevlin and Hogan                            450




CONTENTS


Chap.                                                              Page

I.--PREP. SCHOOL DAYS.                                             1-17

My First Glimpse of a Varsity Team--The Yale Eleven of 1891--Lee
McClung--Vance McCormick--Heffelfinger--Sanford--Impressions
made upon a Boy--St. John's Military School--Lawrenceville--Making
the Team--Andover and Hill School Games.

II.--FRESHMAN YEAR.                                               18-29

The Freedom of Freshman Year is Attractive--Catching the Spirit
of the Place--Searching for Football Material--The Cannon
Rush--Early Training with Jack McMasters--Tie Game with Lafayette
at Easton--Humiliation of being taken out of a Game--Cornell
Game--Joe Beacham's Fair Admirer in the Bleachers--Bill Church's
Threat Carried Out--Garry Cochran's Victories against Harvard
and Yale.

III.--ELBOW TO ELBOW                                              30-41

Dressing for Practice--Out upon the Field--Tackling--After
Practice, Back to the Dressing-room--How a Player Finds
Himself--The Training Table--Team Mates--A Surprise for John
DeWitt's Team.

IV.--MISTAKES IN THE GAME.                                        42-53

If We could only Correct Mistakes We All Made--Defeats
might be Turned into Victory--The Fellow that let Athletics
be the Big Thing in His College Life--The '97 Defeat--No
Recognition of Old Schoolmates--My Opponent was Charlie
Chadwick--Jim Rodgers the Yale Captain--The Cochran-De
Saulles Compact--Cochran Injured--His Last Game--Ad Kelly's
Great Work--Mistakes Caused Sadness--Cornell Defeating
Princeton at Ithaca in 1899--No Outstretched Hands at
Princeton for our Homecoming.

V.--MY LAST GAME                                                  54-67

A Desire to Make the Last Game the Best--On to New
Haven--Optimism--The Start of the Game--Bosey Reiter's
Touchdown--Yale Scores on a Block Kick--Al Sharpe's Goal
from the Field--Score 10 to 6, Yale Leading--Arthur Poe's
Goal from the Field--Princeton Victory--The Joy of
Winning--The Reception at Princeton.

VI.--HEROES OF THE PAST--EARLY DAYS                               68-92

Treasured Memory of Those who have Gone Before--Where are
the Old-time Heroes?--Walter Camp--F. R. Vernon--Camp as
a Captain--Chummy Eaton--John Harding--Eugene Baker--Fred
Remington--Theodore McNair--Alexander Moffat--Wyllys
Terry--Memories of John C. Bell.

VII.--GEORGE WOODRUFF'S STORY                                    93-101

His Entrance to Yale--Making the Team--Recollections of the
Men he Played With and Against--The Lamar Run--Pennsylvania
Experiences.

VIII.--ANECDOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS                              102-124

Old-time Signals--Fun with Bert Hansen--Sport Donnelly--Billy
Rhodes and Gill--Victorious Days at Yale--Corbin's 1888
Team--Pa Corbin's Speech when his Team was Banqueted--Mr. and
Mrs. Walter Camp, Head Coaches of the Yale Football Team in
1888--Cowan the Great--Story of His Football Days--He was
Disqualified by Wyllys Terry--Tribute to Heffelfinger--Going
Back with John Cranston.

IX.--THE NINETIES AND AFTER                                     125-163

The Day Sanford Made the Yale Team--Parke Davis--Sanford
and Yost Obstructing the Traffic--Phil King--The Old
Flying Wedges--Pop Gailey--Charlie Young--An Evening with Jim
Rodgers--Vance McCormick and Denny O'Neil--Dartmouth and Some
of Her Men--Dave Fultz--Christy Mathewson at Bucknell--Jack
Munn Tells of Buffalo Bill--Booth Tells of his Western
Experiences--Harry Kersburg--Heff Herring at Merton
College--Carl Flanders--Bill Horr.

X.--COLLEGE TRADITIONS AND SPIRIT                               164-180

College Life in America is Rich in Traditions--The Value of
College Spirit--Each College Has its Own Traditions--Alumni
Parade--School Master and Boy--Victory must never Overshadow
Honor--Constructive Criticism of the Alumni--Mass Meeting
Enthusiasm--Horse Edwards, Princeton '89--Job E. Hedges.

XI.--JOHNNY POE'S OWN STORY                                     181-193

Private W. Faulkner, a Comrade in the Black Watch, Tells of
Poe's Death--Johnny's Last Words--Paul MacWhelan Gives
London Impressions of Poe's Death--Anecdotes that Johnny
Poe Wrote While in Nevada.

XII.--ARMY AND NAVY                                             194-225

Character and Training of West Point and Annapolis
Players--Experience of the Visitor Watching the Drill
of Battalion--Annapolis Recollections and Football
Traditions at Naval Academy--Old Players--A Trip de Luxe
to West Point--West Point Recollections--Harmon Graves--The
Way They Have in the Army--The Army and Navy Game.

XIII.--HARD LUCK IN THE GAME                                    226-246

In Football, as it is in Life, We have no Use for a
Quitter--Football a Game for the Man who Has Nerve--Many
a Small Man has Made a Big Man look Ridiculous--Morris
Ely Game Though Handicapped--Val Flood's Recollections--Andy
Smith--Vonabalde Gammon of Georgia.

XIV.--BRINGING HOME THE BACON                                   247-285

Billy Bull's Recollections of Yale Games--The Day Columbia
Beat Yale--Dressing Room Scene where Doxology Was
Sung--Account by Richard Harding Davis--Introducing Vic
Kennard of Harvard Fame--Opportunist Extraordinary--His
Experience with Mr. E. H. Coy--Charlie Barrett, of
Cornell--Eddie Hart of Princeton--Sam White--Joe Duff--Side
Line Thoughts of Doctor W. A. Brooks and Evert Jansen
Wendell--New Haven Wreck--Eddie Mahan talking--His Opinion
of Frank Glick--George Chadwick of Yale--Arthur Poe--Story
of his Run and of his Kick--John DeWitt's Story--Tichenor,
of Georgia--"Bobbing Up and Down" Story--Charlie Brickley.

XV.--THE BLOODY ANGLE                                           286-295

Going Back to the Rough Days--Princeton vs. Harvard Fall
of '87 at Jarvis Field--Luther Price's Experiences in the
Game--Cowan's Disqualification by Wyllys Terry--The
Umpire--Walter Camp was Referee--Holden Carried Off the
Field--Bob Church's Valor.

XVI.--THE FAMILY IN FOOTBALL                                    296-305

Football Men in Two Distinct Classes--Those who are Made
into Players by the Coaches and Those who are Born with
the Football Instinct--The Poes, Camps, Winters, Ames,
Drapers, Riggs, Youngs, Withingtons, etc.

XVII.--OUR GOOD OLD TRAINERS                                    306-336

Our Good Old Trainers--Jack McMasters--"Dear Old Jim
Robinson"--Mike Murphy the Dean of Trainers--"The Old
Mike"--A Chat with Pooch Donovan--Keene Fitzpatrick and his
Experiences--Mike Sweeney--Jack Moakley--There is much
Humor in Johnny Mack--Huggins of Brown--Harry Tuthill--Doctor
W. M. Conant, Harvard '79, First Doctor in Charge of any team.

XVIII.--NIGHTMARES                                              337-348

Frank Morse, of Princeton on the Spirit in Defeat--Tom
Shevlin's Story--Nightmares of W. C. Rhodes--A Yale
Nightmare--Sam Morse--Jim Hogan--The Cornell Game of
1915 is Eddie Mahan's Nightmare--Jack De Saulles' Nightmare.

XIX.--MEN WHO COACHED                                           349-382

No coaches in the Old Days--Personality Counts in
Coaching--Football is Fickle--Haughton at Harvard at the
Psychological Moment--Old Harvard Coaches--Al Sharpe--Glenn
Warner--The Indians--Billy Bull in the Game--Sanford, the
Unique--Making of Chadwick--W. R. Tichenor, Emergency Coach
of the South--Auburn Recollections--Listening to Yost--Reggie
Brown--Jimmy Knox--Harvard Scouts--Dartmouth Holds a Unique
Position in College Football--Ed Hall, the father of Dartmouth
Football--Myron E. Witham, Captain of the Dartmouth Team--Walter
McCornack--Eddie Holt's Coaching--Harry Kersburg's Harvard
Coaching Recollections--Making Two Star Players from the
Football Discards--Vic Kennard and Rex Ver Wiebe--John H.
Rush--Tad Jones--T. N. Metcalf--Tom Thorp--Bob Folwell--At
Pennsylvania.

XX.--UMPIRE AND REFEREE                                         383-406

"Why Did He Give That Penalty?"--Emotions of an
Official--John Bell's Recollections as an Official--In
the Old Days One Official Handled the Entire Game--Dashiell's
Reminiscences--Matthew McClung--Conversation with John L.
Sullivan--My Own Personal Experiences--Evarts Wrenn at
Work--Dan Hurley--Bill Crowell--Phil Draper's Ideas--Wyllys
Terry's Official Recollections--Explanation of the Cowan
Disqualification--Pa Corbin--Joe Pendleton--Refereeing
with Nate Tufts--Okeson.

XXI.--CRASH OF CONFLICT                                         407-433

The First Five Minutes of Play--A Good Start usually
means a Good Ending--Bracelet in the Game--Lueder and
Blondy Wallace--"I've Got You Buffaloed"--Tom Shevlin
remarked: "Mike, This Isn't Football--It's War"--Bemus
Pierce: "Now Keep your Eyes Open and Find out who it
Was"--"If You Won't be Beat, You Can't be Beat," said
Johnny Poe--Rinehart Tells how he Tried to Get even with
Sam Boyle--Barkie Donald and Bemus Pierce--The Yale-Harvard
Game at Springfield '94--Result; No Game for Nine Years--Frank
Hinkey and Wrightington's Broken Collar-bone--Joe Beacham's
Paragon--Sandy Hunt--Bill Hollenback.

XXII.--LEST WE FORGET                                           434-460

Marshall Newell--Gordon Brown--James J. Hogan--Thomas
J. Shevlin--Francis H. Burr--Neil Snow--Billy
Bannard--Harry Hooper--Richard Harding Davis--McClung.

XXIII.--ALOHA                                                   461-464

Hail and Farewell--The Old Game and the New
Compared--Exclusively Collegiate Sport--Isaac H. Bromley,
Yale '53, Sums up the Spirit of College Life and Sport!

[Illustration: THE OLD FIFTH AVENUE SEND-OFF]




FOOTBALL DAYS




CHAPTER I

PREP. SCHOOL DAYS


To every man there comes a moment that marks the turning point of his
career. For me it was a certain Saturday morning in the autumn of 1891.
As I look back upon it, across the years, I feel something of the same
thrill that stirred my boyish blood that day and opened a door through
which I looked into a new world.

I had just come to the city, a country boy, from my home in Lisle,
N. Y., to attend the Horace Mann School. As I walked across Madison Square,
I glanced toward the old Fifth Avenue Hotel, where my eyes fell upon the
scene depicted in the accompanying picture. Almost before I was aware of
it my curiosity led me to mingle with the crowd surging in and out of
the hotel, and I learned by questioning the bystanders that it was the
headquarters of the Yale team, which that afternoon was to play
Princeton at the Polo Grounds. The players were about to leave the hotel
for the field, and I hurried inside to catch a glimpse of them.

The air was charged with enthusiasm, and I soon caught the
infection--although it was all new to me then--of the vital power of
college spirit which later so completely dominated my life. I recall
with vividness how I lingered and waited for something to happen. Men
were standing in groups, and all eyes were centered upon the heroes of
the team. Every one was talking football. Some of the names heard then
have never been forgotten by me. There was the giant Heffelfinger whom
every one seemed anxious to meet. I was told that he was the crack Yale
guard. I looked at him, and, then and there, I joined the hero
worshippers.

I also remember Lee McClung, the Yale captain, who seemed to realize the
responsibilities that rested upon his shoulders. There was an air of
restraint upon him. In later years he became Treasurer of the United
States and his signature was upon the country's currency. My most vivid
recollection of him will be, however, as he stood there that day in the
corridor of the famous old hotel, on the day of a great football
conflict with Princeton. Then Sanford was pointed out to me, the Yale
center-rush. I recall his eagerness to get out to the "bus" and to be on
his way to the field. When the starting signal was given by the captain,
Sanford's huge form was in the front rank of the crowd that poured out
upon the sidewalk.

The whole scene was intensely thrilling to me, and I did not leave
until the last player had entered the "bus" and it drove off. Crowds of
Yale men and spectators gave the players cheer after cheer as they
rolled away. The flags with which the "bus" was decorated waved in the
breeze, and I watched them with indescribable fascination until they
were out of sight. The noise made by the Yale students I learned
afterwards was college cheering, and college cheers once heard by a boy
are never forgotten.

Many in that throng were going to the game. I could not go, but the
scene that I had just witnessed gave me an inspiration. It stirred
something within me, and down deep in my soul there was born a desire to
go to college.

I made my way directly to the Y. M. C. A. gymnasium, then at the corner
of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. Athletics had for me a greater
attraction than ever before, and from that day I applied myself with
increased enthusiasm to the work of the gymnasium.

The following autumn I entered St. John's Military Academy at Manlius,
N. Y., a short distance from my old home. I was only seventeen years of
age and weighed 217 pounds.

Former Adjutant General William Verbeck--then Colonel Verbeck--was Head
Master. Before I was fairly settled in my room, the Colonel had drafted
me as a candidate for the football team. I wanted to try for the team,
and was as eager to make it as he evidently was to have me make it. But
I did not have any football togs, and the supply at the school did not
contain any large enough.

So I had to have some built for me. The day they arrived, much to my
disappointment, I found the trousers were made of white canvas. Their
newness was appalling and I pictured myself in them with feelings of
dismay. I robbed them of their whiteness that night by mopping up a lot
of mud with them behind the gymnasium. When they had dried--by
morning--they looked like a pair of real football trousers.

George Redington of Yale was our football coach. He was full of
contagious fire. Redington seemed interested in me and gave me much
individual coaching. Colonel Verbeck matched him in love of the game. He
not only believed in athletics, but he played at end on the second team,
and it was pretty difficult for the boys to get the best of him. They
made an unusual effort to put the Colonel out of the plays, but, try as
hard as they might, he generally came out on top. The result was a
decided increase in the spirit of the game.

We had one of the best preparatory school teams in that locality, but
owing to our distance from the larger preparatory schools, we were
forced to play Syracuse, Hobart, Hamilton, Rochester, Colgate, and
Cazenovia Seminary--all of whom we defeated. We also played against the
Syracuse Athletic Association, whose team was composed of
professional athletes as well as former college players. Bert Hanson,
who had been a great center at Yale, was one of this team.

[Illustration:

H. Wallis   Coxe   Cochran   Nessler   Heffelfinger   W. Winter   Mills
Sanford   Hartwell   Morrison   Graves    Stillman
McCormick   McClung   L. T. Bliss
C. Bliss   Hinkey   Barbour   T. Dyer

OLD YALE HEROES--LEE McCLUNG'S TEAM]

Recalling the men who played on our St. John's team, I am confident that
if all of them had gone to college, most of them would have made the
Varsity. In fact, some did.

It was decided that I should go to Lawrenceville School, en route to
Princeton. It was on the trip from Trenton to Lawrenceville, in the big
stage coach loaded with boys, I got my first dose of homesickness. The
prospect of new surroundings made me yearn for St. John's.

The "blue hour" of boyhood, however, is a brief one. I was soon engaged
in conversation with a little fellow who was sitting beside me and who
began discussing the ever-popular subject of football. He was very
inquisitive and wanted to know if I had ever played the game, and if I
was going to try for the team.

He told me about the great game Lawrenceville played with the Princeton
Varsity the year before, when Lawrenceville scored six points before
Princeton realized what they were really up against. He fascinated me by
his graphic description. There was a glowing account of the playing of
Garry Cochran, the great captain of the Lawrenceville team, who had just
graduated and gone to Princeton, together with Sport Armstrong, the
giant tackle.

These men were sure to live in Lawrenceville's history if for nothing
else than the part they had played in that notable game, although
Princeton rallied and won 8 to 6. It was not long before I learned that
my newly-made friend was Billy McGibbon, a member of the Lawrenceville
baseball team.

"Just wait until you see Charlie de Saulles and Billy Dibble play behind
the line," he went on; and from that moment I began to be a part of the
new life, the threshold of which I was crossing. Strangely enough the
memory of getting settled in my new quarters faded with the eventful
moment when the call for candidates came, and I went out with the rest
of the boys to try for the team.

Competition was keen and many candidates offered themselves. I was
placed on the scrub team. One of my first attempts for supremacy was in
the early part of the season when I was placed as right guard of the
scrub against Perry Wentz, an old star player of the school and
absolutely sure of his position. I recall how on several occasions the
first team could not gain as much distance through the second as the men
desired, and Wentz, who later on distinguished himself on the Varsity at
Princeton and still later as a crack player on Pennsylvania, seemed to
have trouble in opening up my position.

Max Rutter, the Lawrenceville captain, with the directness that usually
characterizes such officers, called this fact to Wentz's attention.
Wentz, who probably felt naturally his pride of football fame, became
quite angry at Rutter's remark that he was being outplayed. He took off
his nose-guard, threw it on the ground and left the field.

Rutter moved me over to the first team in Wentz's place. That night
there was a general upset on the team which was settled amicably,
however, and the next day Wentz continued playing in his old place. The
position of guard was given to me on the other side of the line, George
Cadwalader being moved out to the position of tackle. This was the same
Cadwalader who subsequently went to Yale and made a great name for
himself on the gridiron, in spite of the fact that he remained at New
Haven but one year.

It was here at Lawrenceville that this great player made his reputation
as a goal kicker, a fame that was enhanced during his football days at
Yale. Max Rutter, the captain of the Lawrenceville team, went to
Williams and played on the Varsity, eventually becoming captain there
also. Ned Moffat, nephew of Princeton's great Alex Moffat, played end
rush.

About this time I began to realize that Billy McGibbon had given me a
correct line on Charlie de Saulles and Billy Dibble. These two players
worked wonderfully well together, and were an effective scoring machine
with the assistance of Doc MacNider and Dave Davis.

During these days at Lawrenceville Owen Johnson gathered the material
for those interesting stories in which he used his old schoolmates for
the characters. The thin disguise of Doc Macnooder does not, however,
conceal Doc MacNider from his old schoolboy friends. The same is true of
the slightly changed names of Garry Cochran, Turk Righter, Charlie de
Saulles and Billy Dibble.

Charlie de Saulles, after graduation, went to Yale and continued his
wonderful, spectacular career on the gridiron. We will spend an
afternoon with him on the Yale field later.

Billy Dibble went to Williams and played a marvelous game until he was
injured, early in his freshman year. It was during those days that I met
Garry Cochran, Sport Armstrong and other Princeton coaches for the first
time. They used to come over to assist in coaching our team. Our regular
coaches at Lawrenceville were Walter B. Street, who had been a famous
football star years before at Williams, and William J. George, renowned
in Princeton's football history as a center-rush. I cannot praise the
work of these men too highly. They were thoroughbreds in every sense of
the word.

It was one of the old traditions of Lawrenceville football to have a
game every year with Pennington Seminary. What man is there who
attended either school who does not recall the spirit of those old-time
contests?

The Hill School was another of our football rivals. The trip to
Pottstown, Pa., was an event eagerly looked forward to--so also was the
Hill School's return game at Lawrenceville. The rivalry between the two
schools was keen.

Everything possible was done at the Hill School to make our visit a
pleasant one. The score of 28 to 0, by which Lawrenceville won the game
that year, made it especially pleasant.

As I recall that trip, two men stand out in my memory. One was John
Meigs, the Head Master. The other was Mike Sweeney, the Trainer and
Athletic Director. They were the two central figures of Hill School
traditions.

Interest in football was emphasized at that time by the approaching game
with Andover at Lawrenceville. This was the first time that these two
teams had ever played. Andover was probably more renowned in football
annals than any school Lawrenceville had played up to this time. The
Lawrenceville coaches realized that the game would be a strenuous one.
After a conference, the two coaches decided that it would be wise to see
Andover play at Andover the week before we were to play them.
Accordingly, Mr. George went to Andover, and when he returned, he
gathered the team around him in one of the recitation halls and
described carefully the offense and defense of our coming opponents. He
also demonstrated with checkers what each man did in every play and
placed emphasis on the work of Eddie Holt, who was acting captain of the
Andover team. To represent Holt's giant build he placed one checker on
top of another, saying, as I remember, with great seriousness:

"This topped checker represents Holt. He must be taken care of, and it
will require two Lawrenceville men to stop him on every play. I am
certain of this for Holt was a marvel last Saturday."

During the week we drilled secretly and most earnestly in anticipation
of defeating Andover. The game attracted an unusually large number of
spectators. Lawrenceville made it a gala day for its alumni, and all the
old Andover and Lawrenceville boys who could get there witnessed the
game.

When the Andover team ran out upon the field we were all anxious to see
how big Holt loomed up. He certainly was a giant and towered high above
the other members of his team. Soon the whistle blew, and the trouble
was on. In memory now I can see Billy Dibble circling Andover's end for
twenty-five yards, scoring a touchdown amid tremendous excitement.

This all transpired during the first minute and a half of play. Emerson
once said, "We live by moments," and the first minute and a half of that
game must stand out as one of the eventful periods in the life of
every man who recalls that day of play. No grown-up schoolboy can fail
to appreciate the scene or miss the wave of boyish enthusiasm that
rolled over the field at this unlooked for beginning of a memorable game
between schoolboys.

[Illustration:

Davis   MacNider   Dibble
de Saulles
Moffat   Cadwalader   Edwards   Walton   Wentz   Geer   Rotter

WE BEAT ANDOVER]

This wonderful start of the Lawrenceville team was a goading spur to its
opponents. Johnnie Barnes, an ex-Lawrenceville boy, now quarterback on
the Andover team, seemed fairly inspired as he urged his team on. Eddie
Holt was called upon time and again. He was making strong advances,
aided by French, Hine and Porter. Together they worked out a touchdown.
But Lawrenceville rallied and for the rest of the game their teamwork
was masterly. Bat Geer, who was later a Princeton Varsity player,
Charlie de Saulles and Billy Dibble, each scored touchdowns, making
three altogether for their school.

Thus Lawrenceville, with the score 20 to 6, stepped forth into a new era
and entered the larger football world where she was to remain and
increase her heroic accomplishments in after years.

It is needless to say that the night following this victory was a
crowning one in our preparatory football experiences. Bonfires were
lighted, speeches were the order of the hour, and members of the team
were the guests of honor at a banquet in the Upper House. There was no
rowdy "revelry by night" to spoil the memory of the occasion. It was
just one simple, fine and fitting celebration of a wholesome school
victory on the field of football.


LAST YEAR AT LAWRENCEVILLE

It was up to Billy Dibble, the new captain, to bring about another
championship. We were to play Andover a return game there. Captain
Dibble was left with but three of last year's team as a foundation to
build on. Dibble's team made a wonderful record. He was a splendid
example for the team to follow, and his playing, his enthusiasm, and
earnest efforts contributed much toward the winning of the Andover,
Princeton freshmen and Hill School games. There appeared at
Lawrenceville a new coach who assisted Street and George. He was none
other than the famous Princeton halfback, Douglas Ward, whose record as
an honored man in the classroom as well as on the football field was
well known to all of us, and had stood out among college athletes as a
wonderful example. He was very modest. I recall that some one once asked
him how he made the only touchdown against Yale in the '93 game. His
reply was: "Oh, somebody just pushed me over."

Fresh in my memory is the wonderful trip that we boys made to Andover.
We were proud of the fact that the Colonial Express was especially
ordered to stop at Trenton for us, and as we took our seats in the
Pullman car, we realized that our long looked for expedition had really
begun.

We had a great deal of fun on the trip to Boston. Good old George
Cadwalader was the center of most of the jokes. His 215 pounds added to
the discomfort of a pair of pointed patent leather shoes, which were far
too small for him. As soon as he was settled in the train he removed
them and dozed off to sleep. Turk Righter and some of the other fun
makers tied the shoe strings together, and hung them out of the window
where they blew noisily against the window pane.

When we arrived in Jersey City it was a treat for us to see our train
put aboard the ferry boat of the N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R., and, as we
sailed down the bay, up the East River and under the Brooklyn Bridge to
the New Haven docks, it all seemed very big and wonderful.

When the train stopped at New Haven, we were met by the
Yale-Lawrenceville men, who wished us the best of luck; some of them
making the trip with us to Boston. When we arrived in Andover the next
day I had the satisfaction of seeing my brother and cousin, who were at
that time attending Andover Academy.

The hospitality that was accorded the Andover team, while at
Lawrenceville the year before, was repaid in royal fashion. We had ample
time to view the grounds and buildings and grow keen in anticipation
and interest in the afternoon's contest.

When the whistle blew, we were there for business. My personal opponent
was a fellow named Hillebrand, who besides being a football player was
Andover's star pitcher. Later on we became the best of friends and side
partners on the Princeton team, and often spoke of our first meeting
when we played against each other. Hillebrand was one of the greatest
athletes Andover ever turned out. Lawrenceville defeated Andover in one
of the hardest and most exciting of all Prep. School contests, one that
was uncertain from beginning to end.

Billy Dibble played the star game of the day and after eight minutes he
scored a touchdown. Cadwalader booted the ball over the goal and the
score was 6 to 0. The Lawrenceville backfield, made up of Powell, Dave
Davis, Cap Kafer and Dibble, worked wonderfully well. Kafer did some
excellent punting against his remarkable opponent Barker, who seemed to
be as expert as he.

The efficient work of Hillebrand and of Chadwell, the colored end-rush,
stands out pre-eminently. The latter player developed into one of the
best end-rushes that ever played at Williams. Goodwin, Barker and
Greenway contributed much to Andover's good play. Jim Greenway is one of
the famous Greenway boys whose athletic history at Yale is a matter of
record. A few minutes later the Andover crowd were aroused by Goodwin
making the longest run of the game--fifty-five yards, scoring Andover's
first touchdown, and making the score 6 to 6.

There was great speculation as to which team would win the game, but
Billy Dibble, aided by the wonderful interference on the part of Babe
Eddie, who afterward played end on the Yale team, and Emerson, who, had
he gone to college, would have been a wonder, made a touchdown. George
Cadwalader with his sure right foot made the score 12 to 6. Enthusiasm
was at its height. Andover rooters were calling upon their team to tie
the score. A touchdown and goal would mean a tie. The Andover team
seemed to answer their call, for soon Goodwin scored a touchdown, making
the score 12 to 10, and Butterfield, Andover's right halfback, was put
to the test amidst great excitement. The ball went just to the side of
the goal post, and Lawrenceville had won 12 to 10. Great is the thrill
of a victory won on an opponent's field!

That night after dinner, as I was sitting in my brother's room, with
some of his Andover friends, there was a yell from outside, and a loud
knock on the door. In walked a big fellow wearing a blue sweater.
Through his open coat one could observe the big white letter "A." It
proved to be none other than Doc Hillebrand. Without one word of comment
he walked over to where I was sitting and said: "Edwards, what was the
score of the game to-day?" I could not get the idea at all. I said:
"Why, you ought to know." He replied: "12 to 10," and turning on his
heel, left the room. This caused a good deal of amusement, but it was
soon explained that Hillebrand was being initiated into a secret society
and that this was one of the initiation stunts.

It was a wonderfully happy trip back to Lawrenceville. The spirit ran
high. It was then that Turk Righter wrote the well known Lawrenceville
verse which we sang again and again:

    Cap kicked, Barker kicked
    Cap he got the best of it
    They both kicked together
    But Cap kicked very hard
    Bill ran, Dave ran
    Then Andover lost her grip
    She also lost her championship
    Sis, boom ah!

As we were about two miles outside of Lawrenceville, we saw a mass of
light in the roadway, and when we heard the boys yelling at the top of
their voices, we realized that the school was having a torch-light
procession and coming to welcome us. Great is that recollection! They
took the horses off and dragged the stage back to Lawrenceville and in
and about the campus. It was not long before the whole school was
singing the song of success that Turk Righter had written.

A big celebration followed. We did not break training because we had
still another game to play. When Lawrenceville had beaten the Hill
School 20 to 0, many of us realized that we had played our last game for
Lawrenceville. George Cadwalader was shortly afterward elected Captain
for the coming year. It was at this time that Lawrenceville was
overjoyed to learn that Garry Cochran, a sophomore at Princeton, had
been elected captain of the Princeton varsity. This recalled former
Lawrenceville boys, Pop Warren and Doggie Trenchard, who had played at
Lawrenceville, gone to Princeton and had become varsity captains there.
Snake Ames also prepared at Lawrenceville.

I might incidentally state that we stayed at Lawrenceville until June to
get our diplomas, realizing that there were many able fellows to
continue the successful traditions of Lawrenceville football, George
Mattis, Howard Richards, Jack de Saulles, Cliff Bucknam, John De Witt,
Bummie Ritter, Dana Kafer, John Dana, Charlie Dudley, Heff Herring,
Charlie Raymond, Biglow, the Waller brothers and others.




CHAPTER II

FRESHMAN YEAR


I believe that every man who has had the privilege of going to college
will agree with me that as a freshman lands in a college town, he is a
very happy and interested individual. The newness of things and his
freedom are very attractive. He comes to college fresh from his school
day experiences ready to conform himself to the traditions and customs
of the new school, his college choice.

The world will never again look quite so big to a boy as it did then.
Entering as boys do, in the fall of the year, the uppermost thing in
mind, outside of the classroom, is football. Sometimes it is the
uppermost thought in the classroom. What kind of a Varsity football team
are we going to have? This is the question heard on all sides.

Every bit of available football material is eagerly sought by the
coaches. I recall so well my freshman year at Princeton, how Garry
Cochran, captain of the football team, went about the college with
Johnny Poe, looking over the undergraduates and watching the incoming
trains for football possibilities. If a fellow looked as though he
might have good material to work upon, he was asked to report at the
Varsity field the next day.

All athletic interests are focused on the gridiron. The young
undergraduate who has no likelihood of making the team, fills himself
with facts about the individuals who are trying to win a place. He
starts out to be a loyal rooter, realizing that next to being a player,
the natural thing is to attend practice and cheer the team in their
work; he becomes interested in the individual progress each candidate is
making. In this way, the members of the team know that they have the
support of the college, and this makes them play harder. This builds up
college spirit.

Every college has its own freshman and sophomore traditions; one at
Princeton is, that shortly after college opens there must be a rush
about the cannon, between the freshman and sophomore classes. All those
who have witnessed this sight, know that it is a vital part of Princeton
undergraduate life. On that night in my freshman year, great care was
taken by Cochran that none of the incoming football material engaged in
the rush. No chances were taken of injuring a good football prospect
among either freshmen or sophomores. Eddie Holt, Bert Wheeler, Arthur
Poe, Doc Hillebrand, Bummie Booth and I were in the front ranks of the
class of 1900, stationed back of Witherspoon Hall ready to make the
rush upon the sophomores, who were huddled together guarding the cannon.
Cochran and his coterie of coachers ran out as we were approaching the
cannon and forced us out of the contest. He ordered us to stand on the
outside of the surging crowd. There we were allowed to do a little
"close work," but we were not permitted to get into the heat of the
fray. Cochran knew all of us because we were among those who had been
called to college before the opening to enter preliminary training.
Every football player who has had the experience of being summoned ahead
of time will understand my feeling. I was very happy when I received
from Cochran, during the summer before I entered Princeton, a letter
inviting me to report for football practice two weeks before college
opened. When I arrived at Princeton on the appointed day, I found the
candidates for the team at the training quarters.

At that time freshmen were not barred from varsity teams.

There was a reunion of friends from Lawrenceville and other schools.
There was Doc Hillebrand, against whom I had played in the Andover game
the year before. Eddie Holt loomed up and I recalled him as the big
fellow who played on the Andover team against Lawrenceville two years
before. He had gone from Andover to Harvard and had played on the
Harvard team the year before, and had decided to leave Harvard and
enter Princeton.

There were Lew Palmer, Bummie Booth, Arthur Poe, Bert Wheeler, Eddie
Burke and many others whom I grew to know well later on.

Trainer Jack McMasters was on the job and put us through some very
severe preliminary training. It was warm in New Jersey early in
September, and often in the middle of practice Jack would occasionally
play the hose on us. It did not take us long to learn that varsity
football training was much more strenuous than that of the preparatory
school. The vigorous programme, prepared, especially for me, convinced
me that McMasters and the coaches had decided that my 224 pounds were
too much weight. Jack and I used to meet at the field house four
mornings each week. He would array me in thick woolen things, and top
them off with a couple of sweaters, so that I felt as big as a house. He
would then take me out for an excursion of eight miles across country,
running and walking. Sometimes other candidates kept us company, but
only Jack and I survived.

On these trips, I would lose anywhere from five to six pounds. I got
accustomed to this jaunt and its discomforts after a while, but there
was one thing that always aggravated me. While Jack made me suffer, he
indulged himself. He would stop at a favorite spring of his, kneel down
and take a refreshing drink, right before my very eyes, and then,
although my throat was parched, he would bar me even from wetting my
tongue. He was decidedly unsociable, but from a training standpoint, he
was entirely "on to his job."

As both captain and trainer soon found that I was being overworked, I
had some "let up" of this strenuous system. The extra work in addition
to the regular afternoon practice, made my days pretty severe going and
when night came I was not troubled with insomnia.

It was during this time that Biffy Lea, one of Princeton's greatest
tackles, was slowly but surely making a wonderful tackle out of Doc
Hillebrand. Bert Wheeler was making rapid strides to attain the position
of halfback. They were the only two freshmen who made the team that
year. I was one of those that failed.

We were soon in shape for the first try-out of the season; preliminary
training was over, and the team was ready for its first game. We won the
Rutgers game 44 to 0 and after we defeated the Navy, we went to play
Lafayette at Easton. I had as my opponent in the Lafayette game,
Rinehart. I shall never forget this game. I was playing left guard
alongside of Jarvie Geer, who was a substitute for Bill Church, who had
been injured in practice the week before and could not play. Just before
the first half was over, Lafayette feinted on a kick, and instead of
Bray, that star Lafayette fullback, boosting the ball, Barclay shot
through the line between Geer and myself for thirty yards. There was my
down-fall. Rinehart had taken care of me beautifully, and finally, Net
Poe saved the day by making a beautiful tackle of Barclay, who was fast
approaching the Princeton goal line. There was no score made, but the
fact that Barclay had made the distance through me, made me feel mighty
mean. I recall Cochran during the intermission, when he said: "Holt; you
take Edwards' place at left-guard."

The battle between those giants during the second half was a sight worth
seeing and an incident recalled by all those who witnessed the game.

Neither side scored and it was a hard-fought struggle.

One day, one play, often ruins a man's chances. I had played as a
regular in the first three games of the season. I was being tried out
and had been found wanting. I had proved a disappointment, and I knew
Cochran knew it and I knew the whole college would know it, but I made
up my mind to give the very best I had in me, and hoped to square myself
later and make the team. I knew what it was to be humiliated, taken out
of a game, and to realize that I had not stood the test. I began to
reason it out--maybe I was carried away with the fact of having played
on the varsity team--maybe I did not give my best. Anyway I learned
much that day. It was my first big lesson of failure in football. That
failure and its meaning lived with me.

I have always had great respect for Rinehart, and his great team mates.
Walbridge and Barclay were a great team in themselves, backed up by Bray
at fullback. It was this same team that, later in the fall, beat
Pennsylvania, without the services of Captain Walbridge, who had been
injured.

It was not long after this that Princeton played Cornell at Princeton. I
recall the day I first saw Joe Beacham, that popular son of Cornell, who
afterwards coached West Point. He is now in the regular army, stationed
at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was captain of the Cornell team in '96.
He had on his team the famous players, Dan Reed, on whom Cornell counts
much in these years to assist Al Sharpe in the coaching; Tom Fennel,
Taussig and Freeborn. With these stars assisting, Cornell could do
nothing with Princeton's great team and the score 37 to 0 tells the
tale.

I was not playing in this game, but recall the following incident. Joe
Beacham was making a flying run through the Princeton team. A very
pretty girl covered with furs, wearing the red and white of Cornell, was
enthusiastically yelling at the top of her voice "Go it, Joe! go it,
Joe!" much to the delight and admiration of the Princeton
undergraduates near her. Since then Joe has told me that it was his
sister. Maybe it was, but as Joe was rushing onward, with Dan Reed and
Tom Fennel interfering wonderfully for him, and urged on by his fond
admirer in the grandstand, his progress was rudely halted by the huge
form of Edwin Crowdis which appeared like a cloud on the horizon and
projected itself before the oncoming scoring machine of Cornell. When
they met, great was the crash, for Crowdis spilled the player, ball and
all. This was the time, the place, and the girl; and it meant that Edwin
Crowdis had made the Princeton Varsity team.

[Illustration:

Brink   Thorne   Hubby   Bray   Bishop   Park   Davis
Rowland   Jones   Walbridge   Barclay   Ziser   Rinehart   Herr   Gates
Spear   Best   Weidenmeyer   Hill   Trexler

LAFAYETTE'S GREAT TEAM]

I realized it at the moment, and although I knew that it would probably
put me in the substitute ranks for the rest of the season, I was wild
with joy to see Edwin develop at this particular moment, and perform his
great play. His day had come, his was the reward, and Joe Beacham had
been laid low. As for the girl, she subsided abruptly, and is said to
have remarked, as Crowdis smashed the Cornell machine: "Well, I never
did like a fat man anyway!"

One day in a practice game, against the scrub, this year, Garry Cochran,
who was standing on the side lines resting from the result of an injury,
became so frantic over the poor showing of the varsity, pulled off his
sweater and jumped into the game in spite of the trainers' earnest
entreaty not to. He tried to instill a new spirit into the game. It was
one of those terrible Monday practice games, of which every football
player knows. The varsity could not make any substantial gains against
the second team, which was unusually strong that year, as most of the
varsity substitutes were playing. How frantic Bill Church was! He was
playing tackle alongside of Edwin Crowdis, against whom I was playing.
My chances of making the Varsity were getting slimmer. Very few practice
days were left before the men would be selected for the final game. I
was making the last earnest stand. The varsity line men were not opening
up the scrub line as easily as they desired, and we were all stopping up
the offensive play of the Varsity. I was going through very low and
tackling Crowdis around the legs, trying to carry him back into the
play. Church was very angry at my doing this, and told Crowdis to hit
me, if I did it again, but Edwin was a good-natured, clean player; in
fact, I doubt if he ever rough played any man. Finally, after several
plays, Church said, "If you don't hit him, I will," and he sure made
good his threat, for on the next play, when I was at the bottom of the
heap in the scrimmage, Church handed me one of those stiff "Bill Church
blows," emphasizing the tribute with his leather thumb protector. There
was a lively mixup and the scrub and Varsity had an open fight. All was
soon forgotten, but I still "wear an ear," the lobe of which is a
constant reminder of Bill Church's spirited play. Nothing ever stood in
Church's way; he was a hard player, and a powerful tackle.

Slowly but surely, Cochran's great team was perfecting itself into a
machine. The victory against Harvard at Cambridge was the team's worthy
reward for faithful service and attention given to the details of the
game.

As a reward for service rendered, the second team with the Varsity
substitutes were taken on the trip, and as we saw the great Princeton
team winning, every man was happy and proud of the joy and knowledge of
giving something material towards their winning. Sore legs, injuries and
mistakes were at such a time forgotten. All that was felt was the keen
sense of satisfaction that comes to men who have helped in the
construction.

Billie Bannard, aided by superb interference of Fred Smith, was able to
make himself the hero of that game by a forty-five yard run. Bill Church
the great tackle broke through the Harvard line and blocked Brown's
kick, and the ever-watchful end-rush, Howard Brokaw, fell on the ball
for a touchdown. Cochran had been injured and removed from the game, but
he was frantic with joy as he walked up and down the Princeton side
lines, urging further touchdowns.

A happy crowd of Princetonians wended their way back to Princeton to put
the finishing touches on the team before the Yale game. Those of you
who recall that '96 game in New York will remember that 6 to 0 in favor
of Yale was the score, at the end of the first five minutes. Jim Rodgers
had blocked Johnnie Baird's punt and Bass, the alert end-rush, had
pounced on the ball and was over for a touchdown in a moment. Great
groans went up from the Princeton grandstand. Could it be that this
great acknowledged champion team of Princeton was conceited,
over-trained and about to be defeated? Certainly not, for there arose
such a demonstration of team spirit and play as one seldom sees. On the
next kick-off Johnnie Baird caught the ball, and when he was about to be
tackled--in fact, was lying on the ground--he passed the ball to Fred
Smith, that great all-round Princeton athlete, who made the most
spectacular run of the day. Who will ever forget the wonderful line
plunging of Ad Kelly, the brilliant end running of Bill Bannard and the
great part all the other men of the team contributed towards Princeton's
success, and the score grew and grew by touchdown after touchdown, until
some one recalled that in this game, the team would say, "Well, we won't
give any signals; we'll just try a play through Captain Murphy." Maybe
this was the play that put Murphy out of the game. He played against
Bill Church, and that was enough exercise for any one man to encounter
in one afternoon. As Fred Murphy left the field everyone realized that
it was only his poor physical condition that caused him to give up the
game. Yale men recall, with great pride, how the year before Murphy had
put it all over Bill Church. During that game, however, Church's
physical condition was not what it should have been, and these two giant
tackles never had a chance to play against each other when they were
both in prime condition. Both these men were All American calibre.

Johnny Baird, Ad Kelly, Bannard, all made touchdowns and the two
successful freshmen who had made the team, Hillebrand and Wheeler, both
registered touchdowns against Yale. As the Yale team left the field,
they felt the sting of defeat, but there were men who were to have
revenge at New Haven the next year against Princeton, among whom were
Chadwick, Rodgers and Chamberlain. They were eager enough to get back at
us and the next year they surely did. But this was our year for victory
and celebration, and laurels were bestowed upon the victors. Garry
Cochran and his loyal team-mates were the lions of the day and hour.




CHAPTER III

ELBOW TO ELBOW


"I wonder where my shoes are?" "Who's got my trousers on?" "I wonder if
the tailor mended my jersey?" "What has become of my head-gear?" "I
wonder if the cobbler has put new cleats on my shoes?" "Somebody must
have my stockings on--these are too small." "What has become of my ankle
brace--can't seem to find it anywhere? I just laid it down here a minute
ago. I think that freshman pinched my sweater."

All of which is directed to no one in particular, and the Trainer, who
sits far off in a corner, blowing up a football for the afternoon
practice, smiles as the players are fishing for their clothes. Just then
the Captain, who has dressed earlier than the rest, and has had two or
three of the players out on the field for kicking practice, breaks in
upon the scene with the remark:

"Don't you fellows all know you're late? You ought to be dressed long
before this." Then follows the big scramble and soon everybody is out on
the field.

The Trainer is busy keeping his eye open for any man who is being
handled too strenuously in the practice. Quick starts are practiced,
individual training is indulged in. Kicking and receiving punts play
an important part in the preliminary work.

[Illustration: HOUSE IN DISORDER]

At Williams one afternoon, Fred Daly, former Yale Captain and coach at
Williams, in trying forward passes instructed his ends to catch them at
every angle and height. One man continually fumbled his attempt, just as
he thought he had it sure. He was a new man to Daly, and the latter
called out to him:

"What is your name?" Back came the reply, which almost broke up the
football practice for the day: "_Ketchum_ is my name."

Falling on the ball is one of the fundamentals in football. It is the
ground work that every player must learn. Frank Hinkey, that great Yale
Captain and player, was an artist in performing this fundamental.
Playing so wonderfully well the end-rush position, his alertness in
falling on the ball often meant much distance for Yale. He had wonderful
judgment in deciding whether to fall on the ball or pick it up.

One of the most important things in football is knowing how to tackle
properly. Some men take to it naturally and others only learn after
hard, strenuous practice.

In the old days men were taught to tackle by what is known as "live
tackling." I recall especially that earnest coach, Johnny Poe, whose
main object in football coaching was to see that the men tackled hard
and sure.

Poe, without any padding on at all, would let the men dive into him
running at full speed, and the men would throw him in a way that seemed
as though it would maim him for life. Some of the men weighed a hundred
pounds more than he did, but he would get up and, with a smile, say:

"Come on men, hit me harder; knock me out next time."

After the first two weeks of the season, Johnny Poe was a complete mass
of black and blue marks; and yet how wonderful and how self sacrificing
he was in his eagerness to make the Princeton players good tacklers.

But there are few men like Johnny Poe, who are willing to sacrifice
their own bodies for the instruction of others; and the next best
method, and one which does not injure the players so much, is tackling
the "dummy."

As we look at this picture of Howard Henry of Princeton tackling the
"dummy," we all remember when we were back in the game trying our very
best to put our shoulder into our opponent's knees and "hit him hard,
throw him, and hold him." Henry always got his man.

But the thrill of the game is not in tackling the dummy. The joy comes
in a game, when a man is coming through the line, or making a long run,
and you throw yourself at his knees, and get your tackle; then up and
ready for another.

I recall an experience I had at Princeton one year. When I went to
the Club House to get my uniform, which I wanted to wear in coaching, I
asked Keene Fitzpatrick, the Trainer, where my suit was. He said:

[Illustration: HIT YOUR MAN LOW]

"It's hanging outside."

I went outside of the dressing room but could see no suit anywhere. He
came out wearing a broad smile.

"No," he said, "it isn't out here, it's out there hanging in the air. We
made a dummy out of it."

And there before me I saw my old uniform stuffed with sawdust. I looked
at myself--in suspense.

After the men have been given the other preliminary work they are taken
to the charging board. The one shown here is used at Yale. It teaches
the men quick starting and the use of their hands. It trains them to
keep their eyes on the ball and impresses them with the fact that if
they start before the ball is put in play, a penalty will follow. A fast
charging line has its great value, and every coach is keen to have the
forwards move fast to clear the way.

Then after the individual coaching is over, the team runs through
signals, and the practice is on. Before very long the head coach
announces that practice is over, and the trainer yells:

"Everybody in on the jump," and you soon find yourself back in the
dressing room.

It does not take you long to get your clothes off and ready for the
bath. How well some of you will recall that after a hard practice you
were content to sit and rest awhile on the bench in the dressing-room.
It may be that, in removing your clothes, you favored an injured knee,
looked at a sprained ankle, or helped some fellow off with his jersey.

What is finer, after a hard day's practice, than to stand beneath a warm
shower and gradually let the water grow cold? Everything is lovely until
some rascal in the bunch throws a cold sponge on you and slaps you
across the back, or turns the cold water on, when you only want hot.

Then comes the dry-off and the rub-down, which seems to soothe all your
bruises. This picture of Pete Balliet standing on the end of a bench,
while Jack McMasters massages an injured knee may recall to many a
football player the day when the trainer was his best friend. From his
wonderful physique it is easy to believe that Balliet must have been the
great center-rush whom the heroes of years ago tell about.

Harry Brown, that great Princeton end-rush, is on the other end of the
bench, being taken care of by Bill Buss, a jovial old colored attendant,
who was for so many years a rubber at Princeton.

I know men who never enthuse over football, but just play from a sense
of college loyalty, and a fear of censure should they not play; who are
sorry that they were ever big or showed any football ability. College
sentiment will not allow a football man to remain idle.

[Illustration: REPAIRS]

I knew a man in college, who, on his way to the football field, said:

"Oh, how I hate to drag my body down to the Varsity field to-day to have
it battered and bruised!"

One does not always enthuse over the hard drudgery of practice. Those
that witness only the final games of the year, little realize the
gruesome task of preparedness. Every football player will acknowledge
that some day he has had these thoughts himself.

But suddenly the day comes when this discouraged player sees a light.
Perhaps he has developed a hidden power, or it may be that he has broken
through and made a clean tackle behind the line; perhaps he has made a
good run and received a compliment from the coach. It may be that his
side partner has given him a word of encouragement, which may have
instilled into him a new spirit, and, as a result, he has turned out to
be a real football player. He then forgets all the bruises and all the
hard knocks.

How true it is that in one play, or in a practice game, or in a contest
against an opposing college, a player has found himself. Do you players
of football remember the day you made the team, the day your chance came
and you took advantage of it? At such a time a player shows great
possibilities. He is told by the captain to report at the training house
for the Varsity signals. Who that has experienced the thrill of that
moment can ever forget it?

He earns his seat at the Varsity table. He is now on the Varsity squad.
He goes on, determined to play a better game, and realizes he must hold
his place at the training table by hard, conscientious work.

One is not unmindful of the traditions that are centered about the board
where so many heroes of the past have sat. You have a keen realization
of the fact that you are filling the seat of men who have gone before
you, and that you must make good, as they made good. Their spirit lives.

The training table is a great school for team spirit. To have a
successful team, any coach will tell you, there must be a brotherly
feeling among the members of the team. The men must chum together on and
off the field. Team work on the field is made much easier if there is
team work off the field.

I never hear the expression "team mates" used but I recall a certain
Princeton team, the captain of which was endowed with a wonderful power
of leadership. There was nothing the men would not do for him. Every man
on the team regarded him as a big brother. Yet there was one man on the
squad who seemed inclined to be alone. He had little to say, and when
his work was over on the field he always went silently away to his room.
He did not mingle with the other players in the club house after dinner,
and there did not seem to be much warmth in him.

Garry Cochran, the captain, took some of us into his confidence, and we
made it our business to draw this fellow out of his shell. It was not
long before we found that he was an entirely different sort of a person
from what he had seemed to be.

In a short time, the fellow who was unconsciously retarding good
fellowship among the members of the team was no longer a silent negative
individual, but was soon urging us on in a get-together spirit.

It will be impossible to relate all the good times had at a college
training table. I think that every football man will agree with me that
we now have a great deal of sympathy for the trainer, whereas in the old
days we roasted him when it seemed that dinner would never be ready.

How the hungry mob awaited the signal!

"The flag is down," as old Jim Robinson would say, and Arthur Poe would
yell:

"Fellows, the hash is ready."

Then the hungry crowd would scramble in for the big event of the day.
There awaited them all the delicacies of a trainer's menu; the food that
made touchdowns. If the service was slow, the good-natured trainer was
all at fault, and he too joined in the spirit of their criticism. If
the steak was especially tender, they would say it was tough. There was
much juggling of the portions distributed. Fred Daly recalls the first
week that he and Johnnie Kilpatrick were at the Yale training table. Kil
called for some chocolate, and Johnnie Mack, the trainer, yelled back:

"What do you think this is, anyway, a hospital?"

That started something for awhile in the way of jollying. Daly recalls
another incident, that happened often at Yale one year. It is about Bill
Goebel, who certainly could put the food away. After disposing of about
twelve plates of ice cream, which he had begged, borrowed or stolen, he
called one of the innocent waiters over to him and asked in a gentle
voice: "Say, George, what is the dessert for to-night?"

Then there comes the good-natured "joshing" of the fellow who has made a
fine play during the practice, or in the game of the day. One or two of
the fun makers rush around, put their hands on him and hold him tight
for fear he will not be able to contain himself on account of his
success of the day. This sort of jollification makes the fellow who has
made a bad play forget what he might have done, and he too becomes
buoyant amidst the good fellowship about him.

We all realize what a modest individual the trainer is. If in a
reminiscent mood to change the subject from football to himself, he
tells his "ever-on-to-him" admirers some of his achievements in the old
days there is immediately evidence of preparedness among the players, as
the following salute is given--with fists beating on the table in
unison--

[Illustration: THE OLD FAITHFULS]

"One, two, three! _Oh, what a gosh darn lie!_"

But deep in every man's heart, is the keen realization of the trainer's
value, and his eager effort for their success. His athletic achievements
and his record are well known, and appreciated by all. He is the pulse
of the team.

The scrub team at Princeton during my last year was captained by Pop
Jones, who was a martyr to the game. He was thoroughly reliable, and the
spirit he instilled into his team mates helped to make our year a
successful one. This picture will recall the long roll of silent heroes
in the game, whose joy seemed to be in giving; men who worked their
hearts out to see the Varsity improve; men who never got the great
rewards that come to the Varsity players, but received only the thrill
of doing something constructive. Their reward is in the victories of
others, for every man knows that it is a great scrub that makes a great
varsity. If, as you gaze at this picture of the scrub team, it stirs
your memory of the fellows who used to play against you, and, if, in
your heart you pay them a silent tribute, you will be giving them only
their just due. To the uncrowned heroes, who found no fame, the men
whose hearts were strong, but whose ambitions for a place on the Varsity
were never realized, we take off our hats.

The fiercest knocks that John DeWitt's team ever had at Princeton were
in practice against the scrub. It was in this year, on the last day of
practice, that the undergraduates marched in a body down the field,
singing and cheering, led by a band of music. Preliminary practice being
over, the scrub team retired to the Varsity field house, to await the
signal for the exhibition practice to be given on the Varsity field
before the undergraduates. A surprise had been promised.

While the Varsity team was awaiting the arrival of the scrub team, it
was officially announced that the Yale team would soon arrive upon the
field, and shortly after this, the scrub team appeared with white "Y's"
sewed on the front of their jerseys. The scrub players took the Yale
players' names, just as they were to play against Princeton on the
coming Saturday. There was much fun and enthusiasm, when the assumed
Hogan would be asked to gain through Cooney, or Bloomer would make a
run, and the make-believe Foster Rockwell would urge the pseudo Yale
team on to victory.

John DeWitt had more than one encounter that afternoon with Captain
Rafferty of Yale. After the practice ended all the players gathered
around the dummy, which had been very helpful in tackling practice.
This had been saturated with kerosene awaiting the final event of the
day. John DeWitt touched it off with a match, and the white "Y" which
illuminated the chest of the dummy was soon enveloped in flames. A
college tradition had been lived up to again, and when the team returned
victorious from New Haven that year, John DeWitt and his loyal team
mates never forgot those men and the events that helped to make victory
possible.




CHAPTER IV

MISTAKES IN THE GAME


Many a football player who reads this book will admit that there arises
in all of us a keen desire to go back into the game. It is not so much a
desire just to play in the game for the mere sake of playing as to
remedy the mistakes we all know we made in the past.

In our football recollections, the defeats we have experienced stand out
the most vividly. Sometimes they live on as nightmares through the
years. As we review the old days we realize that we did not always give
our best. If we could but go back and correct our faults many a defeat
might be turned into a victory.

We reflect that if we had trained a little harder, if we had been more
sincere in our work, paid better attention to the advice given us by the
men who knew, if we had mastered our positions better, it would have
been a different story on many occasions when defeat was our portion.

But that is now all behind us. The games are over. The scores will
always stand. Others have taken our places. We have had our day and
opportunity. In the words of Longfellow,

    "The world belongs to those who come the last."

Our records will remain as we left them on the gridiron. Many a man is
recalled in football circles as the one who lost his temper in the big
games and caused his team to suffer by his being ruled out of the game.
Men say, "Why, that is the fellow who muffed a punt at a critical
moment," or recall him as the one who "fumbled the ball," when, if he
had held it, the team would have been saved from defeat.

You recall the man who gave the signals with poor judgment. Maybe you
are thinking of the man who missed a great tackle or allowed a man to
get through the line and block a kick. Perhaps a mistaken signal in the
game caused the loss of a first down, maybe defeat--who knows?

Through our recollection of the things we should have done but failed to
do for one reason or another, our defeats rise before us more vividly
now than our victories.

There is only one day to make good and that is the day of the game. The
next day is too late.

Then there is the ever-present recollection of the fellow who let
athletics be the big thing in his college life. He did not make good in
the classroom. He was unfair to himself. He failed to realize that
athletics was only a part of his college life, that it should have been
an aid to better endeavor in his studies.

He may have earned his college letter or received a championship gold
football. And now that he is out in the world he longs for the college
degree that he has forfeited.

His regrets are the deeper when he realizes that if he had given his
best and been square with his college and himself, his presence might
have meant further victories for his team. This is not confined to any
one college. It is true of all of them and probably always will be true,
although it is encouraging to note that there is a higher standard of
scholarship attained on the average by college athletes to-day than a
decade or so ago.

I wish I could impress this lesson indelibly upon the mind of every
young football enthusiast--that athletics should go hand in hand with
college duties. After all it is the same spirit of team work instilled
into him on the football field that should inspire him in the classroom,
where his teacher becomes virtually his coach.

When I was at Princeton, we beat Yale three years out of the four, but
the defeat of 1897 at New Haven stands out most vividly of all in my
memory. And it is not so much what Yale did as what Princeton did not do
that haunts me.

One day in practice in 1897, Sport Armstrong, conceded to be one of the
greatest guards playing, was severely injured in a scrimmage. It was
found that his neck and head had become twisted and for days he lay at
death's door on his bed in the Varsity Club House. After a long
serious illness he got well, but never strong enough to play again. I
took his place.

[Illustration:

Benjamin   Brown   McBride   Cadwalader   Corwin
Hazen   Hall   Rodgers   Chamberlin   Chadwick   Dudley
De Saulles

JIM RODGERS' TEAM]

Nearly all of the star players of the '96 Princeton championship team
were in the lineup. It was Cochran's last year and my first year on the
Varsity. Our team was heralded as a three-to-one winner. We had beaten
Dartmouth 30 to 0 and won a great 57 to 0 victory over Lafayette. Yale
had a good, strong team that had not yet found itself. But there were
several of us Princeton players who knew from old association in prep.
school the calibre of some of the men we were facing.

Cochran and I have often recalled together that silent reunion with our
old team-mates of Lawrenceville. There in front of us on the Yale team
were Charlie de Saulles, George Cadwalader and Charlie Dudley. We had
not seen them since we all left prep. school, they to go to New Haven
and we to Princeton.

When the teams lined up for combat there were no greetings of one old
schoolmate to another. It was not the time nor place for exchange of
amenities. As some one has since remarked, "The town was full of
strangers."

The fact that Dudley was wearing one Lawrenceville stocking only urged
us on to play harder.

My opponent on the Yale team was Charlie Chadwick, Yale's strong man.
Foster Sanford tells elsewhere in this book how he prepared him for the
Harvard game the week before and for this game with Princeton. Our
coaches had made, as they thought, a study of Chadwick's temperament and
had instructed me accordingly. I delivered their message in the form of
a straight arm blow. The compliment was returned immediately by
Chadwick, and the scrap was on. Dashiell, the umpire, was upon us in a
moment. I had visions of being ruled out of the game and disgraced.

"You men are playing like schoolboys and ought to be ruled out of the
game," Dashiell exclaimed, but he decided to give us another chance.

Chadwick played like a demon and I realized before the game had
progressed very far that I had been coached wrong, for instead of
weakening his courage my attack seemed to nerve him. He played a very
wide, defensive guard and it was almost impossible to gain through him.

The play of the Princeton team at the outset was disappointing. Jim
Rodgers, the Yale captain, was driving his men hard and they responded
heartily. Some of them stood out conspicuously by their playing. De
Saulles' open field work was remarkable. I remember well the great run
of fifty-five yards which he made. He was a wonderfully clever dodger
and used the stiff arm well. He evaded the Princeton tacklers
successfully, until Billy Bannard made a tackle on Princeton's 25-yard
line.

Garry Cochran was one of the Princeton players who failed in his effort
to tackle de Saulles, although it was a remarkable attempt with a low,
diving tackle. De Saulles hurdled over him and Cochran struck the
ground, breaking his right shoulder.

That Cochran was so seriously injured did not become known until after
de Saulles had finished his long run. Then it was seen that Cochran was
badly hurt. The trainer ran out and took him to the side lines to fix up
his injury.

Time was being taken out and as we waited for Cochran to return to the
game we discussed the situation and hoped that his injury would not
prove serious. Every one of us realized the tremendous handicap we would
be under without him.

The tension showed in the faces of Alex Moffat and Johnny Poe as they
sat there on the side line, trying to reach a solution of the problem
that confronted them as coaches. They realized better than the players
that the tide was against them.

To conceal the true location of his injury from the Yale players,
Cochran had his left shoulder bandaged and entered the scrimmage again,
game though handicapped, remaining on the field until the trainer
finally dragged him to the side line.

This was the last football contest in which Garry Cochran took part. He
was game to the end.

At New Haven that fall Frank Butterworth and some of the other coaches
had heard a rumor that when Cochran and de Saulles parted at
Lawrenceville they had a strange understanding. Both had agreed, so the
rumor went, that should they ever meet in a Yale-Princeton game, one
would have to leave the game.

Butterworth told de Saulles what he had heard and cautioned him,
reminding him that he wanted him to play a game that would escape
criticism. De Saulles put every ounce of himself into his game, Cochran
did the same. To this day Frank Butterworth and the coaches believe that
when de Saulles was making his great run up the field he kept his pledge
to Cochran.

De Saulles and Cochran laugh at the suggestion that it was other than an
accident, but they have never been able to convince their friends. The
dramatic element in it was too strong for a mere chance affair.

Princeton's handicap when Cochran had to go out was increased by the
withdrawal because of injuries of Johnny Baird, the quarterback, that
wonderful drop-kicker of previous games. He was out of condition and had
to be carried from the field with a serious injury.

Dudley, the ex-Lawrencevillian, here began to get in his telling
work. The Yale stands were wild with enthusiasm as they saw their team
about to score against the much-heralded Princeton team. We were a three
to one bet. On the next play Dudley went through the Princeton line. At
the bottom of the heap, hugging the ball and happy in his success, was
Charlie Dudley, Yale hero, Lawrenceville stocking and all.

[Illustration: COCHRAN WAS GAME TO THE END]

After George Cadwalader had kicked the goal, the score stood 6 to 0.

One of the greatest problems that confronts a coach is to select the
proper men to start in a game. Injuries often handicap a team. Ad Kelly,
king of all line-plunging halfbacks, had been injured the week before at
Princeton and for that reason was not in the original lineup that day at
New Haven. He was on the side lines waiting for a chance to go in. His
chance came.

Kelly was Princeton's only hope. Herbert Reed, known among writers on
football as "Right Wing," thus describes this stage of the game:

"With almost certain defeat staring them in the face, the Tigers made
one last desperate rally and in doing so called repeatedly on Kelly,
with the result that with this star carrying the ball in nearly every
rush the Princeton eleven carried the ball fifty-five yards up the field
only to lose it at last on a fumble to Jim Rodgers.

"Time and again in the course of this heroic advance, Kelly went into
or slid outside of tackle practically unaided, bowling along more like a
huge ball than a human being. It was one of the greatest exhibitions of
a born runner, of a football genius and much more to be lauded than his
work the previous year, when he was aided by one of the greatest
football machines ever sent into a big game."

But Kelly's brilliant work was unavailing and when the game ended the
score was still 6 to 0. Yale had won an unexpected victory.

The Yale supporters descended like an avalanche upon the field and
carried off their team. Groups of men paraded about carrying aloft the
victors. There were Captain Jim Rodgers, Charlie Chadwick, George
Cadwalader, Gordon Brown, Burr Chamberlain, John Hall, Charlie de
Saulles, Dudley, Benjamin, McBride, and Hazen.

Many were the injuries in this game. It was a hard fought contest. There
were interesting encounters which were known only to the players
themselves. As for myself, it may best be said that I spent three weeks
in the University of Pennsylvania Hospital with water on the knee. I
certainly had plenty of time to think about the sadness of defeat--the
ever present thought--"Wait until next year"--was in my mind. Garry
Cochran used to say in his talks to the team: "We must win this
year--make it two years straight against Yale. If you lose, Princeton
will be a dreary old place for you. It will be a long, hard winter. The
frost on the window pane will be an inch thick." And, in the sadness of
our recollections, his words came back to us and to him.

These words came back to me again in 1899.

I had looked forward all the year to our playing Cornell at Ithaca. It
was just the game we wanted on our schedule to give us the test before
we met Yale. We surely got a test, and Cornell men to this day will tell
you of their great victory in 1899 over Princeton, 5 to 0.

There were many friends of mine in Ithaca, which was only thirty miles
from my old home, and I was naturally happy over the fact that Princeton
was going to play there. But the loyal supporters who had expected a
Princeton victory were as disappointed as I was. Bill Robinson, manager
of the Princeton team, reserved seats for about thirty of my closest
boyhood friends who came over from Lisle to see the game. The Princeton
cheering section was rivalled in enthusiasm by the "Lisle section." And
the disappointment of each one of my friends at the outcome of that
memorable game was as keen as that of any man from Princeton.

Our team was clearly outplayed. Unfortunately we had changed our signals
that week and we did not play together. But all the honors were
Cornell's, her sure footed George Young in the second half made a goal
from the field, fixing the score at 5 to 0.

I remember the wonderful spirit of victory that came over the Cornell
team, the brilliant playing of Starbuck, the Cornell captain, and of
Bill Warner, Walbridge, Young and the other men who contributed to the
Cornell victory. Percy Field swarmed with Cornell students when the game
ended, each one of them crazy to reach the members of their team and
help to carry them victoriously off the field.

Never will I forget the humiliation of the Princeton team. Trolley cars
never seemed to move as slowly as those cars that carried us that day
through the streets of Ithaca. Enthusiastic, yelling undergraduates
grinned at us from the sidewalks as we crawled along to the hotel.
Sadness reigned supreme in our company. We were glad to get to our
rooms.

Instead of leaving Ithaca at 9:30 as we had planned, we hired a special
engine to take our private cars to Owego there to await the express for
New York on the main line.

My only pleasant recollection of that trip was a brief call I made at
the home of a girl friend of mine, who had attended the game. My arm was
in a sling and sympathy was welcome.

As our train rolled over the zig-zag road out of Ithaca, we had a source
of consolation in the fact that we had evaded the send-off which the
Cornell men had planned in the expectation that we were to leave on the
later train.

There were no outstretched hands at Princeton for our homecoming. But
every man on that Princeton team was grimly determined to learn the
lesson of the Cornell defeat, to correct faults and leave nothing undone
that would insure victory for Princeton in the coming game with Yale.




CHAPTER V

MY LAST GAME


Every player knows the anxious anticipation and the nerve strain
connected with the last game of the football season. In my last year
there were many men on the team who were to say good-bye to their
playing days. Every player who reads these lines will agree with me that
it was his keenest ambition to make his last game his best game.

It was in the fall of 1899. There were many of us who had played on a
victorious team the year before. Princeton had never beaten Yale two
years in succession. This was our opportunity. Our slogan during the
entire season had been, "On to New Haven." The dominating idea in the
mind of everyone was to add another victory over Yale to the one of the
year before.

The Cornell game with its defeat was forgotten. We had learned our
lesson. We had made a tremendous advance in two weeks. I recall so well
the days before the Yale game, when we were leaving for New York en
route to New Haven. We met at the Varsity field house. I will never
forget how strange the boys looked in their derby hats and overcoats. It
was a striking contrast to the regular everyday football costumes and
campus clothes.

[Illustration: ON TO NEW HAVEN

All Dressed Up and Ready to Go.]

There were hundreds of undergraduates at the station to cheer us off. As
the train pulled out the familiar strains of "Old Nassau" floated after
us and we realized that the next time we would see that loyal crowd
would be in the cheering section on the Princeton side at New Haven.

We went directly to the Murray Hill Hotel, where Princeton had held its
headquarters for years. After luncheon Walter Christie, the trainer,
took us up to Central Park. We walked about for a time and finally
reached the Obelisk.

Biffy Lee, the head coach, suggested that we run through our signals.
All of us doffed our overcoats and hats and, there on the expansive
lawn, flanked by Cleopatra's Needle and the Metropolitan Art Museum, we
ran through our signals.

We then resumed our walk and returned to the hotel for dinner. The
evening was spent in the hotel parlors, where the team was entertained
and had opportunity for relaxation from the mental strain that was
necessarily a part of the situation. A general reception took place in
the corridors, players of old days came around to see the team, to
revive old memories, and cheer the men of the team on to victory.

Football writers from the daily papers mingled with the throng, and
their accounts the following day reflected the optimistic spirit they
encountered. The betting odds were quoted at three to one on Princeton.
"Betting odds" is the way some people gauge the outcome of a football
contest, but I have learned from experience, that big odds are not
justified on either side in a championship game.

We were up bright and early in the morning and out for a walk before
breakfast. Our team then took the ten o'clock train for New Haven. Only
those who have been through the experience can appreciate the difficulty
encountered in getting on board a train for New Haven on the day of a
football game.

We were ushered through a side entrance, however, and were finally
landed in the special cars provided for us.

On the journey there was a jolly good time. Good fellowship reigned
supreme. That relieved the nervous tension. Arthur Poe and Bosey Reiter
were the leading spirits in the jollification. A happier crowd never
entered New Haven than the Princeton team that day. The cars pulled in
on a siding near the station and everybody realized that we were at last
in the town where the coveted prize was. We were after the Yale ball.
"On to New Haven" had been our watchword. We were there.

Following a light lunch in our dining car we soon got our football
clothes, and, in a short time, the palatial Pullman car was transformed.
It assumed the appearance of the dressing room at Princeton. Football
togs hung everywhere. Nose-guards, head-gears, stockings, shin-guards,
jerseys, and other gridiron equipment were everywhere. Here and there
the trainer or his assistants were limbering up joints that needed
attention.

Two big buses waited at the car platform. The team piled into them. We
were off to the field. The trip was made through a welcome of friendly
salutes from Princeton men encountered on the way. Personal friends of
individual players called to them from the sidewalks. Others shouted
words of confidence. Old Nassau was out in overwhelming force.

No team ever received more loyal support. It keyed the players up to the
highest pitch of determination. Their spirits, naturally at a high mark,
rose still higher under the warmth of the welcome. Repression was a
thing of the past. Every player was jubilant and did not attempt to
conceal the fact.

The enthusiasm mounted as we neared the scene of the coming battle. As
we entered the field the air was rent by a mighty shout of welcome from
the Princeton hosts. Our hearts palpitated in response to it. There was
not a man of the team that did not feel himself repaid a thousand-fold
for the season's hard knocks.

But this soon gave way to sober thought of the work ahead of us. We were
there for business. Falling on the ball, sprinting and limbering up,
and running through a few signals, we spent the few minutes before the
Yale team came through the corner of the field. The scenes of enthusiasm
that had marked our arrival were repeated, the Yale stand being the
center this time of the maelstrom of cheers. I shall not attempt to
describe our own feelings as we got the first glimpse of our opponents
in the coming fray. Who can describe the sensations of the contestants
in the first moment of a championship game?

But it was not long before the coin had been tossed, and the game was
on. Not a man who has played in the line will ever forget how he tried
to block his man or get down the field and tackle the man with the ball.
I recall most vividly those three strapping Yale center men, Brown, Hale
and Olcott, flanked by Stillman and Francis. There was Al Sharpe and
McBride. Fincke was at quarter.

If there had been any one play during the season that we had had drilled
into us, a play which we had hoped might win the game, it was the long
end run. It was Lea's pet play.

I can recall the herculean work we had performed to perfect this play.
It was time well spent. The reward came within seven minutes after the
game began. The end running ability of that great player, Bosey Reiter
showed. Every man was doing his part, and the play was made possible.
Reiter scored a touchdown along the side of the field. I never saw a
happier man than Bosey. But he was no happier than his ten team-mates.
They were leaping in the air with joy. The Princeton stand arose in a
solid body and sent an avalanche of cheers across the field.

What proved to be one of the most important features of the game was the
well-delivered punt by Bert Wheeler, who kicked the ball out to
Hutchinson. Hutch heeled it in front of the goal and Bert Wheeler
boosted the ball straight over the cross bar and Princeton scored an
additional point. At that moment we did not realize that this would be
the decisive factor in the Princeton victory.

As the Princeton team went back to the middle of the field to take their
places for the next kick-off, the Princeton side of the field was a
perfect bedlam of enthusiasm. Old grads were hugging each other on the
side lines, and every eye was strained for the next move in the game.

At the same time the Yale stand was cheering its side and urging the
Blue players to rally. McBride, the Yale captain, was rousing his men
with the Yale spirit, and they realized what was demanded of them. The
effect became evident. It showed how Yale could rise to an occasion. We
felt that the old bull-dog spirit of Yale was after us--as strong as
ever.

How wonderfully well McBride, the Yale captain, kicked that day! What a
power he was on defence! I saw him do some wonderful work. It was after
one of his long punts, which, with the wind in his favor, went about
seventy yards, that Princeton caught the ball on the ten-yard line.

Wheeler dropped back to kick. The Yale line men were on their toes ready
to break through and block the kick. The Yale stand was cheering them
on. Stillman was the first man through. It seemed as if he were
off-side. Wheeler delayed his kick, expecting that an off-side penalty
would be given. When he did kick, it was too late, the ball was blocked
and McBride fell on it behind the goal line, scoring a touchdown for
Yale, and making the score 6 to 5 in favor of Princeton.

Believe me, the Yale spirit was running high. The men were playing like
demons. Here was a team that was considered a defeated team before the
game. Here were eleven men who had risen to the occasion and who were
slowly, but surely, getting the best of the argument.

Gloom hung heavy over the Princeton stand. Defeat seemed inevitable. Of
eleven players who started in the game on the Princeton side, eight had
been incapacitated by injuries of one kind or another. Doc Hillebrand,
the ever-reliable, All-American tackle, had been compelled to leave the
game with a broken collar-bone just before McBride made his touchdown.

I remember well the play in which he was injured and I have
resurrected a photograph that was snapped of the game at the moment that
he was lying on the ground, knocked out.

[Illustration: HILLEBRAND'S LAST CHARGE]

Bummie Booth, who had stood the strain of the contest wonderfully well,
and had played a grand game against Hale, gave way to Horace Bannard,
brother of Bill Bannard, the famous Princeton halfback of '98.

It was no wonder that Princeton was downcast when McBride scored the
touchdown and the goal was about to be kicked.

Just then I saw a man in football togs come out from the side lines
wearing a blue visor cap. He was to kick for the goal. It was an unusual
spectacle on a football field. I rushed up to the referee, Ed
Wrightington of Harvard, and called his attention to the man with the
cap. I asked if that man was in the game.

"Why," he replied with a broad smile, "you ought to know him. He is the
man you have been playing against all along, Gordon Brown. He only ran
into the side lines to get a cap to shade his eyes."

I am frank to say that it was one on me, but the chagrin wore off when
Brown missed the goal, which would have tied the final score, and robbed
Princeton of the ultimate victory.

The tide of battle turned toward Yale. Al Sharpe kicked a goal from the
field, from the forty-five yard line. It was a wonderful achievement.
It is true that circumstances later substituted Arthur Poe for him as
the hero of the game, but those who witnessed Sharpe's performance will
never forget it. The laurels that he won by it were snatched from him by
Poe only in the last half-minute of play. The score was changed by
Sharpe's goal from 6 to 5 in our favor to 10 to 6. Yale leading.

The half was over. The score was 10 to 6 against Princeton. Every
Princeton player felt that there was still a real opportunity to win
out. We were all optimistic. This optimism was increased by the appeals
made to the men in the dressing room by the coaches. It was not long
before the team was back on the field more determined than ever to carry
the Yale ball back to Princeton.

The last half of this game is everlastingly impressed upon my memory.
Every man that played for Princeton, although eight of them were
substitutes, played like a veteran. I shall ever treasure the memory of
the loyal support that those men gave me as captain, and their response
to my appeal to stand together and play not only for Princeton but for
the injured men on the side-lines whose places they had taken.

The Yale team had also heard some words of football wisdom in their
dressing room. Previous encounters with Princeton had taught them that
the Tiger could also rally. They came on the field prepared to fight
harder than ever. McBride and Brown were exhorting their men to do
their utmost.

Princeton was out-rushing Yale but not out-kicking them. Yale knew that
as well as we did.

It was a Yale fumble that gave us the chance we were waiting for. Bill
Roper, who had taken Lew Palmer's place at left end, had his eyes open.
He fell on the ball. Through his vigilance, Princeton got the chance to
score. Now was our chance.

Time was passing quickly. We all knew that something extraordinary would
have to be done to win the day. It remained for Arthur Poe to
crystallize this idea into action. It seemed an inspiration.

"We've got to kick," he said to me, "and I would like to try a goal from
the field. We haven't got much time."

Nobody appreciated the situation more than I did. I knew we would have
to take a chance and there was no one I would have selected for the job
quicker than Arthur Poe. How we needed a touchdown or a goal from the
field!

Poe, Pell and myself were the three members of the original team left.
How the substitutes rallied with us and gave the perfect defence that
made Poe's feat possible is a matter of history. As I looked around from
my position to see that the defensive formation was right, I recall how
small Arthur Poe looked there in the fullback position. Here was a man
doing something we had never rehearsed as a team. But safe and sure the
pass went from Horace Bannard and as Biffy Lea remarked after the game,
"when Arthur kicked the ball, it seemed to stay up in the air about
twenty minutes."

Some people have said that I turned a somersault and landed on my ear,
and collapsed. Anyhow, it all came our way at the end, the ball sailed
over the cross bar. The score then was 11 to 10, and the Princeton stand
let out a roar of triumph that could be heard way down in New Jersey.

There were but thirty-six seconds left for play. Yale made a splendid
supreme effort to score further. But it was futile.

Crowds had left the field before Poe made his great goal kick. They had
accepted a Yale victory as inevitable. Some say that bets were paid on
the strength of this conviction. The Yale _News_, which went to press
five minutes before the game ended, got out an edition stating that Yale
had won. They had to change that story.

During the seconds preceding Poe's kick for a goal I had a queer
obsession. It was a serious matter to me then. I can recall it now with
amusement. "Big" was a prefix not of my own selection. I had never
appreciated its justification, however, until that moment.

Horace Bannard was playing center. I had my left hand clasped under the
elastic in his trouser leg, ready to form a barrier against the Yale
forwards. Brown, Hale and McBride tried to break through to block the
kick. I thought of a million things but most of all I was afraid of a
blocked kick. To be frank, I was afraid I would block it--that Poe
couldn't clear me, that he would kick the ball into me.

[Illustration: AL SHARPE'S GOAL]

I crouched as low as I could, and the more I worried the larger I seemed
to be and I feared greatly for what might occur behind me. It seemed as
if I were swelling up. But finally, as I realized that the ball had gone
over me and was on its way to the goal, I breathed a sigh of relief and
said,

"Thank God, it cleared!"

How eager we were to get that ball, the hard-earned prize, which now
rests in the Princeton gymnasium, a companion ball to the one of the
1898 victory. Yes, it had all been accomplished, and we were happy. New
Haven looked different to us. It was many years since Princeton had sent
Yale down to defeat on Yale Field.

Victory made us forget the sadness of former defeats. It was a joyous
crowd that rode back to the private cars. Varsity players and
substitutes shared alike in the joy, which was unrestrained. We soon had
our clothes changed, and were on our way to New York for the banquet and
celebration of our victory.

Arthur Poe was the lion of the hour. No finer fellow ever received more
just tribute.

It would take a separate volume to describe the incidents of that trip
from New Haven to New York. Before it had ended we realized if we never
had realized it before how sweet was victory, and how worth while the
striving that brought it to us.

Suffice it to say that that Yale football was the most popular
"passenger" on the train. Over and over we played the game and a million
caresses were lavished upon the trophy.

This may seem an excess of sentiment to some, but those who have played
football understand me. Looking back through the retrospect of seventeen
years, I realize that I did not fully understand then the meaning of
those happy moments. I now appreciate that it was simply the deep
satisfaction that comes from having made good--the sense of real
accomplishment.

Enthusiastic Princeton men were waiting for us at the Grand Central
Station. They escorted us to the Murray Hill Hotel, and the wonderful
banquet that awaited us. The spirit of the occasion will be understood
by football players and enthusiasts who have enjoyed similar
experiences.

The members of the team just sat and listened to speeches by the alumni
and coaches. It all seemed too good to be true. When the gathering broke
up, the players became members of different groups, who continued their
celebration in the various ways provided by the hospitality of the great
city.

[Illustration: TOUCHING THE MATCH TO VICTORY]

Hillebrand and I ended the night together. When we awoke in the
morning, the Yale football was there between our pillows, the bandaged
shoulder and collar-bone of Hillebrand nestling close to it.

Then came the home-going of the team to Princeton, and the huge bonfire
that the whole university turned out to build. Some nearby wood yard was
looking the next day for thirty-six cords of wood that had served as the
foundation for the victorious blaze. It was learned afterward that the
owner of the cord-wood had backed the team--so he had no regrets.

The team was driven up in buses from the station. It was a proud
privilege to light the bonfire. Every man on the team had to make a
speech and then we had a banquet at the Princeton Inn. Later in the year
the team was banqueted by the alumni organizations around the country.
Every man had a peck of souvenirs--gold matchsafes, footballs, and other
things. Nothing was too good for the victors. Well, well, "To the
victors belong the spoils." That is the verdict of history.




CHAPTER VI

HEROES OF THE PAST

THE EARLY DAYS


We treasure the memory of the good men who have gone before. This is
true of the world's history, a nation's history, that of a state, and of
a great university. Most true is it of the memory of men of heroic mold.
As schoolboys, our imaginations were fired by the records of the
brilliant achievements of a Perry, a Decatur or a Paul Jones; and, as we
grow older, we look back to those heroes of our boyhood days, and our
hearts beat fast again as we recall their daring deeds and pay them
tribute anew for the stout hearts, the splendid fighting stamina, and
the unswerving integrity that made them great men in history.

In every college and university there is a hall of fame, where the
heroes of the past are idolized by the younger generations. Trophies,
portraits, old flags and banners hang there. Threadbare though they may
be, they are rich in memories. These are, however, only the material
things--"the trappings and the suits" of fame--but in the hearts of
university men the memory of the heroes of the past is firmly and
reverently enshrined. Their achievements are a distinguished part of
the university's history--a part of our lives as university men--and we
are ever ready now to burn incense in their honor, as we were in the old
days to burn bonfires, in celebration of their deeds.

It is well now that we recall some of the men who have stood in the
front line of football; in the making and preservation of the great
game. Many of them have not lived to see the results of their service to
the sport which they deemed to be manly and worth while. It is, however,
because they stood there during days, often full of stress and severe
criticism of the game, staunch and resistless, that football occupies
its present high plane in the athletic world.

It may be that some of their names are not now associated with football.
Some of them are captains of industry. They are in the forefront of
public affairs. Some of them are engaged in the world's work in far-away
lands. But the spirit that these men apply to their life work is the
same spirit that stirred them on the gridiron. Their football training
has made them better able to fight the battle of life.

Men who gave signals, are now directing large industries. Players who
carried the ball, are now carrying trade to the ends of the world. Men
who bucked the line, are forging their way sturdily to the front. Men
who were tackles, are still meeting their opponents with the same
intrepid zeal. The men who played at end in those days, are to-day
seeing that nothing gets around them in the business world. The public
is the referee and umpire. It knows their achievements in the greater
game of life.

It is not my purpose to select an all-star football team from the long
list of heroes past and present. It is not possible to select any one
man whom we can all crown as king. We all have our football idols, our
own heroes, men after whom we have patterned, who were our inspiration.

We can never line up in actual scrimmage the heroes of the past with
those of more recent years. What a treat if this could be arranged!

There are many men I have idolized in football, not only for their
record as players, but for the loyalty and spirit for the game which
they have inspired.


Walter Camp

When I asked Walter Camp to write the introduction to this book, I told
him that as he had written about football players for twenty years it
was up to some one to relate some of _his_ achievements as a football
player. We all know Walter Camp as a successful business man and as a
football genius whose strategy has meant much to Yale. His untiring
efforts, his contributions to the promotion of the best interests of the
game, stand as a brilliant record in the history of football. To give
him his just due would require a special volume. The football world
knows Walter Camp as a thoroughbred, a man who has played the game
fairly, and sees to it that the game is being played fairly to-day.

We have read his books, enjoyed his football stories, and kept in touch
with the game through his newspaper articles. He is the loyal,
ever-present critic on the side lines and the helpful adviser in every
emergency. He has helped to safeguard the good name of football and kept
pace with the game until to-day he is known as the "Father of football."

Let us go back into football history where, in the recollections of
others, we shall see Freshman Camp make the team, score touchdowns, kick
goals and captain Yale teams to victory.

F. R. Vernon, who was a freshman at Yale when Camp was a sophomore,
draws a vivid word picture of Camp in his active football days. Vernon
played on the Yale team with Camp.

"Walter Camp in his football playing days," says Vernon, "was built
physically on field running lines; quick on his legs and with his arms.
His action was easy all over and seemed to be in thorough control from a
well-balanced head, from which looked a pair of exceptionally keen,
piercing, expressive brown eyes.

"Camp was always alert, and seemed to sense developments before they
occurred. One of my chief recollections of Camp's play was his great
confidence with the ball. In his room, on the campus, in the gym',
wherever he was, if possible, he would have a football with him. He
seemed to know every inch of its surface, and it seemed almost as if the
ball knew him. It would stick to his palm, like iron to a magnet.

"In one of his plays, Camp would run down the side of the field, the
ball held far out with one arm, while the other arm was performing
yeoman service in warding off the oncoming tacklers. Frequently he would
pass the ball from one hand to the other, while still running, depending
upon which arm he saw he would need for defense. Smilingly and
confidently, Camp would run the gauntlet of opposing players for many
consecutive gains. I do not recall one instance in which he lost the
ball through these tactics.

"It was a pretty game to play and a pretty game to look at. Would that
the rules could be so worded as to make the football of Camp's time the
football of to-day!

"Walter Camp's natural ability as a football player was recognized as
soon as he entered Yale in 1876. He made the 'varsity at once and played
halfback. It was in the first Harvard football game at Hamilton Park
that the Harvard captain, who was a huge man with a full, bushy beard,
saw Walter Camp, then a stripling freshman in uniform, and remarked to
the Yale Captain:

"'You don't mean to let that child play; he is too light; he will get
hurt.'

"Walter made a mental note of that remark, and during the game the
Harvard captain had occasion to remember it also, when in one of the
plays Camp tackled him, and the two went to the ground with a heavy
thud. As the Harvard captain gradually came to, he remarked to one of
his team mates:

"'Well, that little fellow nearly put me out!'

"Camp's brilliant playing earned him the captaincy of the team in 1878
and 1879. He had full command of his men and was extremely popular with
them, but this did not prevent his being a stickler for discipline.

"In my day on the Yale team with Camp," Vernon states, "Princeton was
our dire opponent. For a week or so before a Princeton game, we all
agreed to stay on the campus and to be in bed every night by eleven
o'clock. Johnny Moorhead, who was one of our best runners, decided one
night to go to the theatre, however, and was caught by Captain Camp,
whereupon we were all summoned out of bed to Camp's room, shortly before
midnight. After the roundup we learned the reason for our unexpected
meeting. There was some discussion in which Camp took very little part.
No one expected that Johnny would receive more than a severe reprimand
and this feeling was due largely to the fact that we needed him in the
game. Imagine our surprise, therefore, when Camp, who had left us for a
moment, returned to the room and handed in his resignation as captain of
the team. We revolted at this. Johnny, who sized up the situation,
rather than have the team lose Camp, decided to quit the team himself.
What occurred the next day between Camp and Johnny Moorhead we never
knew, but Johnny played in the game and squared himself."

Walter Camp's name is coupled with that of Chummy Eaton in football
history. "Eaton was on the left end rush line," says Vernon, "and played
a great game with Camp down the side line. When one was nearly caught
for a down, the other would receive the ball from him on an over-head
throw and proceed with the run. Camp and Eaton would repeat this play,
sending the ball back and forth down the side of the field for great
gains.

"In one of the big games in the fall of 1879, Eaton had a large muscle
in one of his legs torn and had to quit playing for that season." Vernon
was put in Chummy's place. "But I couldn't fill Chummy's shoes," Vernon
acknowledges, "for he and Camp had practiced their beautiful side line
play all the fall.

"The next year Chummy's parents wouldn't let him play, but Chummy was
game--he simply couldn't resist--it was a case of Love Before Duty with
him. He played on the Yale team the next fall, however, but not as
Eaton, and every one who followed football was wondering who that star
player 'Adams' was and where he came from. But those on the inside knew
it was Chummy.

"Frederic Remington," says Vernon, "was a member of our team. We were
close friends and spent many Sunday afternoons on long walks. I can see
him now with his India ink pencil sketching as we went along, and I must
laugh now at the nerve I had to joke him about his efforts.

"Remy was a good football player and one of the best boxers in college.
Dear Old Remy is gone, but he left his mark."

Other men, equally prominent old Yale men tell me, who were on the team
that year were Hull, Jack Harding, Ben Lamb, Bob Watson, Pete Peters and
many others.

Walter Camp, as Yale gridiron stories go, was not only captain of his
team, but in reality also its coach. Perhaps he can be called the
pioneer coach of Yale football. It is most interesting to listen to old
time Yale players relate incidents of the days when they played under
Walter Camp as their captain: how they came to his room by invitation at
night, sat on the floor with their backs to the wall, with nothing in
the center of the room but a regulation football. There they got
together, talked things over, made suggestions and comparisons. And it
is said of Camp that he would do more listening by far than talking.
This was characteristic, for although he knew so much of the game he was
willing to get every point of view and profit by every suggestion.

In 1880 Camp relinquished the captaincy to R. W. Watson. Yale again
defeated Harvard, Camp kicking a goal from placement. Following this
R. W. Watson ran through the entire Harvard team for a touchdown.

Harvard men were greatly pained when Walter Camp played again in 1881.
He should have graduated in 1880. This game was also won by Yale, thus
making the fourth victorious Yale team that Camp played on. This record
has never been equalled. Camp played six years at Yale.

John Harding was another of the famous old Yale stars who played on
Walter Camp's team.

"It is now more than thirty-five years since my days on the football
gridiron," writes Harding. "What little elementary training I got in
football, I attribute to the old game of 'theory,' which for two years
on spring and summer evenings, after supper, we used to play at St.
Paul's School in Concord, N. H., on the athletic grounds near the Middle
School. One fellow would be 'it' as we dashed from one side of the
grounds to the other and when one was trapped he joined the 'its,' until
everybody was caught. I learned there how to dodge, as well as the
rudiments of the necessary football accomplishment of how to fall down
without getting hurt. As a result of this experience, with my chum,
W. A. Peters, when we got down to Yale in the fall of '76, we offered
ourselves as willing victims for the University football team, and with
the result that we both 'made' the freshman team, and had our first
experience in a match game of football against the Harvard freshman at
Boston. I don't remember who won that contest, but I do remember the
University eleven, under Eugene Baker's careful training, beating
Harvard that fall at New Haven and my football enthusiasm being fired up
to a desire to make the team, if it were possible.

"Of course, Walter Camp has for many years, and deservedly so, been
regarded as the father of football at Yale, but in my day, and at least
until Baker left college, he was only an ordinary mortal and a good
halfback. Baker was the unquestioned star and I cannot disabuse my mind
that he was the original football man of Yale, and at least entitled to
the title of 'grandfather' of the game there and it was from him that my
tuition mainly came.

"My impression is that Baker was always for the open running and passing
game and that mass playing and flying wedges and the various refinements
of the game that depended largely on 'beef' were of a later day.

"For four years I played in the rush line with Walter Camp as a
halfback, and for two years, at least, with Hull and Ben Lamb on either
side of me, all of us somehow understanding each other's game and all
being ready and willing to help each other out. Whatever ability and
dexterity I may have developed seemed to show itself at its best when
playing with them and to prove that good team work and 'knowing your
man' wins.

"I got to know Walter Camp's methods and ways of playing, so that,
somehow or other, I could judge pretty well where the ball was going to
drop when he kicked and could navigate myself about so that I was, more
often than any one else on our side, near the ball when it dropped to
the ground, and, if perchance, it happened to be muffed by an opposing
player, which put me 'on side,' the chances of a touchdown, if I got the
ball, were excellent, and Hull and Lamb were somehow on hand to back me
up and were ready to follow me in any direction.

"During my last two years of football the 'rushers' were unanimously of
the opinion that the kicking, dodging and passing open game was the game
we should strive for and that it was the duty of the halfback and backs
to end their runs with a good long punt, wherever possible, and give us
a chance to get under the ball when it came down, while the rest of the
team behind the line were in favor of a running mass play game,
particularly in wet and slippery weather.

"I remember once in my senior year our divergence of views on this
question, about three weeks before the final game, nearly split our
team, and that as a result I nearly received the doubtful honor of
becoming the captain of a defeated Yale team. Camp, fearful of wet
weather and possible snow at the Thanksgiving game, and with Channing,
Eaton and Fred Remington as the heavy Yale ends and everybody 'big' in
the rush line excepting myself, was trying to develop us with as little
kicking as possible, and was sensitive because of the protests from the
rush line that there was no kicking. We were all summoned one evening to
his room in Durfee; the situation explained, together with his
unwillingness to assume the responsibility of captain unless his ideas
were followed; his fear of defeat, if they were not followed, his
willingness to continue on the team as a halfback and to do his best and
his resignation as captain with the suggestion of my taking the
responsibility of the position. Things looked blue for Yale when Walter
walked out of the door, but after some ten minutes' discussion we
decided that the open game was the better, despite Camp's opinion to the
contrary, but that we could not play the open game without Camp as
captain. Some one was sent out to bring Walter back; matters were
smoothed out; we played the open game and never lost a touchdown during
the season. But during the four years I was on the Yale varsity we
never lost but one touchdown, from which a goal was kicked and there
were no goals kicked from the field. This goal was lost to Princeton,
and I think was in the fall of '78, the year that Princeton won the
championship. The two men that were more than anybody else responsible
for the record were Eugene Baker and Walter Camp, but behind it all was
the old Yale spirit, which seems to show itself better on the football
field than in any other branch of athletics."


Theodore M. McNair

On December 19th, 1915, there appeared in the newspapers a notice of the
death of an old Princeton athlete, in Japan--Theodore M. McNair--who,
while unknown to the younger football enthusiasts, was considered a
famous player in his day. To those who saw him play the news brought
back many thrills of his adventures upon the football field. The
following is what an old fellow player has to say about his team mate:

"Princeton has lost one of her most remarkable old time athletes in the
death of Theodore M. McNair of the class of 1879.

"McNair was a classmate of Woodrow Wilson. After his graduation he
became a Presbyterian missionary, a professor in a Tokio college and the
head of the Committee that introduced the Christian hymnal into Japan.

"To old Princeton graduates, however, McNair is known best as a great
football player who was halfback on the varsity three years and was
regarded as a phenomenal dodger, runner and kicker. In the three years
of his varsity experience McNair went down to defeat only once, the
first game in which he appeared as a regular player. The contest was
with Harvard and was played between seasons--April 28th, 1877--at
Cambridge. Harvard won the game by 2 touchdowns to 1 for the Tigers.
McNair made the touchdown for his team. This match is interesting in
that it marked the first appearance of the canvas jacket on the football
field. Smock, one of the Princeton halfbacks, designed such a jacket for
himself and thereafter for many seasons football players of the leading
Eastern colleges adopted the garment because it made tackling more
difficult under the conditions of those days. McNair was of large frame
and fleet of foot. He was especially clever in handling and passing the
ball, which in those days was more of an art than at present. It was not
unusual for the ball to be passed from player to player after a
scrimmage until a touchdown or a field goal was made.

"Walter Camp was one of McNair's Yale adversaries. They had many punting
duels in the big games at St. George's Cricket Grounds, Hoboken, but
Camp never had the satisfaction of sending McNair off the field with a
beaten team."


Alexander Moffat

Every football enthusiast who saw Alex Moffat play had the highest
respect for his ability in the game. Alex Moffat was typically
Princetonian. His interest in the game was great, and he was always
ready to give as much time as was needed to the coaching of the
Princeton teams. His hard, efficient work developed remarkable kickers.
He loved the game and was a cheerful, encouraging and sympathetic coach.
From a man of his day I have learned something about his playing, and
together we can read of this great all-round athlete.

Alex Moffat was so small when he was a boy that he was called
"Teeny-bits." He was still small in bone and bulk when he entered
Princeton. Alex had always been active in sport as a boy. Small as he
was, he played a good game of baseball and tennis and he distinguished
himself by his kicking in football before he was twelve years of age.
The game was then called Association Football, and kicking formed a
large part of it. At an early age, he became proficient in kicking with
right or left foot. When he was fifteen he created a sensation over at
the Old Seminary by kicking the black rubber Association football clear
over Brown Hall. That was kick enough for a boy of fifteen with an old
black, rubber football. If anybody doubts it, let him try to do the
trick.

[Illustration:

Wanamaker   Belknap   Finney   Travers   Harlan
Kennedy   Lamar   Bird   Kimball   De Camp
Baker   Alex   Moffat   Harris

ALEX MOFFAT AND HIS TEAM]

The Varsity team of Princeton in the fall of '79 was captained by Bland
Ballard of the class of '80. He had a bunch of giants back of him. There
were fifteen on the team in those days, and among them were such men as
Devereaux, Brotherlin, Bryan, Irv. Withington, and the mighty McNair.
The scrub team player at that time was pretty nearly any chap that was
willing to take his life in his hands by going down to the field and
letting those ruthless giants step on his face and generally muss up his
physical architecture.

When Alex announced one day that he was going to take a chance on the
scrub team, his friends were inclined to say tenderly and regretfully,
"Good night, sweet prince." But Alex knew he was there with the kick,
whether it came on the left or right, and he made up his mind to have a
go with the canvas-backed Titans of the Varsity team. One fond friend
watching Alex go out on the field drew a sort of consolation from the
observation that "perhaps Alex was so small the Varsity men wouldn't
notice him." But Alex soon showed them that he was there. He got in a
punt that made Bland Ballard gasp. The big captain looked first at the
ball, way up in the air, then looked at Alex and he seemed to say as the
Scotsman said when he compared the small hen and the huge egg, "I hae me
doots. It canna be."

After that the Varsity men took notice of Alex. When the ball was
passed back to him next the regulars got through the scrub line so fast
that Alex had to try for a run. Bland Ballard caught him up in his arms,
and finding him so light and small, spared himself the trouble of
throwing him down. Ballard simply sank down on the ground with Alex in
his arms and began rolling over and over with him towards the scrub
goal. Alex cried "Down! Down!" in a shrill, treble voice that brought an
exclamation from the side line. "It's a shame to do it. Bland Ballard is
robbing the cradle."

Such was Alex Moffat in the fall of '79, still something of the
"Teeny-bits" that he was in early boyhood. In two years Alex's name was
on the lips of every gridiron man in the country, and in his senior
year, as captain, he performed an exploit in goal kicking that has never
been equalled.

In the game with Harvard in the fall of '83, he kicked five goals, four
being drop kicks and one from a touchdown. His drop kicks were all of
them long and two of them were made with the left foot. Alex grew in
stature and in stamina and when he was captain he was regarded as one of
the most brilliant fullbacks that the game had ever known. He never was
a heavy man, but he was swift and slippery in running, a deadly tackler,
and a kicker that had not his equal in his time.

Alex remained prominent in football activity until his death in 1914.
He served in many capacities, as member of committees, as coach, as
referee and as umpire. He was a man of happy and sunny nature who made
many friends. He loved life and made life joyous for those who were with
him. He was idolized at Princeton and his memory is treasured there now.


Wyllys Terry

One of the greatest halfbacks that ever played for Yale is Wyllys Terry,
and it is most interesting to hear this player of many years ago tell of
some of his experiences. Terry says:

"It has been asked of me who were the great players of my time. I can
only say, judging from their work, that they were all great, but if I
were compelled to particularize, I should mention the names of Tompkins,
Peters, Hull, Beck, Twombly, Richards; in fact, I would have to mention
each team year by year. To them I attribute the success of Yale's
football in my time, and for many years after that to the unfailing zeal
and devotion of Walter Camp.

"There were no trainers, coaches, or rubbers at that time. The period of
practice was almost continuous for forty-five minutes. It was the idea
in those days that by practice of this kind, staying power and ability
would be brought out. The principal points that were impressed upon the
players were for the rushers to tackle low and follow their man.

"This was to them practically a golden text. The fact that a man was
injured, unless it was a broken bone, or the customary badly sprained
ankle, did not relieve a man from playing every day.

"It was the spirit, though possibly a crude one, that only those men
were wanted on the team who could go through the battering of the game
from start to finish.

"The discipline of the team was rigorous; men were forced to do as they
were told. If a man did not think he was in any condition to play he
reported to the captain. These reports were very infrequent though, for
I know in my own case, the first time I reported, I was so lame I could
hardly put one foot before the other, but was told to take a football
and run around the track, which was a half mile long and encircled the
football field. On my return I was told to get back in my position and
play. As a result, there were very few players who reported injuries to
the captain.

"This, when you figure the manner in which teams are coached to-day, may
appear brutal and a waste of good material, but as a matter of fact, it
was not. It made the teams what they were in those days--strong, hard
and fast.

"As to actual results under this policy, I can only say that, during my
period in college, we never lost a game.

"Training to-day is quite different. I think more men are injured
nowadays than in my time under our severe training. I think further that
this softer training is carried to an extreme, and that the football
player of to-day has too much attention paid to his injury, and what he
has to say, and the trainer, doctors and attendants are mostly
responsible for having the players incapacitated by their attention.

"The spirit of Yale in my day, a spirit which was inculcated in our
minds in playing games, was never to let a member of the opposing team
think he could beat you. If you experienced a shock or were injured and
it was still possible to get back to your position either in the line or
backfield--get there at once. If you felt that your injury was so severe
that you could not get back, report to your captain immediately and
abide by his decision, which was either to leave the field or go to your
position.

"It may be said by some of the players to-day that the punts in those
days were more easily caught than those of to-day. There is nothing to a
remark like that. The spiral kick was developed in the fall of '82, and
I know that both Richards and myself knew the fellow who developed it.
From my experience in the Princeton game I can testify that Alex Moffat
was a past master at it.

"One rather amusing thing I remember hearing years ago while standing
with an old football player watching a Princeton game. The ball was
thrown forward by the quarterback, which was a foul. The halfback, who
was playing well out, dashed in and caught the ball on the run, evaded
the opposing end, pushed the half back aside and ran half the length of
the field, scoring a touchdown. The applause was tremendous. But the
Umpire, who had seen the foul, called the ball back. A fair spectator
who was standing in front of me, asked my friend why the ball was called
back. My friend remarked: 'The Princeton player has just received an
encore, that's all.'

"While the game was hard and rough in the early days, yet I consider
that the discipline and the training which the men went through were of
great assistance to them, physically, morally and intellectually, in
after years. Some of the pleasantest friendships that I hold to-day were
made in connection with my football days, among the graduates of my own
and other colleges.

"When fond parents ask the advisability of letting their sons play
football, I always tell them of an incident at the Penn-Harvard game at
Philadelphia, one year, which I witnessed from the top of a coach. A
young girl was asked the question:

"'If you were a mother and had a son, would you allow him to play
football?'

"The young lady thought for a moment and then answered in this spirited,
if somewhat devious, fashion:

"'If I were a son and had a mother, _you bet I'd play!_'"


Memories of John C. Bell

In my association with football, among the many friendships I formed, I
prize none more highly than that of John C. Bell, whose activity in
Pennsylvania football has been kept alive long since his playing day.
Let us go back and talk the game over with him.

"I played football in my prep. school days," he says, "and on the
'Varsity teams of the University of Pennsylvania in the years
'82-'83-'84. After graduation, following a sort of nominating mass
meeting of the students, I was elected to the football committee of the
University, about 1886, and served as chairman of that committee until
1901; retiring that season when George Woodruff, after a term of ten
years, terminated his relationship as coach of our team.

"I also served, as you know, as a representative of the University on
the Football Rules Committee from about 1886 until the time I was
appointed Attorney General in 1911.

"More pleasant associations and relationships I have never had than
those with my fellow-members of that Committee in the late '80's and the
'90's, including Camp of Yale; Billy Brooks, Bert Waters, Bob Wrenn and
Percy Haughton of Harvard; Paul Dashiell of Annapolis; Tracy Harris,
Alex Moffat and John Fine of Princeton; and Professor Dennis of
Cornell. Later the Committee, as you know, was enlarged by the admission
of representatives from the West; and among them were Alonzo Stagg, of
Chicago University, and Harry Williams of Minnesota. Finer fellows I
have never known; they were one and all Nature's noblemen.

"Some of them, alas! like Alex Moffat, have gone to the Great Beyond.
Representing rival universities, between whose student bodies and some
of whose alumni, partisan feeling ran high in the '90's, nothing,
however, save good fellowship and good cheer ever existed between Alex
and me.

"I am genuinely glad that I played the game with my team-mates;
witnessed for many years nearly all the big games of the eastern
colleges; mingled season after season with the players and the
enthusiastic alumni of the competing universities in attendance at the
annual matches; sat and deliberated each recurring year, as I have said,
with those fine fellows who made and amended the rules, and in this way
helped to develop the game, the manliest of all our sports; and that I
have thus breathed, recreated and been invigorated in a football
atmosphere every autumn for more than a third of a century. Growing
older every year, one still remains young--as young in heart and spirit
as when he donned the moleskins, and caught and kicked and carried the
ball himself. And all these football experiences make one a happier,
stronger and more loyal man.

"I remember in my prep. school days playing upon a team made up largely
of high school boys. One game stands out in my recollection. It was
against the Freshmen team of the University of Pennsylvania, captained
by Johnny Thayer who went down with the _Titanic_.

"Arriving after the game had started, I came out to the side-lines and
called to the captain asking whether I was to play. He glowered at me
and made no answer. A few minutes later our 'second captain' called to
me to come into the game, saying that Smith was only to play until I
arrived. Quick as a flash I stepped into the field of play, and almost
instantly Thayer kicked the ball over the rush line and it came bounding
down right into my arm. Off I went like a flash through the line, past
the backs and fullbacks, only to be over-taken within a few yards of the
goal. The teams lined up, and thereupon Thayer, with his eagle eye
looking us over, called out to our captain 'how many fellows are you
playing anyway?' Instantly our captain ordered Smith off the field
saying 'you were only to play until Bell came,' and poor Smith left
without any audible murmur. This is what might be called one of the
accidents of the game.

"Perhaps the most memorable game in which I played was against Harvard
in 1884 when Pennsylvania won upon Forbes Field by the score of 4 to 0.
It was our first victory over the Crimson, not to be repeated again
until the memorable game of 1894, which triumph was again repeated,
after still another decade, in our great victory of 1904. This last
victory came after five years of continuing defeats, and I remember that
we were all jubilant when we heard the news from Cambridge. I recall
that Dr. J. William White, C. S. Packard and I were playing golf at the
Country Club and when some one brought out the score to us we dropped
our clubs, clasped hands and executed an Indian dance, shouting "Rah!
rah! rah! Pennsylvania!" Why, old staid philosopher, should the leading
surgeon of the city, the president of its oldest and largest trust
company, and the district attorney of Philadelphia, thus jump for joy
and become boys once more?

"Recurring to the game of 1884 I can hear the cheers of the University
still ringing in my ears when we returned from Harvard. A few weeks
later our team went up to Princeton to see the Harvard-Princeton match
and I recall, as though it were yesterday, Alex Moffat kicking five
goals against Appleton's team, three of them with the right and two with
the left foot. No other player I ever knew or heard of was so
ambipedextrous (if I may use the word) as Alex Moffat. I remember
walking in from the field with Harvard's captain, and he said to me
'Moffat is a phenomenon.' Truly he was."




CHAPTER VII

HEROES OF THE PAST--GEORGE WOODRUFF'S STORY


Enthusiastic George Woodruff tells of his football experiences in the
following words:

"I went to Yale a green farmer boy who had never heard of the college
game of football until I arrived at New Haven to take my examinations in
the fall of '85. Incidentally I made the team permanently the second day
I was on the field, having scored against the varsity from the middle of
the field in three successive runs; whereas the varsity was not able to
score against the scrub. I was used perhaps more times than any other
man in running with the ball up to a very severe injury to my knee in
the fall of '87, just a week and a day before the Princeton game, from
which time, until I left college (although I played in all of the
championship games) I was not able to run with the ball, actually being
on the field only two days after my injury in '87 until the end of the
'88 season, outside of the days on which I played the games. I tried not
to play in the fall of '88 because of the condition of my knee and
because I was Captain of the Crew, but Pa Corbin insisted that I must
play in the championship games or he would not row: and of course I
acceded to his wishes thereby secretly gratifying my own.

"And now about the men with whom I played: Kid Wallace played end the
entire four years. Wallace was a great amusement and comfort to his
fellow-players on account of his general desire to put on the appearance
of a 'tough' of the worst description; whereas he was at heart a very
fine and gallant gentleman.

"Pudge Heffelfinger played the other guard from me in my last year and
when he first appeared on the Yale field he was a ridiculous example of
a raw-boned Westerner, being 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing only
about 178 pounds. During the season, however, the exercise and good food
at the training table caused Heffelfinger to gain 25 pounds of solid
bone, sinew and muscle. The green days of his first year in 1888 were
remembered against him in an affectionate way by the use of Yale for
several years of 'Pa' Corbin's oft reiterated expression brought forth
by Pudge's greenness, which would cause 'Pa' to exclaim: 'Darn you,
Heffelfinger!' with great emphasis on the 'Darn.'

"Billy Graves played on the team during most of these years, he being
the most graceful football runner I have ever seen, unless it were
Stevenson of Pennsylvania.

"Lee McClung was a harder worker in his running than most of the men
named above, but tremendously effective. He is accredited with being the
first man who intentionally started as though to make an end run and
then turned diagonally back through the line, in order to open up the
field through which he then ran with incredible speed and determination.
This was one of the first premeditated plays of a trick nature which
ultimately led to my invention of the delayed pass which works upon the
same principle only with incalculably greater ease and effect.

"The game with Princeton in the Fall of 1885 clings to my memory beyond
any other game I ever played in, because it was the first real
championship game of my career, and I had not as yet fully developed
into an actual player. The loss of this game to Princeton in the last
six minutes of playing because of the Lamar run--Yale had Princeton 5 to
0--has been a nightmare to most of the Yale players ever since. I
attribute the fact that Yale only had five points to two hard-luck
facts.

"Through my own intensity at the beginning of the game I over-ran Harry
Beecher on my first signal, causing the signal giver to think that I was
rattled so that, although I afterward ran with the ball some 25 or 30
times with consistent gains of from 2 to 5 yards under the almost
impossible conditions known as the 'punt rush,' the signal for my
regular play was not given again in spite of the fact that my ground
gaining had been one of the steadiest features of the Yale play
throughout the year, and because Watkinson was allowed to try five times
in succession for goals from the field, close up, only one of which he
made; whereas Billy Bull could probably have made at least three out of
the five; but of course Bull's ability was not so well-known then. The
direct cause of the Lamar run was due to the fact that all the fast
runners and good tacklers of the Yale line were down the field under a
kick, so close to Toler, the other halfback from Lamar, that when Toler
muffed the ball so egregiously that it bounded over our heads some 15
yards, Lamar who had not come across the field to back Toler up, had
been able to get the ball on the bound and on the dead run, thus having
in front of him all the Princeton team except Toler; whereas the Yale
team was depleted by the fact that Wallace, Corwin, Gill (who had come
on as a substitute) myself and even Harry Beecher from quarterback, had
run down the field to within a few yards of Toler before he muffed the
ball. We all turned and watched Lamar run, being so petrified that not
one of us took a step, and, although the scene is photographed on my
memory, I cannot see one of all the Yale players making a tackle at
Lamar. Hodge, the Princeton quarterback, kicked the goal, thus making
the score 6 to 5 and winning the game. The outburst from the Princeton
contingent at the end of the game was one of the most heartfelt and
spontaneous I have ever heard or seen. I understand that practically all
of Lamar's uniform was torn into pieces and handed out to the various
Princeton girls and their escorts who had come to New Haven to see the
game.

"The Yale-Princeton game in the fall of 1886 was a remarkable as well as
a disagreeable one. We played at Princeton when the field at that time
combined the elements of stickiness and slipperiness to an unbelievable
extent. It rained heavily throughout the game and the proverbial 'hog on
ice' could not have slipped and slathered around worse than all the
players on both sides. There was a long controversy about who should act
as referee (in those days we had only one official) and after a delay of
about an hour from the time the game should have begun, Harris, a
Princeton man, was allowed to do the officiating. Bob Corwin, who was
end-rush, only second to Wallace in his ability, was captain of the
team.

"Yale made one touchdown which seemed to be perfectly fair but which was
disallowed; and later, in the second half, Watkinson for Yale kicked the
ball so that it rolled across the goal line, whereupon a crowd, which
was standing around the ropes (in those days there was practically no
grandstand) crowded onto the field where Savage, the Princeton fullback
had fallen on the ball. The general report is that Kid Wallace held
Savage while Corwin pulled the slippery ball away from him, and that
when Harris, the referee, was able to dig his way through the crowd he
found Corwin on the ball, and in view of the great fuss that had been
made about his previous decision, was not able to credit Savage's
statement that he (Savage) had said 'down' long before the Yale ends had
been able to pull the ball away from him. The result was that the
touchdown was allowed. Thereupon the crowd all came onto the field and
we were not able to clear it for some 10 or 15 minutes, so that there
was not time enough to finish the full 45 minutes of the second-half of
the game before dark. This led to some bitter discussion between Yale
and Princeton as to whether the game had been played. This discussion
was settled by the intercollegiate committee in declaring that Yale had
won the game, 4 to 0, but that no championship should be awarded. It is
interesting to note, however, that all the gold footballs worn by the
Yale players of this game are marked 'Champions, 1886.'

"A word about the Princeton men who were playing during my four years at
college.

"Irvine was a fine steady player and his success at Mercersburg is in
keeping with the promise shown in his football days.

"Hector Cowan played against me three years at guard and he fully
deserved the great reputation he had at that time in every particular
of the game, including running with the ball.

"George was one of the very best center rushes I have ever seen and
probably would have made a great player elsewhere along the line if he
had been relieved from the obscuring effect of playing center at the
time a center had no particular opportunity to show his ability.

"Snake Ames for some reason was never able to do anything against the
Yale team during the time I was playing, but his work in some later
games that I saw and in which I officiated, convinced me that he was
worthy of his nickname, because there are only a few men who are able to
wind their way through an entire field of opponents with as much
celerity and effect as Ames would display time after time.

"In the fall of '86 Yale beat Harvard 29 to 4, with great ease, and if
it had not been for injuries to Yale players, could probably have made
it 50 or 60 to 0. Most of the Yale players came out of the game with
very disgraceful marks of the roughness of the Harvard men. I had a
badly broken nose from an intentional blow. George Carter had a cut
requiring eight stitches above his eye. The tackle next to me had a face
which was pounded black and blue all over. To the credit of the Harvard
men I will say that they came to the box at the theater that night
occupied by the Yale team and apologized for what they had done, stating
that they had been coached to play in that way and that they would
never again allow anybody to coach who would try to have the Harvard
players use intentionally unfair roughness.

"When I entered Pennsylvania I found a more or less happy-go-lucky
brilliant man, Arthur Knipe, who was not considered fully worthy of
being on even the Pennsylvania teams of those days, namely: teams that
were being beaten 60 or 70 to 0 by Yale, Harvard and Princeton. I
succeeded in arousing the interest of Knipe, and although in my mind he
never, during his active membership of the Pennsylvania team, came up to
75 per cent. of his true playing value, he was, even so, undoubtedly the
peer of any man that ever played football. Knipe was brilliant but
careless, and was at once the joy and despair of any coach who took an
interest in his men. He captained the 1894 Pennsylvania team with which
I sprung the 'guards back' and 'short end defense.'

"Jack Minds I remember seeing, in 1893, standing around on the field as
a member of the second or third scrub teams. I suppose he would not have
been invited to preliminary training except for his own courage and
pertinacity which caused him to demand to be taken. With no thought that
he could possibly make the team I gradually found myself using him in
1894, until he was a fixture at tackle, although he dodged the scales
throughout the entire fall in order that I might not know that he
only weighed 162 pounds.

[Illustration:

Wharton   Bull   Woodruff
Rosengarten   Osgood   Brooke   Knipe   Gelbert
Minds   Williams   Wagonhurst

OLD PENN HEROES]

"I will not enlarge upon the ability of men like George Brooke, Wylie
Woodruff, Buck Wharton, Joe McCracken, John Outland and others, but
anybody speaking of Pennsylvania players during the late '90's cannot
pass by Truxton Hare, who stands forth as a Chevalier Bayard among the
ranks of college football players. Hare entered Pennsylvania in '97 from
St. Paul without any thought that he was likely to be even a mediocre
player. He weighed only about 178 pounds at the time and was immature.
Although his wonderfully symmetrical build, in which he looked like a
magnified Billy Graves, kept him from looking as large as Heffelfinger
at his greatest development at Yale, Hare was certainly ten pounds
heavier in fine condition than Heffelfinger was before the latter left
Yale."




CHAPTER VIII

ANECDOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS


In the latter eighties the signal from the quarterback to the center for
putting the ball in play was a pressure of the fingers and thumb on the
hips of the center. In the '89 championship game between Yale and
Princeton, Yale had been steadily advancing the ball and it looked as if
they had started out for a march up the field for a touchdown. In those
days signals were not rattled off with the speed that they are given
now, and the quarterback often took some time to consider his next play,
during which time he might stand in any position back of the line.

Playing right guard on the Princeton team was J. R. Thomas, more
familiarly known as Long Tommy. He was six feet six or seven inches tall
and built more longitudinally than otherwise. It occurred to Janeway,
who was playing left guard, that Long Tommy's great length and reach
might be used to great advantage when occasion offered.

He, therefore, took occasion to say to Thomas during a lull in the game,
"If you get a chance, reach over when Wurtenburg--the Yale
quarter--isn't looking, and pinch the Yale center so that he will put
the ball in play when the backs are not expecting it." The Yale center,
by the way, was Bert Hanson. Yale continued to advance the ball on two
or three successive plays and finally had a third down with two yards to
gain. At this critical moment the looked-for opportunity arrived.
Wurtenburg called a consultation of the other backs to decide on the
next play. While the consultation was going on Long Tommy reached over
and gently nipped Hanson where he was expecting the signal. Hanson
immediately put the ball in play and as a result Janeway broke through
and fell on the ball for a ten yards gain and first down for Princeton.

To say that the Yale team were frantic with surprise and rage would be
putting it mildly. Poor Hanson came in for some pretty rough flagging.
He swore by all that was good and holy that he had received the signal
to put the ball in play, which was true. But Wurtenburg insisted that he
had not given the signal. There was no time for wrangling at that moment
as the referee ordered the game to proceed.

Yale did not learn how that ball came to be put in play until some time
after the game, which was the last of the season, when Long Tommy
happening to meet up with Hanson and several other Yale players in a New
York restaurant, told with great glee how he gave the signal that
stopped Yale's triumphant advance.

       *       *       *       *       *

Numerals and combinations of numbers were not used as signals until
1889. Prior to that, phrases, catch-words and gestures were the only
modes of indicating the plays to be used. For instance, the signal for
Hector Cowan of Princeton to run with the ball was an entreaty by the
captain, who in those days usually gave the signals, addressed to the
team, to gain an uneven number of yards. Therefore the expression,
"Let's gain three, five or seven yards," would indicate to the team that
Cowan was to take the ball, and an effort was made to open up the line
for him at the point at which he usually bucked it.

Irvine, the other tackle, ran with the ball when an even number of yards
was called for.

For a kick the signal was any phrase which asked a question, as for
instance, "How many yards to gain?"

One of the signals used by Corbin, captain of Yale, to indicate a
certain play, was the removal of his cap. They wore caps in those days.
A variation of this play was indicated if in addition to removing his
cap he expectorated emphatically.

Hodge, the Princeton quarterback, noticing the cap signals, determined
that he would handicap the captain's strategy by stealing his cap. He
called the team back and very earnestly impressed upon them the
advantage that would accrue if any of them could surreptitiously get
possession of Captain Corbin's head-covering. Corbin, however, kept such
good watch on his property that no one was able to purloin it.

Sport Donnelly, who played left end on Princeton's '89 team, was perhaps
one of the roughest players that ever went into a game, and at the same
time one of the best ends that ever went down the field under a kick.

Donnelly was one of the few men that could play his game up to the top
notch and at the same time keep his opponent harassed to the point of
frenzy by a continual line of conversation in a sarcastic vein which
invariably got the opposing player rattled.

He would say or do something to the man opposite him which would goad
that individual to fury and then when retaliation was about to come in
the shape of a blow, he would yell "Mr. Umpire," and in many instances
the player would be ruled off the field.

Donnelly's line of conversation in a Yale game, addressed to Billy
Rhodes who played opposite him, would be somewhat as follows:

"Ah, Mr. Rhodes, I see Mr. Gill is about to run with the ball."

Just then Gill would come tearing around from his position at tackle and
Donnelly would remark:

"Well, excuse me, Mr. Rhodes, for a moment, I've got to tackle Mr.
Gill."

He would then sidestep in such a manner as to elude Rhodes's
manoeuvres to prevent him breaking through, and stop Gill for a loss.

Hector Cowan, who was captain of the Princeton '88 team was another
rough player. In those days the men in the heat of playing would indulge
in exclamations hardly fit for a drawing room. In fact most of the time
the words used would have been more in place among a lot of pirates.

Cowan was no exception to the rule so far as giving vent to his feelings
was concerned, but he invariably used one phrase to do so. He was a
fellow of sterling character and was studying for the ministry. Not even
the excitement of the moment could make him forget himself to the extent
of the other players, and where their language would have to be
represented in print by a lot of dashes, Cowan's could be printed in the
blackest face type without offending anyone.

It was amusing to see this big fellow, worked up to the point of
explosion, wave his arms and exclaim:

"Oh, sugar!"

It would bring a roar of mock protest from the other players, and
threats to report him for his rough talk. While the men made joke of
Hector's talk they had a thorough respect for his sterling principles.


VICTORIOUS DAYS AT YALE

During the early days of football Yale's record was an enviable one. The
schedules included, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, University of
Pennsylvania, Rutgers, Columbia, Stevens Institute of Technology,
Dartmouth, Amherst, and University of Michigan.

It is interesting to note that since the formation of the Football
Association, in 1879 to 1889, Yale had been awarded the championship
flag five times, Princeton one, Harvard none. Yale had won 95 out of 98
games, having lost three to Princeton, one to Harvard and one to
Columbia. Since 1878 Yale had lost but one game and that by one point.
This was the Tilly Lamar game, which Princeton won. In points Yale had
scored, since points began to be counted, 3001 to her opponents' 56; in
goals 530 to 19 and in touchdowns 219 to 9, which is truly a unique
record.

It was during this period that Pa Corbin, a country boy, entered Yale
and in his senior year became captain of the famous '88 team. This
brilliant eleven had a wonderfully successful season and Yale men now
began to take stock and really appreciate the remarkable record that was
hers upon the field of football.

In commemoration of these victories, Yale men gathered from far and
near, crowding Delmonico's banquet hall to the limit to pay tribute to
Yale athletic successes.

"And it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet,
and the people shouted with a great shout ... they took the city."

In a room beautifully decorated with Yale banners and trophies four
hundred Elis sat down to enjoy the Bulldog Feast, and there honored and
cheered to the echo the great football traditions of Yale and the men
who made her famous by so vast a margin.

Chauncey M. Depew in his address that evening stated that for the only
time in one hundred and eighty-eight years the alumni of Yale met solely
to celebrate her athletic triumphs.

Pa Corbin, captain of the victorious '88 football team, responded, as
follows:

"Again we have met the enemy and he is ours. In fact we have been
successful so many times there is something of a sameness about it. It
is a good deal like what the old man said about leading a good life. It
is monotonous, but satisfactory. There are perhaps a few special reasons
why we won the championship this year, but the general principles are
the same, which have always made us win. First, by following out certain
traditions, which are handed down to us year by year from former team
captains and coaches; the necessity of advancing each year beyond the
point attained the year before; the mastering of the play of our
opponents and planning our game to meet it. Second, by the hard,
conscientious work, such as only a Yale team knows how to do. Third,
by going on to the field with that high courage and determination which
has always been characteristic of the Yale eleven, something like the
spirit of the ancient Greeks who went into battle with the decision to
return with their shields or on them. Sometimes they have been animated
with the spirit which knows no defeat, like the little drummer boy, who
was ordered by Napoleon in a crisis in the battle to beat a retreat. The
boy did not move. 'Boy, beat a retreat.' He did not stir, but at a third
command, he straightened up and said: 'Sire, I know not how, but I can
beat a charge that will wake the dead.' He did so and the troops moved
forward and were victorious. It is this same spirit which in many cases
has seemed to animate our men.

[Illustration:

Rhodes   Woodruff   Heffelfinger   Gill   Wallace
Stagg   McClung   Captain Corbin   Bull
Wurtenberg   Graves

PA CORBIN'S TEAM]

"But our victory is due in a great measure this year to a man who knows
more about football than any man in this country, who gave much of his
valuable time in continually advising and in actual coaching on the
field. I refer to Walter Camp, and as long as his spirit hovers over the
Yale campus and our traditions for football playing are religiously
followed out there is no reason why Yale should not remain, as she
always has been, at the head of American football."

Those were Corbin's recollections the year of that great victory. Time
has not dimmed them, nor has his memory faded. Rather the opposite.
From what follows you will note that a woman now enters the camp of the
Eli coaching staff, mention of whom was not made in Corbin's speech of
'88.

Pa Corbin prides himself in the fact that twenty-five years afterward he
brought his old team mates together and gave them a dinner. The menu
card tells of the traditional coaching system of Corbin's great team of
'88 and beneath the picture of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Camp appears in
headlines:

"HEAD COACHES OF THE YALE FOOTBALL TEAM OF 1888"

"The head-coaches of the Yale team," says Corbin, "were really Mr. and
Mrs. Walter Camp. They had been married in the summer of 1888 and were
staying with relatives in New Haven. Mr. Camp had just begun his
connection with a New Haven concern which occupied most of his time.
Mrs. Camp was present at Yale Field every day at the football practice
and made careful note of the plays, the players and anything that should
be observed in connection with the style of play and the individual
weakness or strength. She gave her observations in detail to her husband
at supper every night and when I arrived Mr. Camp would be thoroughly
familiar with that day's practice and would be ready for suggestions as
to plays and players to be put in operation the next day.

"This method was pursued during the entire season and was practically
the only systematic coaching that the team received. Of course there
were several old players like Tompkins '84, Terry '85 and Knapp '82, who
came to the field frequently.

"At that time it was customary for me to snap the ball back to the
quarter with my foot. By standing the ball on end and exercising a
certain pressure on the same it was possible to have it bound into the
quarterback's hands. It was necessary, therefore, for me to attend to
this detail as well as to block my opponent and make holes through the
line for the backs.

"While the rules of the game at that time provided for an Umpire as well
as a Referee, the fact that there was no neutral zone and players were
in close contact with each other on the line of scrimmage gave
opportunity for more roughness than is customary at the present time.
Neither were the officials so strict about their rulings.

"Prior to this time it had been customary to give word signals for the
different plays, these being certain words which were used in various
sentences relating to football and the progress of the game. As center,
I was so tall that a system of sign signals was devised which I used
entirely in the Princeton game, and the opponents, from the talk, which
continued as usual, supposed that word signals were being used and were
entirely ignorant of the sign signals during the progress of the game.
The pulling of the visor of my cap was a kick signal. Everything that I
did with my left hand in touching different parts of my uniform on the
left side from collar to shoe lace meant a signal for a play at
different points on the left side of the line. Similar signals with my
right hand meant similar plays on the right side of the line. The system
worked perfectly and there was no case of missed signal. The next year
the use of numbers for signals began, and has continued until the
present date.

"The work of the Yale team during the season was very much retarded by
injuries to their best players. The papers were so filled with these
accounts that the general opinion of the public was that the team would
be in poor physical condition to meet Princeton. As luck would have it,
however, the invalids reached a convalescing stage in time to enter the
Wesleyan game on the Saturday before the one to be played with Princeton
in fairly good condition.

"Head Coach Camp and I attended the Princeton-Harvard game at Princeton
on that day. Upon our return to New York we received a telegram from
Mrs. Camp to the effect that the score made by Yale against Wesleyan was
105 to nothing. One of the graduate coaches was much impressed with the
opportunity to turn a few pennies and he requested that the information
be kept quiet until he could see a few Princeton men. The result was
that he negotiated the small end of several stakes at long odds against
Yale. When the news of the Wesleyan score was made public the next
morning, the opinion of the public changed somewhat as to the merit of
the team. It nevertheless went into the Princeton game as not being the
favorite and in the opinion of disinterested persons it was expected
that Princeton would win handsomely."

Cowan the great has this to say:

"I happened to be down on the grounds to watch the practice just a few
days before the Yale game. They did not have enough scrub to make a good
defense. Jim Robinson happened to see me there and asked me to play. He
had asked me before, and I had always refused, but this time for some
reason I accepted and he took me to the Club house.

"I got into my clothes. The shoes were about three sizes too small. That
day I played guard opposite Tracy Harris. I played well enough so that
they wanted me to come down the next day, as they said they wanted good
practice. The next day I was put against Captain Bird, who had been out
of town the first day I played. He had the reputation of being not at
all delicate in the way he handled the scrub men who played against him,
so that they had learned to keep away from him.

"As I had not played before, I did not know enough to be afraid of him,
so when the ball was put in play I simply charged forward at the
quarterback and was able to spoil a good many of his plays. I heard
afterward that Bird asked Jim Robinson who that damn freshman was that
played against him. The next year I was put in Bird's place at left
guard, as he had graduated and fought all comers for the place. I was
never put on the scrub again.

"My condition when in Princeton was the best. Having been raised in the
country, I knew what hard work was and in the five years that I played
football I never left the field on account of injury either in practice
or in games with other teams.

"It is a great thing to play the game of football as hard as you can. I
never deliberately went to do a man up. If he played a rough game, I
simply played him the harder. I never struck a man with my fist in the
game. I do not remember ever losing my temper. Perhaps I did not have
temper enough.

"When we speak of a football man's nerve I would say that any man who
stopped to think of himself is not worthy of the game, but there is one
man who seemed to me had a little more nerve than the average. I think
that he played for two years on our scrub, and the reason that he was
kept there so long was on account of his size. He only weighed about 138
pounds, but for all the time he played on the scrub he played halfback
and no one ever saw him hesitate to make every inch that he could, even
though he knew he had to suffer for it.

"In the fall of '88, I think, Yup Cook played right tackle on the
Varsity. He was very strong in his shoulders and arms and had the grip
of a blacksmith. Channing, this nervy little 138-pounder, played left
halfback on the scrub. When he went into the line, Cook would take him
by the shoulders and slam him into the ground. Our playing field at the
time was very dry and the ground was like a rock. I used to feel very
sorry for the little fellow. On his elbows and hips and knees he had raw
sores as big as silver dollars; yet he never hesitated to make the
attempt, and he never called 'down' to save himself from punishment. The
next year he made the team. Everybody admired him.

"Football men must never forget Tilly Lamar, who played halfback. I
think he was one of the greatest halfbacks and one who would have made a
record in any age of football. I have seen him go through a line with
nearly every man on the opposing team holding him. He would break loose
from one after the other.

"Lamar was a short, chunky fellow and ran close to the ground with his
back level, and about the only place one could get hold of him was his
shoulders. He would always turn toward the tackler instead of away, and
it had the effect of throwing him over his head. The only way that the
Yale men could stop him at all was to dive clear under and get him by
the legs.

"You have always heard a lot about Snake Ames. Snake was a very
spectacular player, but one very hard to stop, especially in an open
field. He was very fast and during the last year of his playing he
developed a duck and would go clear under the man trying to tackle him.
This he did by putting one hand flat on the ground, so that his body
would just miss the ground; even the good tacklers that Yale always had
were not able to stop him.

"One of Princeton's old reliables was our center, George, '89. He may
not have got much out of the plaudits from the grandstand, but those of
us who knew what he was doing appreciated his work. We always felt safe
as to our center. He was steady and brilliant.

"It was during this time that Yale developed a wedge play on center.
There were no restrictions as to how the line would be formed, and Yale
would put all their guards and tackles and ends back, forming a big V
with the man with the ball in the center.

"Yale had been able to knock the opposing center out of the way till
they struck George. How well I remember this giant, who was able to hold
the whole wedge until he could knock the sides in and pile them up in a
bunch. Yale soon gave him up and tried to gain elsewhere.

"I must tell you about one more of Princeton's football players. Not so
much for his playing, but for his head work. During the years that I was
captain, in the fall of '88 the rules were changed so that one was
allowed to block an opponent only by the body. In other words, not
allowed to use hands or arms in blocking. It was Sam Hodge, who played
end and worked out what is known to-day as boxing the tackle. You can
understand what effect it would have on a man who was not used to it.
The end would knock the opposing tackle and send him clear out of the
play and the half would keep the end out."

I once asked Cowan to tell something about his experiences and men he
played against.

"The Yale game was the great game in my days," he said. "Harvard did not
have the football instinct as well developed as Yale, and it is of the
Yale players that I have more in mind. One man I will always remember is
Gill, who played left tackle for Yale and was captain during his senior
year. I remember him because we had a good deal to do with each other.
When I ran with the ball I had to get around him if I made any advance,
and I must say that I found it no easy thing to do, as he was a sure
tackler. And when he ran with the ball I had the good pleasure of
cutting his runs short.

"Another man whom I consider one of the greatest punters of the past is
Bull of Yale. I have stopped a good many punts and drop kicks in my
play, but I do not remember stopping a single kick of his, and it was
not because I did not try. He kicked with his left foot, and with his
back partially towards the line would kick a very high ball, and when
you jumped into him--on the principle, that if you cannot get the ball,
get the man--you had the sensation of striking something hard."

After Cowan had stopped playing and graduated he acted as an official in
a good many of the big games. He states as follows:

"You ask about my own experiences as an official, and for experience
with other officials. I always got along pretty well as a referee. There
was very little kicking on my decisions. But I was good for nothing as
an umpire. I could not keep my eyes off the ball, so did not see the
fouls as much as I should. You boys have probably heard how I was ruled
off the field in a Harvard-Princeton game in '88. I remember Terry of
Yale who refereed that game, above all others. There was a rule at that
time that intentional tackling below the knees was a foul and the
penalty was disqualification. Our game had just started. We had only two
or three plays, Harvard having the ball. I broke through the line and
tackled the man as soon as he had the ball. I had him around the legs
about the knees, but in his efforts to get away, my hands slipped down.
But at the moment remembering the rule I let him go, and for this I was
disqualified. I might say that we lost the game, for we did not have any
one to take my place. I had always been in my place and no one ever
thought that I would not be there. My being disqualified was probably
the reason for the Princeton defeat.

"I do not think that Terry intended to be unfair. The game had just
started, and he was trying to be strict, and without stopping to think
whether it was intentional or not. He saw the rule being broken and
acted on the impulse of the moment. I have since heard that Terry felt
very bad about it afterwards. I never felt right towards him until I had
a chance to get even with him, and it came in this way. The Crescent
Club of Brooklyn played the Cleveland Athletic Club at Cleveland. George
and myself were invited to play with the Cleveland club, and on the
Crescent team were Alex Moffat and Terry. Terry played left halfback,
and right here was where I got in my work. When Terry ran with the ball
I generally had a chance to help him meet the earth. I had one chance in
particular. Terry got the ball and got around our end, and on a long end
run I took after him, caught him from the side, threw him over my head
out of bounds. As we were both running at the top of our speed he hit
the ground with considerable force. I felt better towards him after this
game."

In such vivid phrases as these a great hero of the past tells of things
well worth recording.

       *       *       *       *       *

Football competition is very strong. There is the keenest sort of
rivalry among college teams. There is very little love on the part of
the men who play against each other on the day of the contest, but after
the game is all over, and these men meet in after years, very strong
friendships are often formed. Sometimes these opponents never meet
again, but down deep in their hearts they have a most wholesome regard
for each other, and so in my recollections of the old heroes, it will be
most interesting to hear in their own words, something about their own
achievements and experiences in the games they played thirty years ago.
Hector Cowan, who captained the '88 team at Princeton, played three
years against George Woodruff of Yale. It has been twenty-eight years
since that wonderful battle took place between these two men. It is
still talked about by people who saw the game, and now let us read what
these two contestants say about each other.

"Of the three years that I played guard I met George Woodruff as my
opponent," says Cowan, "and I always felt that he was the strongest man
I had to meet and one who was always on the square. He played the game
for what it was worth, and he showed later that he could teach it to
others by the way he taught the Penn' team."

Says George Woodruff, delving into the old days: "Hector Cowan played
against me three years at guard, and he fully deserves the reputation he
had at that time in every particular of the game, including running with
the ball. I doubt whether any other Princeton man was ever more able to
make ground whenever he tried, although Cowan was not in any particular
a showy player. For some reason or other, Cowan seems to have had a
reputation for rough play, which shows how untrue traditions can be
handed down. I never played against or with a finer and steadier player,
or one more free from the remotest desire to play roughly for the sake
of roughness itself."

When Heffelfinger's last game had been played there appeared in a
newspaper of November 26th, 1888, a farewell to Heffelfinger.

    Good-by Heff! the boys will miss you,
      And the old men, too, and the girls;
    You tossed the other side about as if they were ten-pins;
    You took Little Bliss under your wing and he ran with
          the ball like a pilot boat by the _Teutonic_.
    You used eyes, ears, shoulders, legs, arms and head
          and took it all in.
    You're the best football rusher America, or the world,
          has shown;
    And best of all you never slugged, lost your temper or
          did anything mean;
    Oh come thou mighty one, go not away,
    The team thou must not fail:
    Stay where thou art, please, Heffelfinger, stay,
      And still be true to Yale--
    Linger, yet linger, Heffelfinger, a truly civil engineer.
      His trust would ne'er surrender; unstrap thy trunks,
      Excuse this scalding tear.
    Still be Yale's best defender! Linger, oh, linger,
      Heffelfinger.
    Princeton and Harvard, there is cause to fear
    Will dance joy's double shuffle when of thy Western
      flight they come to hear. Stay and their tempers
      ruffle. Linger, oh, linger, Heffelfinger.


John Cranston

"My inspiration for the game came when my country cousin returned from
Exeter and told me he believed I had the making of a football player,"
says John Cranston, who was Harvard's famous old center and former
coach. "At once I pestered him with all kinds of questions about the
requirements, and believed that some day I would do something. I shall
always remember my first day on the field at Exeter. Lacking the
wherewithal to buy the regulation suit, I appeared in the none too
strong blue shirt and overalls used on the farm. I remember too that it
was not long before Harding said: 'Take that young countryman to the
gymnasium before he is injured for life; he doesn't know which way to
run when he gets the ball; he doesn't know the game; and he looks too
thick headed to play the game anyway.'

"As boys on neighboring farms of Western New York, three of us, who
were later to play on different college teams, hunted skunks and rabbits
together. Had we been on the same team we would have been side by side.
Cook was a great tackle at Princeton; Reed one of the best guards
Cornell ever had; and I, owing to some good team mates, played as center
on the first Harvard eleven to defeat Yale. It is said that Cook in his
first game at Exeter grabbed the ball and started for his own goal for a
touchdown, and that Reed after playing the long afternoon in the game
which Cornell won, asked the Referee which side was victorious.

"I well remember that at Exeter we were planning how to celebrate our
victory over Andover, even to the most minute detail. We knew who was to
ring the academy and church bells of the town, and where we were to have
the bonfire at night. We were deprived of that pleasure on account of
the great playing and better spirit of the Andover team. A few of our
Exeter men then and there made a silent compact that Exeter would feel a
little better after another contest with Andover. The following three
years we defeated Andover by large scores.

"Any one who has played the game can recall some amusing situations. I
recall the first year at Harvard when we were playing against the
Andover team that suddenly the whole Andover School gave the Yale cheer.
Dud Dean, who was behind me, fired up and said it was the freshest
thing he had ever heard. At Springfield I remember one Yale-Harvard game
started with ten men of my own school, Exeter, in the game. In another
Yale game we were told to look ugly and defiant as we lined up to face
Yale, but I was forced to laugh long and hard when I found myself facing
Frankie Barbour, the little Yale quarter, who lived with me in the same
dormitory at Exeter for three years."

[Illustration: BREAKERS AHEAD

Phil King in the Old Days.]




CHAPTER IX

THE NINETIES AND AFTER


Men of to-day who never had an opportunity of seeing Foster Sanford play
will be interested in some anecdotes of his playing days and to read in
another chapter of this book some of his coaching experiences.

"As a boy," said Sandy, "I lived in New Haven. I chalked the lines on
the football field for the game in which Tilly Lamar made his famous run
for Princeton. I played on the college team two years before I entered
Yale. I learned a lot of football playing against Billy Rhodes, that
great Yale tackle.

"I'll tell you about the day I made the Yale team in my freshman year.
Pa Corbin took me in hand. I think he wanted to see if I had lots of
nerve. He told me to report at nine o'clock for practice. He put me
through a hard, grueling work-out, showing me how to snap the ball; how
to charge and body check. All this took place in a driving rain, and he
kept me out until one o'clock, when he said:

"'You can change your jersey now; that is, put on a dry one.'

"I went over to the training table then to see if I couldn't get some
dinner. Believe me, I was hungry. But every one had finished his meal
and all I could pick up was the things that were left. Here I ran into a
fellow named Brennen, who said:

"'They're trying to do you up. This is the day they are deciding whether
you will be center rush or not.'

"I then went out to Yale Field and joined the rest of the players, and
the stunts they put me through that afternoon I will never forget. But I
remembered what Brennen had told me, and it made me play all the harder.
To tell the truth, after practice, I realized that I was so sore I could
hardly put one foot ahead of the other. To make matters worse, the
coaches told me to run in to town, a distance of two miles, while _they_
drove off in a bus. I didn't catch the bus until they were on Park
Street, but I pegged along just the same and beat them in to the gate.
Billy Rhodes and Pa Corbin took care of me and rubbed me down. It seems
as though they rubbed every bit of skin off of me. I was like fire.

"That's the day I made the Yale team.

"I was twenty years old, six feet tall, and weighed about 200 pounds."

When I asked Sandy who gave him the hardest game of his life, he replied
promptly:

"Wharton, of Pennsylvania. He got through me."

Parke Davis' enthusiasm for football is known the country over. From
his experience as a player, as a coach and writer, he has become an
authority. Let us read some of his recollections.

"Years ago there was a high spirited young player at Princeton serving
his novitiate upon the scrub. One day an emergency transferred him for
the first time in his career to the Varsity. The game was against a
small college. This sudden promotion was possible through his fortunate
knowledge of the varsity signals. Upon the first play a fumble occurred.
Our hero seized the ball. A long service upon the scrub had ingrained
him to regard the Princeton Varsity men always as opponents. In the
excitement of the play he became confused, when lo! he leaped into
flight toward the wrong goal. Dashing around Princeton's left end he
reversed his field and crossed over to the right. Phil King, Princeton's
quarterback, was so amazed at the performance that he was too spellbound
to tackle his comrade. Down the backfield the player sped towards his
own goal. Shep Homans, his fullback, took in the impending catastrophe
at a glance and dashed forward, laid the halfback low with a sharp
tackle, thereby preventing a safety. The game was unimportant, the
Princeton's score was large, so the unfortunate player, although the
butt of many a jest, soon survived all jokes and jibes and became in
time a famous player."

"The first Princeton-Yale game in 1873 being played under the old
Association rules was waged with a round ball. In the first scrimmage a
terrific report sounded across the field. When the contending players
had been separated the poor football was found upon the field a
flattened sheet of rubber. Two toes had struck it simultaneously or some
one's huge chest had crushed it and the ball had exploded.

"Whenever men are discussing the frantic enthusiasm of some fellows of
the game I always recall the following episode as a standard of
measurement. The Rules Committee met one night at the Martinique in New
York for their annual winter session. Just as the members were going
upstairs to convene, I had the pleasure of introducing George Foster
Sanford to Fielding H. Yost. The introduction was made in the middle of
the lobby directly in the way of the traffic passing in and out of the
main door. The Rules Committee had gone into its regular session; the
hour was eight o'clock in the evening. When they came down at midnight
these two great football heroes were standing in the very spot where
they were introduced four hours before and they were talking as they had
been every minute throughout the four hours about football. Members of
the Committee joked with the two enthusiasts and then retired. When they
came down stairs the next morning at eight o'clock they found the two
fanatics seated upon a bench nearby still talking football, and that
afternoon when the Committee had finished its labors and had adjourned
_sine die_ they left Sanford and Yost still in the lobby, still on the
bench, hungry and sleepy and still talking football."

This anecdote will be a good one for Parke Davis' friends to read, for
how he ever stayed out of that talk-fest is a mystery--maybe he did.

Now that Yost and Sanford have retired we will let Parke continue.

"A few years ago everybody except Dartmouth men laughed at the football
which, bounding along the ground at Princeton suddenly jumped over the
cross bar and gave to Princeton a goal from the field which carried with
it the victory. But did you ever hear that in the preceding season, in a
game between two Southern Pennsylvania colleges, a ball went awry from a
drop kick, striking in the chest a policeman who had strayed upon the
field? The ball rebounded and cleanly caromed between the goal post for
a goal from the field. Years ago Lafayette and Pennsylvania State
College were waging a close game at Easton. Suddenly, and without being
noticed, Morton F. Jones, Lafayette's famous center-rush in those days,
left the field of play to change his head gear. The ball was snapped in
play and a fleet Penn State halfback broke through Lafayette's line,
and, armed with the ball, dodged the second barriers and threatened by a
dashing sprint to score in the extreme corner of the field. As he
reached the 10-yard line, to the amazement of all, Jones dashed out of
the side line crowd upon the field between the 10-yard line and his
goal, thereby intercepting the State halfback, tackling him so sharply
that the latter dropped the ball. Jones picked it up and ran it back 40
yards. There was no rule at that time which prevented the play, and so
Penn-State ultimately was defeated. Jones not only was a hero, but his
exploit long remained a mystery to many who endeavored to figure out how
he could have been 25 yards ahead of the ball and between the runner and
his own goal line."

A story is told of the wonderful dodging ability of Phil King, Princeton
'93. He was known throughout the football world as one of the shiftiest
runners of his day. Through his efficient work, King had fairly won the
game against Yale in '93. The next year the Yale men made up their minds
that the only way to defeat Princeton was to take care of King, and they
were ever on the alert to watch him whenever he got the ball. The whole
Yale team was looking for King throughout this game.

On the kick-off Phil got the ball, and all the Yale forwards began to
shout, "Here he comes, here he comes," and then as he was cleverly
dodging and evading the Yale players, one of the backs, who was waiting
to tackle him low, was heard to say, "There he goes."

Those of the old-timers who study the picture of the flying wedge on the
opposite page will get a glimpse of Phil King about to set in motion
one of the most devilishly ingenious maneuvers in the history of the
game. With all the formidable power behind him, the old reliables of
what the modern analytical coaches are pleased to term the farce plays.
Balliet, Beef Wheeler, Biffy Lea, Gus Holly, Frank Morse, Doggy
Trenchard, Douglas Ward, Knox Taylor, Harry Brown, Jerry McCauley, and
Jim Blake; King, nevertheless, stood out in lonely eminence, ready to
touch the ball down, await the thunder of the joining lines of
interference and pick up the tremendous pace, either at the apex of the
crashing V or cunningly concealed and swept along to meet the terrific
impact with the waiting line of Blue. Great was the crash thereof, and
it was a safe wager that King with the ball would not go unscathed.

[Illustration: LOOK OUT, PRINCETON!]

This kind of football brought to light the old-time indomitable courage
of which the stalwarts of those days love to talk at every gridiron
reunion.

But for the moment let us give Yale the ball and stand the giant
Princeton team upon defense. Let us watch George Adee get the ball from
Phil Stillman and with his wonderful football genius develop a smashing
play enveloped in a locked line of blue, grim with the menace of Orville
Hickok, Jim McCrea, Anse Beard, Fred Murphy, Frank Hinkey and Jack
Greenway.

Onward these mighty Yale forwards ground their way through the
Princeton defense, making a breach through which the mighty Butterworth,
Bronc Armstrong and Brink Thorne might bring victory to Yale.

This was truly a day when giants clashed.

As you look at these pictures do the players of to-day wonder any longer
that the heroes of the olden time are still loyal to the game of their
first love?

If you ever happen to go to China, I am sure one of the first Americans
you will hear about would be Pop Gailey, once a king of football centers
and now a leader in Y. M. C. A. work in China.

Lafayette first brought Pop Gailey forth in '93 and '94, and he was the
champion All-American center of the Princeton team in '96. He had a
wonderful influence over the men on the team. He was an example well
worth following. His manly spirit was an inspiration to those about him.
After one of the games a newspaper said:

"Old Gailey stands firm as the Eternal Calvinistic Faith, which he
intends to preach when his football scrimmages are over."

To Charlie Young, the present professor of physical instruction of the
Cornell University gymnasium, I cannot pay tribute high enough for the
fine football spirit and the high regard with which we held him while he
was at the Princeton Seminary. He certainly loved to play football and
he used to come out and play on the scrub team against the Princeton
varsity. He was not eligible to play on the Princeton team, as he had
played his allotted time at Cornell.

The excellent practice he gave the Princeton team--yes, more than
practice: it was oftentimes victory for him as well as the scrub. He
made Poe and Palmer ever alert and did much to make them the stars they
were, as Charlie's long suit was running back punts. His head work was
always in evidence. He was a great field general; one of his most
excellent qualities was that of punting. His was an ideal example for
men to follow. Princeton men were the better for having played with and
against a high type man like Charlie Young.


AN EVENING WITH JIM RODGERS

Jim Rodgers gave all there was in him to Yale athletics. Not a single
year has passed since he played his last game of football but has seen
him back at the Yale field, coaching and giving the benefit of his
experience.

Jim Rodgers was captain of the '97 team at New Haven, and the traditions
that can be written about a winning captain are many. No greater
pleasure can be afforded any man who loves to hear an old football
player relate experiences than to listen, while Rodgers tells of his own
playing days, and of some of the men in his experience.

It was once my pleasure to spend an evening with Jim in his home;
really a football home. Mrs. Rodgers knows much of football and as Jim
enthusiastically and with wonderfully keen recollection tells of the old
games, a twelve-year-old boy listens, as only a boy can to his father,
his great hero, and as Jim puts his hand on the boy's shoulders he tells
him the ideal of his dreams is to have him make the Yale team some day,
and an enthusiastic daughter who sits near hopes so too. His scrap books
and athletic pictures go to make a rare collection.

Many of us would like to have seen Jim Rodgers begin his football career
at Andover when he was sixteen years old. It was there that his 180
pounds of bone and muscle stood for much. It was at Andover that Bill
Odlin, that great Dartmouth man, coached so many wonderful prep. school
stars, who later became more famous at the colleges to which they went.

Rodgers went to Yale with a big rep. He had been captain of the Andover
team. In the fall of '92 Andover beat Brown 24 to 0. Jim Rodgers was
very conspicuous on the field, not only on account of his good playing
and muscular appearance, but because his blond hair, which he wore very
long as a protection, was very noticeable.

From this Yale player, whose friends are legion, let us read some
experiences and catch his spirit:

"I was never a star player, but I was a reliable. In my freshman year I
did not make the team, owing to the fact that I had bad knees and better
candidates were available. This was the one year in Yale football,
perhaps in all football, when the team that played the year before came
back to college with not a man missing. Frank Hinkey had been captain
the year before and then came through as senior captain. There was not a
senior on Frank Hinkey's team. The first team, therefore, all came back.

"Al Jerrems and Louis Hinkey were the only additions to the old team.

"Perhaps the keenest disappointment that ever came to me in football was
the fact that I could not play in that famous Yale-Harvard game my
freshman year. However, I came so very near it that Billy Rhodes and
Heffelfinger came around to where I was sitting on the side lines, after
Fred Murphy had been taken out of the game. They started to limber me up
by running me up and down the side line, but Hinkey, the captain, came
over to the side line and yelled for Chadwick, who went into the game. I
had worked myself up into a highly nervous condition anticipating going
in, but now I realized my knees would not allow it. The disappointment
that day, though, was very severe. To show you what a hold these old
games had on me, many years after this game Hinkey and I were talking
about this particular game, when he said to me: 'You never knew how
close you came to getting into that Springfield game, Jim.' Then I told
him of my experience, but he told me he had it in his mind to put me in
at halfback, and ever since then, when I think of it, cold chills run up
and down my spine. It absolutely scared me stiff to think how I might
have lost that game, even though I never actually participated in it.

"The Yale football management, however, on account of my work during the
season decided to give me my Y, gold football and banner. The banner was
a blue flag with the names of the team and the position they played and
the score, 12 to 6. It was a case where I came so near winning it that
they gave it to me."

Jim Rodgers played three years against Garry Cochran and this great
Princeton captain stands out in his recollections of Yale-Princeton
games. He goes on to say:

"If it had not been for Garry Cochran, I might be rated as one of the
big tackles of the football world to-day. I used to dream of him three
weeks before the Princeton game; how I was going to stand him off, and
let me tell you if you got in between Doc Hillebrand and Garry Cochran
you were a sucker. Those games were a nightmare to me. Cochran used to
fall on my foot, box me in and hold me there, and keep me out of the
play."

Jim Rodgers is very modest in this statement. The very reason that he
is regarded as a truly wonderful tackle is on account of the great game
he played against Cochran. How wonderfully reliable he was football
history well records. He was always to be depended upon.

"In the fall of 1897 when I was captain of the Yale team," Rodgers
continues, "perhaps the most spectacular Yale victory was pulled off,
when Princeton, with the exception of perhaps two men, and virtually the
same team that had beaten Yale the year before, came on the field and
through overconfidence or lack of training did not show up to their best
form. We were out for blood that day. I said to Johnny Baird, Princeton
quarterback: 'Princeton is great to-day. We have played ten minutes and
you haven't scored.' Johnny, with a look of determination upon his face,
said, 'You fellows can play ten times ten minutes and you'll never
score,' but the Princeton football hangs in the Yale trophy room.

"I have always claimed that Charlie de Saulles put the Yale '97 team on
the map. Charlie de Saulles, with his three wonderful runs, which
averaged not less than 60 yards each, really brought about the victory.

"Frank Butterworth as head coach will always have my highest regard; he
did more than any one alive could have done to pull off an apparently
impossible victory."

"One great feature of this game was Ad Kelly's series of individual
gains, aided by Hillebrand and Edwards, through Rodgers and Chadwick.
Kelly took the ball for 40 consecutive yards up the field in gains of
from one to three yards each, when fortunately for Yale, a fumble gave
them the ball. When the fumble occurred, I happened at the time to break
through very fast. There lay the ball on the ground, and nobody but
myself near it. The great chance was there to pick it up and perhaps,
even with my slow speed, gain 20 to 30 yards for Yale. No such thought,
however, entered my head. I wanted that ball and curled up around it and
hugged it as a tortoise would close in its shell. My recollection is now
that I sat there for about five minutes before anybody deigned to fall
on me. At all events, I had the ball.

"Gordon Brown played as a freshman on my team. He had a football face
that I liked. He weighed 185 pounds and was 6 feet 4 inches tall. Gordon
went up against Bouvé in the Harvard game, and the critics stated that
Bouvé was the best guard in the country that year. I said to Gordon,
'Play this fellow the game of his life, and when you get him, let me
know and I'll send some plays through you.' After about sixty minutes of
play Gordon came to me and said, 'Jim, I've got him,' and he had him all
right, for we were then successful in gaining through that part of the
Harvard line. Gordon Brown was a very earnest player. He would allow
nothing to stop him. He got his ears pretty well bruised up and they
bothered him a great deal. In fact, he did have to lay off two or three
days. He came to me and said, 'Do you think this injury will keep me out
of the big game?' 'Well, I'll see if the trainer cannot make a head-gear
for you.' 'Well, I'll tell you this, Jim,' said Gordon, 'I'll have 'em
cut off before I'll stay out of the game.' This amused me, and I said,
'Gordon, you have nothing of beauty to lose. You will keep your ears and
you will play in the big games.'

"Gordon Brown's team, under Malcolm McBride as head coach, was a wonder.
This eleven, to our minds, was the best ever turned out by Yale
University. They defeated Princeton 29 to 5, and the powerful Harvard
team 28 to 0. Their one weakness was that they had no long punter, but,
as they expressed it to me afterward, they had no need of one. At one
time during the game with Harvard they took the ball on their own
10-yard line and, instead of kicking, marched it up the field, and in a
very few rushes scored a touchdown. Harvard men afterwards told me that
after seeing a few minutes of the game they forgot the strain of
Harvard's defeat in their admiration of Yale's playing. This team showed
the highest co-ordination between the Yale coaching staff, the college,
and the players, and they set a high-water mark for all future teams to
aim at, which was all due to Gordon Brown's genius for organization and
leadership."

It has been my experience in talking of football stars with some of the
old-timers that Frank Hinkey heads the list. I cannot let Frank Hinkey
remain silent this time. He says:

"I think it was in the Fall of '95 that Skim Brown, who played the
tackle position, was captain of the scrubs team at New Haven. Brown was
a very energetic scrub captain. He was continuously urging on his men to
better work. As you recall, the cry, 'Tackle low and run low,' was
continuously called after the teams in those days. Brown's particular
pet phrase in urging his men was, 'Run low.' So that he, whenever the
halfback received the ball, would immediately start to holler, 'Run
low,' and would keep this up until the ball was dead. He got so in the
habit of using this call when on the offense that one day when the
quarterback called upon him to run with the ball from the tackle
position even before he got the ball he started to cry, 'Run low,' while
carrying the ball himself, and continued to cry out, 'Run low,' even
after he had gained ground for about fifteen yards and until the ball
was dead.

"It was in the Fall of '92 when Vance McCormick was captain of the Yale
team, and Diney O'Neal was trying for the guard position. As you know,
the linemen are very apt to know only the signals on offense which call
for an opening at their particular position. And even then a great many
of them never know the signals. Now Diney was bright enough, but like
most linemen did not know the signals. It happened one day that
McCormick, at the quarterback position, called several plays during the
afternoon that required O'Neal to make an opening. O'Neal invariably
failed because he didn't know the signals. McCormick, suspecting this,
finally gave O'Neal a good calling down. The calling down fell flat in
its effects on O'Neal as his reply to McCormick was, 'To Hell with your
mystic signs and symbols--give me the ball!'"

"The real founder of football at Dartmouth was Bill Odlin," writes Ed
Hall. "Odlin learned his football at Andover, and came to Dartmouth with
the class of '90 and it was while he was in college that football really
started. He was practically the only coach. He was a remarkable
kicker--certainly one of the best, if not the best. In the Fall of '89
Odlin was captain of the team and playing fullback. Harvard and Yale
played at Springfield and on the morning of the Harvard-Yale game
Dartmouth and Williams played on the same field. It was in this game in
the Fall of '89 that he made his most remarkable kick in which the wind
was a very important element. In the second half Odlin was standing
practically on his own ten yard line. The ball was passed back to him to
be kicked and he punted. The kick itself was a remarkable kick and
perfect in every way, but when the wind caught it it became a wonder and
it went along like a balloon. The wind was really blowing a gale and the
ball landed away beyond the Williams' quarterback and the first bounce
carried it several yards beyond their goal line. Of course any such kick
as this would have been absolutely impossible except for the extreme
velocity and pressure of the wind, but it was easily the longest kick I
ever saw.

"Three times during Odlin's football playing he kicked goals from the 65
yard line and while at Andover he kicked a placed kick from a mark in
the exact center of the field, scoring a goal."

When Brown men discuss football their recollections go back to the days
of Hopkins and Millard, of Robinson, McCarthy, Fultz, Everett Colby and
Gammons, Fred Murphy, Frank Smith, the giant guard; that great
spectacular player, Richardson, and other men mentioned elsewhere in
this book.

In a recent talk with that sterling fellow, Dave Fultz, he told me
something about his football career. It was, in part, as follows:--

"I played at Brown in '94, '95, '96 and '97, captaining the team in my
last year. Gammons and I played in the backfield together. He was
unquestionably a great runner with the ball; one of the hardest men to
hurt, I think, I ever saw. I have often seen him get jolts, go down, and
naturally one would think go out entirely, but when I would go up to
him, he would jump up as though he had not felt it. I think Everett
Colby was as good a man interfering for the runner as I have seen. He
played quarterback and captained the Brown team in '96. I don't think
there was ever a better quarterback than Wyllys D. Richardson, Rich, as
we used to call him."

[Illustration: BARRETT ON ONE OF HIS FAMOUS DASHES]

[Illustration: EXETER-ANDOVER GAME, 1915]

Dave Fultz is very modest and when he discusses his football experiences
he sidetracks one and talks of his fellow college players. Now that I
have pinned him down, he goes on to say:

"The day before we played the Indians one year my knee hurt me so much
that I had to go to the doctor. He put some sort of ointment on it. Two
days before this game I could hardly move my leg; the doctor threatened
me with water on the knee; he told me to go to bed and stay there, but I
told him we had a game in New York and I had to go. He said, 'All right,
if you want water on the knee.' I said, 'I've got to go if I am at all
able.' Anyway, I went on down to New York with the team and played in
the game. All I needed was to get warmed up good and I went along in
great shape."

Those who remember reading the accounts of that game will recall that
Dave Fultz made some miraculous runs that day and was a team in himself.

Fred Murphy, who was captain of the '98 team at Brown and played end
rush, says:

"I think Dave Fultz played under more difficulties than any man that
ever played the game. I have seen him play with a heavy knee brace. He
had his shoulder dislocated several times and I have seen him going into
the game with his arm strapped down to his side, so he could just use
his forearm. He played a number of games that way. That happened when he
was captain. He was absolutely conscientious, fearless and a good
leader."

In 1904, Fred Murphy coached at Exeter. Fred says:

"This was probably the best team that Exeter had had up to that time.
The team was captained by Tommy Thompson, who afterwards played at
Cornell. Eddie Hart at that time stripped at about 195 pounds. This was
the famous team on which Donald MacKenzie MacFadyen played and later
made the Princeton varsity. Tad Jones was quarterback the first year he
came to school. In those days they took to football intuitively without
much coaching. You never had to tell Tad Jones a thing more than once.
He would think things out for himself. He showed great powers of
leadership and good football sense. Howard Jones and Harry Vaughn played
on this team."

"Charlie McCarthy of Brown will long be remembered for his great punting
ability," says Fred Murphy. "He had a great many pet theories. McCarthy
is one of the best football men in the Brown list." In a letter which I
have received from Charlie McCarthy, as a result of a wonderful victory
over Minnesota one year, McCarthy writes:

"The students of the University gave me a beautiful gold watch engraved
on the inside--'To our Friend Mac from the students of the University of
Wisconsin.'" This shows how highly McCarthy is held at this University.

McCarthy continues, "I go out every fall and kick around with the boys
still and I hope to do so the rest of my life if I get a chance. I think
the greatest football player I ever saw was Frank Hinkey. Speaking of my
own ability as a player, I haven't much to say. I was not much of a
football player but I got by some way. I neither had the physique, nor
the ability, but tried to do my best. I am glad to say no one ever
called me a quitter. I am proud to say that Brown University gave me a
beautiful silver cup at the end of my four years for the best work in
football, although the said cup belongs by rights to ten other men on
the team."

As one visits the dressing room of the New York Giants and sees the
attendant work upon the wonderful physique of Christy Mathewson, one
cannot help but realize what a potent factor he must have been on
Bucknell's team. When Christy played he was 6 feet tall and weighed 168
pounds stripped. He prepared at Keystone Academy, playing in the line.
In 1898, when he went to Bucknell, he was immediately put at fullback
and played there three years.

Fred Crolius says of him: "Of all the long distance punters with hard
kicks to handle, Percy Haughton and Christy Mathewson stand out in his
memory. Mathewson had the leg power to turn his spiral over. That is,
instead of dropping where ordinary spirals always drop, an additional
turn seemed to carry the ball over the head of the back who was waiting
for the ball, often carrying some fifteen or twenty yards beyond."

Football has no more ardent admirer than Christy Mathewson. It will be
interesting to hear what he has to say of his experience in the game of
football.

"I liked to play football," says Mathewson. "I was a better football
player than a baseball player in those days. I was considered a good
punter. I was not much as a line bucker. The captain of the team always
gave me a football to take with me in the summer. I occasionally had an
opportunity to practice kicking after I was through with my baseball
work.

"At Taunton, Mass., my first summer, I ran across a fellow who was
playing third base on the team for which I was pitching. MacAndrews was
his name. He was a Dartmouth man. He showed me how to kick. He showed me
how to drop a spiral. I liked to drop-kick and used to practice it
quite a little."

[Illustration:

Means   Langford   Hollenback   Douglass   Gaston   Marks   Allerdice
Miller   Manier   Schultz   Draper

BILL HOLLENBACK COMING AT YOU]

"I remember how tough it was for me when Bucknell played Annapolis the
year before when the Navy team had a man who could kick such wonderful
spirals. They were terribly hard to handle, and I was determined to
profit by his example. So I just hung on for dear life, punting spirals
all summer. Later I used to watch George Brooke punt a good deal when he
was coaching."

"At that time drop kickers were not so numerous. I had some recollection
of a fellow named O'Day, who had a great reputation as a drop-kicker, as
did Hudson of Carlisle. In 1898 we were to play Pennsylvania. Our team
served as a preliminary game for Pennsylvania. They often beat us by
large scores. Since then we have had teams which made a 6 to 5 score.
But they had good teams in my time. We never scored on Penn, as I
recall.

"Our coach said one day, at the training table, 'I'll give a raincoat to
the fellow who scores on Penn to-day.' The manager walked in and
overheard his remark and added, 'Yes, and I'll give a pair of shoes to
the man who makes the second score against Penn.' That put some 'pep'
into us. Anyway, we were on Penn's 35-yard line and I kicked a field
goal. After this we rushed the ball and got up to Penn's 40-yard line,
and from there I scored again, thereby winning the shoes and the
raincoat.

"I went up to Columbia one day to see them practice. It was in the days
when Foster Sanford was their coach. He saw me standing on the side
lines; came over to where I was; looked me over once or twice and
finally said:

"'Why aren't you trying for the team? I think you'd make a football
player if you came out.'

"I said I guessed I would not be eligible.

"'Why?' asked Sandy.

"'Well," I said, 'because I'm a professional.' Then some fellows around
me grinned and told Sanford who I was.

"I love to think of the good old football days and some of the spirit
that entered collegiate contests. Once in a while, in baseball, I feel
the thrill of that spirit. It was only recently that I experienced that
get-together spirit, where a team full of life with everybody working
together wrought great results. That same old thrill came to me during
one of the Giants' trips in the West in which they won seventeen
straight victories.

"There is much good fellowship in football. I played against teams whose
cheer leaders would give you a rousing cheer as you made a good play;
then again you would meet the fellow who, when you were down in the
scrimmage, or after you had kicked the ball, would try to put you down
and out.

"One of the pleasantest recollections I have of playing was my
experience against the two great academy teams, West Point and
Annapolis.

"Never shall I forget one year when Bucknell played West Point. At an
exciting moment in the game, Bucknell players made it possible for me to
be in a position to kick the goal from the field from a difficult angle.
After the score had been made the West Point team stood there stupefied,
and when the crowd got the idea that a goal had been kicked from a
peculiar angle, they gave us a rousing cheer. Such is the proper spirit
of American football; to see some sunshine in your opponent's play.

"Cheering helps so much to build up one's enthusiasm."

Al Sharpe was one of the greatest all-around athletes that ever wore the
blue of Yale. He, too, recalls the Yale-Princeton game of 1899 at New
Haven, but the memory comes to him as a nightmare.

"When I think about the 11 to 10 game at New Haven, which Princeton
won," said Sharpe the last time I saw him, "I remember that after I had
kicked a goal from the field and the score was 10 to 6, Skim Brown
rushed up to me, and nearly took me off my feet with one of his friendly
slaps across my back. Well do I remember the joy of that great Yale
player at this stage of the game. Later, when Poe made his kick and I
saw that the ball was going over the bar, I remember that the thing I
wished most was that I could have been up in the line where I might have
had a chance to block the kick.

"My recollections of making the Yale team centered chiefly around three
facts, none of which I was allowed to forget. First, that I was not any
good, second that I couldn't tackle, and third that I ran like an
ice-wagon. Since then I have seen so many really good players upon my
different squads that I must admit the truth of the above statement,
although at the time I am frank to say I took exception to it. Such is
the optimism of youth."

Jack Munn, a former Princeton halfback, tells the following story:

"My brother, Edward Munn, was the manager of the Princeton team in 1893.
In the spring of that year there was a conference with Yale
representatives to decide where the game was to be played the following
fall. Berkeley Oval, Brooklyn, Manhattan Field, and the respective
fields of the two colleges all came under discussion, and I believe that
some of the newspapers must have taken it up. One afternoon in the
Murray Hill Hotel, when representatives of Yale and Princeton were
discussing the various possibilities, a bellboy knocked at the door and
handed my brother an elaborately engraved card on which, among various
decorations, the name of Colonel Cody was to be distinguished. Buffalo
Bill was invited to come up, and it seems that, reading or hearing of
the discussion about the field for the game, he came to make a formal
offer of the use of his tent. After setting forth the desirability of
staging the game under the auspices of his Wild West Show, he brought
his offer to a close with his trump card.

"'For, gentlemen,' said he, 'besides all the other advantages which I
have mentioned, there is this further attraction--my tent is well and
sufficiently lighted so that you can not only hold a matinee, but you
can give an evening performance as well.'

"And those were the days of the flying wedge and two forty-five minute
halves with only ten minutes intermission!"


Walter C. Booth

Walter C. Booth, a former Princeton center rush, was one of the select
coterie of Eastern football men that wended its way westward to carry
the eastern system into institutions that had had no opportunity to
build up the game, yet were hungry for real football. Booth's trip was a
successful one.

"In the autumn of 1900, after graduating from college, I arrived at
Lincoln, Nebraska, in the dual rôle of law student and football coach of
the State University," says Booth. "This was my first trip west of
Pittsburgh and I viewed my new duties with some apprehension. All doubts
and fears were soon put at rest by the hearty encouragement and support
that I received and retained in my Nebraska football relations.

"Most of the Faculty were behind football, and H. Benjamin Andrews, at
that time head of the University, was a staunch supporter of the game.
Doctor Roscoe Pound, later dean of Harvard Law School, was the father of
Nebraska football. He had as intimate an acquaintance with the rule book
as any official I have ever known. His advice on knotty problems was
always valuable. James I. Wyer, afterward State Librarian of New York,
was our first financial director, and it was largely by reason of his
unflagging zeal that football survived.

"Football spirit ran high in the Missouri Valley and there were many
hard fought contests among the teams of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and
Nebraska. Those who saw these games or played in them will never forget
them.

"Many amusing things happened in that section as well as in the East.
The Haskell Indians were a picturesque team. They represented the
Government School at Lawrence, Kansas--an institution similar to that of
Carlisle. In fact, many of the same players played on both teams at
different times. We always found them a hard nut to crack, and Redwater,
Archiquette, Hauser and other Indian stars made their names well known
on our field.

"John Outland, the noted Pennsylvania player, had charge of the Indians
when I knew them. He was a great player and a fine type of man, who
succeeded in imparting some of his own personality to his pupils. He
once showed me a dark faced Indian in Lawrence who must have been at
least six feet four inches tall and of superb physique. He was a full
blooded Cheyenne and went by the name of Bob Tail Billy. Outland tried
hard to break him in at guard, but as no one understood Bob Tail's
dialect, and he understood no one else, he never learned the signals,
and proved unavailable.

"We traveled far to play in those days; west to Boulder, Colorado,
handicapped by an altitude of 5000 feet, south to Kansas City and north
as far as St. Paul and Minneapolis. We were generally about 500 miles
from our base. We were not able to take many deadheads."

Harry Kersburg is one of the most enthusiastic Harvard football players
I have ever met. He played guard on Harvard in 1904, '05 and '06 and is
often asked back to Cambridge to coach the center men. From his playing
days let us read what he prizes in his recollections:

"My college career began at Lehigh, with the idea of eventually going to
Harvard. As a football enthusiast, I came under the observation of
Doctor Newton, who was coaching Lehigh at that time. Doc taught me the
first football I ever knew. In one of the games against Union College
Doc asked me before the game whether if he put me in I would deliver the
goods. I said I would try and do my best. He said, 'That won't do. I
don't want any man on my team who says, "I'll try." A man has got to say
"I'll do it." From that time on I never said, 'I'll try,' but always
said 'I'll do it.'

"I shall never forget the day I played against John DeWitt. I did not
know much about the finer points of football then. I weighed about 165
pounds with my football clothes on, was five feet nine inches tall and
sixteen years old. I shall always remember seeing that great big hawk of
a man opposite me. I did not have cold feet. I knew I had to go in and
give the best account of myself I could. It was like going up against a
stone wall. John DeWitt certainly could use his hands, with the result
that I resembled paper pulp when I came out of that game. DeWitt did
everything to me but kill me. After I got my growth, weight and
strength, plus my experience, I always had a desire to play against
DeWitt to see if he could the same thing again.

"In a Harvard-Yale game one year I remember an incident that took place
between Carr, Shevlin and myself," says Harry.

"Tom Shevlin usually stood near the goal line when Yale received the
kick-off. As a matter of fact he caught the ball most of the time. The
night before the Yale game in 1905, Bill Carr and myself were discussing
what might come up the following day. Inasmuch as we always lined up
side by side on the kick off, we made a wager that if Harvard kicked off
we would each be the first to tackle Shevlin.

"The next day Harvard won the toss and chose to kick off, and as we had
hoped, Shevlin caught the ball. Carr and I raced down the field, each
intent on being the first to tackle him. I crashed into Shevlin and
spilled him, upsetting myself at the same time. When I picked myself up
and looked around, Carr had Shevlin pinned securely to the ground. After
the game we told Shevlin of our wager and he said that under the
circumstances all bets were off as both had won."

Former U. S. Attorney-General William H. Lewis, who is one of the
leading representatives of the colored race, needs no introduction to
the football world, says Kersburg. 'Bill,' or 'Lew,' as he is familiarly
known to all Harvard men, laid the foundation for the present system of
line play at Cambridge. He was actively engaged in coaching until 1907
when he was obliged to give it up due to pressure of business.

"In 1905 'Hooks' Burr and I played the guard positions. 'Lew' seemed to
center his attention on us as we always received more 'calls' after each
game than the other linemen for doing this, that, or the other thing
wrong. In the Brown game of this year Hooks played against a colored
man who was exceptionally good and who, Hooks admitted afterward, 'put
it all over' him. The Monday following this game we received our usual
'call.' After telling me what a rotten game I had played he turned on
Burr and remarked. 'What the devil was the matter with you on Saturday,
Hooks? That guard on the Brown team "smeared" you.' Burr replied, 'I
don't know what was the matter with me. I used my hands on that nigger's
head and body all through the game but it didn't seem to do any good.'
Several of us who were listening felt a bit embarrassed that Hooks had
unwittingly made this remark. The tension was relieved, however, when
Lew drawled out, 'Why the devil didn't you kick him in the shins?' A
burst of laughter greeted this sally."

Donald Grant Herring, better known to football men in and out of
Princeton as Heff, is one of the few American players of international
experience. After a period of splendid play for the Tigers he went to
England with a Rhodes Scholarship. At Merton College he continued his
athletic career, and it was not long before he became a member of one of
the most famous Rugby fifteens ever turned out by Oxford.

Heff has always said that he enjoyed the English game, but whether the
brand he played was American or English, his opponent usually got
little enjoyment out of a hard afternoon with this fine Princeton
athlete.

"In the late summer of 1903, I was on a train coming east from Montana,"
Heff tells me, "after a summer spent in the Rockies. A companion
recognized among the passengers Doc Hillebrand, who was coming East from
his ranch to coach the Princeton team. This companion who was still a
Lawrenceville schoolboy, had the nerve to brace Hillebrand and tell him
in my presence that I was going to enter Princeton that fall and that I
was a star football player. You can imagine what Doc thought, and how I
felt. However, Doc was kind enough to tell me to report for practice and
to recognize me when I appeared on the field several weeks later. I soon
drifted over to the freshman field and I want to admit here what caused
me to do so. It was nothing more nor less than the size of Jim Cooney's
legs. Jim was a classmate of mine whom I first saw on the football field
when he and another tackle candidate were engaged in that delicate
pastime known to linemen as breaking through. I realized at once that,
if Jim and I were ever put up against one another, I would stand about
as much chance of shoving him back as I would if I tried to push a steam
roller. So I went over to the freshman field, where Howard Henry was
coaching at the time. He was sending ends down the field and I remember
being thrilled, after beating a certain bunch of them, at hearing him
say: 'You in the brown jersey, come over here in the first squad.'

"DeWitt's team beat Cornell 44-0. For years there hung on the walls of
the Osborn Club at Princeton a splendid action picture of Dana Kafer
making one of the touchdowns in that game. It was a mass on tackle play,
and Jim Cooney was getting his Cornell opponent out of the way for Kafer
to go over the line. The picture gave Jim dead away. He had a firm grip
of the Cornell man's jersey and arm. Ten years or more afterward, a
group, including Cooney, was sitting in the Osborn Club. In a spirit of
fun one man said, 'Jim, we know now how you got your reputation as a
tackle. We can see it right up there on the wall.' The next day the
picture was gone.

"After I was graduated from Princeton in 1907 I went to Merton College,
Oxford. There are twenty-two different colleges in Oxford and eighteen
in Cambridge. Each one has its own teams and crews and plays a regular
schedule. From the best of these college teams the university teams are
drawn. Each college team has a captain and a secretary, who acts as
manager. At the beginning of the college year (early October) the
captain and secretary of each team go around among the freshmen of the
college and try to get as many of them as possible to play their
particular sport; mine Rugby football. After a few days the captain
posts on the college bulletin board, which is always placed at the
Porter's Lodge, a notice that a squash will be held on the college
field. A squash is what we would call practice.

[Illustration: "THE NEXT DAY THE PICTURE WAS GONE"

Jim Cooney Making a Hole for Dana Kafer.]

"Sometimes for a few days before the game an Old Blue may come down to
Oxford and give a little coaching to the team. Here often the captain
does all the coaching. The Cambridge match is for blood, and, while
friendly enough, is likely to be much more savage than any other. In the
match I played in, which Oxford won 35-3, the record score in the whole
series, which started in 1872, we had three men severely injured. In the
first three minutes of the game one of our star backs was carried off
the field with a broken shoulder, while our captain was kicked in the
head and did not come out of his daze until about seven o'clock that
evening. He played throughout the game, however. Our secretary was off
the field with a knee cap out of place for more than half the game. A
game of Rugby, by the way, consists of two 45-minute halves, with a
three minute intermission. There are no substitutes, and if a man is
injured, his team plays one man short. We beat Cambridge that year with
thirteen men the greater part of the game, twelve for some time against
their full team of fifteen. Their only try (touchdown in plain American)
was scored when we had twelve men on the field. We were champions of
England that year, and did not lose a match through the fall season,
though we tied one game with the great Harlequins Club of London, whom
we afterward beat in the return game. Of the fine fellows who made up
that great Oxford team, six are dead, five of them 'somewhere in
France.'"

Carl Flanders was a big factor in the Yale rush line. Foster Sanford
considers him one of the greatest offensive centers that ever played. He
was six feet three and one-fourth inches tall and weighed 202 pounds.

In 1906 Flanders coached the Indian team at Carlisle. Let us see some of
the interesting things that characterize the Indian players, through
Flanders' experience.

The nicknames with which the Indians labelled each other were mostly
those of animals or a weapon of defense. Mount Pleasant and Libby always
called each other Knife. Bill Gardner was crowned Chicken Legs, Charles,
one of the halfbacks, and a regular little tiger, was called Bird Legs.
Other names fastened to the different players were Whale Bone, Shoe
String, Tommyhawk and Wolf.

The Indians always played cleanly as long as their opponents played that
way. Dillon, an old Sioux Indian, and one of the fastest guards I ever
saw, was a good example of this. If anybody started rough play, Dillon
would say:

"Stop that, boys!" and the chap who was guilty always stopped. But if
an opponent continually played dirty football, Dillon would say grimly:
"I'll get you!" On the next play or two, you'd never know how, the rough
player would be taken out. Dillon had "got" his man.

"Wallace Denny and Bemus Pierce got up a code of signals, using an
Indian word which designated a single play. Among the Indian words which
designated these signals were Water-bucket, Watehnee, Coocoohee. I never
could find out what it all meant, and following the Indian team by this
code of signals was a task which was too much for me."

Bill Horr, renowned in Colgate and Syracuse, writes: "Colgate University
and Colgate Academy are under the same administration, and the football
teams were practicing when I entered school. I went out for the team and
after the second practice I was put into the scrimmage. I was greatly
impressed with the game and continued for the afternoon practice, and
played at tackle in the first game of the season. In four years of
winning football I became acquainted with such wonderful athletes as
Riley Castleman and Walter Runge of the Colgate Varsity team.

"In the fall of 1905 I entered Syracuse University and played right
tackle on the varsity team for four years and was captain of the
victorious 1908 team. In the four years I never missed a scrimmage or a
game.

"I think that one of the hardest games I ever played in was the game
against Princeton in 1908, when they had such stars as Siegling,
MacFadyen, Eddie Dillon and Tibbott. The game ended in a scoreless tie
with the ball see-sawing back and forth on the 40-yard line. I had been
accustomed to carry the ball, and had been successful in executing a
forward pass of fifty-five yards in the Yale game the week before,
placing the ball on the 1-yard line, only to lose it on a fumble.

"I had the reputation of being a good-natured player, and indirectly
heard it rumored many times by coaches and football players that they
would like to see me fighting mad on the football field. The few
Syracuse rooters who journeyed to Easton the day we played Lafayette had
that opportunity. Dowd was the captain of the Lafayette team. Next to me
was Barry, a first-class football player, who stripped in the
neighborhood of 200 pounds. Just before the beginning of the second half
I was in a crouching position ready to start, when some one dealt me a
stinging blow on the ear. I was dazed for the time being. I turned to
Barry and asked him who did it. He pointed to Dowd. From that instant I
was determined to seek revenge. I was ignorant of the true culprit until
about a year afterward, when Anderson, who played center, and was a good
friend of mine, told me about it. It seemed that just before we went on
the field for the second half Buck O'Neil, who was coaching the Syracuse
team, told Barry to hit me and make me mad."




CHAPTER X

COLLEGE TRADITIONS AND SPIRIT


College life in America is rich in traditions. Customs are handed down
class by class and year by year until finally they acquire the force of
law. Each college and university has a community life and a character of
its own.

The spirit of each institution abides within its walls. It cannot be
invaded by an outsider, or ever completely understood by one who has not
grown up in it. The atmosphere of a college community is conservative.
It is the outcome of generations of student custom and thought, which
have resolved themselves into distinct grooves.

It requires a thorough understanding of the customs of college men,
their antics and pranks, to appreciate the fact that the performers are
simply boys, carrying on the traditions of those gone before.
Gray-haired graduates who know by experience what is embodied in college
spirit, join feelingly in the old customs of their college days, and in
observing the new customs which have grown out of the old.

These traditional customs, some of them humorous, and others deeply
moving in their sentiment, are among the first things that impress the
freshman. He does not comprehend the meaning of them at once, nor does
he realize that they are the product of generations of students, but he
soon learns that there is something more powerful in college life than
the brick and mortar of beautiful buildings, or high passing marks in
the classroom. When he comes to know the value and the underlying spirit
of the traditions of his college, he treasures them among the enduring
memories of his life.

The business man who never enjoyed the advantage of going to college, is
puzzled as he witnesses the demonstration of undergraduate life, and he
fails to catch the meaning; he does not understand; it has played no
part in his own experience; college customs seem absurd to him, and he
fails to appreciate that in these traditions our American college spirit
finds expression.

As an outsider views the result of a football victory, he sees perhaps
only the bitter look of defeat on the losers' faces, and is at a loss to
understand the loyal spirit of thousands of graduates and undergraduates
who stand and cheer their team after defeat. Such a sight, undoubtedly,
impresses him; but he turns his attention to the triumphant march of the
victorious sympathizers around the field and watches the winners being
borne aloft by hero worshipers; while hats by the thousands are being
tossed over the cross bar of the goal post that carried the winning
play.

The snake dance of thousands of exulting students enlivens the
scene--the spirit of glorious victory breaks loose.

After the Harvard victory in 1908, in the midst of the excitement, a
Harvard graduate got up from his seat, climbed over the fence, put his
derby hat and bull-dog pipe on the grass, walked solemnly out a few
paces, turned two complete handsprings, walked back, put on his hat,
picked up his pipe, climbed solemnly over the fence again and took his
place in the crowd. He was very businesslike about it and didn't say a
word. He had to get it out of his system--that was all. Nobody laughed
at him.

One sees gray-haired men stand and cheer, sing and enthuse over their
Alma Mater's team. For the moment the rest of the world is forgotten.
Tears come with defeat to those on the grandstand, as well as to the
players, and likewise happy smiles and joyous greetings come when
victory crowns the day.

In the midst of a crisis in the game, men and women, old and young,
break over the bounds of conventionality, get acquainted with their seat
mates and share the general excitement. The thrill of victory possesses
them and the old grads embrace each other after a winning touchdown.

There may be certain streets in a college town upon which a freshman is
never seen. It may be that a freshman has to wear a certain kind of cap;
his trousers must not be rolled up at the bottom. And if you should see
a freshman standing on a balcony at night, singing some foolish song,
with a crowd of sophomores standing below, you smile as you realize that
you are witnessing the performance of some college custom.

And if you see a young man dressed in an absurd fantastic costume, going
about the streets of a city, or a quiet college town, it may mean an
initiation into a certain society or club, and you will note that he
does his part with a quiet, earnest look upon his face, realizing that
he is carrying on a tradition which has endured for years.

You hear the seniors singing on the campus, while the whole college
listens. It is their hour. At games you see the cheer leaders take their
places in front of the grandstand, and as they bend and double
themselves into all sorts of shapes, they bring out the cheers which go
to make college spirit strong.

If you were at Yale, on what is known as "Tap Day," you would view in
wonderment the solemnity and seriousness of the occasion. An election to
a senior society is Yale's highest honor. As you sit on the old Yale
fence you realize what it means to Yale men. In the secret life of the
campus men yearn most for this honor and the traditional gathering of
seniors under the oak tree for receiving elections is a college custom
that has all the binding force of a most rigid law.


ALUMNI PARADES

Then come the alumni parades at Commencement. The old timers head the
procession; those who came first, are first in line, and so on down to
the youngest and most recent graduate.

There are many interesting things in the parade, which bring out
specific class peculiarities. In one college you may see gray-haired men
walking behind an immense Sacred Bird, as it is called. This Bird--the
creation of an ingenious mind--is the size of an ostrich and has all the
semblance of life, with many lifelike tricks and habits.

Men dress in all sorts of costumes. This is a day in which each class
has some peculiar part, and all are united in the one big thought that
it is a cherished college custom.

You may see some man with the letter of his college on his sweater,
another may have his class numerals, another may wear a gold football.
These are not ordinary things to be purchased at sporting goods stores;
they are a reward of merit. The college custom has made it so, and if in
some college town the traditions of the university are such that a man,
as he passes the Ma Newell gateway at Cambridge raises his hat in honor
of this great Harvard hero, it is a tradition backed up by a wonderful
spirit of love towards one who has gone. And then on Commencement Day
when the seniors plant their class ivy--that is a token to remain behind
them and flourish long after they are out in the wide, wide world.

College tradition makes it possible for a poor boy to get an education.
The poor fellow may wait on the table, where sit many rich men's sons,
but they may be all chums with him; they are on the same footing; the
campus of one is the campus of the other, and all you can say is "It is
just the way of things--just the way it must be." More power to the man
who works his way through college.

It may be, as fellow college man, you are now recalling some custom that
is carried out on a college street, in a dormitory, in a fraternity
house, perhaps, or a club; perhaps in some boarding house, where you had
your first introduction to a college custom; maybe in the cheapest
rooming house in town you got your first impression of a bold, bad
sophomore. You probably could have given him a good trouncing had he
been alone, and yet you were prepared to take smilingly the hazing
imposed upon you.

Maybe some of you fondly recall a cannon stuck in the ground behind a
historical building where once George Washington had his headquarters.
Around about this traditional monument cluster rich memories as you
review the many college ceremonies enacted there.

Some of you, owing allegiance to a New England Alma Mater, may recall
with smiles and perhaps mischievous satisfaction, the chequered career
of the sculptured Sabrina in her various appearances and disappearances
since the day, now long gone by, when in pedestaled repose she graced
the college flower gardens. The Sabrina tradition is one of the golden
legacies of Amherst life.

In the formation of college spirit and traditions I am not unmindful of
the tremendous moulding power of the college president or the popular
college professors. This is strikingly illustrated in the expression of
an old college man, who said in this connection:

"I don't remember a thing Professor ---- said, but I remember him."

When the graduate of a college has sons of his own, he realizes more
fully than at any other time the great influence of personality upon
youth. He understands better the problems that are faced by boys, and
the great task and responsibility of the faculty.

I know that there are many football men who at different times in their
career have not always praised the work of the college professors, but
now that the games are over they probably look back affectionately to
the men who made them toe the mark, and by such earnestness helped them
through their college career.

It is undoubtedly true that the head masters and teachers in our
preparatory schools and colleges generally appreciate the importance of
developing the whole man, mental, moral and physical.


SCHOOLMASTER AND BOY

Indeed it is a wonderful privilege to work shoulder to shoulder with the
boys in our preparatory schools as well as in our colleges. At a recent
dinner I heard Doctor S. J. McPherson, of the Lawrenceville School,
place before an alumni gathering a sentiment, which I believe is the
sentiment of every worthy schoolmaster in our land.

"Schoolmasters have attractive work and they can find no end of fun in
it. I admit that in a boarding school they should be willing to spend
themselves, eight days in the week and twenty-five hours a day. But no
man goes far that keeps watching the clock. There may be good reasons
for long vacations, but I regard the summer vacation as usually a bore
for at least half the length of it.

"To be worth his salt, a schoolmaster must, of course, have
scholarship--the more the better. But that alone will never make him a
quickening teacher. He must be 'apt to teach,' and must lose himself in
his task if he is to transfuse his blood into the veins of boys. Above
all, he must be a real man and not a manikin, and he must enjoy his
boys--love them, without being quite conscious of the love, or at least
without harping on it.

"The ideal schoolmaster needs five special and spiritual senses: common
sense, the sense of justice, the sense of honor, the sense of youth and
the sense of humor. These five gifts are very useful in every worthy
occupation.

"Gentlemen, none of us schoolmasters has reached the ideal; however, we
reach after it. Nevertheless, we neither need, nor desire your pity. We
do not feel unimportant. Personally, I would not exchange jobs with the
richest or greatest among you. I like my own job. It really looks to me,
bigger and finer. I should rather have the right mold and put the right
stamp on a wholesome boy than to do any other thing. It counts more for
the world and is more nearly immortal. It is worth any man's life."

Another factor in the formation and development of college traditions
and college spirit is the influence of the men who shape the athletic
policy.

When one of the graduates returns to direct the athletic affairs of his
Alma Mater, or those of another college he naturally becomes a potent
influence in the life of the students. Great is his opportunity for
character making. The men all look up to him and the spirit of hero
worship is present everywhere. Such athletic directors are chosen
largely because of their success on the athletic field. And when one can
combine athletic directorship with scholastic knowledge, the combination
is doubly effective.

By association they know the real spirit and patriotic sentiment of the
college men. They appreciate the fact that success in athletics, like
success in life, depends not merely upon training the head, but upon
training the will. Huxley said that:

"The true object of all education, was to develop ability to do the
thing that ought to be done when it ought to be done, whether one felt
like doing it or not."

Prompt obedience to rules and regulations develop character and the
athletic director becomes, therefore, one of the most important of
college instructors. A boy may be a welcher in his classroom work, but
when he gets out on the athletic field and meets the eye of a man who is
bound to get the most out of every player for the sake of his own
reputation, as well as the reputation of the school or college, that boy
finds himself in a new school. It is the school of discipline that
resembles more nearly than anything else the competitive struggle in the
business life of the outside world that he is soon to enter.

Another exceedingly valuable trait that athletic life develops in a
student is the spirit of honorable victory. The player is taught to win,
to be sure, but he is also taught that victory must never overshadow
honor.

    Who misses or who wins the prize,
    Go lose, or conquer, as you can
    But if you fail, or if you rise,
    Be each, Pray God, a gentleman.

This tradition and atmosphere cannot be retained in institutions merely
by the efforts of the students. The co-operation of the alumni is
necessary. On this account it is unfortunate that the point of view of
too many college men regarding their Alma Mater is limited to the years
of their own school and college days.

Our universities especially are beginning to learn that this has been a
great mistake and that the continued interest and loyalty of the alumni
are absolutely essential to insure progress and maintain the high
standard of an institution. There is, in other words, a real sense in
which the college belongs to the alumni. The faculty is engaged for a
specific purpose and their great work is made much more profitable by
the hearty co-operation of the old and young graduates who keep in close
touch with the happenings and the spirit of their different alma maters.

One of the best assets in any seat of learning is the constructive
criticism of the alumni. Broad minded faculties invite intelligent
criticism from the graduate body, and they usually get it.

But after all, the real power of enthusiasm behind college traditions
abides in the student body itself. How is this college patriotism
aroused? What are its manifestations? What is it that awakens the desire
for victory with honor, which is the real background of the great
football demonstration that tens of thousands of Americans witness each
year?

As I think back in this connection upon my own college experiences, the
athletic mass meeting stands out in my memory and records the moment
when all that was best and strongest in my fighting spirit and manhood
came out to meet the demand of the athletic leaders. It was at that time
that the thrill and power of college spirit took mighty possession of
me. It might have been the inspiring words of an old college leader
addressing us, or perhaps it was the story of some incident that brought
out the deep significance of the coming game. Indeed I have often
thought that the spirit of loyalty and sacrifice aroused in the breast
of the young man in a college mass meeting springs from the same noble
source as the highest patriotism.


MASS MEETING ENTHUSIASM

How well do I recall the mass meeting held by the undergraduates in
Alexander Hall Thursday night before the Yale game in 1898! The team and
substitutes sat in the front row of seats. There was singing and
cheering that aroused every man in the room to the highest pitch of
enthusiasm. All eyes were focused on the cheer leader as he rehearsed
the cheers and songs for the game, and as the speakers entered behind
him on the platform, they received a royal welcome. There was Johnny
Poe, Alex Moffat, some of the professors, including Jack Hibben, since
president of Princeton, in addition to the coaches.

I can almost hear again their words, as they addressed the gathering.

"Fellows, we are here to-night to get ready to defeat Yale on Saturday.
You men all know how hard the coaches have worked this year to get the
team ready for the last big game. Captain Hillebrand and his men know
that the college is with the team to a man. We are not here to-night to
make college spirit, but we are here to demonstrate it.

"Those of you who saw last year's team go down to defeat at New Haven,
realize that the Princeton team this year has got to square that defeat.
Garry Cochran and the other men who graduated are not here to play. The
burden rests on the shoulders of the men in front of me, this year's
team, and we know what they're going to do.

"It is going to take the hardest kind of work to beat Yale on our own
grounds. We must play them off their feet the first five minutes. I
wonder if you men who are in Princeton to-day truly realize the great
tradition of this dear college. Thousands and thousands of young men
have walked across the same campus you travel. The Princeton of years
gone by, is your Princeton to-day, so let us ever hold a high regard for
those whose places we now occupy.

"Already from far off points, Princeton men are starting back to see the
Yale game--back to their Alma Mater. They're coming back to see the old
rooms they used to live in, and it is up to us to make their visit a
memorable one. You can do that by beating Yale."


George K. Edwards

Many of you men have perhaps heard of the great love for Princeton shown
in the story of the last days of Horse Edwards, Princeton '89. He will
never return to Princeton again. He used to live in East College, long
since torn down. Some years after he left college, he was told that he
had but a few short months to live. He decided to live them out at
Princeton.

One Friday afternoon in the summer of 1897, Horse Edwards arrived in
Princeton from Colorado. He was very weak from his illness. He could
barely raise his hand to wave to the host of old friends who greeted him
as he drove from the station to East College, where his old room had
been arranged as in his college days for his return.

There he was visited by many friends of the old days, who had come back
for Commencement. Old memories were revived. That night he attended his
club dinner, and the following day was wheeled out to the field to see
the baseball game, Princeton beat Yale 16 to 8, and his cup of happiness
was overflowing. On the following Monday Horse Edwards died. He told his
close friends that as long as he had to go, he was happy that he had
been granted his last wish--to die there at Princeton. And his memory is
a treasured college tradition.


Job E. Hedges

Among the men who are always welcome at Princeton mass meetings and
dinners, is Job E. Hedges. I remember what he said at a mass meeting at
Princeton in 1896. He was then secretary to Mayor Strong, in New York,
in which city the game with Yale took place that year.

The scene was in the old gymnasium. Every inch of space was occupied. On
the front seats sat the team and substitutes. Around them and in the
small gallery were the students in mass. Before the team were prominent
alumni, trustees and some members of the faculty. Earnest appeal had
been made by the various speakers tending to arouse the team to a high
point of enthusiasm and courage, and the interest of their alma mater
and of the alumni had been earnestly pictured. Mr. Hedges was called on
as he frequently is at Princeton gatherings and as the usual field had
been fairly covered, his opportunities were limited, without repetition
of what had been said. He addressed the team and substitutes in typical
Princeton fashion and concluded, so far as a record is made of it,
somewhat as follows:

"There is a feeling in the public mind that football games breed
dissipation and are naturally followed by unseemly conduct. We all know
that much of the excitement following football games in New York is due
largely not to college men but others, who take the game as an excuse
and the time as an opportunity to indulge in more or less boisterous
conduct, with freedom from interference usually accorded at that time. I
wish it thoroughly understood that in no way as a Princeton man do I
countenance dissipation, intemperance, boisterous or unseemly conduct.
It may be a comfort for you men to know, however, that I am personally
acquainted with every police magistrate in the City of New York. While I
do not claim to have any influence with them, nor would I try to
exercise it improperly, nevertheless if the team wins and any man should
unintentionally and weakly yield to the strain consequent upon such a
victory, I can be found that night at my residence. Any delinquent will
have my sympathetic and best efforts in his behalf. If, however, the
team loses, and any one goes over the line of propriety, he will have
from me neither sympathy nor assistance and I shall be absent from the
city."

It is related that on the night following the victory, several daring
spirits decorated themselves with cards hung from their necks bearing
this legend, "Don't arrest me, I am a friend of Job Hedges." With these
they marched up and down Broadway and, though laboring under somewhat
strange conditions, were not molested. A full account of this
expeditionary force appeared in the daily papers the next morning and it
is related that there was a brisk conversation between Mr. Hedges and
the mayor, when the former arrived at the City Hall, which took on, not
an orange and black hue, but rather a lurid flame, of which Mayor Strong
was supposed to be but was not the victim.

The net result of the scene, however, was that the team won, there was a
moderate celebration and no Princeton man was arrested.

[Illustration: JOHNNY POE, FOOTBALL PLAYER AND SOLDIER]




CHAPTER XI

JOHNNY POE'S OWN STORY


Johnny Poe was a member of the Black Watch, that famous Scotch Regiment
whose battles had followed the English flag. On the graves of the Black
Watch heroes the sun never sets. Johnny Poe's death came on September
25th, 1915, in the Battle of Loos. Nelson Poe has given me the following
information regarding Johnny's death. It comes direct from Private W.
Faulkner, a comrade who was in the charge when Johnny fell.

In the morning during the attack we went out on a party carrying bombs.
Poe and myself were in this party. We had gone about half way across an
open field when Poe was hit in the stomach. He was then five yards in
front of me and I saw him fall. As he fell he said, 'Never mind me. Go
ahead with our boxes.' On our return for more bombs we found him lying
dead. Shortly after he was buried at a place between the British and
German lines. I have seen his grave which is about a hundred yards to
the left of 'Lone Tree' on the left of Loos. 'Lone Tree' is the only
landmark near. The grave is marked with his name and regiment.

Just what Johnny Poe's heroic finish on the battle field meant to us
here at home is the common knowledge of all football men and indeed of
all sportsmen. There is ample evidence, moreover, that it attracted the
attention of the four corners of the earth. Life in London or Paris was
not all roses to the Americans compelled to remain there at the height
of the war.

Paul Mac Whelan, a Yale man and football writer, had occasion to be in
London shortly after the news of Poe's death in battle was received
there. Talking with Whelan after his return he impressed upon me the
place that Poe had made for himself in the hearts of at least one of the
fighting countries.

"You know," said he, "that at about that time Americans were not very
popular. There seemed to be a feeling everywhere that we should have
been on the firing line. This feeling developed the fashion of polite
jeering to a point that made life abroad uncomfortable until Johnny Poe
fell fighting in the ranks of the Black Watch on the plains of Flanders.
In the dull monotony of the casualty list his name at first slipped by
with scant mention. It was the publication in the United States of the
story of his fighting career which stimulated newspaper interest not
merely in England, but throughout the British Empire. To Australia,
Canada, New Zealand and South Africa--into the farthest corners of the
earth--went the tale of the death of a great American fighter.

"I met one man, a lawyer, on his way to do some peace work, and he told
me that he thought Poe had no right to be in the ranks of a foreign
army. Probably most of the pacifists would have returned the same
verdict regardless of Poe's love for the cause of the Allies. Yet among
the thousands of Americans in Europe in the month following Poe's death,
there was complete unity of opinion that the old Princeton football star
had done more for his country than all the pacifists put together.

"'A toast to the memory of Poe,' said one of the group of Americans in
the Savoy, that famous gathering place of Yankees in London. 'His death
has made living a lot easier for his countrymen who have to be in France
and England during the war.'"

"There is not an army on the continent in which Americans have not died,
but no death in action, not even that of Victor Chapman the famous
American aviator in France, gave such timely proof of American valor as
that of Poe. In London for a month after his death there was talk among
Americans and in the university clubs about raising funds for some
permanent memorial in London to Poe. There are many memorials to
Englishmen in America and it would seem that there is a place and a real
reason for erecting a memorial in London to a fighting American who gave
his life for a cause to England."

I have always treasured, in my football collection, some anecdotes
which Johnny Poe wrote several years ago while in Nevada. In fact, from
reading his stories, after his death, I got the inspiration that
prompted me to write this book.

"The following stories were picked up by me," says Johnny, "through the
course of college years, and after. Some of the incidents I have
actually witnessed, of others my brothers have told me, when we talked
over Princeton victories and defeats with the reasons for both, and
still others I have heard from the lips of Princeton men as they grew
reminiscent sitting around the cozy fireplace in the Trophy room at the
Varsity Club House, with the old footballs, the scores of many a hard
fought Princeton victory emblazoned upon them, and the banners with the
names of the members of the winning teams thereon inscribed looking down
from their places on the walls and ceilings."

How the undergraduates long to have their names enrolled on the
victorious banner, knowing that they will be looked up to by future
college generations of the sons of Old Nassau!

These old banners have much the same effect upon Princeton teams as did
the name of Horatius upon the young Romans'!

    And still his name sounds strong unto the men of Rome,
    As a trumpet blast which calls to them to charge the Volsian home;
    And wives still pray to Juno for boys with hearts as bold
    As his who kept the bridge so well
    In the brave days of old.

Well do they know that Mother Princeton is not chary of her praise, when
she knows that they have planted her banner on the loftiest tower of her
enemies' stronghold.

The evenings spent in the Trophy room, the Grill Room of the Princeton
Inn and in the hallways around a cheerful fire of the numerous Princeton
clubs make me think of nights in the Mess room of crack British
regiments, so graphically described by Kipling.

The general public cannot understand the seriousness with which college
athletes take the loss of an important game. There is a Princeton
football Captain who was so broken up over a defeat by Yale that, months
after on the cattle range of New Mexico, as he lay out at night on his
cow-boy bed and thought himself unobserved, he fell to sobbing as if his
heart would break.

A football victory to many men is as dearly longed for as any goal of
ambition in life. How else would they strive so fiercely, one side to
take the ball over, the other to prevent them doing so!

Very few of the public hear the exhortation and cursing as the ball
slowly but irresistibly is rushed to the goal of the opponent.

"Billy, if you do that again I'll cut your heart out!"

"Yale, if you ever held, hold now!"

How the calls to victory come back!

As Hughes says in Tom Brown's School Days, a scrimmage in front of the
goal posts, or the Consulship of Plancus, is no child's play.

My earliest Princeton football hero was Alex Moffat '84. My brother
Johnson was in his class and played on the same team, and would often
talk of him to my brothers and to me. He used to give us a sort of

    "Listen my children and you shall hear
    Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, etc."

Though my brother is a small man, I thought all other Princeton players
must be 9 cubits and a half, or as a reporter once said of Symmes '92,
center rush in Princeton team of '90 and '91, "An animated whale, broad
as the moral law and heavy as the hand of fate." I consider Alex Moffat
the greatest goal kicker college football has produced. One football in
the Princeton Trophy room has on it, "Princeton 26, Harvard 7." In that
game Moffat kicked five goals from the field, three with his right and
two with his left foot, besides the goals from the touchdowns.

A Harvard guard made the remark after the third goal, "We came here to
play football, not to play against phenomenal kicking."

Princeton men cannot help feeling that Moffat should have been allowed a
goal against Yale in his Post-graduate year of '84, which was called
before the full halves had been played and decided a draw, Yale being
ahead, 6 to 4. Princeton claimed it but the Referee said he didn't see
it, which caused Moffat to exclaim--something.

An amusing story is told in connection with this decision. Quite a
number of years after Jim Robinson who was trainer of the Princeton team
in '84, went down to the dock to see his brother off for Europe. Looking
up he beheld on the deck above, the man who had refereed the '84 game,
and whom he had not seen since, "Smith," he said, "I have a brother on
this boat, but I hope she sinks."

Tilly Lamar's name is highly honored at Princeton, not only because he
won the '85 game against Yale by a run of about 90 yards, but because he
died trying to save a girl from drowning. Only a few months later, in
the summer of '91, Fred Brokaw '92, was drowned at Elberon while trying
to save two girls from the ocean. Both Lamar and Brokaw's pictures adorn
the walls of the Varsity Club House.

The first game I ever saw the Princeton Team play was with Harvard in
'88, which the former won 18 to 6. I was in my brother's ('91) room
about three hours and a half before the game, and Jere Black and
Channing, the halfbacks, were there. As Channing left he remarked,
"Something will have happened before I get back to this room again,"
referring to the game, which doubtless made him a bit nervous.

I believe he was no more nervous ten years after, when in the Rough
Riders he waited for word to advance up that bullet swept hill before
Santiago.

'81 was the year so many Divinity students played on the Varsity: Hector
Cowan the great tackle, Dick Hodge the strategist, Sam Hodge, Bob Speer,
and I think Irvine; men all, who as McCready Sykes said, "Feared God and
no one else." Hector Cowan is considered one of the best tackles that
ever wore the Orange and Black jersey. While rough, he was never a dirty
player.

In a game with Wesleyan, his opponent cried out angrily, "Keep your
hands for pounding on your Bible, don't be sticking them in my face."
One day in a game against the Scrub, Cowan had passed everyone except
the fullback and was bearing down on him like a tornado, when within a
few feet of the fullback the latter jumped aside and said politely,
"Pass on, sir, pass on." Cowan played on two winning teams, '85 and '89.

In '89 the eligibility rules at the college were not as strict as now,
so as Princeton needed a tackle, Walter Cash who had played on
Pennsylvania the year before, was sent for and came all the way from
Wyoming. He came so hurriedly that his wardrobe consisted of two
6-shooters and a monte deck of cards, on account of which he was dubbed
"Monte" Cash. Cash was not fond of attending lectures, and once the
faculty had him up before them and told him what a disgrace it would be
if he were dropped out of College. "It may be in the East, but we don't
think much of a little thing like that out West," was his reply. Cash
was in the Rough Riders and was wounded at San Juan.

Sport Donnelly was a great end that year. Heffelfinger the great Yale
guard who is probably the best that ever played, said of Donnelly, that
he was the only player he had ever seen who could slug and keep his eye
on the ball at the same time. The following story is often told of how
Donnelly got Rhodes of Yale ruled off in '89. Rhodes had hit Channing of
Princeton in the eye, so that Donnelly was laying for him, and when
Rhodes came through the line, Donnelly grabbed up two handsful of
mud--it was a very muddy field--and rubbed them in his face and
hollered, "Mr. Umpire," so that when Rhodes, in a burst of righteous
indignation, hit him, the Umpire saw it and promptly ruled Rhodes from
the field.

Snake Ames and House Janeway played that year, and as the latter was
big--210 pounds stripped--and good natured, Ames thought that if he
could only get Janeway angry he would play even better than usual, so,
with Machiavellian craft, he said to him before the Harvard game,
"House, the man you are going to play against to-morrow insulted your
girl. I heard him do it, so you want to murder him." "All right," said
House, ominously, and as Princeton won, 41 to 15, Janeway must certainly
have helped a heap.

George played center for Princeton four years, and for three years "Pa"
Corbin and George played against each other, and, as cow-boys would say,
"sure did chew each other's mane." I don't mean slugged.

My brother Edgar '91 was a great admirer of George. In '88 Edgar was
playing in the scrub, and George broke through and was about to make a
tackle when the former knocked one of his arms down as it was
outstretched to catch it. George missed the tackle but said nothing. A
second time almost identically the same thing occurred. This time he
remarked grimly, "Good trick that, Poe." But when the same thing
happened a third time on the same afternoon, he exclaimed, "Poe, if you
weren't so small, I'd hit you."

In '89 Thomas '90, substitute guard, was highly indignant at the way
some Boston newspaper described him. "The Princeton men were giants, one
in particular was picturesque in his grotesqueness. He was 6 feet 5 and,
when he ran, his arms and legs moved up and down like the piston rods of
an engine."

In '90 Buck Irvine '88 brought an unknown team to Princeton, Franklin
and Marshall, which he coached, and they scored 16 points against the
Tigers. And though the latter won, 33 to 16, still that was the largest
score ever made against Princeton up to that time. They did it, too, by
rushing, which was all the more to their credit.

Victor Harding, Harvard, and Yup Cook, Princeton '89, had played on
Andover and Exeter, respectively, and had trouble then, so four years
later when they met, one on Princeton and the other on Harvard, they had
more trouble. Both were ruled off for rough work. Cook picked Harding up
off the ground and slammed him down and then walked off the field. In a
few minutes Harding, after trying to trip Ames, also was ruled off. That
was the net result of the old Andover-Exeter feud.

In '91 Princeton was playing Rutgers. Those were the days of the old "V"
trick in starting a game. When the Orange and Black guards and centers
tore up the Rutgers' V it was found that the Captain of the latter team
had broken his leg in the crush. He showed great nerve, for while
sitting on the ground waiting for a stretcher, he remarked in a
nonchalant way, "Give me a cigarette. I could die for Old Rutgers," his
tone being "Me first and then Nathan Hale." One version quite prevalent
around Princeton has it that a Tiger player rushed up and exclaimed,
"Die then." This is not true as I played in that game and know whereof I
speak.

Fifteen years after that had happened, I met Phil Brett who had
captained the Rutgers Team that day, and he told me that his life had
been a burden to him at times, and like Job, he felt like cursing God
and dying, because often upon coming into a café or even a hotel
dining-room some half drunken acquaintance would yell out, "Hello, Phil,
old man, could you die for dear Old Rutgers?"

Several years ago while in the Kentucky Militia in connection with one
of those feud cases, I was asked by a private if I were related to Edgar
Allan Poe, "De mug what used to write poetry," and when I replied, "Yes,
he was my grandmother's first cousin," he, evidently thinking I was too
boastful, remarked, "Well, man, you've got a swell chance."

So, knowing that the football season is near I think I have a "swell
chance" to tell some of the old football stories handed down at
Princeton from college generation to generation. If I have hurt any old
Princeton players' feelings, I do humbly ask pardon and assure them that
it is unintentional; for as the Indians would put it, my heart is warm
toward them, and, when I die, place my hands upon my chest and put their
hands between my hands.

With apologies to Kipling in his poem when he speaks of the parting of
the Colonial troops with the Regulars:

    "There isn't much we haven't shared
      For to make the Elis run.
    The same old hurts, the same old breaks,
      The same old rain and sun.
    The same old chance which knocked us out
      Or winked and let us through.
    The same old joy, the same old sorrow,
      Good-bye, good luck to you."




CHAPTER XII

ARMY AND NAVY

    When the Navy meets the Army,
      When the friend becomes the foe,
    When the sailor and the soldier
      Seek each other to o'erthrow;
    When old vet'rans, gray and grizzled,
      Elbow, struggle, push, and shove,
    That they may cheer on to vict'ry
      Each the service of his love;
    When the maiden, fair and dainty,
      Lets her dignity depart,
    And, all breathless, does her utmost
      For the team that's next her heart;
    When you see these strange things happen,
      Then we pray you to recall
    That the Army and Navy
      Stand firm friends beneath it all.


There is a distinctive flavor about an Army-Navy football game which,
irrespective of the quality of the contending elevens and of their
relative standing among the high-class teams in any given season, rates
these contests annually as among the "big games" of the year. Tactically
and strategically football bears a close relation to war. That is a
vital reason why it should be studied and applied in our two government
schools.

On the part of the public there is general appreciation of the spirit
which these two academies have brought into the great autumn sport, a
spirit which combines with football per se the color, the martial pomp,
the _elan_ of the military. The merger is a happy one, because football
in its essence is a stern, grim game, a game that calls for
self-sacrifice, for mental alertness and for endurance; all these are
elements, among others, which we commonly associate with the soldier's
calling.

If West Point and Annapolis players are not young men, who, after
graduation, will go out into the world in various civil professions or
other pursuits relating to commerce and industry, they are men, on the
contrary, who are being trained to uphold the honor of our flag at home
or abroad, as fate may decree--fighting men whose lives are to be
devoted to the National weal. It would be strange, therefore, if games
in which those thus set apart participate, were not marked by a quality
peculiarly their own. To far-flung warships the scores are sent on the
wings of the wireless and there is elation or depression in many a
remote wardroom in accordance with the aspect of the news. In lonely
army posts wherever the flag flies word of the annual struggle is
flashed alike to colonel and the budding second lieutenant still with
down on lip, by them passed to the top sergeant and so on to the bottom
of the line.

Every football player who has had the good fortune to visit West Point
or Annapolis, there to engage in a gridiron contest, has had an
experience that he will always cherish. Every team, as a rule, looks
forward to out of town trips, but when an eleven is to play the Army or
the Navy, not a little of the pleasure lies in anticipation.

Mayhap the visitor even now is recalling the officer who met him at the
station, and his hospitable welcome; the thrill that resulted from a
tour, under such pleasant auspices, of the buildings and the natural
surroundings of the two great academies. There was the historic campus,
where so many great Army and Navy men spent their preparatory days. An
inspiration unique in the experience of the visitor was to be found in
the drill of the battalion as they marched past, led by the famous
academy bands.

There arose in the heart of the stranger perhaps, the thought that he
was not giving to his country as much as these young men. Such is the
contagion of the spirit of the two institutions. There is always the
thrill of the military whether the cadets and midshipmen pass to the
urge of martial music in their purely military duties, or in equally
perfect order to the ordinary functions of life, such as the daily
meals, which in the colleges are so informal and in the mess hall are so
precise. Joining their orderly ranks in this big dining-room one comes
upon a scene never to be forgotten.

In the process of developing college teams, an eleven gets a real test
at either of these academies; you get what you go after; they are out to
beat you; their spirit is an indomitable one; your cherished idea that
you cannot be beaten never occurs to them until the final whistle is
blown. Your men will realize after the game that a bruised leg or a lame
joint will recall hard tackling of a player like Mustin of the Navy, or
Arnold of West Point, souvenirs of the dash they put into their play.
Maybe there comes to your mind a recollection of the Navy's fast
offense; their snappy play; the military precision with which their work
is done. Possibly you dream of the wriggling open field running of Snake
Izard, or the bulwark defense of Nichols; or in your West Point
experiences you are reminded of the tussle you had in suppressing the
brilliant Kromer, that clever little quarterback and field general, or
the task of stopping the forging King, the Army's old captain and
fullback.

Not less vivid are the memories of the spontaneous if measured cheering
behind these men--a whole-hearted support that was at once the
background and the incentive to their work. The "Siren Cheer" of the
Navy and the "Long Corps Yell" of the Army still ringing in the ears of
the college invader were proof of the drive behind the team.

I have always counted it a privilege that I was invited to coach at
Annapolis through several football seasons. It was an unrivalled
opportunity to catch the spirit that permeates the atmosphere of this
great Service school and to realize how eagerly the progress of football
is watched by the heroes of the past who are serving wherever duty
calls.

It was there that I met Superintendent Wainwright. His interest in
Annapolis football was keen. Another officer whose friendship I made at
the Academy was Commander Grant, who later was Rear Admiral, Commander
of the Submarine Flotilla. His spirit was truly remarkable. The way he
could talk to a team was an inspiration.

It was during the intermission of a Navy-Carlisle game when the score
was 11 to 6 in Carlisle's favor, that this exponent of fighting spirit
came into the dressing-room and in a talk to the team spared nothing and
nobody. What he said about the White man not being able to defeat the
Indian was typical. As a result of this unique dressing-room scene when
he commanded the Navy to win out over the Indians, his charges came
through to victory by the score of 17-11.

There is no one man at Annapolis who sticks closer to the ship and
around whom more football traditions have grown than Paul Dashiell, a
professor in the Academy. He bore for many years the burden of
responsibility of Annapolis football. His earnest desire has been to
see the Navy succeed. He has worked arduously, and whenever Navy men get
together they speak enthusiastically of the devotion of this former
Lehigh hero, official and rule maker. Players have come and gone; the
call in recent years has been elsewhere, but Paul Dashiell has remained,
and his interest in the game has been manifested by self-denial and hard
work. Defeat has come to him with great sadness, and there are many
games of which he still feels the sting; these come to him as nightmares
in his recollections of Annapolis football history. Great has been his
joy in the Navy's hour of victory.

It was here at Annapolis that I learned something of the old Navy
football heroes. Most brilliant of all, perhaps, was Worth Bagley, a
marvelous punter and great fighter. He lost his life later in the war
with Spain, standing to his duty under open fire on the deck of the
_Winslow_ at Cardenas, with the utter fearlessness that was
characteristic of him.

I heard of the deeds on the football field of Mike Johnson, Trench,
Pearson, McCormack, Cavanaugh, Reeves, McCauley, Craven, Kimball and
Bookwalter. I have played against the great Navy guard Halligan. I saw
developed the Navy players, Long, Chambers, Reed, Nichols and Chip
Smith, who later was in charge of the Navy athletics. He was one of the
best quarterbacks the Navy ever had. I saw Dug Howard grow up from
boyhood in Annapolis and develop into a Navy star; saw him later coach
their teams to victory; witnessed the great playing of Dougherty,
Piersol, Grady and Bill Carpenter, who is no longer on the Navy list.
All these players, together with Norton, Northcroft, Dague, Halsey,
Ingram, Douglas, Jerry Land, Babe Brown and Dalton stand out among those
who have given their best in Army and Navy games.

Young Nichols, who was quarterback in 1912, was a most brilliant ground
gainer. He resigned from the Service early in 1913, receiving a
commission in the British Army. He was wounded, but later returned to
duty only to be killed shortly afterward. Another splendid man.

In speaking of Navy football I cannot pass over the name of W. H.
Stayton, a man whose whole soul seemed to be permeated with Navy
atmosphere, and who is always to be depended upon in Navy matters. The
association that I formed later in life with McDonough Craven and other
loyal Navy football men gave me an opportunity to learn of Annapolis
football in their day.

The list of men who have been invited to coach the Navy from year to
year is a long one. The ideal method of development of an undergraduate
team is by a system of coaching conducted by graduates of that
institution. Such alumni can best preserve the traditions, correct
blunders of other years, and carry through a continuous policy along
lines most acceptable. Graduate coaching exclusively is nearly
impossible for Navy teams, for the graduates, as officers, are stationed
at far distant points, mostly on board ship. Their duties do not permit
of interruption for two months. They cannot be spared from turret and
bridge; from the team work so highly developed at present on shipboard.
Furthermore, their absence from our country sometimes for years, keeps
them out of touch with football generally, and it is impossible for them
to keep up to date--hence the coaching from other institutions.

[Illustration: NORTHCROFT KICKING THE FIELD GOAL ANTICIPATED BY THE NAVY
AND FEARED BY THE ARMY]

Lieutenant Frank B. Berrien was one of the early coaches and an able
one. Immediately afterward Dug Howard for three years coached the team
to victory. The Navy's football future was then turned over to Jonas
Ingram, with the idea of working out a purely graduate system, in the
face of such serious obstacles as have already been pointed out.

One of the nightmares of my coaching experiences was the day that the
Army beat the Navy through the combined effort of the whole Army team
plus the individual running of Charlie Daly. This run occurred at the
very start of the second half. Doc Hillebrand and I were talking on the
side lines to Evarts Wrenn, the Umpire. None of us heard the whistle
blow for the starting of the second half. Before we knew it the Army
sympathizers were on their feet cheering and we saw Daly hitting it up
the field, weaving through the Navy defense.

Harmon Graves, who was coaching West Point that year, has since told me
that the Army coaches had drilled the team carefully in receiving the
ball on a kick-off--with Daly clear back under the goal posts. On the
kick-off, the Navy did just what West Point had been trained to expect.
Belknap kicked a long high one direct to Daly, and then and there began
the carefully prepared advance of the Army team. Mowing down the
oncoming Navy players, the West Point forwards made it possible for
clever Daly to get loose and score a touchdown after a run of nearly the
entire length of the field.

This game stands out in my recollection as one of the most sensational
on record. The Navy, like West Point, had had many victories, but the
purpose of this book is not to record year by year the achievements of
these two institutions, but rather catch their spirit, as one from
without looks in upon a small portion of the busy life that is typical
of these Service schools.

Scattered over the seven seas are those who heard the reveille of
football at Annapolis. From a few old-timers let us garner their
experiences and the effects of football in the Service.

C. L. Poor, one of the veterans of the Annapolis squad, Varsity and
Hustlers, has something to say concerning the effect of football upon
the relationship between officers and men.

"Generally speaking," he says, "it is considered that the relationship
is beneficial. The young officer assumes qualities of leadership and
shows himself in a favorable light to the men, who appreciate his
ability to show them something and do it well. The average young
American, whether himself athletic or not, is a bit of a hero worshipper
towards a prominent athlete, and so the young officer who has good
football ability gets the respect and appreciation of the crew to start
with."

J. B. Patton, who played three years at Annapolis, says of the early
days:

"I entered the Academy in 1895. In those days athletics were not
encouraged. The average number of cadets was less than 200, and the
entrance age was from 14 to 18--really a boys' school. So when an
occasional college team appeared, they looked like old men to us.

"Match games were usually on Saturday afternoon, and all the cadets
spent the forenoon at sail drill on board the _Wyoming_ in Chesapeake
Bay. I can remember spending four hours racing up and down the top
gallant yard with Stone and Hayward, loosing and furling sail, and then
returning to a roast beef dinner, followed by two 45-minute halves of
football.

"One of our best games, as a rule, was with Johns Hopkins University.
Paul Dashiell, then a Hopkins man, usually managed to smuggle one or
more Poes to Annapolis with his team. We knew it, but at that time we
did not object because we usually beat the Hopkins team.

"Another interesting match was with the Deaf Mutes from Kendall College.
It was a standing joke with us that they too frequently smuggled good
football players who were not mutes. These kept silent during the game
and talked with their hands, but frequently when I tackled one hard and
fell on him, I could hear him cuss under his breath."

M. M. Taylor brings us down to Navy football of the early nineties.

"In my day the principal quality sought was beef. Being embryo sailors
we had to have nautical terms for our signals, and they made our
opponents sit up and take notice. When I played halfback I remember my
signals were my order relating to the foremast. For instance,
'Fore-top-gallant clew lines and hands-by-the-halyards' meant that I was
the victim. On the conclusion of the order, if the captain could not
launch a play made at once, he had to lengthen his signal, and sometimes
there would be a string of jargon, intelligible only to a sailor, which
would take the light yard men aloft, furl the sail, and probably cast
reflections on the stowage of the bunt. Anything connected with the
anchor was a kick. The mainmast was consecrated to the left half, and
the mizzen to the fullback.

"In one game our lack of proper uniform worked to our advantage. I was
on the sick list and had turned my suit over to a substitute. I braved
the doctor's disapproval and went into the game in a pair of long
working trousers and a blue flannel shirt. The opposing team,
Pennsylvania, hailed me as 'Little Boy Blue,' and paid no further
attention to me, so that by good fortune I made a couple of scores. Then
they fell upon me, and at the close all I had left was the pants."

J. W. Powell, captain of the '97 team, tells of the interim between
Army-Navy games.

"Our head coach was Johnny Poe," he says, "and he and Paul Dashiell took
charge of the squad. Some of our good men were Rus White, Bill Tardy,
Halligan and Fisher, holding over from the year before. A. T. Graham and
Jerry Landis in the line. A wild Irishman in the plebe class, Paddy
Shea, earned one end position in short order, while A. H. McCarthy went
in at the other wing. Jack Asserson, Bobby Henderson, Louis Richardson
and I made up the backfield. In '95, Princeton had developed their
famous ends back system which was adopted by Johnny Poe and the game we
played that year was built around this system. Johnny was a deadly
tackler and nearly killed half the team with his system of live tackling
practice. This was one of the years in which there was no Army and Navy
game and our big game was the Thanksgiving Day contest with Lafayette.
Barclay, Bray and Rinehart made Lafayette's name a terror in the
football world. The game resulted in an 18 to 6 victory for Lafayette.

"My most vivid recollections of that game are McCarthy's plucky playing
with his hand in a plaster cast, due to a broken bone, stopping Barclay
and Bray repeatedly in spite of this handicap, and my own touchdown,
after a twelve yard run, with Rinehart's 250 pounds hanging to me most
of the way."

I recall a trip that the Princeton team of 1898 made to West Point. It
was truly an attack upon the historical old school in a fashion de luxe.

Alex Van Rensselaer, an old Princeton football captain, invited Doc
Hillebrand to have the Tiger eleven meet him that Saturday morning at
the Pennsylvania Ferry slip in Jersey City. En route to West Point that
morning this old Princeton leader met us with his steam yacht, _The
May_. Boyhood enthusiasm ran high as we jumped aboard. Good fellowship
prevailed. We lunched on board, dressed on board. Upon our arrival at
West Point we were met by the Academy representative and were driven to
the football field.

The snappy work of the Princeton team that day brought victory, and we
attributed our success to the Van Rensselaer transport. Returning that
night on the boat, Doc Hillebrand and Arthur Poe bribed the captain of
_The May_ to just miss connecting with the last train to Princeton, and
as a worried manager sat alongside of Van Rensselaer wondering whether
it were not possible to hurry the boat along a little faster, Van
Rensselaer himself knew what was in Doc's mind and so helped make it
possible for us to rest at the Murray Hill Hotel over night, and not
allow a railroad trip to Princeton mar the luxury of the day.

I have a lot of respect for the football brains of West Point. My lot
has been very happily cast with the Navy. I have generally been on the
opposite side of the field. I knew the strength of their team. I have
learned much of the spirit of the academy from their cheering at Army
and Navy games. Playing against West Point our Princeton teams have
always realized the hard, difficult task which confronted them, and
victory was not always the reward.

Football plays a valued part in the athletic life of West Point. From
the very first game between the Army and the Navy on the plains when the
Middies were victorious, West Point set out in a thoroughly businesslike
way to see that the Navy did not get the lion's share of victories.

If one studies the businesslike methods of the Army Athletic Association
and reads carefully the bulletins which are printed after each game, one
is impressed by the attention given to details.

I have always appreciated what King, '96, meant to West Point football.
Let me quote from the publication of the _Howitzer_, in 1896, the
estimated value of this player at that time:

"King, of course, stands first. Captain for two years he brought West
Point from second class directly into first. As fullback he outplayed
every fullback opposed to him and stands in the judgment of all
observers second only to Brooke of Pennsylvania. Let us read what King
has to say of a period of West Point football not widely known.

"I first played on the '92 team," he says. "We had two Navy games before
this, but they were not much as I look back upon them. At this time we
had for practice that period of Saturday afternoon after inspection.
That gave us from about 3 P. M. on. We also had about fifteen
minutes between dinner and the afternoon recitations, and such days as
were too rainy to drill, and from 5:45 A. M., to 6:05 A. M.
Later in the year when it grew too cold to drill, we had the
time after about 4:15 P. M., but it became dark so early that
we didn't get much practice. We practiced signals even by moonlight.

"Visiting teams used to watch us at inspection, two o'clock. We were in
tight full dress clothes, standing at attention for thirty to forty-five
minutes just before the game. A fine preparation for a stiff contest. We
had quite a character by the name of Stacy, a Maine boy. He was a
thickset chap, husky and fast. He never knew what it was to be stopped.
He would fight it out to the end for every inch. Early in one of the
Yale games he broke a rib and started another, but the more it hurt, the
harder he played. In a contest with an athletic club in the last
non-collegiate game we ever played, the opposing right tackle was
bothering us. In a scrimmage Stacy twisted the gentleman's nose very
severely and then backed away, as the man followed him, calling out to
the Umpire. Stacy held his face up and took two of the nicest punches in
the eyes that I ever saw. Of course, the Umpire saw it, and promptly
ruled the puncher out, just as Stacy had planned.

"Just before the Spanish War Stacy became ill. Orders were issued that
regiments should send officers to the different cities for the purpose
of recruiting. He was at this time not fit for field service, so was
assigned to this duty. He protested so strongly that in some way he was
able to join his regiment in time to go to Cuba with his men. He
participated in all the work down there; and when it was over, even he
had to give in. He was sent to Montauk Point in very bad shape. He
rallied for a time and obtained sick leave. He went to his old home in
Maine, where he died. It was his old football grit that kept him going
in Cuba until the fighting was over.

"No mention of West Point's football would be complete without the name
of Dennis Michie. He is usually referred to as the Father of Football
at the Academy. He was captain of the first two teams we ever had. He
played throughout the Navy game in '91 with ten boils on his back and
neck. He was a backfield man and one of West Point's main line backers.
He was most popular as a cadet and officer and was killed in action at
San Juan, Cuba.

"One of the longest runs when both yards and time are considered ever
pulled off on a football field, was made by Duncan, '95, in our
Princeton game of '93. Duncan got the ball on his 5-yard line on a
fumble, and was well under way before he was discovered. Lott, '96,
later a captain of Cavalry, followed Duncan to interfere from behind.
The only Princeton man who sensed trouble was Doggy Trenchard. He set
sail in pursuit. He soon caught up with Lott and would have caught
Duncan, but for the latter's interference. Duncan finally scored the
touchdown, having made the 105 yards in what would have been fast time
for a Wefers.

"We at West Point often speak of Balliet's being obliged to call on Phil
King to back him up that day, as Ames, one of our greatest centres, was
outplaying him, and of the rage of Phil King, because on every point,
Nolan, '96, tackled him at once and prevented King from making those
phenomenal runs which characterized his playing."

Harmon Graves of Yale is a coach who has contributed much to West
Point's football.

"Harmon Graves is too well known now as coach to need our praise," says
a West Pointer, "but it is not only as a successful coach, but as a
personal friend that he lives in the heart of every member of the team
and indeed the entire corps. There will always be a sunny spot at West
Point for Graves."

In a recent talk with Harmon Graves he showed me a beautifully engraved
watch presented to him by the Cadet Corps of West Point, a treasure
prized.

Of the privileged days spent at West Point Graves writes, as follows:

"Every civilian who has the privilege of working with the officers and
cadets at West Point to accomplish some worthy object comes away a far
better man than when he went there. I was fortunate enough to be asked
by them to help in the establishment of football at the Academy and for
many years I gave the best I had and still feel greatly their debtor.

"At West Point amateur sport flourishes in its perfection, and a very
high standard of accomplishment has been attained in football. There are
no cross-cuts to the kind of football success West Point has worked for:
it is all a question of merit based on competency, accuracy and fearless
execution. Those of us who have had the privilege of assisting in the
development of West Point football have learned much of real value from
the officers and cadets about the game and what really counts in the
make-up of a successful team. It is fair to say that West Point has
contributed a great deal to football generally and has, in spite of many
necessary time restrictions, turned out some of the best teams and
players in the last fifteen years.

"The greatest credit is due to the Army Officers Athletic Association,
which, through its football representatives, started right and then
pursued a sound policy which has placed football at West Point on a firm
basis, becoming the standing and dignity of the institution.

"There have been many interesting and amusing incidents in connection
with football at West Point which help to make up the tradition of the
game there and are many times repeated at any gathering of officers and
cadets. I well remember when Daly, the former Harvard Captain, modestly
took his place as a plebe candidate for the team and sat in the front
row on the floor of the gymnasium when I explained to the squad, and
illustrated by the use of a blackboard, what he and every one else there
knew was the then Yale defense. There was, perhaps, the suggestion of a
smile all around when I began by saying that from then on we were
gathered there for West Point and to make its team a success that season
and not for the benefit of Harvard or Yale. He told me afterwards that
he had never understood the defense as I had explained it. He mastered
it and believed in it, as he won and kept his place on the team and
learned some things from West Point football,--as we all did.

"The rivalry with the Navy is wholesome and intense, as it should be. My
friend, Paul Dashiell, who fully shares that feeling, has much to do
with the success of the Navy team, and the development of football at
the Naval Academy. After a West Point victory at Philadelphia, he came
to the West Point dressing room and offered his congratulations. As I
took his hand, I noted that tears were in his eyes and that his voice
shook. The next year the Navy won and I returned the call. I was feeling
rather grim, but when I found him surrounded by the happy Navy team, he
was crying again and hardly smiled when I offered my congratulation, and
told him that it really made no difference which team won for he cried
anyway.

"The sportsmanship and friendly rivalry which the Army and Navy game
brings out in both branches of the Service is admirable and unique and
reaches all officers on the day of the game wherever in the world they
are. Real preparedness is an old axiom at West Point and it has been
applied to football. There I learned to love my country and respect the
manhood and efficiency of the Army officers in a better way than I did
before. I recall the seasons I have spent there with gratitude and
affection, both for the friends I have made and for the Army spirit."

Siding with the Navy has enabled me to know West Point's strength. Any
mention of West Point's football would be incomplete without the names
of some officers who have not only safeguarded the game at West Point,
but have been the able representatives of the Army's football during
their service there. Such men are, Richmond P. Davis, Palmer E. Pierce,
and W. R. Richardson.


THE WAY THEY HAVE IN THE ARMY

If there is any one man who has permanently influenced football at West
Point that man is H. J. Koehler, for years Master of the Sword at the
Academy. Under his active coaching some of the Army's finest players
were developed. In recent years he has not been a member of the coaching
staff, but he none the less never loses touch with the team and his
advice concerning men and methods is always eagerly sought. By virtue of
long experience at the Academy and because of an aptitude for analysis
of the game itself he has been invaluable in harmonizing practice and
play with peculiar local conditions.

Any time the stranger seeks to delve either into the history or the
constructive coaching of the game at the Academy, the younger men, as
well as the older, will always answer your questions by saying "Go ask
Koehler." Always a hard worker and serious thinker, he is apt to give
an almost nightly demonstration during the season of the foundation
principles of the game.

Not only West Pointers, but also Yale and Princeton men, who had to face
the elevens under Koehler's coaching will remember Romeyn, who, had he
been kicking in the days of Felton, Mahan and the other long distance
artillerists, might well have held his own, in the opinion of Army men.
Nesbitt, Waldron and Scales were among the other really brilliant
players whom Koehler developed. He was in charge of some of the teams
that played the hardest schedules in the history of West Point football.
One year the cadets met Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Syracuse and
Penn State. Surely this was a season's work calculated to develop
remarkable men, or break them in the making. Bettison, center, King
Boyers at guard, and Bunker at tackle and half, were among the splendid
players who survived this trial by fire. Casad, Clark and Phillips made
up a backfield that would have been a credit to any of the colleges.

Soon, however, the Army strength was greatly to be augmented by the
acquisition of Charles Dudley Daly, fresh from four years of football at
Harvard. Reputations made elsewhere do not count for much at West Point.
The coaches were glad to have Plebe Daly come out for the squad, but
they knew and he knew quite as well as they, that there are no short
cuts to the big "A." Now began a remarkable demonstration of football
genius. Not only did the former Harvard Captain make the team, but his
aid in coaching was also eagerly sought. An unusual move this, but a
tribute to the new man.

Daly was modesty itself in those days as he has been ever since, even
when equipped with the yellow jacket and peacock feather of the head
coach. As player and as coach and often as the two combined, Daly's
connection with West Point football covered eight years, in the course
of which he never played on or coached a losing team. His record against
the Navy alone is seven victories and one tie, 146 points to 33. His
final year's coaching was done in 1915. From West Point he was sent to
Hawaii, whence he writes me, as follows:

"There are certain episodes in the game that have always been of
particular interest to me, such as Ely's game playing with broken ribs
in the Harvard-Yale game of 1898; Charlie de Saulles' great playing with
a sprained ankle in the Yale-Princeton game of the same year; the
tackling of Bunker by Long of the Navy in the Army-Navy game of
1902--the hardest tackle I have ever seen; and the daring quarterback
work of Johnny Cutler in the Harvard-Dartmouth 1908 game, when he
snatched victory from defeat in the last few minutes of play."

Undoubtedly Daly's deep study of strategy and tactics as used in warfare
had a great deal to do with his continued ascendency as a coach.
Writing to Herbert Reed, one of the pencil and paper football men, with
whom he had had many a long argument over the generalship of the game,
he said in part:

"Football within the limitations of the rules and sportsmanship is a war
game. Either by force or by deception it advances through the opposition
to the goal line, which might be considered the capital of the enemy."

It was in Daly's first year that a huge Southerner, with a pleasant
drawl, turned up in the plebe class. It was a foregone conclusion almost
on sight that Ernest, better known to football men throughout the
country as Pot Graves, would make the Eleven. He not only played the
game almost flawlessly from the start, but he made so thorough a study
of line play in general that his system, even down to the most intimate
details of face to face coaching filed away for all time in that secret
library of football methods at West Point, has come to be known as
Graves' Bible.

Daly, still with that ineradicable love for his own Alma Mater, lent a
page or two from this tome to Harvard, and even the author appeared in
person on Soldiers' Field. The manner in which Graves made personal
demonstration of his teachings will not soon be forgotten by the Harvard
men who had to face Pot Graves.

Graves has always believed in the force mentioned in Daly's few lines
quoted above on the subject of military methods as applied to football.
While always declaring that the gridiron was no place for a fist fight,
he always maintained that stalwarts should be allowed to fight it out
with as little interference by rule as possible. As a matter of fact,
Graves was badly injured in a game with Yale, and for a long time
afterwards hobbled around with a troublesome knee. He knew the man who
did it, but would never tell his name, and he contents himself with
saying "I have no ill will--he got me first. If he hadn't I would have
got him."

A story is told of Graves' impatience with the members of a little
luncheon party, who in the course of an argument on the new football,
were getting away from the fundamentals. Rising and stepping over to the
window of the Officers' Club, he said, with a sleepy smile: "Come here a
minute, you fellows," and, pointing down to the roadway, added, "there's
_my_ team." Looking out of the window the other members of the party saw
a huge steam roller snorting and puffing up the hill.

Among the men who played football with Graves and were indeed of his
type, were Doe and Bunker. Like Graves, Bunker in spite of his great
weight, was fast enough to play in the backfield in those years when
Army elevens were relying so much upon terrific power. Those were the
days when substitutes had very little opportunity. In the final Navy
game of 1902 the same eleven men played for the Army from start to
finish.

In this period of Army football other first-class men were developed,
notably Torney, a remarkable back, Thompson, a guard, and Tom Hammond,
who was later to make a reputation as an end coach. Bunker was still
with this aggregation, an eleven that marched fifty yards for a
touchdown in fifteen plays against the midshipmen. The Army was among
the early Eastern teams to test Eastern football methods against those
of the West, the Cadets defeating a team from the University of Chicago
on the plains.

The West Pointers had only one criticism to make of their visitors, and
it was laconically put by one of the backs, who said:

"They're all-fired fast, but it's funny how they stop when you tackle
them."

In this lineup was A. C. Tipton, at center, to whom belongs the honor of
forcing the Rules Committee to change the code in one particular in
order to stop a maneuver which he invented while in midcareer in a big
game. No one will ever forget how, when chasing a loose ball and
realizing that he had no chance to pick it up, he kicked it again and
again until it crossed the final chalk mark where he fell on it for a
touchdown. Tipton was something of a wrestler too, as a certain
Japanese expert in the art of Jiu-jitsu can testify and indeed did
testify on the spot after the doctors had brought him too.

There was no lowering of the standards in the succeeding years, which
saw the development of players like Hackett, Prince, Farnsworth and
Davis. Those years too saw the rise of such wonderful forwards as W. W.
(Red) Erwin and that huge man from Alaska, D. D. Pullen.

Coming now to more recent times, the coaching was turned over to H. M.
Nelly, assisted by Joseph W. Beacham, fresh from chasing the little
brown brother in the Philippines. Beacham had made a great reputation at
Cornell, and there was evidence that he had kept up with the game at
least in the matter of strategic possibilities, even while in the
tangled jungle of Luzon. He brought with him even more than that--an
uncanny ability to see through the machinery of the team and pick out
its human qualities, upon which he never neglected to play. There have
been few coaches closer to his men than Joe.

Whenever I talk football with Joe Beacham he never forgets to mention
Vaughn Cooper, to whom he gives a large share of the credit for the good
work of his elevens. Cooper was of the quiet type, whose specialty was
defense. These two made a great team.

It was in this period that West Point saw the development of one of its
greatest field generals. There was nothing impressive in the physical
appearance of little H. L. Hyatt. A reasonably good man, ball in hand,
his greatest value lay in his head work. As the West Point trainer said
one day: "I've got him all bandaged up like a leg in a puttee, but from
the neck up he's a piece of ice." The charts of games in which Hyatt ran
the team are set before the squad each year as examples, not merely of
perfect generalship, but of the proper time to violate that generalship
and make it go, a distinction shared by Prichard, who followed in his
footsteps with added touches of his own.

One cannot mention Prichard's name without thinking at once of Merillat,
who, with Prichard, formed one of the finest forward passing
combinations the game has seen. Both at Franklin Field and at the Polo
Grounds this pair brought woe to the Navy.

These stars had able assistance in the persons of McEwan, one of the
greatest centers the game has seen and who was chosen to lead the team
in 1916, Weyand, Neyland and O'Hare, among the forwards, and the
brilliant and sturdy Oliphant in the backfield, the man whose slashing
play against the Navy in 1915 will never be forgotten. Oliphant was of a
most unusual type. Even when he was doing the heaviest damage to the
Navy Corps the midshipmen could not but admire his wonderful work.

What the Hustlers are to Annapolis the Cullom Hall team is to West
Point. It is made up of the leftovers from the first squad and
substitutes. One would travel far afield in search of a team with more
spirit and greater pep in action, whether playing in outside games, or
as their coach would put it, "showing up" the first Eleven. Not
infrequently a player of the highest caliber is developed in this squad
and taken to the first eleven.

The Cullom Hall squad, whose eleven generally manages to clean up some
of the strongest school teams of the Hudson Valley, draws not a little
of its spirit, I think, from the late Lieutenant E. M. Zell, better
known at the Academy as "Jobey." It was a treat to see the Cullom Hall
team marching down the field against the first Eleven with the roly-poly
figure of Jobey in the thick of every scrimmage, coaching at the top of
his lungs, even when bowled over by the interference of his own pupils.
Since his time the squad has been turned over to Lieutenants Sellack and
Crawford, who have kept alive the traditions and the playing spirit of
this unique organization.

Their reward for the bruising, hard work, with hardly a shadow of the
hope of getting their letter, comes in seeing the great game itself.
Like the college scrub teams the hardest rooters for the Varsity are to
be found in their ranks.

Now for the game itself. Always hard fought, always well fought, there
is perhaps no clash of all the year that so wakes the interest of the
general public, that vast throng which, without college affiliations,
is nevertheless hungry for the right of allegiance somewhere, somehow.

While the Service Elevens are superbly supported by the men who have
been through the exacting mill at West Point and Annapolis--their
sweethearts and wives, not to mention sisters, cousins, uncles and
aunts--they are urged on to battle by that great impartial public which
believes that in a sense these two teams belong to it. It is not
uncommon to find men who have had no connection with either academy in
hot argument as to the relative merits of the teams.

Once in the stands some apparently trifling thing begets a partisanship
that this class of spectator is wont to wonder at after it is all over.

Whether in Philadelphia in the earlier history of these contests on
neutral ground, or in New York, Army and Navy Day has become by tacit
consent the nearest thing to a real gridiron holiday. For the civilian
who has been starved for thrilling action and the chance to cheer
through the autumn days, the jam at the hotels used as headquarters by
the followers of the two elevens satisfies a yearning that he has
hitherto been unable to define. There too, is found a host of old-time
college football men and coaches who hold reunion and sometimes even
bury hatchets. Making his way through the crowds and jogging elbows with
the heroes of a sport that he understands only as organized combat he
becomes obsessed with the spirit of the two fighting institutions.

Once in possession of the coveted ticket he hies himself to the field as
early as possible, if he is wise, in order to enjoy the preliminaries
which are unlike those at any other game. Soon his heart beats faster,
attuned to the sound of tramping feet without the gates. The measured
cadence swells, draws nearer, and the thousands rise as one, when first
the long gray column and then the solid ranks of blue swing out upon the
field. The precision of the thing, the realization that order and system
can go so far as to hold in check to the last moment the enthusiasms of
these youngsters thrills him to the core. Then suddenly gray ranks and
blue alike break for the stands, there to cut loose such a volume of now
orderly, now merely frenzied noise as never before smote his ears.

It is inspiration and it is novelty. The time, the place and the men
that wake the loyalty dormant in every man which, sad to say, so seldom
has a chance of expression.

Around the field are ranged diplomat, dignitary of whatsoever rank, both
native and foreign. In common with those who came to see, as well as to
be seen--and who does not boast of having been to the Army-Navy
game--they rise uncovered as the only official non-partisan of football
history enters the gates--the President of the United States. Throughout
one half of the game he lends his support to one Academy and in the
intermission makes triumphal progress across the field, welcomed on his
arrival by a din of shouting surpassing all previous effort, there to
support their side.

[Illustration: CADETS AND MIDDIES ENTERING THE FIELD]

It is perhaps one of those blessed hours in the life of a man upon whom
the white light so pitilessly beats, when he can indulge in the popular
sport, to him so long denied, of being merely human.

Men, methods, moods pass on. The years roll by, taking toll of every one
of us from highest to lowest. Yet, whether we are absorbed in the game
of games, or whether we look upon it as so many needs must merely as a
spectacle, the Army-Navy game will remain a milestone never to be
uprooted. I have spoken elsewhere and at length of football traditions.
The Army-Navy game is not merely a football tradition but an American
institution. It is for all the people every time.

May this great game go on forever, serene in its power to bring out the
best that is in us, and when the Great Bugler sounds the silver-sweet
call of taps for all too many, there will still be those who in their
turn will answer the call of reveille to carry on the traditions of the
great day that was ours.




CHAPTER XIII

HARD LUCK IN THE GAME


It is as true in football, as it is in life, that we have no use for a
quitter. The man who shirks in time of need--indeed there is no part in
this chapter or in this book for such a man. Football was never made for
him. He is soon discovered and relegated to the side line. He is hounded
throughout his college career, and afterwards he is known as a man who
was yellow. As Garry Cochran used to say:

"If I find any man on my football squad showing a white feather, I'll
have him hounded out of college."

Football is a game for the man who has nerve, and when put to the test,
under severe handicap, proves his sterling worth.

A man has to be game in spirit. A man has to give every inch there is in
him. Optimism should surround him. There is much to be gained by hearty
co-operation of spirit. There is much in the thought that you believe
your team is going to win; that the opposing team cannot beat you; that
if your opponent wins, it is going to be over your dead body. This sort
of spirit is contagious, and generally passes from one to the other,
until you have a wonderful team spirit, and eleven men are found
fighting like demons for victory. Such a spirit generally means a
victory, and so gets its reward. There must be no dissenting spirit. If
there is such a spirit discernible, it should be weeded out immediately.

Some years ago the Princeton players were going to the field house to
dress for the Harvard game. The captain and two of the players were
walking ahead of the rest of the members of the team. The game was under
discussion, when the captain overheard one of the players behind him
remark:

"I believe Harvard will win to-day."

Shocked by this remark, the captain, who was one of those thoroughbreds
who never saw anything but victory ahead, full of hope and confidence in
his team, turned and discovered that the remark came from one of his
regular players. Addressing him, he said:

"Well! If you feel that way about it, you need not even put on your
suit. I have a substitute, who is game to the core. He will take your
place."

It is true that teams have been ruined where the men lack the great
quality of optimism in football. When a man gets in a tight place, when
the odds are all against him, there comes to him an amazing superhuman
strength, which enables him to work out wonders. At such a time men have
been known to do what seemed almost impossible.

I recall being out in the country in my younger days and seeing a man,
who had become irrational, near the roadside, where some heavy logs were
piled. This man, who ordinarily was only a man of medium strength, was
picking up one end of a log and tossing it around--a log, which,
ordinarily, would have taken three men to lift. In the bewildering and
exciting problems of football, there are instances similar to this,
where a small man on one team, lined up against a giant in the opposing
rush line, and game though handicapped in weight there comes to him at
such a time a certain added strength, by which he was able to handle
successfully the duty which presented itself to him.

I have found it to be the rule rather than the exception, that the big
man in football did not give me the most trouble; it was the man much
smaller than myself. Other big linemen have found it to be true. Many a
small man has made a big man look ridiculous.

Bill Caldwell, who used to weigh over 200 pounds when he played guard on
the Cornell team some years ago, has this to say:

"I want to pay a tribute to a young man who gave me my worst seventy
minutes on the football field. His name was Payne. He played left guard
for Lehigh. He weighed about 145 pounds; was of slight build and seemed
to have a sort of sickly pallor. I have never seen him since, but I take
this occasion to say this was the greatest little guard I ever met. At
least he was great that day. Payne had been playing back of the line
during part of the season, but was put in at guard against me. I had a
hunch that he was going to bite me in the ankle, when he lined up the
first time, for he bristled up and tore into me like a wild cat. I have
met a goodish few guards in my day, and was accustomed to almost any
form of warfare, but this Payne went around me, like a cooper around a
barrel, and broke through the line and downed the runners in their
tracks. On plunges straight at him, he went to the mat and grabbed every
leg in sight and hung on for dear life. He darted through between my
legs; would vault over me; what he did to me was a shame. He was not
rough, but was just the opposite. I never laid a hand on him all the
afternoon. He would make a world beater in the game as it is played
to-day."

Whenever Brown University men get together and speak of their wonderful
quarterbacks, the names of Sprackling and Crowther are always mentioned.
Both of these men were All-American quarterbacks. Crowther filled the
position after Sprackling graduated. He weighed only 134 pounds, but he
gave everything he had in him--game, though handicapped in weight. In
the Harvard game of that year, about the middle of the second half,
Haughton sent word over to Robinson, the Brown coach, that he ought to
take the little fellow out; that he was too small to play football, and
was in danger of being seriously injured. Crowther, however, was like an
India-rubber ball and not once during the season had he received any
sort of injury. Robby told Crowther what Haughton had suggested, and
smiling, the latter said:

"Tell him not to worry about me; better look out for himself."

On the next play Crowther took the ball and went around Harvard's end
for forty yards, scoring a touchdown. After he had kicked the goal, the
little fellow came over to the side line, and said to Robby:

"Send word over to Haughton and ask him how he likes that. Ask him if he
thinks I'm all in? Perhaps he would like to have me quit now."

In the Yale game that year Crowther was tackled by Pendleton, one of the
big Yale guards. It so happened that Pendleton was injured several times
when he tackled Crowther and time had to be taken out. Finally the big
fellow was obliged to quit, and as he was led off the field, Crowther
hurried over to him, reaching up, placed his hands on his shoulder and
said:

"Sorry, old man! I didn't mean to hurt you." Pendleton, who weighed well
over 200 pounds, looked down upon the little fellow, but said never a
word.

It is most unpleasant to play in a game where a man is injured. Yet
still more distressing when you realize that you yourself injured
another player, especially one of your own team mates.

In the Brown game of 1898, at Providence, Bosey Reiter, Princeton's star
halfback, made a flying tackle of a Brown runner. The latter was
struggling hard, trying his best to get away from Reiter. At this moment
I was coming along and threw myself upon the Brown man to prevent his
advancing further. In the mixup my weight struck Bosey and fractured his
collar-bone. It was a severe loss to the team, and only one who has had
a similar experience can appreciate my feelings, as well as the team's,
on the journey back to Princeton.

We were to play Yale the following Saturday at Princeton. I knew
Reiter's injury was so serious that he could not possibly play in that
game.

The following Saturday, as that great football warrior lay in his bed at
the infirmary, the whistle blew for the start of the Yale game. We all
realized Reiter was not there: not even on the side lines, and Arthur
Poe said, at the start of the game:

"Play for Bosey Reiter. He can't play for himself to-day."

This spurred us on to better team work and to victory. The attendants at
the hospital told us later that they never had had such a lively
patient. He kept things stirring from start to finish of the gridiron
battle. As the reports of the game were brought to him, he joined in
the thrill of the play.

"My injury proved a blessing," says Reiter, "as it gave me an extra
year, for in those days a year did not count in football, unless you
played against Yale, and when I made the touchdown against Yale the
following season, it was a happy moment for me."

All is not clear sailing in football. The breaks must come some time.
They may come singly or in a bunch, but whenever they do come, it takes
courage to buck the hard luck in the game. Just when things get nicely
under way one of the star players is injured, which means the systematic
team work is handicapped. It is not the team, as a whole that I am
thinking of, but the pangs of sorrow which go down deep into a fellow's
soul, when he finds that he is injured; that he is in the hands of the
doctor. It is then he realizes that he is only a spoke in the big wheel;
that the spirit of the game puts another man in his place. The game goes
on. Nature is left to do her best for him.

Let us for a while consider the player who does not realize, until after
the game is over, that he is hurt. It is after the contest, when the
excitement has ceased, when reaction sets in, that a doctor and trainer
can take stock of the number and extent of casualties.

When such injured men are discovered, at a time like that, we wonder how
they ever played the game out. In fact the man never knew he was
injured until the game was over. No more loyal supporter of football
follows the big games than Reggi Wentworth, Williams, '91.

He is most loyal to Bill Hotchkiss, Williams '91.

"At Williamstown, one year," Wentworth says, "Hotchkiss, who was a
wonderful all round guard, probably as great a football player as ever
lived (at least I think so) played with the Williams team on a field
covered with mud and snow three inches deep. The game was an unusually
severe one, and Hotchkiss did yeoman's work that day.

"As we ran off the field, after the game, I happened to stop, turned,
and discovered Hotchkiss standing on the side of the field, with his
feet planted well apart, like an old bull at bay. I went back where he
was and said:

"'Come on, Bill, what's the matter?'

"'I don't know,' said he. 'There's something the matter with my ankles.
I don't think I can walk.'

"He took one step and collapsed. I got a boy's sled, which was on the
field, laid Hotchkiss on it and took him to his room, only to find that
both ankles were sprained. He did not leave his room for two weeks and
walked with crutches for two weeks more. It seemed almost unbelievable
that a man handicapped as he was could play the game through. Splints
and ankle braces were unknown in those days. He went on the field with
two perfectly good ankles. How did he do it?"

Charles H. Huggins, of Brown University, better known perhaps, simply as
"Huggins of Brown," recalls a curious case in a game on Andrews Field:

"Stewart Jarvis, one of the Brown ends, made a flying tackle. As he did
so, he felt something snap in one of his legs. We carried him off to the
field house, making a hasty investigation. We found nothing more
apparent than a bruise. I bundled him off to college in a cab; gave him
a pair of crutches; told him not to go out until our doctor could
examine the injury at six o'clock that evening. When the doctor arrived
at his room, Jarvis was not there. He had gone to the training table for
dinner. The doctor hurried to the Union dining-room, only to find that
Jarvis had discarded the crutches and with some of the boys had gone out
to Rhodes, then, as now, a popular resort for the students. Later, we
learned that he danced several times. The next morning an X-ray clearly
showed a complete fracture of the tibia.

"How it was possible for a man, with a broken leg, to walk around and
dance, as he did, is more than I can fathom."

What is there in a man's make-up that leads him to conceal from the
trainer an injury that he receives in a game; that makes him stay in the
field of play? Why is it that he disregards himself, and goes on in the
game, suffering physical as well as mental tortures, plucky though
handicapped? The playing of such men is extended far beyond the point of
their usefulness. Yes, even into the danger zone. Such men give
everything they have in them while it lasts. It is not intelligent
football, however, and what might be called bravery is foolishness after
all. It is an unwritten law in football that a fresh substitute is far
superior to a crippled star. The keen desire to remain in the game is so
firmly fixed in his mind that he is willing to sacrifice himself, and at
the same time by concealing his injury from the trainer and coaches he,
unconsciously, is sacrificing his team; his power is gone.

One of the greatest exhibitions of grit ever seen in a football game was
given by Harry Watson of Williams in a game at Newton Center between
Williams and Dartmouth. He was knocked out about eight times but
absolutely refused to leave the field.

Another was furnished by W. H. Lewis, the Amherst captain and center
rush, against Williams in his last game at Amherst--the score was 0-0 on
a wet field. Williams was a big favorite but Lewis played a wonderful
game, and was all over the field on the defense. When the game was over
he was carried off, but refused to leave the field until the final
whistle.

One of the most thrilling stories of a man who was game, though
handicapped, is told by Morris Ely, quarterback for Yale, 1898.

"My most vivid recollection of the Harvard-Yale game of 1898 is that
Harvard won by the largest score Yale had ever been beaten by up to that
time, 17 to 0. Next, that the game seemed unusually long. I believe I
proved a good exponent of the theory of being in good condition. I
started the game at 135 pounds, in the best physical condition I have
ever enjoyed, and while I managed to accumulate two broken ribs, a
broken collar-bone and a sprained shoulder, I was discharged by the
doctor in less than three weeks as good as ever.

"I received the broken ribs in the first half when Percy Jaffrey fell on
me with a proper intention of having me drop a fumbled ball behind our
goal line, which would have given Harvard an additional touchdown
instead of a touchback. I did not know just what had gone wrong but
tried to help it out by putting a shin guard under my jersey over the
ribs during the intermission. No one knew I was hurt.

"In the second half I tried to stop one of Ben Dibblee's runs on a punt
and got a broken collar-bone, but not Dibblee. About the end of the game
we managed to work a successful double pass and I carried the ball to
Harvard's ten-yard line when Charlie Daly, who was playing back on
defense, stopped any chance we had of scoring by a hard tackle. There
was no getting away from him that day, and as I had to carry the ball
in the wrong arm with no free arm to use to ward him off, I presume, I
got off pretty well with only a sprained shoulder. The next play ended
the game, when Stub Chamberlin tried a quick place goal from the field
and, on a poor pass and on my poor handling of the ball, hit the goal
post and the ball bounded back. I admit that just about that time the
whistle sounded pretty good as apparently the entire Harvard team landed
on us in their attempt to block a kick."

Val Flood, once a trainer at Princeton, recalls a game at New Haven,
when Princeton was playing Yale:

"Frank Bergen was quarterback," he says. "I saw he was not going right,
and surprised the coaches by asking them to make a change. They asked me
to wait. In a few minutes I went to them again, with the same result. I
came back a third time, and insisted that he be taken out. A substitute
was put in. I will never forget Bergen's face when he burst into tears
and asked me who was responsible for his being taken out. I told him I
was. It almost broke his heart, for he had always regarded me as a
friend. I knew how much he wanted to play the game out. He lived in New
Haven. When the doctor examined him, it was found that he had three
broken ribs. There was great danger of one of them piercing his lungs
had he continued in the game. Of course, there are lots of boys that
are willing to do such things for their Alma Mater, but the gamest of
all is the man who, with a broken neck to start with, went out and put
in four years of college football. I refer to Eddie Hart, who was not
only the gamest, but one of the strongest, quickest, cleanest men that
ever played the game, and any one who knows Eddie Hart and those who
have seen him play, know that he never saved himself but played the game
for all it was worth. He was the life and spirit of every team he ever
played on at Exeter or Princeton."

Ed Wylie, an enthusiastic Hill School Alumnus, football player at Hill
and Yale, tells the following anecdote:

"The nerviest thing I ever saw in a football game was in the
Hill-Hotchkiss 0 to 0 game in 1904. At the start of the second half,
Arthur Cable, who was Hill's quarterback, broke his collar-bone. He
concealed the fact and until the end of the game, no one knew how badly
he was hurt. He was in every play, and never had time called but once.
He caught a couple of punts with his one good arm and every other punt
he attempted to catch and muffed he saved the ball from the other side
by falling on it. In the same game, a peculiar thing happened to me. I
tackled Ted Coy about fifteen minutes before the end of the game, and
until I awoke hours later, lying in a drawing-room car, pulling into
the Grand Central Station, my mind was a blank. Yet I am told the last
fifteen minutes of the game I played well, especially when our line was
going to pieces. I made several gains on the offensive, never missed a
signal and punted two or three times when close to our goal line."

No less noteworthy is the spirit of a University of Pennsylvania player,
who was handicapped during his gridiron career with Penn' by many severe
injuries. This man had worked as hard as any one possibly could to make
the varsity for three years. His last year was no different from
previous seasons; injuries always worked against him. In his final year
he had broken his leg early in the season. A short time before the
Cornell game he appeared upon the field in football togs, full of spirit
and determined to get in the game if they needed him. This was his last
chance to play on the Penn' team.

I was an official in that game. Near its close I saw him warming up on
the side line. His knee was done up in a plaster cast. He could do
nothing better than hobble along the side lines, but in the closing
moments when Penn' had the game well in hand, a mighty shout went up
from the side lines, as that gallant fellow, who had been handicapped
all during his football career, rushed out upon the field to take his
place as the defensive halfback. Cornell had the ball, and they were
making a tremendous effort to score. The Cornell captain, not knowing
of this man's physical condition, sent a play in his direction. The
interference of the big red team crashed successfully around the Penn'
end and there was left only this plucky, though handicapped player,
between the Cornell runner and a touchdown.

Putting aside all personal thought, he rushed in and made a wonderful
tackle. Then this hero was carried off the field, and with him the
tradition of one who was willing to sacrifice himself for the sport he
loved.

Andy Smith, a former University of Pennsylvania player, was a man who
was game through and through. He seemed to play better in a severe game,
when the odds were against him. Smith had formerly been at Pennsylvania
State College. In a game between Penn' State and Dartmouth, Fred
Crolius, of Dartmouth, says of Smith:

"Andy Smith was one of the gamest men I ever played against. This big,
determined, husky offensive fullback and defensive end, when he wasn't
butting his head into our impregnable line, was smashing an interference
that nearly killed him in every other play. Battered and bruised he kept
coming on, and to every one's surprise he lasted the entire game. Years
afterward he showed me the scars on his head, where the wounds had
healed, with the naïve remark: 'Some team you fellows had that year,
Fred.' Some team was right. And we all remember Andy and his own
individual greatness."

There is no finer, unselfish spirit brought out in football, than that
evidenced in the following story, told by Shep Homans, an old time
Princeton fullback:

"A young fellow named Hodge, who was quarterback on the Princeton scrub,
was making a terrific effort to play the best he could on the last day
of practice before the Yale game. He had hoped even at the last hour
that the opportunity might be afforded him to be a substitute quarter in
the game. However, his leg was broken in a scrimmage. As he lay on the
ground in great pain, realizing what had happened and forgetting
himself, he looked up and said:

"'I'm mighty glad it is not one of the regulars who is hurt, so that our
chance against Yale will not be affected.'"

Crolius, one of the hardest men to stop that Dartmouth ever had, tells
of Arthur Poe's gameness, when they played together on the Homestead
Athletic Club team, after they left college. "Arthur Poe was about as
game a man as the football world ever saw. He was handicapped in his
playing by a knee which would easily slip out of place. We men who
played with him on the Homestead team were often stopped after Arthur
had made a magnificent tackle and had broken up heavy interference, with
this quiet request:

"'Pull my bum knee back into place.'

"After this was done, he would jump up and no one would ever know that
it had been out. This man, who perhaps was the smallest man playing at
that time, was absolutely unprotected. His suit consisted of a pair of
shoes, stockings, unpadded pants, jersey and one elastic knee bandage."

Mike Donohue, a Yale man who had been coach at Auburn for many years,
vouches for the following story:

When Mike went to Auburn and for several years thereafter he had no one
to assist him, except a few of the old players, who would drop in for a
day or so during the latter part of the season. One afternoon Mike
happened to glance down at the lower end of the field where a squad of
grass-cutters (the name given to the fourth and fifth teams) were
booting the ball around, when he noticed a pretty good sized boy who was
swinging his foot into the ball with a good stiff leg and was kicking
high and getting fine distance. Mike made a mental note of this fact and
decided to investigate later, as a good punter was very hard to find.

Later in the afternoon he again looked towards the lower end of the
field and saw that the grass-cutters were lining up for a scrimmage
among themselves, using that part of the field, which was behind the
goal post, so he dismissed the squad with which he had been working and
went down to see what the boy he had noticed early in the afternoon
really looked like. When he arrived he soon found the boy he was looking
for. He was playing left end and Mike immediately noticed that he had
his right leg extended perfectly straight behind him. Stopping the play,
Mike went over to the fellow and slapping him on the back said:

"Don't keep that right leg stiff behind you like that. Pull it up under
you. Bend it at the knee so you can get a good start."

With a sad expression on his face, and tears almost in his eyes, the boy
turned to Mike and said:

"Coach, that damn thing won't bend. It's wood."

Vonalbalde Gammon, one of the few players who met his death in an
intercollegiate game, lived at Rome, Georgia, and entered the University
of Georgia in 1896. He made the team his first year, playing quarterback
on the eleven which was coached by Pop Warner and which won the Southern
championship. He received the injury which caused his death in the
Georgia-Virginia game, played in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 30th,
1897. He was a fine fellow personally and one of the most popular men at
the University. As a football player, he was an excellent punter, a
good plunger, and a strong defensive man. On account of his kicking and
plunging ability he was moved to fullback in his second year.

In the Virginia game he backed up the line on the defense. All that
afternoon he worked like a Trojan to hold in check the powerful masses
Virginia had been driving at the tackles. Early in the second half Von
dove in and stopped a mass aimed at Georgia's right tackle, but when the
mass was untangled, he was unable to get up. An examination showed that
he was badly hurt. In a minute or two, however, he revived and was set
on his feet and was being taken from the field by Coach McCarthy, when
Captain Kent, thinking that he was not too badly hurt to continue in the
game, said to him:

"Von, you are not going to give up, are you?"

"No, Bill," he replied, "I've got too much Georgia grit for that."

These were his last words, for upon reaching the side lines he lapsed
into unconsciousness and died at two o'clock the next morning.

Gammon's death ended the football season that year at the University. It
also came very near ending football in the State of Georgia, as the
Legislature was in session, and immediately passed a bill prohibiting
the playing of the game in the State.

However, Mrs. Gammon--Von's mother--made a strong, earnest and personal
appeal to Governor Atkinson to veto the bill, which he did.

Had it not been for Mrs. Gammon, football would certainly have been
abolished in the State of Georgia by an act of the Legislature of 1897.

I knew a great guard whose whole heart was set on making the Princeton
team, and on playing against Yale. This man made the team. In a
Princeton-Columbia game he was trying his best to stop that wonderful
Columbia player, Harold Weekes, who with his great hurdling play was
that season's sensation. In his hurdling he seemed to take his life in
his hands, going over the line of the opposing team feet first. When the
great guard of the Princeton team to whom I refer tried to stop Weekes,
his head collided with Weekes' feet and was badly cut.

The trainer rushed upon the field, sponged and dressed the wound and the
guard continued to play. But that night it was discovered that blood
poisoning had set in. There was gloom on the team when this became
known. But John Dana, lying there injured in the hospital, and knowing
how badly his services were needed in the coming game with Yale, with
his ambition unsatisfied, used his wits to appear better than he really
was in order to get discharged from the hospital and back on the team.

The physician who attended him has told me since that Dana would keep
his mouth open slyly when the nurse was taking his temperature so that
it would not be too high and the chart would make it appear that he was
all right.

At any rate, he seemed to improve steadily, and finally reported to the
trainer, Jim Robinson, two days before the Yale game. He was full of
hope and the coaches decided to have Robinson give him a try-out, so
that they could decide whether he was as fit as he was making it appear
he was.

I shall never forget watching that heroic effort, as Robinson took him
out behind the training house, to make the final test. With a head-gear,
especially made for him, Dana settled down in his regular position,
ready for the charge, anticipating the oncoming Yale halfback and
throbbing with eagerness to tackle the man with the ball.

Then he plunged forward, both arms extended, but handicapped by his
terrible injury, he toppled over upon his face, heart-broken. The spirit
was there, but he was physically unfit for the task.

The Yale game started without Dana, and as he sat there on the side
lines and saw Princeton go down to defeat, he was overcome with the
thought of his helplessness. He was needed, but he didn't have a chance.




CHAPTER XIV

BRINGING HOME THE BACON


Happy is the thought of victory, and while we realize that there should
always be eleven men in every play, each man doing his duty, there
frequently comes a time in a game, when some one man earns the credit
for winning the game, and brings home the bacon. Maybe he has been the
captain of the team, with a wonderful power of leadership which had held
the Eleven together all season and made his team a winning one. From the
recollections of some of the victories, from the experiences of the men
who participated in them and made victory possible, let us play some of
those games over with some of the heroes of past years.


Billy Bull

One of the truly great bacon-getters of the past is Yale's Billy Bull.
Football history is full of his exploits when he played on the Yale team
in '85, '86, '87 and '88. Old-time players can sit up all night telling
stories of the games in which he scored for Yale. His kicking proved a
winning card and in happy recollection the old-timers tell of Bull, the
hero of many a game, being carried off the field on the shoulders of an
admiring crowd of Yale men after a big victory.

"In the course of my years at Yale, six big games were played," says
Bull, "four with Princeton and two with Harvard. I was fortunate in
being able to go through all of them, sustaining no injury whatsoever,
except in the last game with Princeton. In this game, Channing came
through to me in the fullback position and in tackling him I received a
scalp wound which did not, however, necessitate my removal from the
game.

"Of the six games played, only one was lost, and that was the Lamar game
in the fall of '85. In the five games won I was the regular kicker in
the last three, and, in two of these, kicking proved to be the deciding
factor. Thus in '87--Yale 17, Harvard 8--two place kicks and one drop
kick were scored in the three attempts, totaling nine points.
Considering the punting I did that day, and the fact that both
place-kicks were scored from close to the side lines, I feel that that
game represents my best work.

"The third year of my play was undoubtedly my best year; in fact the
only year in which I might lay claim to being anything of a kicker. Thus
in the Rutgers game of '87 I kicked twelve straight goals from
placement. Counting the two goals from touchdowns against Princeton I
had a batting average of 1000 in three games.

"Through the last year I was handicapped with a lame kicking leg and
was out of form, for in the final game with Princeton that year, '88, I
tried at least four times before scoring the first field goal of the
game. In the second half I had but one chance and that was successful.
This was the 10-0 game, in which all the points were scored by kicking,
although the ground was wet and slippery.

"It is of interest to note, in connection with drop-kicking in the old
days, that the proposition was not the simple matter it is to-day. Then,
the ball had to go through the quarter's hands, and the kicker in
consequence had so little time in which to get the ball away that he was
really forced to kick in his tracks and immediately on receipt of the
ball. Fortunately I was able to do both, and I never had a try for a
drop blocked, and only one punt, the latter due to the fact that the
ball was down by the side line, and I could not run to the left (which
would have taken me out of bounds) before kicking.

"Perhaps one of the greatest sources of satisfaction to me, speaking of
punting in particular, was the fact that I was never blocked by
Princeton. And yet it was extremely fortunate for me that I was a
left-footed kicker and thus could run away from Cowan, who played a left
tackle before kicking. If I had had to use my right foot I doubt if I
could have got away with anything, for Cowan was certainly a wonderful
player and could get through the Yale line as though it were paper. He
always brought me down, but always after the ball had left my foot. I
know that it has been thought at Princeton that I stood twelve yards
back from the line when kicking. This was not so. Ten yards was the
regular distance, always. But, I either kicked in my tracks or directly
after running to the left."


THE DAY COLUMBIA BEAT YALE

Columbia men enthusiastically recall the day Columbia beat Yale. A
Columbia man who is always on hand for the big games of the year is
Charles Halstead Mapes, the ever reliable, loyal rooter for the game. He
has told the tale of this victory so wonderfully well that football
enthusiasts cannot but enjoy this enthusiastic Columbia version.

"Fifteen years ago Yale was supreme in football," runs Mapes' story.
"Occasionally, but only very occasionally, one of their great rivals,
Princeton or Harvard, would win a game from them, but for any outsider,
anybody except one of the 'Eternal Triangle,' to beat Yale was out of
the question--an utter impossibility. And, by the way, that Triangle at
times got almost as much on the nerves of the outside public as the
Frenchmen's celebrated three--wife, husband, lover--the foundation of
their plays.

"The psychological effect of Yale's past prestige was all-powerful in
every game. The blue-jerseyed figures with the white Y would tumble
through the gate and spread out on the field; the stands would rise to
them with a roar of joyous welcome that would raise the very
skies--Y-a-l-e! Y-a-l-e! Y--A--L--E!

[Illustration: TWO ACES--BILL MORLEY AND HAROLD WEEKS]

"'Small wonder that each man was right on his toes, felt as though he
were made of steel springs. All other Yale teams had won, 'We will win,
of course.'

"But the poor other side--they might just as well throw their canvas
jackets and mole-skin trousers in the old suit-case at once and go home.
'Beat Yale! boys, we're crazy, but every man must try his damnedest to
keep the score low,' and so the game was won and lost before the referee
even blew his starting whistle.

"This was the general rule, but every rule needs an exception to prove
it, and on a certain November afternoon in 1899 we gave them their
belly-full of exception. We had a very strong team that year, with some
truly great players, Harold Weekes and Bill Morley (there never were two
better men behind the line), and Jack Wright, old Jack Wright, playing
equally well guard or center, as fine a linesman as I have ever seen.
Weekes, Morley, and Wright were on the All-American team of that year,
and Walter Camp in selecting his All-American team for All Time several
years ago picked Harold Weekes as his first halfback.

"I can see the game now; there was no scoring in the first half. To
the outsider the teams seemed evenly matched, but we, who knew our
men, thought we saw that the power was there; and if they could but
realize their strength and that they had it in them to lay low at
last that armor-plated old rhinoceros, the terror of the college
jungle--Yale,--with an even break of luck, the game must be ours.

"In the second half our opportunity came. By one of the shifting chances
of the game we got the ball on about their 25-yard line; one yard, three
yards, two yards, four yards, we went through them; there was no
stopping us, and at last--over, well over, for a touchdown.

"Through some technicality in the last rush the officials, instead of
allowing the touchdown, took the ball away from us and gave it to Yale.
They were right, probably quite right, but how could we think so? Yale
at once kicked the ball to the middle of the field well out of danger.
The teams lined up.

"On the very next play, with every man of that splendidly trained Eleven
doing his allotted work, Harold Weekes swept around the end, aided by
the magnificent interference of Jack Wright, which gave him his start.
He ran half the length of the field, through the entire Yale team, and
planted the ball squarely behind the goal posts for the touchdown which
won the game. If we had ever had any doubt that cruel wrong is righted,
that truth and justice must prevail, it was swept away that moment in a
great wave of thanksgiving.

"I shall never forget it--Columbia had beaten Yale! Tears running down
my cheeks, shaken by emotion, I couldn't speak, let alone cheer. My best
girl was with me. She gave one quick half-frightened glance and I
believe almost realized all I felt. She was all gold. I feel now the
timid little pressure on my arm as she tried to help me regain control
of myself. God! why has life so few such moments!"


BEHIND THE SCENES

Let us go into the dressing room of a victorious team, which defeated
Yale at Manhattan Field a good many years ago and let us read with that
great lover of football, the late Richard Harding Davis, as he describes
so wonderfully well some of the unique things that happened in the
celebration of victory.

"People who live far away from New York and who cannot understand from
the faint echoes they receive how great is the enthusiasm that this
contest arouses, may possibly get some idea of what it means to the
contestants themselves through the story of a remarkable incident, that
occurred after the game in the Princeton dressing room. The team were
being rubbed down for the last time and after their three months of
self-denial and anxiety and the hardest and roughest sort of work that
young men are called upon to do, and outside in the semi-darkness
thousands of Princeton followers were jumping up and down and hugging
each other and shrieking themselves hoarse. One of the Princeton coaches
came into the room out of this mob, and holding up his arm for silence
said,

"'Boys, I want you to sing the doxology.'"

"Standing as they were, naked and covered with mud, blood and
perspiration, the eleven men that had won the championship sang the
Doxology from the beginning to the end as solemnly and as seriously, and
I am sure, as sincerely, as they ever did in their lives, while outside
the no less thankful fellow-students yelled and cheered and beat at the
doors and windows and howled for them to come out and show themselves.
This may strike some people as a very sacrilegious performance and as a
most improper one, but the spirit in which it was done has a great deal
to do with the question, and any one who has seen a defeated team lying
on the benches of their dressing room, sobbing like hysterical school
girls, can understand how great and how serious is the joy of victory to
the men that conquer."

Introducing Vic Kennard, opportunist extraordinary. Where is the Harvard
man, Yale man, or indeed any football man who will not be stirred by the
recollection of his remarkable goal from the field at New Haven that
provided the winning points for the eleven Percy Haughton turned out in
the first year of his régime. To Kennard himself the memory is still
vivid, and there are side lights on that performance and indeed on all
his football days at Cambridge, of which he alone can tell. I'll not
make a conversation of this, but simply say as one does over the 'phone,
"Kennard talking":--

[Illustration: VIC KENNARD'S KICK]

"Many of us are under the impression that the only real football fan is
molded from the male sex and that the female of the species attends the
game for decorative purposes only. I protest. Listen. In 1908 I had the
good fortune to be selected to enter the Harvard-Yale Game at New Haven,
for the purpose of scoring on Yale in a most undignified way, through
the medium of a drop-kick, Haughton realizing that while a touchdown was
distinctly preferable, he was not afraid to fight it out in the next
best way.

"My prayers were answered, for the ball somehow or other made its way
over the crossbar and between the uprights, making the score, Harvard 4,
Yale 0. My mother, who had made her way to New Haven by a forced march,
was sitting in the middle of the stand on the Yale (no, I'm wrong, it
was, on second thought, on the Harvard side) accompanied by my two
brothers, one of whom forgot himself far enough to go to Yale, and will
not even to this day acknowledge his hideous mistake.

"Five or six minutes before the end of the game, one E. H. Coy decided
that the time was getting short and Yale needed a touchdown. So he
grabbed a Harvard punt on the run and started. Yes, he did more than
start, he got well under way, circled the Harvard end and after
galloping fifteen yards, apparently concluded that I would look well as
minced meat, and headed straight for me, stationed well back on the
secondary defense. He had received no invitation whatsoever, but owing
to the fact that I believe every Harvard man should be at least cordial
to every Yale man, I decided to go 50-50 and meet him half way.

"We met informally. That I know. I will never forget that. He weighed
only 195 pounds, but I am sure he had another couple of hundred tucked
away somewhere. When I had finished counting a great variety and number
of stars, it occurred to me that I had been in a ghastly railroad wreck,
and that the engine and cars following had picked out my right knee as a
nice soft place to pile up on. There was a feeling of great relief when
I looked around and saw that the engineer of that train, Mr. E. H. Coy,
had stopped with the train, and I held the greatest hopes that neither
the engine nor any one of the ten cars following would ever reach the
terminal.

"Mother, who had seen the whole performance, was little concerned with
other than the fact that E. H. had been delayed. His mission had been
more than delayed--as it turned out, it had been postponed. In the
meantime Dr. Nichols of the Harvard staff of first aid was working with
my knee, and from the stands it looked as though I might have broken my
leg.

"At this point some one who sat almost directly back of my mother called
out loud, 'That's young Kennard. It looks as though he'd broken his
leg.' My brother, feeling that mother had not heard the remark, and not
knowing what he might say, turned and informed him that Mrs. Kennard was
sitting almost directly in front of him, requesting that he be careful
what he said. Mother, however, heard the whole thing, and turning in her
seat said, 'That's all right, I don't care if his leg is broken, if we
only win this game.'

"My mother, who is a great football fan, after following the game for
three or four years, learned all the slang expressions typical of
football. She tried to work out new plays, criticised the generalship
occasionally, and fairly 'ate and slept' football during the months of
October and November. While the season was in progress I usually slept
at home in Boston where I could rest more comfortably. I occupied the
adjoining room to my mother's, and when I was ready for bed always
opened the door between the rooms.

"One night I woke up suddenly and heard my mother talking. Wondering
whether something was the matter, I got out of bed and went into her
room, appearing just in time to see my mothers arms outstretched. She
was calling 'Fair catch.' I spoke to her to see just what the trouble
was, and she, in a sleepy way, mumbled, 'We won.' She had been dreaming
of the Harvard-Dartmouth game.

"Early in the fall of 1908 Haughton heard rumors that the Indians were
equipping their backfield in a very peculiar fashion. Warner had had a
piece of leather the color and shape of a football sewed on the jerseys
of his backfield men, in such a position that when the arm was folded as
if carrying the ball, it would appear as if each of the backfield
players might have possession of the ball, and therefore disorganize
somewhat the defense against the man who was actually carrying the ball.
Instead of one runner each time, there appeared to be four.

"Haughton studied the rules and found nothing to prevent Warner's
scheme. He wrote a friendly letter to Warner, stating that he did not
think it for the best interest of the game to permit his players to
appear in the Stadium equipped in this way, at the same time admitting
that there was nothing in the rules against it. Taking no chances,
however, Haughton worked out a scheme of his own. He discovered that
there was no rule which prevented painting the ball red, so he had a
ball painted the same color as the crimson jerseys. Had the Indians come
on the field with the leather ruse sewed on their jerseys, Haughton
would have insisted that the game be played with the crimson ball.

"What did I learn in my football course? I learned to control my
temper, to exercise judgment, to think quickly and act decisively. I
learned the meaning of discipline, to take orders and carry them out to
the best of my ability without asking why. I had through the training
regular habits knocked into me. I learned to meet, know and size up men.
I learned to smile when I was the most discouraged fellow in this great
wide world, the importance of being on time, a better control of my
nerves, and to demand the respect of fellow players. I learned to work
out problems for myself and to apply my energy more intelligently,--to
stick by the ship. I secured a wide friendship which money can't buy."

What Eddie Mahan was to Harvard, Charlie Barrett, Captain of the
victorious 1915 Eleven, was to Cornell. The Ithaca Captain was one of
those powerful runners whose remarkable physique did not interfere with
his shiftiness. Like his Harvard contemporary, he was a fine leader, but
unlike Mahan, with whom he clashed in the game with the Crimson in his
final year, he was not able to play the play through what was to him
probably the most important gridiron battle of his career. Nevertheless,
it was his touchdown in the first quarter that sounded the knell of the
Crimson hopes that day, and Cornell men will always believe that his
presence on the side line wrapped in a blanket, after his recovery from
the shock that put him out of the game, had much to do with inspiring
his Eleven.

Barrett was one of the products of the Cleveland University School,
whence so many star players have been sent up to the leading
universities. On the occasion of his first appearance at Ithaca it
became a practical certainty that he would not only make the Varsity
Eleven, but would some day be its captain. In course of time it became a
habit for the followers of the Carnelian and White to look to Barrett
for rescue in games that seemed to be hopelessly in the fire.

In his senior year the team was noted for its ability to come from
behind, and this team spirit was generally understood as being the
reflection of that of their leader. The Cornell Captain played the
second and third periods of his final game against Pennsylvania in a
dazed condition, and it is a tribute to his mental and physical
resources that in the last period of that game he played perhaps as fine
football as he had ever shown.

It was from no weakened Pennsylvania Eleven that Barrett snatched the
victory in this his crowded moment. The Quakers had had a disastrous
season up to Thanksgiving Day, but their pluck and rallying power, which
has become a tradition on Franklin Field, was never more in evidence.
The Quakers played with fire, with power and aggressiveness that none
save those who know the Quaker spirit had been led to expect. There
were heroes on the Red and Blue team that day, and without a Barrett at
his best against them, they would have won.

[Illustration: SAM WHITE'S RUN]

It was up to Eddie Hart with his supreme personality and indomitable
spirit, which has always characterized him from the day he entered
Exeter until he forged his way to the leadership of one of Princeton's
finest elevens to bring home the long deferred championship. When the
final whistle rang down the football curtain for the season of 1911 it
found Hart in the ascendancy having fulfilled the wonderful promise of
his old Exeter days. For he had made good indeed.

Yale and Harvard had been beaten through a remarkable combination of
team and individual effort in which Sam White's alertness and DeWitt's
kicking stood out; a combination which was made possible only through
Hart's splendid leadership.

At a banquet for this championship team given by the Princeton Club of
Philadelphia, Lou Reichner, the toastmaster, in introducing Sam White,
the hero of the evening, quoted from First Samuel III, Chapter ii, 12th
and 1st verses--"And the Lord said unto Samuel, behold I will do a thing
in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall
tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli, all things which I have
spoken concerning his house; when I begin I will also make an end. And
The Child Samuel ministered unto the Lord Eli." Mr. Reichner then
presented to the Child Samuel the souvenir sleeve links and a silver box
containing the genuine soil from Yale Field.

After Sam had been sufficiently honored, Alfred T. Baker, Princeton '85,
a former Varsity football player, and his son Hobey Baker, who played on
Eddie Hart's team, were called before the toastmaster. There was a
triple cheer for Hobey and his father. Reichner said that he had nothing
for Papa Baker, but a souvenir for Hobey, and if the father was man
enough to take it away from him he could have it.

In speaking of the Yale-Princeton game at New Haven, some of the things
incidental to victory were told that evening by Sam White, who said:

"In the Yale game of 1911, Joe Duff, the Princeton guard, came over to
Hart, Captain of the Princeton team, and said:

"'Ed, I can't play any more. I can't stand on my left leg.'

"'That's all right,' answered Hart, 'go back and play on your right
one.'

"Joe did and that year he made the All-American guard.

"It was less than a week before the Harvard-Princeton game at Princeton,
1911, a friend of mine wrote down and asked me to get him four good
seats, and said if I'd mention my favorite cigar, he'd send me a box in
appreciation. I got the seats for him, but it was more or less of a
struggle, but in writing on did not mention cigars. He sent me a check
to cover the cost of the tickets and in the letter enclosed a small
scarf pin which he said was sure to bring me luck. He had done quite a
little running in his time and said it had never failed him and urged me
to be sure and put it in my tie the day of the Harvard-Princeton game. I
am not superstitious, but I did stick it in my tie when I dressed that
Saturday morning and it surely had a charm. It was in the first half
that I got away for my run, and as we came out of the field house at the
start of the second half, whom should I see but my friend, yelling like
a madman--

"'Did you wear it? Did you wear it?'

"I assured him I did, and it seemed to quiet and please him, for he
merely grinned and replied:

"'I told you! I told you!'

"After the game I said nothing of the episode, but did secretly decide
to keep the pin safely locked up until the day of the Yale-Princeton
game. I again stuck it in my tie that morning and the charm still held,
and I am still wondering to this day, if it doesn't pay to be a little
bit superstitious."

Every Harvard man remembers vividly the great Crimson triumph of 1915
over Yale. It will never be forgotten. During the game I sat on the
Harvard side lines with Doctor Billy Brooks, a former Harvard captain.
He was not satisfied when Harvard had Yale beaten by the score of 41 to
0, but was enthusiastically urging Harvard on to at least one or two
more touchdowns, so that the defeat which Yale meted out to Harvard in
1884, a game in which he was a player, would be avenged by a larger
score, but alas! he had to be satisfied with the tally as it stood.

A story is told of the enthusiasm of Evert Jansen Wendell, as he stood
on the side lines of this same game and saw the big Crimson roller
crushing Yale down to overwhelming defeat. This enthusiastic Harvard
graduate cried out:

"'We must score again!'

"Another Harvard sympathiser, standing nearby, said:

"'Mr. Wendell, don't you think we have beaten them badly enough? What
more do you want?'

"'Oh, I want to see them suffer,' retorted Wendell."

After this game was over and the crowd was surging out of the stadium
that afternoon I heard an energetic newsboy, who was selling the
_Harvard Lampoon_, crying out at the top of his voice:

"'_Harvard Lampoon_ for sale here. All about the New Haven wreck.'"


Eddie Mahan

There is no question that the American game of football will go on for
years to come. If the future football generals develop a better
all-around man than Eddie Mahan, captain of the great Harvard team of
1915, whose playing brought not only victory to Harvard but was
accompanied by great admiration throughout the football world, they may
well congratulate themselves. From this peerless leader, whose playing
was an inspiration to the men on his team, let us put on record, so that
future heroes may also draw like inspiration from them, some of Mahan's
own recollections of his playing days.

"I think the greatest game I ever played in was the Princeton game in
1915, because we never knew until the last minute that we had won the
game," says the Crimson star. "There was always a chance of Princeton's
beating us. The score was 10 to 6. I worked harder in that game than in
any game I ever played.

"Frank Glick's defensive work was nothing short of marvelous. He is the
football player I respect. He hit me so hard. The way I ran, it was
seldom that anybody got a crack at me. I would see a clear space and the
first thing I knew Glick would come from behind somewhere, or somebody,
and would hit me when I least expected it, and he usually hit me good
and hard. It seemed sometimes that he came right out of the ground. I
tell you after he hit me a few times he was the only man I was looking
for; I did not care much about the rest of the team.

"One of the things that helped me most in my backfield play was Pooch
Donovan's coaching. He practiced me in sprints, my whole freshman year.
He took a great interest in me. He speeded me up. I owe a great debt of
gratitude to Pooch. I could always kick before I went to Harvard, back
in the old Andover days. I learned to kick by punting the ball all the
afternoon, instead of playing football all the time. I think that is the
way men should learn to kick. The more I kicked, the better I seemed to
get."

Among the many trophies Eddie Mahan has received, he prizes as much as
any the watch presented to him by the townspeople of Natick, his home
town, his last year at Andover, after the football season closed. He was
attending a football game at Natick between Natick High and Milton High.

"It was all a surprise to me," says Eddie. "They called me out on the
field and presented me with this watch which is very handsomely
inscribed.

"Well do I recall those wonderful days at Andover and the games between
Andover and Exeter. There is intense rivalry between these two schools.
Many are the traditions at Andover, and some of the men who had preceded
me, and some with whom I played were Jack Curtis, Ralph Bloomer, Frank
Hinkey, Doc Hillebrand and Jim Rodgers. Then there was Trevor Hogg, who
was captain of the Princeton 1916 team, Shelton, Red Braun, Bob Jones.
The older crowd of football men made the game what it is at Andover.
Lately they have had a much younger crowd. When I was at Andover, Johnny
Kilpatrick, Henry Hobbs, Ham Andrews, Bob Foster and Bob McKay had
already left there and gone to college.

"It has been a great privilege for me to have played on different teams
that have had strong players. I cannot say too much about Hardwick,
Bradlee, and Trumbull. Brickley was one of the hardest men for our
opponents to bring down when he got the ball. He was a phenomenal
kicker. I had also a lot of respect for Mal Logan, who played
quarterback on my team in 1915. He weighed less than 150 pounds. He used
to get into the interference in grand shape. He counted for something.
He was a tough kid. He could stand all sorts of knocks and he used to
get them too. When I was kicking he warded off the big tackles as they
came through. He was always there and nobody could ever block a kick
from his side. The harder they hit him, the stronger he came back every
time."

When I asked Mahan about fun in football he said:

"We didn't seem to do much kidding. There was a sort of serious spirit;
Haughton had such an influence over everybody, they were afraid to laugh
before practice, while waiting for Haughton, and after practice
everybody was usually so tired there was not much fooling in the
dressing room; but we got a lot of fun out of the game."

Of Haughton's coaching methods and the Harvard system Eddie has a few
things to tell us that will be news to many football men.

"Haughton coaches a great deal by the use of photographs which are taken
of us in practice as well as regular games. He would get us all together
and coach from the pictures--point out the poor work. Seldom were the
good points shown. Nevertheless, he always gave credit to the man who
got his opponent in the interference. Haughton used to say:

"'Any one can carry a ball through a bunch of dead men.'

"Haughton is a good organizer. He has been the moving spirit at
Cambridge but by no means the whole Harvard coaching staff. The
individual coaches work with him and with each other. Each one has
control or supreme authority over his own department. The backfield
coach has the picking of men for their positions. Harvard follows
Charlie Daly's backfield play; improved upon somewhat, of course,
according to conditions. Each coach is considered an expert in his own
line. No coach is considered an expert in all fields. This is the method
at Harvard.

"Outside of Haughton, Bill Withington, Reggie Brown, and Leo Leary have
been the most recent prominent coaches. The Harvard generalship has
been the old Charlie Daly system. Reggie Brown has been a great
strategist. Harvard line play came from Pot Graves of West Point."

[Illustration: KING, OF HARVARD, MAKING A RUN; MAHAN PUTTING BLACK ON
HIS HEAD]


George Chadwick

What George Chadwick, captain of Yale's winning team of 1902, gave of
himself to Yale football has amply earned the thoroughly remarkable
tributes constantly paid to this great Yale player. He was a most
deceptive man with the ball. In the Princeton game John DeWitt was the
dangerous man on the Princeton team, feared most on account of his great
kicking ability.

DeWitt has always contended that Chadwick's team was the best Yale team
he ever saw. He says: "It was a better team than Gordon Brown's for the
reason that they had a kicker and Gordon Brown's team did not have a
kicker. But this is only my opinion."

Yale and Princeton men will not forget in a hurry the two wonderful runs
for touchdowns, one from about the center of the field, that Chadwick
made in 1902.

"I note," writes Chadwick, "that there is a general impression that the
opening in the line through which I went was large enough to accommodate
an express train. As a matter of fact, the opening was hardly large
enough for me to squeeze through. The play was not to make a large
opening, and I certainly remember the sensation of being squeezed when
going through the line.

"There were some amusing incidents in connection with that particular
game that come back to me now. I remember that when going down on the
train from New York to Princeton, I was very much amused at Mike
Murphy's efforts to get Tom Shevlin worked up so he would play an extra
good game. Mike kept telling Tom what a good man Davis was and how the
latter was going to put it all over him. Tom clenched his fists, put on
a silly grin and almost wept. It really did me a lot of good, as it
helped to keep my mind off the game. When it did come to the game, his
first big game, Shevlin certainly played wonderful football.

"I had been ill for about a week and a half before this game and really
had not played in practice for two or three weeks. Mike was rather
afraid of my condition, so he told me to be the last man always to get
up before the ball was put in play. I carefully followed his advice and
as a result a lot of my friends in the stand kept thinking that I had
been hurt.

"Toward the end of the game we were down about on Princeton's 40-yard
line. It was the third down and the probabilities were that we would not
gain the distance, so I decided to have Bowman try for a drop-kick. I
happened to glance over at the side line and there was old Mike Murphy
making strenuous motions with his foot. The umpire, Dashiell, saw him
too, and put him off the side lines for signalling. I remember being
extremely angry at the time because I was not looking at the side lines
for any signals and had decided on a drop kick anyhow.

"In my day it was still the policy to work the men to death, to drill
them to endure long hours of practice scrimmage. About two weeks before
the Princeton game in my senior year, we were in a slump. We had a long,
miserable Monday's practice. A lot of the old coaches insisted that
football must be knocked into the men by hard work, but it seemed to me
that the men knew a lot of football. They were fundamentally good and
what they really needed was condition to enable them to show their
football knowledge. It is needless to say that I was influenced greatly
in this by Mike Murphy and his knowledge of men and conditioning them.
Joe Swann, the field coach, and Walter Camp were in accord, so we turned
down the advice of a lot of the older coaches and gave the Varsity only
about five minutes' scrimmage during the week and a half preceding the
Princeton game, with the exception of the Bucknell game the Saturday
before. During the week before the Princeton and Harvard games we went
up to Ardsley and had no practice for three days. There was a
five-minutes' scrimmage on Thursday. This was an unusual proceeding, but
it was so intensely hot the day of the Princeton game, and we all lost
so much weight something unusual had to be done. The team played well in
the Princeton game, but it was simply a coming team then. In the Harvard
game, which we won 23 to 0, it seemed to me that we were at the top of
our form.

"I think the whole incident was a lesson to us at New Haven of the great
value of condition to men who know a great deal of football. I know from
my own experience during the three preceding years that it had been too
little thought of. The great cry had too often been 'We must drum
football into them, no matter what their physical condition.'

"After the terribly exhausting game at Princeton, which we won, 12 to 5,
DeWitt Cochrane invited the team to go to his place at Ardsley and
recuperate. It really was our salvation, and I have always been most
grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Cochrane for so generously giving up their
house completely to a mob of youngsters. We spent three delightful days,
almost forgot football entirely, ate ravenously and slept like tops.

"Big Eddie Glass was a wonderful help in interference. I used to play
left half and Eddie left guard. On plays where I would take the ball
around the end, or skirting tackle, Eddie would either run in the
interference or break through the line and meet me some yards beyond. We
had a great pulling and hauling team that year, and the greatest puller
and hauler was Eddie Glass. Perry Hale, who played fullback my
sophomore year, was a great interferer. He was big, and strong and fast.
On a straight buck through tackle, when he would be behind me, if there
was not a hole in the proper place, he would whirl me all the way round
and shoot me through a hole somewhere else. It would, of course, act as
an impromptu delayed play. In one game I remember making a forty yard
run to a touchdown on such a manoeuver."

[Illustration:

McCord Mills Roper Burke Pell Craig Mattis Lathrope Lloyd Bannard Booth
Wheeler   Reiter
Poe   Edwards   Hillebrand
Hutchinson   Palmer   McClave

PRINCETON'S 1899 TEAM]


Arthur Poe

There never was as much real football ability concealed in a small
package as there was in that great player, Arthur Poe. He was always
using his head, following the ball, strong in emergency. He was endowed
with a wonderful personality, and a man who always got a lot of fun out
of the game and made fun for others, but yet was on the job every
minute. He always inspired his team mates to play a little harder.
Rather than write anything more about this great player, let us read
with him the part he so ably played in some of Princeton's football
games.

"The story of my run in 1898 is very simple. Yale tried a mass play on
Doc Hillebrand, which, as usual, was very unsuccessful in that quarter.
He broke through and tackled the man with the ball. While the Yale men
were trying to push him forward, I grabbed the ball from his arms and
had a clear field and about ten yards start for the goal line. I don't
believe I was ever happier in my life than on this day when I made the
Princeton team and scored this touchdown against Yale.

"In the second half McBride tried a center drive on Booth and Edwards.
The line held and I rushed in, and grabbed the ball, but before I got
very far the Referee blew his whistle, and after I had run across the
goal line I realized that the touchdown was not going to be allowed.

"Lew Palmer and I were tried at end simply to endeavor to provide a
defense against the return runs of de Saulles on punts. He, by the way,
was the greatest open field runner I have ever seen.

"My senior year started auspiciously and the prospects for a victorious
eleven appeared especially bright, as only two of the regular players of
the year before had graduated. The first hard game was against Columbia,
coached by Foster Sanford, who had a wealth of material drawn from the
four corners of the earth. In the latter part of the game my opponent by
way of showing his disapproval of my features attempted to change them,
but was immediately assisted to the ground by my running mate and was
undergoing an unpleasant few moments, when Sanford, reinforced by
several dozen substitutes, ran to his rescue and bestowed some unkind
compliments on different parts of my pal's anatomy. With the arrival of
Burr McIntosh and several old grads, however, we were released from
their clutches, and the game proceeded.

"After the Cornell game the Yale game was close at hand. We were
confident of our ability to win, though we expected a bitter hard
struggle, in which we were not disappointed. Through a well developed
interference on an end run, Reiter was sent around the end for several
long gains, resulting in a touchdown, but Yale retaliated by blocking a
kick and falling on the ball for a touchdown. Sharpe, a few minutes
later, kicked a beautiful goal, so that the score was 10 to 6 in Yale's
favor. The wind was blowing a gale all through the first half and as
Yale had the wind at their backs we were forced to play a rushing game,
but shortly after the second half began the wind died down considerably
so that McBride's long, low kicks were not effective to any great
extent.

"Yale was on the defensive and we were unable to break through for the
coveted touchdown, though we were able to gain ground consistently for
long advances. In the shadow of their goal line Yale held us mainly
through the wonderful defensive playing of McBride. I never saw a finer
display of backing up the rush line than that of McBride during the
second half. So strenuous was the play that eight substitutions had been
made on our team, but with less than five minutes to play we started a
furious drive for the goal line from the middle of the field, and with
McClave, Mattis and Lathrope carrying the ball we went to Yale's 25-yard
line in quick time.

"With only about a minute to play it was decided to try a goal from the
field. I was selected as the one to make the attempt. I was standing on
the 34-yard line, about ten yards to the left of centre when I kicked;
the ball started straight for the far goal post, but apparently was
deflected by air currents and curved in not more than a yard from the
post. I turned to the Referee, saw his arms raised and heard him say
'Goal' and then everything broke loose.

"I saw members of the team turning somersaults, and all I remember after
that was being seized by a crowd of alumni who rushed out upon the
field, and hearing my brother Ned shout, 'You damned lucky kid, you have
licked them again.' I kicked the ball with my instep, having learned
this from Charlie Young of Cornell, who was then at Princeton Seminary
and was playing on the scrub team. The reason I did this was because Lew
Palmer and myself wore light running shoes with light toes, not kicking
shoes at all.

"After the crowd had been cleared off the field there were only 29
seconds left to play, and after Yale had kicked off we held the ball
without risking a play until the whistle blew, when I started full speed
for the gate, followed by Bert Wheeler. I recall knocking down several
men as we were bursting through and making our way to the bus. It was
the first, last and only goal from the field I ever attempted, and the
most plausible explanation for its success was probably predestination."

[Illustration: "NOTHING GOT BY JOHN DeWITT"]

Arthur Poe was a big factor in football, even when he wasn't running or
kicking Yale down to defeat.

"Bill Church's roughness, in my freshman year, had the scrub bluffed,"
continues Arthur. "When Lew Palmer volunteered to play halfback and take
care of Bill on punts, Bill was surprised on the first kick he attempted
to block to feel Lew's fist on his jaw and immediately shouted:

"'I like you for that, you damn freshman.'

"That was the first accident that attracted attention to Lew. Palmer was
one of the gamest men and he won a Varsity place by the hardest kind of
work.

"Well do I recall the indignation meeting of the scrub to talk over
plans of curbing Johnny Baird and Fred Smith in their endeavor to kill
the scrub."


John DeWitt

Big John DeWitt was the man who brought home the Yale bacon for the
Tigers in 1903. To be exact he not only carried, but also kicked it
home. Two surprise parties by a single player in so hard a game are rare
indeed. Whenever I think of DeWitt I think of his great power of
leadership. He was an ideal captain. He thought things out for himself.
He was the spirit of his team.

This great Princeton captain was one of the most versatile football men
known to fame. Playing so remarkably in the guard position, he also did
the kicking for his team and was a great power in running with the ball.

DeWitt thought things out almost instantly and took advantage of every
possible point. The picture on the opposite page illustrates wonderfully
well how he exerted and extended himself. This man put his whole soul
into his work and was never found wanting. His achievements will hold a
conspicuous place in football history. Nothing got by John DeWitt.

DeWitt's team in 1903 was the first to bring victory over Yale to
Princeton since 1899. On that day John DeWitt scored a touchdown and
kicked a placement goal, which will long be remembered. Let us go back
and play a part of that game over with John himself.

"Whenever I think of football my recollections go back to the Yale game
of 1903," says DeWitt. "My most vivid recollections are of my loyal team
mates whose wonderful spirit and good fellowship meant so much to the
success of that Eleven. Without their combined effort Princeton could
not have won that day.

"We had a fine optimistic spirit before the game and the fact that Jim
Hogan scored a touchdown for Yale in the first part of the game seemed
to put us on our mettle and we came back with the spirit that I have
always been proud of. Hogan was almost irresistible. You could hardly
stop him when he had the ball. He scored between Harold Short and myself
and jammed through for about 12 yards to a touchdown. If you tackled Jim
Hogan head on he would pull you right over backwards. He was the
strongest tackle I ever saw. He seemed to have overpowering strength in
his legs. He was a regular player. He never gave up until the whistle
blew, but after the Princeton team got its scoring machine at work, the
Princeton line outplayed the Yale line.

"I think Yale had as good a team as we had, if not better, that day. The
personnel of the team was far superior to ours, but we had our spirit in
the game. We were going through Yale to beat the band the last part of
the game."

DeWitt, describing the run that made him famous, says:

"Towards the end of the first half, with the score 6 to 0 against
Princeton, Yale was rushing us down the field. Roraback, the Yale
center, was not able to pass the ball the full distance back for the
punter. Rockwell took the ball from quarterback position and passed it
to Mitchell, the fullback. On this particular play our whole line went
through on the Yale kick formation. No written account that I have ever
seen has accurately described just what happened. Ralph Davis was the
first man through, and he blocked Mitchell's kick. Ridge Hart, who was
coming along behind him, kicked the loose ball forward and the oval was
about fifteen to twenty yards from where it started. I was coming
through all the time.

"As the bouncing ball went behind Mitchell it bobbed up right in front
of me. I probably broke all rules of football by picking it up, but the
chances looked good and I took advantage of them. I really was wondering
then whether to pick it up or fall on it, but figured that it was harder
to fall on it than to pick it up, so I put on all the steam I had and
started for the goal. Howard Henry was right behind me until I got near
the goal post. After I had kicked the goal the score was 6 to 6. Never
can I forget the fierce playing on the part of both teams that now took
place.

"Shortly after this in the second half I punted down into Yale's
territory. Mitchell fumbled and Ralph Davis fell on the ball on the
30-yard line. We tried to gain, but could not. Bowman fell on the ball
after the ensuing kick, which was blocked. It had rolled to the 5-yard
line. Yale tried to gain once; then Bowman went back to kick. I can
never pay enough tribute to Vetterlein, to the rare judgment that he
displayed at this point in the game. When he caught that punt and heeled
it, he used fine judgment; but for his good head work we never would
have won that game. I kicked my goal from the field from the 43-yard
line.

[Illustration: JOHN DeWITT ABOUT TO PICK UP THE BALL]

"As Ralph Davis was holding the ball before I kicked it, the Yale
players, who were standing ten yards away were not trying to make it any
the easier for us. I remember in particular Tom Shevlin was kidding
Ralph Davis, who replied: 'Well, Tom, you might as well give it to us
now--the score is going to be 11-6,' and just then what Davis had said
came through.

"If any one thinks that my entire football experience was a bed of
roses, I want to assure him that it was not. I experienced the sadness
of injury and of not making the team. The first day I lined up I broke
three bones in one hand. Three weeks later, after they had healed I
broke the bones in my other hand and so patiently waited until the
following year to make the team.

"The next year I went through the bitter experience of defeat, and we
were beaten good and plenty by Yale. Defeat came again in 1902. It was
in that year that I met, as my opponent, the hardest man I ever played
against, Eddie Glass. The Yale team came at me pretty hard the first
fifteen minutes. Glass especially crashed into me. He was warned three
times by Dashiell in the opening part of the game for strenuous work.
Glass was a rough, hard player, but he was not an unfair player at
that. I always liked good, rough football. He played the game for all
it was worth and was a Gibraltar to the Yale team.

"Now that my playing days are over, I think there is one thing that
young fellows never realize until they are through playing; that they
might have helped more; that they might have given a few extra minutes
to perfect a play. The thing that has always appealed to me most in
football is to think of what might have been done by a little extra
effort. It is very seldom you see a man come off the field absolutely
used up. I have never seen but one or two cases where a man had to be
helped to the dressing room. I have always thought such a man did not
give as much as he should,--we're all guilty of this offense. A little
extra punch might have made a touchdown."

Tichenor, of the University of Georgia, tells the following:

"In a Tech-Georgia game a peculiar thing happened. One of the goal lines
was about seven yards from the fence which was twelve feet high and
perfectly smooth. Tech had worked the ball down to within about three
yards of Georgia's goal near the fence. Here the defense of the Red and
Black stiffened and, taking the ball on downs, Ted Sullivan immediately
dropped back for a kick. The pass was none too good and he swung his
foot into the ball, which struck the cross bar, bounded high up in the
air, over the fence, behind the goal post.

"Then began the mighty wall-scaling struggle to get over the fence and
secure the coveted ball. As fast as one team would try to boost each
other over, their opponents would pull them down. This contest continued
for fully five minutes while the crowd roared with delight. In the
meantime George Butler, the Referee, took advantage of the situation
and, with the assistance of several spectators, was boosted over the
fence where he waited for some player to come and fall on the ball,
which was fairly hidden in a ditch covered over with branches. Butler
tells to this day of the amusing sight as he beheld first one pair of
hands grasping the top of the fence; one hand would loosen, then the
other; then another set of hands would appear. Heads were bobbing up and
down and disappearing one after the other. The crowd now became
interested and showed their partiality, and with the assistance of some
of the spectators a Tech player made his way over the fence and began
his search for the ball, closely followed by a Georgia player. They
rushed around frantically looking for the ball. Then Red Wilson joined
in the search and quickly located it in the ditch; soon had it safely in
his arms and Tech scored a touchdown.

"This was probably the only touchdown play in the history of the game
which none of the spectators saw and which only the Referee and two
other players saw at the time the player touched the ball down."

That Charlie Brickley was in the way of bringing home the bacon to
Harvard is well known to all. There have been very few players who were
as reliable as this star. It was in his senior year that he was captain
of the team and when the announcement came at the start of the football
season that Brickley had been operated upon for appendicitis the
football world extended to him its deepest sympathy. During his illness
he yearned to get out in time to play against Yale. This all came true.
The applause which greeted him when Haughton sent this great player into
the game--with the Doctor's approval--must have impressed him that one
and all were glad to see him get into the game.

Let us hear what Brickley has to say about playing the game.

"I have often been asked how I felt when attempting a drop kick in a
close game before a large crowd. During my first year I was a little
nervous, but after that it didn't bother me any more than as if I were
eating lunch. Constant practice for years gave me the feeling that I
could kick the ball over every time I tried. If I was successful, those
who have seen me play are the best judges. Confidence is a necessity in
drop kicking. The three hardest games I ever played in were the
Dartmouth 3 to 0 game in 1912, and Princeton 3 to 0 in 1913, and the
Yale 15 to 5 game of the same year. The hardest field goal I ever had to
kick was against Princeton in the mud in 1913.

[Illustration: THE EVER RELIABLE BRICKLEY]

[Illustration: A FOOTBALL THOROUGHBRED--TACK HARDWICK]

"The most finished player in all around play I ever came across is Tack
Hardwick. He could go through a game, or afternoon's practice and
perform every fundamental function of the game in perfect fashion. The
most interesting and remarkable player I ever came across was Eddie
Mahan. He could do anything on the football field. He was so versatile,
that no real defense could be built against him. He had a wonderful
intuitive sense and always did just the right thing at the right time."




CHAPTER XV

"THE BLOODY ANGLE"


Football in its very nature is a rough game. It calls for the contact of
bodies under high momentum and this means strains and bruises! Thanks to
the superb physical condition of players, it usually means nothing more
serious.

The play, be it ever so hard, is not likely to be dangerous provided it
is clean, and the worst indictment that can be framed against a player
of to-day, and that by his fellows, is that he is given to dirty
tactics. This attitude has now been established by public opinion, and
is reflected in turn by the strictness of officials, the sentiment of
coaches and football authorities generally. So scientific is the game
to-day that only the player who can keep his head, and clear his mind of
angry emotions, is really a valuable man in a crisis.

Again, the keynote of success in football to-day is team work, perfect
interlocking of all parts. In the old days play was individual, man
against man, and this gave rise in many cases to personal animosity
which frequently reduced great football contests to little more than
pitched battles. Those who to-day are prone to decry football as a
rough and brutal sport--which it no longer is--might at least reverse
their opinions of the present game, could they have spent a certain
lurid afternoon in the fall of '87 at Jarvis Field where the elevens of
Harvard and Princeton fought a battle so sanguinary as to come down to
us through the years legended as a real _crimson_ affair. One of the
saddest accidents that ever occurred on a university football field
happened in this contest and suggested the caption of "the Bloody
Angle," the historic shambles of the great Gettysburg battle.

Luther Price, who played halfback on the Princeton teams of '86 and '87
and who was acting captain the larger part of the latter season, tells
the following story of the game:

"Princeton's contest with Harvard in the autumn of '87 was the bloodiest
game that I ever experienced or saw. At that period the football
relations between the two colleges were fast approaching a crisis and
the long break between the institutions followed a couple of seasons
later. It is perhaps true that the '87 game was largely responsible for
the rupture because it left secret bitterness.

"In fact, the game was pretty near butchery and the defects of the rules
contributed to this end. Both sides realized that the contest was going
to be a hummer but neither imagined the extent of the casualties. Had
the present rules applied there would have been a long string of
substitutes in the game and the caption of 'The Bloody Angle' could not
have been applied.

"In those days an injured player was not allowed to leave the field of
play without the consent of the opponents' captain. One can easily grasp
the fact that your adversaries' captain was not apt to permit a player,
battered almost to worthlessness, to go to the bench and to allow you to
substitute a strong and fresh player. Therein lies the tale of this
game.

"Princeton was confident of winning but not overconfident. We went out
to Jarvis field on a tallyho from Boston, and I recall how eagerly we
dashed upon the field, anxious for the scrap to begin. It was a clear,
cold day with a firm turf--a condition that helped us, as we were
lighter than Harvard, especially behind the line. None of our backs
weighed more than 155 pounds.

"Holden, the Crimson captain, was probably the most dangerous of our
opponents. He was a deceptive running back owing to the difficulty of
gauging his pace. He was one of the speediest sprinters in the Eastern
colleges and if he managed to circle either end it was almost good-bye
to his opponents.

"We were all lying in wait for Holden, not to cripple him or take any
unfair advantage, but to see that he did not cross our goal line. It was
not long before we had no cause to be concerned on that score. But
before Holden was disposed of we suffered a most grievous loss in the
disqualification of Hector Cowan, our left guard and our main source of
strength. Princeton worked a majority of the tricks through Cowan and
when he was gone we lost the larger part of our offensive power.

"Cowan's disqualification was unjustified by his record or by any
tendency toward unfair play, though this statement should not be
regarded as a reflection on the fairness of Wyllys Terry, the old Yale
player, who was the umpire. Walter Camp, by the way, was the referee.

"There never was a fairer player than Cowan, and such a misfortune as
losing him by disqualification for any act on the field was never dreamt
of by the Princeton men. The trouble was that Terry mistook an accident
for a deliberate act. Holden was skirting Princeton's left end when
Cowan made a lunge to reach him. Holden's deceptive pace was nearly too
much for even such a star as Cowan, whose hands slipped from the Harvard
captain's waist down to below his knees until the ankles were touched.
Cowan could have kept his hands on Holden's ankles, but as tackling
below the knees was foul, he quickly let go. But Holden tumbled and
several Princeton men were on him in a jiffy.

"Harvard immediately claimed that it was a foul tackle. It was a
desperate claim but it proved successful. To our astonishment and
chagrin, Terry ruled Cowan off the field. Cowan was thunderstruck at the
decision and protested that he never meant to tackle unfairly. We argued
with Terry but he was unrelenting. To him it seemed that Cowan meant to
make a foul tackle. The situation was disheartening but we still felt
that we had a good chance of pulling through even without Cowan.

"What was particularly galling to us was that we had allowed two
touchdowns to slip from our grasp. Twice we had carried the ball to
within a few yards of the Harvard line and had dropped the ball when
about to cross it. Both errors were hardly excusable and were traceable
to over-anxiety to score. With Cowan on the field we had found that he
could open up the Harvard line for the backs to make long runs but now
that he was gone we could be sure of nothing except grilling work.

"Soon after occurred the most dramatic and lamentable incident which put
Holden out of the game. We had been warned long before the contest that
Holden was a fierce tackler and that if we, who were back of the
Princeton line, wished to stay in the game it would be necessary to
watch out for his catapultic lunges.

"Holden made his tackles low, a kind of a running dive with his head
thrust into his quarry's stomach. The best policy seemed, in case Holden
had you cornered, to go at him with a stiff arm and a suddenly raised
knee to check his onslaught and, if possible, shake him off in the
shuffle, but that was a mighty difficult matter for light backs to do.

"First the line was opened up so that I went through. Harding, the
Harvard quarter, who was running up and down the Crimson line like a
panther, didn't get me. My hand went against his face and somehow I got
rid of him. Finally I reached Holden, who played the fullback position
while on the defensive, and had him to pass in order to get a touchdown.
There was a savage onslaught and Holden had me on the ground.

"A few moments later Ames, who played back with Channing and me, went
through the Harvard line and again Holden was the only obstacle to a
touchdown for Princeton. There was another savage impact and both
players rolled upon the ground, but this time Holden did not get up. He
got his man but he was unconscious or at least seemingly so. His chest
bone had been broken. It was a tense moment. We all felt a pang of
sympathy, for Holden was a square, if rough, player. Harvard's cheers
subsided into murmurs of sorrow and Holden was carried tenderly off the
field.

"The accident made Harvard desperate, and as we were without Cowan we
were in the same mental condition. It was hammer and tongs from that
time on. I don't know that there was any intention to put players out
of business, but there was not much mercy shown.

"It appeared to me that some doubt existed on the Harvard side as to who
caused Holden's chest bone to be broken, but that the suspicion was
mainly directed at me. Several years later an article written at Harvard
and published in the _Public Ledger_ in Philadelphia gave a long account
of how I broke Holden's chest bone. This seemed to confirm my notion
that there was a mixup of identity. However that may be, it soon became
evident in the game that I was marked for slaughter.

"Vic Harding made a profound and lasting impression on me both with his
hands and feet. In fact, Harding played in few games of importance in
which he was not disqualified. He was not a bad fellow at all in social
relations, but on a football field he was the limit of 'frightfulness.'
I don't know of any player that I took so much pleasure in punching as
Harding. Ames and Harding also took delight in trying to make each
other's faces change radically in appearance.

"I think that Harding began to paint my face from the start of the game
and that as it proceeded he warmed up to the task, seeing that he was
making a pretty good job of it. He had several mighty able assistants.
The work was done with several hundred Wellesley College girls, who were
seated on benches close to the sideline, looking on with the deepest
interest and, as it soon appeared, with much sympathy. I will not forget
how concerned they looked.

"By the middle of the second half I guess they did see a spectacle in me
for they began to call to me and hold out handkerchiefs. At first I
didn't realize what they meant for I was so much engaged with the duties
that lay in front of me that it was difficult to notice them, but their
entreaties soon enlightened me. They were asking me as a special favor
to clean my face with their handkerchiefs, but I replied--perhaps rather
abruptly--that I really didn't have time to attend to my facial toilet.

"My nose had been broken, both eyes well closed and my canvas jacket and
doeskin knickerbockers were scarlet or crimson--whichever you prefer--in
hue. Strength was quickly leaving me and the field swam. I finally
propped myself up against a goal post. The next thing I knew was that I
was being helped off the field. My brother, Billy, who was highly
indignant over the developments, took my place. This was about ten or
fifteen minutes before the end of the game, which then consisted of two
45 minute periods.

"Ames emerged from the game with nothing more than the usual number of
cuts and bruises. At that time we did not have any nose-guards,
head-guards and other paraphernalia such as are used nowadays, except
that we could get ankle braces, and Ames wore one. That ankle stood the
test during the fight.

"A majority of the other players were pretty well cut up. After Cowan
was disqualified Bob (J. Robb) Church, subsequently Major in the United
States Army Medical Corps and formerly the surgeon of Roosevelt's Rough
Riders in the Spanish War, was shifted from tackle to Cowan's position
at guard. Chapin, a brilliant student, who had changed from Amherst to
Princeton, went in at tackle. He was a rather erratic player, and
Harvard kept pounding in his direction with the result that Bob Church
had a sea of trouble and I was forced to move up close to the line for
defensive work. It was this that really put me out of business. My left
shoulder had been hurt early in the season and it was bound in rubber,
but fortunately it was not much worse off than at the beginning of the
game.

"Bob Church risked his life more than once in the Spanish War and for
his valor he received a Medal of Honor from Congress, but it is safe to
say that he never got such a gruelling as in this Harvard game. He was
battered to the extent of finding it difficult to rise after tackling
and finally he was lining up on his knees. It was a magnificent
exhibition of pluck. As I recall, Bob lasted to the end of the game.

"It was not until near the close that any scoring took place and then
Harvard made two touchdowns in quick succession. We lacked substitutes
to put in and, even if we had had them, it is doubtful whether we could
have got them in as long as a player was able to stand up. The only
satisfaction we had was that we had done the best we could to win and
our confidence that with Cowan we could have won even if Holden had not
been hurt. We had beaten Harvard the year before with essentially the
same team that we played in this game."




CHAPTER XVI

THE FAMILY IN FOOTBALL


It is almost possible, I think, to divide football men into two distinct
classes--those who are made into players (and often very good ones) by
the coaches and those who are born with the football instinct. Just how
to define football instinct is a puzzle, but it is very easy to discern
it in a candidate, even if he never saw a football till he set foot on
the campus. By and large, it will be read first in a natural aptitude
for following the ball. After that, in the general way he has of
handling himself, from falling on the ball to dodging and straight arm.
Watch the head coach grin when some green six-foot freshman dives for a
rolling ball and instinctively clutches it into the soft part of his
body as he falls on it. Nobody told him to do it just that way, or to
keep his long arms and legs under control so as to avoid accident, but
he does it nevertheless and thus shows his football instinct.

There is still another kind of football instinct, and that is the kind
that is passed down from father to son and from brother to brother. They
say that the lacemakers of Nottingham don't have to be taught how to
make lace because, as children, they somehow absorb most of the
necessary knowledge in the bosom of their family, and I think the same
thing is true of sons and brothers of football players. Generally, they
pick up the essentials of the game from "Pop" long before they get to
school or college or else are properly educated by an argus-eyed
brother.

[Illustration:

Johnson   Edgar Allen
Arthur   Nelson   Gresham   Johnny

THE POE FAMILY]

But the matter of getting football knowledge--of developing the
instinct--isn't always left to the boy. Unless I'm grievously mistaken
it's more often the fond father who takes the first step. In fact, some
fathers I've known have, with a commendable eye to future victories,
even dated the preparation of their offspring from the hour when he was
first shown them by the nurse: "Let me take a squint at the little
rascal," says the beaming father and expertly examines the young
hopeful's legs. "Ah, hah, bully! We'll make a real football player out
of _him_!"

And so, some day when Dick or Ken is six or seven, Father produces a
strange looking, leather-cased bladder out of a trunk where Mother
hasn't discovered it and blows it up out on the front porch under the
youngster's inquisitive eye and tucks in the neck and laces it up.

"What is it, Pop? What you going to do with it?"

"That's what men call a football, Son. And right now I'm going to _kick_
it." And kick it he does--all around the lot--until after a particularly
good lift he chuckles to himself, the old war horse, and with the smell
of ancient battles in his nostrils sits down to give the boy his first
lesson in the manliest and best game on earth. And this first lesson is
tackling. Perhaps the picture on the opposite page will remind you of
the time you taught _your_ boys the good old game.

This particular kind of football instinct has produced many of the
finest players the colleges have ever seen. In a real football family
there isn't much bluffing as to what you can do nor are there many
excuses for a fumble or a missed tackle. With your big brothers' ears
open and their tongues ready with a caustic remark, it doesn't need
"Pop's" keen eye to keep you within the realms of truth as to the length
of your run or why you missed that catch.

Quite often, as it happens, "Pop" is thinking of a certain big game he
once played in and remembering a play--Ah! if only he could forget that
play!--in which he fumbled and missed the chance of a life-time. Like
some inexorable motion picture film that refuses to throw anything but
one fatal scene on the screen, his recollections make the actors take
their well-remembered positions and the play begins. For the thousandth
time he gnashes his teeth as he sees the ball slip from his grasp.
"Dog-gone it," he mutters, "if my boy doesn't do better in the big game
than _I_ did, I'll whale the hide off him!"

Strangely enough not all brothers of a football family follow one
another to the same college, and there have been several cases where
brother played against brother. But for the only son of a great player
to go anywhere else than to his father's college would be rank heresy. I
daresay even the other college wouldn't like it.

[Illustration: JUST BOYS]

Of famous fathers whose football instinct descended without dilution
into their sons perhaps the easiest remembered have been Walter Camp,
who captained the Elis in '78 and '79 and whose son, Walter, Jr., played
fullback in 1911--Alfred T. Baker, one of the Princeton backs in '83,
and '84, whose son Hobey captained his team in 1914--Snake Ames, who
played in four championship games for Princeton against both Yale and
Harvard, and whose son, Knowlton Ames, Jr., played on the Princeton
teams of '12, '13 and '14--and that sterling Yale tackle of '91 and '92,
"Wallie" Winter, whose son, Wallace, Jr., played on his Freshman team in
1915.

When we come to enumerating the brothers who have played, it is the Poe
family which comes first to mind. Laying aside friendship or natural
bias, I feel that my readers will agree with me in the belief that it
would be hard to find six football players ranking higher than the six
Poe brothers. Altogether, Princeton has seen some twenty-two years of
Poes, during at least thirteen of which there was a Poe on the Varsity
team. Johnson Poe, '84, came first, to be followed by Edgar Allen, twice
captain, then by Johnny, now in his last resting place "somewhere in
France," then by Nelson, then Arthur, twice the fly in Yale's ointment,
and lastly by Gresham Poe. I haven't a doubt but that after due lapse of
time this wonderful family will produce other Poes, sons and cousins, to
carry on the precious tradition.

Next in point of numbers probably comes the Riggs family of five
brothers, of whom three, Lawrence, Jesse and Dudley, played on Princeton
teams, while Harry and Frank were substitutes. The Hodge family were
four who played at Princeton--Jack, Hugh, Dick and Sam.

After the Riggs family comes the Young family of Cornell--Ed., Charles,
George and Will--all of whom played tremendously for the Carnelian and
White in the nineties. Charles Young later studied at the Theological
Seminary at Princeton and played wonderful football on the scrub in my
time from sheer love of sport, since as he is, at this writing, physical
director at Cornell. Amherst boasts of the wonderful Pratt brothers, who
did much for Amherst football.

Of threes there are quite a number. Prominent among them have been the
Wilsons of both Yale and Princeton, Tom being a guard on the Princeton
teams of 1911 and 1912, while Alex captained Yale in 1915 and saw
another brother in orange and black waiting on the side lines across the
field. Situations like this are always productive of thrills. Let the
brother who has been waiting longingly throw off his blanket and rush
across the field into his position and instantly the news flashes
through the stands. "Brother against brother!" goes the thrilling
whisper--and every heart gives an extra throb as it hungers in an unholy
but perfectly human way for a clash between the two. There were three
Harlan brothers who played at Princeton in '81, '83, '84.

At Harvard Lothrope, Paul and Ted Withington; Percy, Jack and Sam
Wendell.

In Cornell a redoubtable trio were the Taussigs. Of these J. Hawley
Taussig played end for four years ending with the '96 team. Charles
followed in the same position in '99, '00 and '01 and Joseph K., later
Lieutenant Commander of the torpedoboat destroyer _Wadsworth_ played
quarter on the Naval Academy team in '97 and '98.

A third trio of brothers were the Greenways of Yale. Of these, John and
Gil Greenway played both football and baseball while Jim Greenway rowed
on the crew. Another Princeton family, well known, has been the Moffats.
The first of these to play football was Henry, who played on the '73
team which was the first to beat Yale. He was followed by the
redoubtable Alex, who kicked goals from all over the field in '82, '83,
and '84, by Will Moffat who was a Varsity first baseman and by Ned
Moffat who played with me at Lawrenceville. Equally well known have been
the Hallowells of Harvard--F. W. Hallowell, '93, R. H. Hallowell, '96,
and J. W. Hallowell, '01. Another Hallowell--Penrose--was on the track
team, while Colonel Hallowell, the father, was always a power in Harvard
athletics.

When we come to cite the pairs of brothers who have played, the list
seems endless. The first to come to mind are Laurie Bliss of the Yale
teams of '90, '91 and '92 and "Pop" Bliss of the '92 team, principally,
I think, because of Laurie's wonderful end running behind interference
and because "Pop" Bliss, at a crucial moment in a Harvard-Yale game
deliberately disobeyed the signal to plunge through centre on Harvard's
2-yard line and ingeniously ran around the end for a touchdown. Tommy
Baker and Alfred Baker were brothers.

Continuing the Yale list, there have been the Hinkeys, Frank and Louis,
who need no praise as wonderful players--Charlie and Johnny de
Saulles--Sherman and "Ted" Coy--W. O. Hickok, the famous guard of '92,
'93 and '94 and his brother Ross--Herbert and Malcolm McBride, both of
whom played fullback--Tad Jones and his brother Howard--the Philbins,
Steve and Holliday--Charlie Chadwick and his younger brother, George,
who captained his team in 1902. Their father before them was an athlete.

In Harvard there have been the Traffords, Perry and Bernie--Arthur
Brewer and Charley the fleet of foot, who ran ninety yards in the
Harvard-Princeton game of 1895 and caught Suter from behind--the two
Shaws,--Evarts Wrenn, '92 and his famous cousin Bob who played tennis
quite as well as he played football.

[Illustration: HOBEY BAKER WALTER CAMP, JR. SNAKE AMES, JR.]

Princeton, too, has seen many pairs of brothers--"Beef" Wheeler, the
famous guard of '92, '93 and '94 and Bert Wheeler, the splendid fullback
of '98 and '99 whose cool-headed playing helped us win from Yale both in
Princeton and at New Haven--the Rosengartens, Albert and his cousin
Fritz and Albert's brother who played for Pennsylvania--the Tibbotts,
Dave and Fred--J. R. Church, '88, and Bill Church, the roaring, stamping
tackle of '95 and '96--Ross and Steve McClave--Harry and George
Lathrope--Jarvis Geer and Marshall Geer who played with me on teams at
both school and college--Billy Bannard and Horace Bannard--Fred Kafer
and Dana Kafer, the first named being also the very best amateur catcher
I have ever seen. Fred Kafer, by the way, furnished an interesting
anachronism in that while he was one of the ablest mathematicians of his
time in college he found it wellnigh impossible to remember his football
signals! Let us not forget, too, Bal Ballin, who was a Princeton
captain, and his brother Cyril.

In other colleges, the instances of football skill developed by
brotherly emulation have been nearly as well marked. Dartmouth, for
instance, produced the Bankhart brothers--Cornell, the Starbucks--one
of them, Raymond, captaining his team--the Cools, Frank and Gib--the
latter being picked by good judges as the All-America center in
1915--and the Warners, Bill and Glenn.

The greatest three players from any one family that ever played the
backfield would probably be the three Draper brothers--Louis, Phil and
Fred. All went to Williams and all were stars; heavy, fast backs, who
were good both on defense and offense, capable of doing an immense
amount of work and never getting hurt.

At Pennsylvania, there have been the Folwells, Nate and R. C. Folwell
and the Woodruffs, George and Wiley, although George Woodruff,
originator of the celebrated "guards back," was a Yale man long before
he coached at Pennsylvania. It is impossible for any one who saw Jack
Minds play to forget this great back of '94, '95, '96 and '97, whose
brother also wore the Red and Blue a few years later.

Doubtless there have been many more fathers, brothers and sons who have
been equally famous and I ask indulgence for my sins of omission, for
the list is long. Principally, I have recalled their names for the
reason that I knew or now know many of these great players intimately
and so have learned the curious longing--perhaps "passion"--for the game
which is passed from one to the other of a football family. In a way
this might be compared with the military spirit which allows a family
to state proudly that "_we_ have always been Army (or Navy) people." And
who shall say that the clash and conflict of this game, invented and
played only by thoroughly virile men, are not productive of precisely
those qualities of which the race may, some day, well stand in need. If
by the passing down from father to son and from brother to brother of a
spirit of cheerful self-denial throughout the hard fall months--of grim
doggedness under imminent defeat and of fair play at all times, whether
victor or vanquished--a finer, truer sense of what a man may be and do
is forged out of the raw material, then football may feel that it has
served a purpose even nobler than that of being simply America's
greatest college game.




CHAPTER XVII

OUR GOOD OLD TRAINERS


There are not many football enthusiasts who analyze the factors that
bring victory. Many of us do not appreciate the importance attached to
the trainer, or realize the great part that he plays, until we are out
of college. We know that the men who bore the brunt of the battle have
received their full share of glory--the players and coaches.

But there arises in the midst of our athletic world men who trained, men
who safeguarded the players. Trainers have been associated with football
since the early eighties, and a careful trainer's eye should ever be on
the lookout wherever football is played. Players, coaches and trainers
go hand in hand in football.

Every one of these men that I have known has had a strong personality.
Each one, however, differed somewhat from the others. There is a great
affection on the part of the players for the man who cares for their
athletic welfare. These men are often more than mere trainers. Their
personalities have carried them farther than the dressing room. Their
interest in the boys has continued after they left college. Their
influence has been a lasting one, morally, as well as physically.

On account of their association, the trainers keep pace with the men
about them; not limiting their interest to athletics. They are always
found entertaining at the athletic banquets, and their personalities
count for much on the campus. They are all but boys grown up, with well
known athletic records behind them. In the hospital, or in the quietness
of a college room, or on trips, the trainer is a friend and adviser.

Go and talk to the trainer of the football team if you want to get an
unbiased opinion of the team's work or of the value of the individual
coaches. Some of our trainers know much about the game of football--the
technical side--and their advice is valuable.

Every trainer longs to handle good material, but more power to the
trainer who goes ahead with what he's got and makes the best out of it
without a murmur. In our recollections we know of teams that were
reported to be going stale--"over-trained"--"a team of cripples"--who
slumped--could not stand the test--were easily winded--could not endure.

They were nightmares to the trainer. Soon you read in the daily press
indications that a change of trainer is about to take place in such a
college.

Then we turn to another page of our recollections where we read:

"The team is fit to play the game of their lives." "Only eleven men
were used in to-day's game." "Great tribute to the trainer." "Men could
have played all day"--"no time taken out"--"not a man injured"--"pink of
condition." Usually all this spells victory.

Jack McMasters was the first trainer that I met. "Scottie," as every one
affectionately called him, never asked a man to work for him any harder
than he would work himself. In a former chapter you have read how Jack
and I put in some hard work together.

I recall a trip to Boston, where Princeton was to play Harvard. Most of
the Princeton team had retired for the night. About ten o'clock Arthur
Poe came down into the corridor of the Vendome Hotel and told "Scottie"
that Bill Church and Johnny Baird were upstairs taking a cold shower.

Jack was furious, and without stopping for the elevator hustled upstairs
two steps at a time only to find both of these players sound asleep in
bed. Needless to say that Arthur Poe kept out of sight until Jack
retired for the night. A trainer's life is not all pleasure.

Once after the train had started from Princeton this same devilish
Arthur Poe, as Jack would call him, rushed up forward to where Jack was
sitting in the train and said:

"Jack, I don't see Bummie Booth anywhere on the train. I guess he must
have been left behind."

With much haste and worry Jack made a hurried search of the entire train
to find Booth sitting in the last seat in the rear car with a broad grin
on his face.

Jack's training experience was a very broad one. He trained many
victorious teams at Harvard after he left Princeton and was finally
trainer at Annapolis. A pronounced decoration that adorns "Scottie" is a
much admired bunch of gold footballs and baseballs, which he wears
suspended from his watch chain--in fact, so many, that he has had to
have his chain reinforced. If you could but sit down with Jack and
admire this prized collection and listen to some of his prized
achievements--humorous stories of the men he has trained and some of the
victories which these trophies designate you would agree with me that no
two covers could hold them.

But we must leave Jack for the present at home with his family in Sandy
Hook Cottage, Drummore by Stranraer, Scotland, in the best of health,
happy in his recollection of a service well rendered and appreciated by
every one who knew him.


Jim Robinson

There was something about Jim Robinson that made the men who knew him in
his training days refer to him as "Dear Old Jim," and although he no
longer cries out from the side lines "trot up, men," a favorite
expression of his when he wanted to keep the men stirring about, there
still lives within all of us who knew him a keen appreciation of his
service and loyalty to the different colleges where he trained.

He began training at Princeton in 1883 and he finished his work there.
How fine was the tribute that was paid him on the day of his funeral!
Dolly Dillon, captain of the 1906 team, and his loyal team mates, all of
whom had been carefully attended by Jim Robinson on the football field
that fall, acted as pallbearers. There was also a host of old athletes
and friends from all over the country who came to pay their last tribute
to this great sportsman and trainer.

Mike Murphy and Jim Robinson were always contesting trainers. At
Princeton that day with the team gathered around, Murphy related some
interesting and touching experiences of Jim's career.

Jim's family still lives at Princeton, and on one of my recent visits
there, I called upon Mrs. Robinson. We talked of Jim, and I saw again
the loving cups and trophies that Jim had shown me years before.

Jim Robinson trained many of the heroes of the old days, Hector Cowan
being one of them. In later years he idolized the playing of that great
football hero, John DeWitt, who appreciated all that Jim did to make
his team the winner. The spirit of Jim Robinson was comforting as well
as humorous. No mention of Jim would be complete without his dialect.

[Illustration: THE ELECT]

He was an Englishman and abused his h's in a way that was a delight to
the team. Ross McClave tells of fun at the training table one day when
he asked Jim how to spell "saloon." Jim, smiling broadly and knowing he
was to amuse these fellows as he had the men in days gone by, said:
"Hess--Hay--Hell--two Hoes--and--a Hen."

Few men got more work out of a team than did Jim Robinson. There was
always a time for play and a time for work with Jim.


Mike Murphy

Mike Murphy was the dean of trainers.

Bob Torrey, one of the most remarkable center-rushes that Pennsylvania
ever had, is perhaps one of the greatest admirers of Mike Murphy during
his latter years. Torrey can tell it better than I can.

"Murphy's sense of system was wonderful; he was a keen observer and had
a remarkable memory; he seemed to do very little in the way of
bookkeeping, but his mind was carefully pigeon-holed and was a perfect
card index.

"He could have thirty men on the field at once and carry on
conversations with visitors and graduates; issue orders to workmen and
never lose sight of a single one of his men. He was popular wherever he
went. His fame was not only known here, but abroad. His charm of manner
and his cheerful courage will be remembered by all who knew him, but
only those who knew him well realize what an influence he had on the
boys with whom he worked, and how high were his ideals of manhood. The
amount of good done by Mike Murphy in steering boys into the right track
can never be estimated."

Prep' School boys athletically inclined followed Murphy. Many a man went
to college in order to get Murphy's training. He was an athletic magnet.


"The Old Mike"

The town of Natick, Mass., boasts of Mike Murphy's early days. Wonderful
athletic traditions centered there. His early days were eventful for his
athletic success, as he won all kinds of professional prizes for short
distance running. Boyhood friends of Mike Murphy tell of the comradeship
among Mike Murphy, Keene Fitzpatrick, Pooch and Piper Donovan--all
Natick boys. They give glowing accounts of the "truck team" consisting
of this clever quartet, each of whom were "ten-second" men in the
sprinting game.

If that great event which was run off at the Marlboro Fair and Cattle
Show could be witnessed to-day, thousands of admirers would love to see
in action those trainers, see them as the Natick Hose truck defeated
the Westboro team that day, and sent the Westboro contingent home with
shattered hopes and empty pocketbooks.

"In connection with Army-Navy games," writes Crolius of Dartmouth, "I'll
never forget Mike Murphy's wonderful ability to read men's condition by
their 'mental attitude.' He was nearly infallible in his diagnosis."

Once we questioned Mike. He said, "Go get last year's money back, you're
going to lick them!" And true to his uncanny understanding he was right.
Was it any wonder that men gave Murphy the credit due him?

Mike Murphy had a strong influence over the players. He was their
ever-present friend. He could talk to a man, and his personality could
reach farther than any of the coaches. The teams that Murphy talked to
between the halves, both at Yale and Pennsylvania, were always inspired.
Mike Murphy always gave a man something of himself.

It is interesting to read what a fellow trainer, Keene Fitzpatrick, has
to say of Mike:

"Mike first started to train at Yale. Then he went to the Detroit
Athletic Club in Detroit; then he came back to Yale; then he went to the
University of Pennsylvania; then back to Yale again, and finally back to
the University of Penn', where he died.

"We were always great friends and got together every summer; we used to
go up to a little country town, Westboro, on a farm; had a little room
in a farmhouse outside of the town of Natick, and there we used to get
together every year (Mike and Fitz') and share our opinions, and compare
and give each other the benefit of our discoveries of the season's work.

"Murphy was one of the greatest sprinters this world ever had. They
called him 'stucky' because he had so much grit and determination. The
year after Mike died the Intercollegiate was held at Cambridge. All the
trainers got together and a lot of flowers were sent out to Mike's grave
in Hopkinton, Massachusetts."


A CHAT WITH POOCH DONOVAN

Pooch Donovan's success at Harvard goes hand in hand with that of
Haughton.

In the great success of Harvard's Varsity, year after year, the fine
hand of the trainer has been noticeable. Harvard's teams have stood the
test wonderfully well, and all the honors that go with victory have been
heaped upon Pooch Donovan's head.

Every man on the Harvard squad knows that Donovan can get as much work
out of his players as it is possible for any human being to get out of
them. Pooch Donovan served at Yale in 1888, 1889 and 1890, when Mike
Murphy was trainer there. He and Donovan used to have long talks
together and they were ever comparing notes on the training of varsity
teams. Pooch Donovan owes much to Mike Murphy, and the latter was
Pooch's loyal supporter.

"What made Mike Murphy a sturdy man, was that he was such a hard
loser--he could not stand to lose," says Donovan.

"You know the thing that keeps me young is working shoulder to shoulder
with these young fellows." This to me, in the dressing-room, where we
have no time for anything but cold truths. "It was the same thing that
kept Mike Murphy going ten years after the doctors said he would soon be
all in. That was when he returned to Yale, after he had been at
Pennsylvania. There is something about this sort of work that
invigorates us and keeps us young. I'm no longer a young man in years,
but it is the spirit and inspiration of youth with which this work
identifies me that keeps me really young."

When I asked Pooch about Eddie Mahan's great all-around ability, his
face lighted up, and I saw immediately that what I had heard was
true--that Donovan simply idolized Eddie Mahan. Mahan lives in Natick,
Massachusetts, where Donovan also has his home. He has seen Ned Mahan
grow to manhood. Mahan had his first football training as a player on
the Natick High School team.

"Ned Mahan," said Pooch, "was the best all-around football man I have
ever handled. He was easy to handle, eager to do as he was told, and he
never caused the trainer any worry. Up to the very last moment he
played, he was eager to learn everything he could that would improve his
game. He had lots of football ability.

"You know Mahan was a great star at Andover. He kicked wonderfully there
and was good in all departments of the game, and he improved a hundred
per cent. after he came to Harvard."

Pooch Donovan told me about the first day that Eddie Mahan came out upon
the Harvard field. At Cambridge, little is known by the head coach about
a freshman's ability. One day Haughton said to Pooch Donovan:

"Where is that Natick friend of yours? Bring him over to the Stadium and
let's see him kick."

Donovan got Mahan and Haughton said to Mahan:

"Let's see you kick."

Mahan boosted the ball seventy yards, and Haughton said:

"What kind of a kick is that?"

Mahan thought it was a great kick.

"How do you think any ends can cover that?" said Haughton.

Mahan thereupon kicked a couple more, low ones, but they went about as
far.

"Who told you _you_ could kick?" quoth Haughton. "You must kick high
enough for your ends to cover the distance."

"Take it easy and don't get excited," Donovan was whispering to Mahan
on the side. "Take your time, Ned."

But Mahan continued kicking from bad to worse. Haughton was getting
disgusted, and finally remarked:

"Your ends never can cover those punts."

Mahan then kicked one straight up over his head, and the first word ever
uttered by him on the Harvard field, was his reply to Haughton:

"I guess almost any end can cover _that_ punt," he said.

Donovan tells me that he used to carry in his pocket a few blank
cartridges for starting sprinters. Sitting on a bench with some friends,
on Soldiers' Field, one day he reached into his hip pocket for some
loose tobacco. Unconsciously he stuffed into the heel of his pipe a
blank cartridge that had become mixed with the tobacco. The gun club was
practicing within hearing distance of the field. As Donovan lighted his
pipe the cartridge went off. He thought he was shot. Leaping to his feet
he ran down the field, his friends after him.

"I was surprised at my own physical condition--at my being able to stand
so well the shock of being shot," says Donovan in telling the story. "My
friends thought also that I was shot. But when I slowed up, still
bewildered, and they caught up with me, they were puzzled to see my face
covered with powder marks and a broken pipe stem sticking out of my
mouth.

"Not until then did any of us realize what had really happened. The
cartridge had grazed my nose slightly, but outside of that I was all
right. Since then I am very careful what I put in my tobacco."

Eddie is known as "Pooch Donovan's pet." Probably the bluest time that
Donovan ever had--in fact, he says it was the bluest--was when Eddie
Mahan had an off-day in the Stadium. That was the day when Cornell beat
Harvard. Mahan himself says it was the worst day he ever had in his
life, and he blames himself.

"It was just as things will come sometimes," Pooch said to me. "Nobody
knows why they will come, but come they will once in a while."

"Burr, the great Harvard captain," said Pooch, "was a natural born
leader of men. He knew a lot of football and Haughton thought the world
of him. Burr went along finely until the last week of the season. Then,
in falling on the ball, he bruised his shoulder, and would not allow
himself to go into the Yale game. It was really this display of good
judgment on his part that enabled Harvard to win.

"Too often a team has been handicapped by the playing of a crippled
veteran. As a matter of fact, the worst kind of a substitute is often
better than a crippled player. The fact that the great captain, Burr,
stood on the side lines while his team was playing, urged his team mates
on to greater efforts.

"In this same game the opposite side of this question was demonstrated.
Bobbie Burch, the Yale captain, who had been injured the week before the
game, was put in the game. His injury handicapped the Yale team
considerably."

Pooch Donovan has been eight years at Harvard. He has five gold
footballs, which he prizes and wears on his watch chain. During the
eight years there have been five victories over Yale, two ties and one
defeat. Pooch has been a football player himself and the experience has
made him a better trainer.

In 1895 he played on Temple's team of the Duquesne Athletic Club. He was
trainer and halfback, and was very fond of the game. Later on he played
in Cleveland against the Chicago Athletic Club, on whose team played
Heffelfinger, Sport Donnelly, and other famous knights of the gridiron.

"In the morning we did everything we could to make the stay of the
visiting team pleasant," says Donovan, regarding those days, "but in the
afternoon it was different, and in the midst of the game a fellow
couldn't help wondering how men could be so nice to each other in the
morning and so rough in the afternoon."

Pooch Donovan cannot say enough in favor of Doctor E. H. Nichols, the
doctor for the Harvard team. Pooch's judgment is endorsed by many a
Harvard man that I have talked to.


Keene Fitzpatrick

When Biffy Lea was coaching at the University of Michigan in 1901, it
was my opportunity and privilege to see something of Western football. I
was at Ann Arbor assisting Lea the last week before Michigan played
Chicago. Michigan was defeated. That night at a banquet given to the
Michigan team, there arose a man to respond to a toast.

His words were cheering to the men and roused them out of the gloom of
despair and defeat to a strong hope for the coming year. That man was
Keene Fitzpatrick. I had heard much about him, but now that I really had
come to meet him I realized what a magnetic man he was.

He knew men and how to get the best out of them. Fitzpatrick went from
Michigan to Yale, from Yale back to Michigan, and then to Princeton,
where Princeton men hope he will always stay.

Michigan admirers were loath to lose Fitzpatrick and their tribute to
him on leaving was as follows:

"The University of Michigan combination was broken yesterday when Keene
Fitzpatrick announced that he had accepted Princeton's offer, to take
effect in the fall of 1910. He was trainer for Michigan for 15 years.
For five years Fitz' has been sought by every large university in the
East.

"What was Michigan's loss, was Princeton's gain. He made men better,
not alone physically, but morally. His work has been uplifting along all
lines of university activities. In character and example he is as great
and untiring as in his teaching and precept. The final and definite
knowledge of his determination to leave Michigan is a severe blow to the
students all of whom know and appreciate his work. Next to President
Angell, no man of the University of Michigan, in the last ten years, has
exerted a more wholesome influence upon the students than has Keene
Fitzpatrick. His work brought him in close touch with the students and
his influence over them for good has been wonderful. He is a man of
ideals and clean life."

"To 'Fitz,' as the boys called him, as much as to the great coach Yost
is due Michigan's fine record in football. His place will be hard to
fill. Fitz has aided morally in placing athletics on a high plane and in
cultivating a fine spirit of sportsmanship. He was elected an honorary
member of the class of 1913 at Princeton. The Secretary of the class
wrote him a letter in which he said: 'The senior class deeply
appreciates your successful efforts, and in behalf of the University
takes this opportunity of expressing its indebtedness to you for the
valuable results which you have accomplished.'"

Yost had a high opinion of Fitzpatrick.

"Fitz and I worked together for nine years," writes Yost. "We were like
brothers during that association at Michigan. There is no one person
who contributed so much to the University of Michigan as this great
trainer. His wonderful personality, his expert assistance and that great
optimism of his stood out as his leading qualifications. My association
with him is one of the pleasantest recollections of my life. He put the
men in shape, trained them and developed them. They were 'usable' all
the time. He is a trainer who has his men in the finest mental condition
possible. I don't think there was ever a trainer who kept men more fit,
physically and mentally, than Keene Fitzpatrick."

There were in Michigan two players, brothers, who were far apart in
skill. Keene says one was of varsity calibre, but wanted his brother,
too, to make the Eleven. "Once," says Keene, "when we were going on a
trip, John, who was a better player, said, 'I will not go if Joe cannot
go,' so in order to get John, we had to take Joe."

Fitzpatrick tells of an odd experience in football. "In 1901 Michigan
went out to Southern California and played Leland Stanford University at
Pasadena, January 1. When the Michigan team left Ann Arbor for
California in December, it was 12° below zero and when they played on
New Year's it was 80° at 3 P. M."

Stanford was supposed to have a big advantage due to the climate.
Michigan won by a score of 49 to 0. Michigan used but eleven men in the
game, and it was their first scrimmage since Thanksgiving Day. A funny
thing happened en route to Pasadena.

"Every time the train stopped," said Keene, "we hustled the men out to
give them practice running through signals and passing the ball.
Everything went well until we arrived in Ogden, Utah. We hustled the men
out as usual for a work-out, and in less than two minutes the men were
all in, lying down on the ground, gasping for breath. We could not
understand what was wrong, until some one came along and reminded us
that we were in a very high altitude and that it affected people who
were not accustomed to it. We all felt better when we received that
information."


Michael J. Sweeney

There are few trainers in our prep. schools who can match the record of
Mike Sweeney. He has been an important part of the Hill School's
athletics for years. Many of the traditions of this school are grouped,
in fact, about his personality. Hill School boys are loud in their
praises of Sweeney's achievements. He always had a strong hold on the
students there. He has given many a boy words of encouragement that have
helped him on in the school, and this same boy has come back to him in
after life to get words of advice.

Many colleges tried to sever his connection with Hill School. I know
that at one time Princeton was very anxious to get Sweeney's services.
He was happy at Hill School, however, and decided to stay. It was there
at Hill School that Sweeney turned out some star athletes. Perhaps one
of the most prominent was Tom Shevlin. Sweeney saw great possibilities
in Shevlin. He taught him the fundamentals that made Shevlin one of the
greatest ends that ever played at Yale. He typified Sweeney's ideal
football player. Shevlin never lost an opportunity to express
appreciation of what Sweeney had done for him.

Tom gave all credit for his athletic ability to Mike Sweeney of Hill and
Mike Murphy of Yale. His last desire for Yale athletics was to bring
Sweeney to Yale and have him installed, not as a direct coach or trainer
of any team, but more as a general athletic director, connected with the
faculty, to advise and help in all branches of college sport.

Tom Shevlin idolized Sweeney. Those who were at the banquet of the 1905
team at Cambridge will recall the tribute that Shevlin then paid to him.
He declared that he regarded Sweeney as "the world's greatest brain on
all forms of athletics."

Whenever Mike Sweeney puts his heart into his work he is one of the most
completely absorbed men I know.

Sweeney possesses an uncanny insight into the workings of the games and
individuals. Oftentimes as he sits on the side lines he can foretell an
accident coming to a player.

Mike was sitting on the Yale side lines one day, and remarked to Ed
Wylie, a former Hill School player--a Yale substitute at that time:

"They ought to take Smith out of the game; he shows signs of weakening.
You'd better go tell the trainer to do it."

But before Wylie could get to the trainer, several plays had been run
off and the man who had played too long received an injury, and was done
for. Sweeney's predictions generally ring true.

It is rather remarkable, and especially fortunate that a prep. school
should have such an efficient athletic director. For thirteen years
Sweeney acted in that capacity and coached all the teams. He taught
other men to teach football.


Jack Moakley

Had any one gone to Ithaca in the hope of obtaining the services of Jack
Moakley, the Cornell trainer, he would have found this popular trainer's
friends rising up and showing him the way to the station, because there
never has been a human being who could sever the relations between Jack
Moakley and Cornell.

The record he has made with his track teams alone entitles him to a high
place, if not the highest place, on the trainer's roll of honor. To tell
of his achievements would fill an entire chapter, but as we are
confining ourselves to football, his work in this department of Cornell
sports stands on a par with any football trainer.

Jack Moakley takes his work very seriously and no man works any harder
on the Cornell squad than does their trainer. Costello, a Cornell
captain of years ago, relates the following incident:

"Jack Moakley had a man on his squad who had a great habit of digging up
unusual fads, generally in the matter of diet. At this particular time
he had decided to live solely on grape nuts. As he was one of the best
men on the team, Jack did not burden himself with trouble over this fad,
although at several times Moakley told him that he might improve if he
would eat some real food. However, when this man started a grape nut
campaign among the younger members of the squad he aroused Jack's ire
and upon his arrival at the field house he wiped the black board clean
of all instructions and in letters a foot high wrote:

    "They who eat beef are beefy."
    "They who eat nuts are nutty."

The resultant kidding finally made the old beefsteak popular with our
friend.


Johnny Mack

It would not seem natural if one failed to see Johnny Mack on the side
lines where Yale is playing. In eleven years at New Haven Yale teams
were never criticised on account of their condition. The physical
condition of the Yale team has always been left entirely in Johnny
Mack's hands, and the hard contests that they went through in the season
of 1915 were enough to worry any trainer. Johnny Mack was always
optimistic.

There is much humor in Johnny Mack. It is amusing to hear Johnny tell of
the experience that he and Pooch Donovan had in a Paris restaurant, and
I'm sure you can all imagine the rest. Johnny said they got along pretty
well with their French until they ordered potatoes and the waiters
brought in a peck of peas.

It is a difficult task for a trainer to tell whether a player is fully
conscious of all that is going on in a game. Sometimes a hard tackle or
a blow on the head will upset a man. Johnny Mack tells a story that
illustrates this fact:

"There was a quarterback working in the game one day. I thought he was
going wrong. I said to the coach: 'I think something has happened to our
quarterback.' He told me to go out and look him over. I went out and
called the captain to one side after I had permission from the Referee.
I asked him if he thought the quarterback was going right. He replied
that he thought he was, but called out some signals to him to see if he
knew them. The quarter answered the captain's questions after a fashion
and the captain was satisfied, but, just the same, he didn't look good
to me. I asked the captain to let me give him a signal; one we never
used, and one the captain did not even know.

"Said I, 'What's this one--48-16-32-12?'

"'That's me through the right end,' he said.

"'Not on your life, old man,' said I, 'that's you and me to the side
lines!'

"I remember one fall," says Johnny, "when we were very shy on big
material at Yale. The coaches told me to take a walk about the campus
and hunt up some big fellows who might possibly come out for football.
While going along the Commons at noon, the first fellow I met was a big,
fine looking man, a 210 pounder at least, with big, broad shoulders. I
stopped him and asked if he had ever played football.

"'Yes,' he said, 'I played a little at school. I'll come out next week.'
I told him not to bother about next week, but to come out that
afternoon--that I'd meet him at the gym' at one o'clock and have some
clothes for him. He came at one o'clock and I told one of the rubbers to
have some clothes ready. When I came back at 1:30 and looked around I
couldn't recognize him. 'Where in the world is my big fellow?' I said to
Jim the rubber.

"'Your big fellow? Why, he just passed you,' said Jim.

"'No,' said I, 'that can't be the man; that must be some consumptive.'

"'Just the same, that's your big fellow in his football suit,' said
Jim. 'The biggest part of him is hanging up in there on a nail.'

"_Some_ tailors, these fellows have nowadays."

Johnny Mack further tells of an amusing incident in Foster Sanford's
coaching.

"At early practice in New Haven Sanford was working the linemen," says
Johnny. "He picked a green, husky looking boy out of the line of
candidates and was soon playing against him. He didn't know who Sandy
was, and believe me, Sandy was handling him pretty rough to see what he
was made of. The first thing you know the fellow was talking to himself
and, when Sandy was careless, suddenly shot over a stiff one on Sandy's
face and yelled:

"'I'm going to have you know that no man's going to push _me_ around
this field.'

"Sandy was happy as could be. He patted the chap on the back and roared,
'Good stuff; you're all right. You're the kind of a man I want. We can
use men like you!'

"But Foster Sanford was not the only old-timer who could take the young
ones' hard knocks," says Johnny. "I've seen Heffelfinger come back to
Yale Field after being out of college twenty years and play with the
scrubs for fifty-five minutes without a layoff! I never saw a man with
such endurance.

"Ted Coy was a big, good-natured fellow. He was never known to take time
out in a game in the four years he played football. In his senior year
he didn't play until the West Point game. While West Point was putting
it all over us, Coy was on the side lines, frantically running up and
down. But we had strict instructions from the doctor not to play him, no
matter what happened.

"Suddenly Coy said: 'Johnny, let me in. I'm not going to have my team
licked by this crowd.' And in he jumped.

"I saw him call Philbin up alongside of him and the first thing I knew I
saw Philbin and Coy running up the field like a couple of deer. In just
three plays they took the ball from our own 5-yard line to a touchdown.
After that there was a different spirit in the team. Coy was an
inspiration to his players."

"One more story," says Johnny.

"There were two boys at New Haven. Their first names were Jack, and both
were substitutes on the scrub. About the middle of the second half in
the Harvard game, the coach told me to go and warm up Jack. One of the
Jacks jumped up, while the other Jack sank back on the bench with
surprise and sorrow on his face. Seeing that a mistake had been made, I
said, 'Not you, but _you_, Jack,' and pointed to the other. As the right
Jack jumped up, the cloudy face turned to sunshine, as only a football
player can imagine, and the sunny smile of the first Jack turned to
deepest gloom, an affecting sight I shall never forget."


"Huggins of Brown"

I know of no college trainer who seems to get more pleasure out of his
work than Huggins of Brown. There are numerous incidents that are
recorded in this book that have been the experiences of this
good-natured trainer.

A trainer's life is not always a merry one. Many things occur that tend
to worry him, but he gets a lot of fun out of it just the same. Huggins
says:

"Some few years ago Brown had a big lineman on its team who had never
been to New York, where we went that year to meet Carlisle. The players
put in quite a bit of time jollying him and having all sorts of fun at
his expense. We stopped at one of the big hotels, and the rooms were on
the seventh and eighth floors. In the rooms were the rope fire escapes,
common in those days, knotted every foot or so. The big lineman asked
what it was for, and the other fellows told him, but added that this
room was the only one so equipped and that he must look sharp that none
of the others helped themselves to it for their protection against fire.

"That night, as usual, I was making my rounds after the fellows had gone
to bed. Coming into this player's room I saw that he was asleep, but
that there appeared to be some strange, unusual lump in the bed. I
immediately woke him to find out what it was. Much to my amusement, I
discovered that he had wound about fifteen feet of the rope around his
body and I had an awful job trying to assure him that the boys had been
fooling him. Nothing that I could say, however, would convince him, and
I left him to resume his slumbers with the rope still wrapped tightly
about his body."

Huggins not only believes that Brown University is a good place to
train, but he thinks it is a good place to send his boy. He has a son
who is a freshman at Brown as I write. Huggins went to Brown in the fall
of 1896, as trainer. Here is another good Huggins story:

"Sprackling, our All-American quarterback of a few years ago, always had
his nerve with him and, however tight the place, generally managed to
get out with a whole skin. But I recall one occasion when the wind was
taken out of his sails; he was at a loss what to say or how to act. We
were talking over prospects on the steps in front of the Brown Union one
morning just before college opened, the fall that he was captain, when a
young chap came up and said:

"'Are you Sprackling, Captain of the Team?'

"'That's me,' replied Sprack.

"'Well, I'm coming out for quarterback,' the young man declared, 'and I
expect to make it. I can run the 100 in ten-one and the 220 in evens and
I'm a good quarterback. I'm going to beat you out of your job.'

"Sprack, for once in his life, was flustered to death. When several of
the boys who were nearby and had heard the conversation, began to laugh,
he grew red in the face and quickly got up and walked away without a
word. But before I could recover myself, the promising candidate had
disappeared."

Harry Tuthill, specialist in knees and ankles, was the first trainer
West Point ever had. When he turned up at the Academy he was none too
sure that a football was made of leather and blown up.

He got his job at the Point through the bandaging of Ty Cobb's ankle. An
Army coach saw him do it and said:

"Harry, if you can do that, the way you do it, come to West Point and do
it for us."

Tuthill was none too welcome to the authorities other than the football
men. In the eyes of the superintendent every cadet was fit to do
anything that might be required of him.

"You've got to make good with the Supe," said the coaches.

So Harry went out and watched the dress parade and the ensuing double
time review. After the battalion was dismissed, Tuthill was introduced
to the Superintendent.

"Well, Mr. Tuthill," said the Superintendent, "I'm glad to meet you, but
I really do not see what we need of a trainer."

Harry shifted his feet and gathering courage blurted out:

"Run those boys around again and then ask them to whistle."

       *       *       *       *       *

There are many other trainers who deserve mention in this chapter, men
who are earnestly and loyally giving up their lives to the training of
the young men in our different colleges, but space will not permit to
take up any more of these interesting characters. Their tribute must be
a silent one, not only from myself but from the undergraduates and
graduates of the colleges to which they belong and upon whose shoulders
are heaped year after year honors which are due them.


FIRST DOCTOR IN CHARGE OF ANY TEAM

Doctor W. M. Conant, Harvard '79, says:

"I believe I was the first doctor associated with the Harvard team, and
so far as I know, the first doctor who was in charge of any team at any
college. At Harvard this custom has been kept up. I was requested by
Arthur Cumnock, who had been beaten the previous year by Yale, to come
out and help him win a game. This I consented to do provided I had
absolute control of the medical end of the team, which consisted not
only of taking care of the men who were injured, but also of their diet.
This has since been taken up by the trainer.

"The late George Stewart and the late George Adams were the coaches in
charge that year, and my recollections of some of the difficulties that
arose because of new methods are very enjoyable--even at this late day.
So far as I know this was the first season men were played in the same
position opposite one another. In other words, there was an attempt to
form a second eleven--which is now a well recognized condition.

"I had a house built under the grandstand where every man from our team
was stripped, rubbed dry and put into a new suit of clothes, also given
a certain amount of hot drink as seemed necessary. This was a thing
which had never been done before, and in my opinion had a large
influence in deciding the game in Harvard's favor; as the men went out
upon the field in the second half almost as fresh as when they started
the first half.

"I remember that I had not seen a victory over Yale since I was
graduated from college in 1879. Some of the suggestions that I made
about the time men should be played were laughed at. The standpoint I
took was that a man should not be allowed by the coach to play until he
was deemed fit. The physician in charge was also a matter of serious
discussion. Many of these points are now so well established that to the
present generation it is hardly possible to make them realize that from
1890 to 1895 it was necessary to make a fight to establish certain
well-known methods.

"What would the present football man think of being played for one and
one-half hours whether he was in shape or not? The present football man
does not appreciate what some of the older college graduates went
through in order to bring about the present reasonable methods adopted
in handling the game."

[Illustration: HOW IT HURTS TO LOSE]




CHAPTER XVIII

NIGHTMARES


There are few players who never experienced defeat in football. At such
a time sadness reigns. Men who are big in mind and body have broken down
and cried bitterly. How often in our experience have we seen men taken
out of the game leaving it as though their hearts would break, only to
go to the side lines, and there through dimmed eyes view the inevitable
defeat, realizing that they were no longer a factor in the struggle.
Such an experience came to Frank Morse in that savage Penn-Princeton
game of years ago at Trenton. He had given of his best; he played a
wonderful game, but through an injury he had to be removed to the side
lines. Let this great hero of the past tell us something about the pangs
of defeat as he summons them to mind in his San Francisco office after
an interval of twenty-two years.

"The average American university football player takes his defeats too
seriously--in the light of my retrospect--much too seriously," writes
Morse. "As my memory harks back to the blubbering bunch of stalwart
young manhood that rent the close air of the dressing-room with its
dismal howls after each of the five defeats in which I participated, I
am convinced that this is not what the world expects of strong men in
the hour of adversity.

"A stiff upper lip is what the world admires, and it will extend the
hand of sympathy and help to the man who can wear it. This should be
taught by football coaches to their men as a part of the lessons of life
that football generally is credited with teaching.

"Alex Moffat, than whom no more loyal and enthusiastic Princetonian ever
lived, to my mind, had the right idea. During one of those periods of
abysmal depths of despondency into which a losing team is plunged, he
rushed into the room, waving his arms over his head in his
characteristic manner, and in his high-pitched voice yelled:

"'Here, boys, get down to work; cut out this crying and get to cussing.'

"Doubtless much of this was due to the strain and the high tension to
which the men were subjected, but much of it was mere lack of effort at
restraint.

"Johnny Poe, as stout-hearted a man as ever has, or ever will stand on a
football field, once said to me:

"'This sob stuff gives me a pain in the neck but, like sea-sickness,
when the rest of the crowd start business, it's hard to keep out of it.
Besides, I don't suppose there's any use getting the reputation of
being exclusive and too stuck up to do what the rest of the gang do.'

"Of the defeats in which I participated, probably none was more
disheartening than the one suffered at the hands of the University of
Pennsylvania in 1892 at the Manheim cricket grounds near Philadelphia. I
shall always believe that the better Princeton team would have won with
comparative ease had it not been for the wind. In no game in which I
ever played was the wind so largely the deciding factor in the result.
The flags on the poles along the stands stood out stiffly as they
snapped in the half gale.

"Pennsylvania won the toss and elected to have the wind at their backs.
For forty-five minutes every effort made against the Red and Blue was
more than nullified by the blustering god Æolus. When Pennsylvania
kicked, it was the rule and not the exception for the ball to go sailing
for from one-half to three quarters the length of the field. On the
other hand, I can see in my mind's eye to-day, as clearly as I did
during the game, a punt by Sheppard Homans, the Princeton fullback,
which started over the battling lines into Pennsylvania territory,
slowed up, hung for an instant in the air and then was swept back to a
point approximating the line from where it started.

"It was the most helpless and exasperating feeling that I ever
experienced. The football player who can conceive of a game in which
under no circumstances was it permissible to kick, but instead provided
a penalty, can perhaps appreciate the circumstances.

"In the second half, when we changed goals, the flags hung limply
against their staffs, but we had spent ourselves in the unequal contest
during the first half."

Nightmares, even those of football, do not always beget sympathy. Upon
occasion a deal of fun is poked at the victim, and this holds true even
in the family circle.

Tom Shevlin was noted as the father of a great many good stories, but it
was proverbial that he refrained from telling one upon himself. However,
in at least one instance he deviated from habit to the extent of
relating an incident concerning his father and the father of Charlie
Rafferty, captain of the Yale 1903 eleven. Tom at the time was a
sophomore, and Shevlin, senior, who idolized his son, made it a practice
of attending all important contests in which he participated, came on
from Minneapolis in his private car to witness the spectacle of Tom's
single-handed defeat of "The Princetons." As it chanced the Shevlin car
was put upon a siding adjoining that on which the car of Gill Rafferty
lay. Rafferty, as a matter of fact, was making his laborious way down
the steps as Mr. Shevlin emerged from his car. Mr. Rafferty looked up,
blinked in the November sunlight and then nodded cheerfully. "Well,
Shevlin," he said, "I suppose by to-night we'll be known simply as the
fathers of two great Yale favorites." Shevlin nodded and said "he
fancied such would be the case." A few hours later, in the gloom of the
twilight, after Yale had been defeated, the elder Shevlin was finding
his somber way to the steps of his car and met Rafferty face to face.
Shevlin nodded and was about to pass on without speaking, when Rafferty
placed his hand upon his shoulder. "Well, Shevlin," he said solemnly, "I
see we are still old man Shevlin and old man Rafferty."


W. C. Rhodes

One has only to hear Jim Rodgers tell the story of Billy Rhodes to
realize how deeply the iron of football disaster sinks into the soul.

"Rhodes was captain of the losing team in the fall of '90, when Yale's
Eleven was beaten by Harvard's," Rodgers tells us. "Arthur Cumnock was
the Harvard captain, and the score was 12 to 6. Two remarkable runs for
touchdowns made by Dudley Dean and Jim Lee decided the contest.

"For twenty years afterwards, back to Springfield, New Haven or
Cambridge, wherever the Yale-Harvard games were played, came with the
regularity of their occurrence, Billy Rhodes.

"He was to be seen the night before, and the morning of the game. He
always had his tickets for the side line and wore the badge as an
ex-Yale captain. But the game itself Billy Rhodes never saw.

"If at Springfield, he was to be found in the Massasoit House, walking
the floor until the result of the game was known. If at New Haven, he
was not at the Yale Field. He walked around the field and out into the
woods. If the game was at Cambridge, he was not at Holmes Field, or
later, at Soldiers' Field.

"When the game was over he would join in the celebration of victory, or
sink into the misery of defeat, as the case might be. But he never could
witness a game. The sting of defeat had left its permanent wound."


A YALE NIGHTMARE

Those who saw the Army defeat Yale at West Point in 1904 must realize
what a blow it was to the Blue. The first score came as a result of a
blocked kick by West Point, which was recovered by Erwin, who picked up
the ball and dashed across the line for a touchdown. The Army scored the
second time when Torney cut loose and ran 105 yards for a touchdown.

Sam Morse, captain of the Yale 1906 team, who played right halfback in
this game, tells how the nightmare of defeat may come upon us at any
time, even in the early season, and incidentally how it may have its
compensations.

"An instance of the psychology of football is to be found in the fall
of 1904, when Jim Hogan was captain of the Yale team," says Morse. "I
had the pleasure of playing back of him on the defensive in almost every
game of that year, and I got to depend so much on those bull-like
charges of his that I fear that if I had been obliged to play back of
some one else my playing would have been of inferior quality.

"Yale had a fine team that year, defeating both Harvard and Princeton
with something to spare. The only eleven that scored on us was West
Point, and they beat us. It is a strange thing that the Cadets always
seem to give Yale a close game, as in that year even though beaten by
both Harvard and Princeton by safe scores, and even though Yale beat
Harvard and Princeton handily, the Army played us to a standstill.

"After the game, as is so often the case when men have played themselves
out, there was a good deal of sobbing and a good many real tears were
shed. Every man who has played football will appreciate that there are
times when it is a very common matter for even a big husky man to weep.
We were all in the West Point dressing-room when Jim Hogan arose. He
felt what we all took to be a disgrace more keenly than any of us. There
was no shake in his voice, however, or any tears in his eyes when he
bellowed at us to stop blubbering.

"'Don't feel sorry for yourselves. I hope this thing will hurt us all
enough so that we will profit by it. It isn't a matter to cry over--it's
a matter to analyze closely and to take into yourself and to digest, and
finally to prevent its happening again.'

"He drove it home as only Jim Hogan could. At the close Ralph Bloomer
jumped to his feet and cried:

"'Jim, old man, we are with you, and you are right about it, and we will
wipe this thing out in a way which will satisfy you and all the rest of
the college.'

"The whole team followed him. Right then and there that aggregation
became a Yale football team in the proper sense, and one of the greatest
Yale football teams that ever played. It was the game followed by Jim's
speech that made the eleven men a unit for victory.

"If Jim had been allowed to live a few more years the quality of
leadership that he possessed would have made of him a very prominent and
powerful man. His memory is one of the dearest things to all of us who
were team mates or friends of his, but I hardly ever think of him
without picturing him that particular day in the dressing-room at West
Point, when in five minutes he made of eleven men a really great
football team."

Even Eddie Mahan is not immune to the haunting memory of defeat, and
perhaps because of the very fact that disaster came into his
brilliant gridiron career only once, and then in his senior year, it
hit him hard. The manner of its telling by this great player is
sufficient proof of that. Here is Eddie's story:

[Illustration:

Hunkin   Tilley   Bailey   Snyder   Jewett   Gillies   Miller   Lalley
Shiverick   Anderson   Menler   Barrett   Cool   Shelton   Collins
Eckley   Schock   Schlicter   Zander

CORNELL'S GREAT TEAM--1915]

"I enjoyed my football days at Harvard so well that I would like to go
back each fall and play football for the rest of my life. I wish to
goodness I could go back and play just one game over--that is the
Cornell game of 1915. My freshman team won all its games, and during the
three years that I played for the Harvard Varsity I never figured in a
losing game except that one. Cornell beat Harvard 10 to 0. The score of
that game will haunt me all my life long. This game has been a nightmare
to me ever since. Every time I think of football that game is one of the
first things that comes to mind. I fumbled a lot. I don't know why, but
I couldn't seem to hold onto the ball.

"We blocked four kicks, but Cornell recovered every one. We sort of felt
that there was more than the Cornell team playing against us--a goal
from the field and a touchdown. Shiverick, of Cornell, stands out in my
recollection of that game. He was a good kicker. Once he had to kick out
from behind the goal post down in his own territory. Watson and I were
both laying for a line buck; playing up close. Shiverick kicked one over
my head, out of bounds at his own 45-yard line.

"I felt like a burglar after this game, because I felt that I had lost
it. I was feeling pretty blue until the Monday after the game, when the
coaches picked eleven men as the Varsity team, and just as soon as they
sent these eleven men to a section of the field to get acquainted with
each other--that was the beginning of team work. From the way those
fellows went at it that day, and from the spirit they showed, we felt
that no team could ever lick us again, neither Princeton nor Yale. The
Cornell game acted like a tonic on the whole crowd. Instead of
disheartening the team it instilled in us determination. We said:

"'We know what it is to be licked, and we'll be damned if we'll be
licked again.'"

Jack de Saulles' football ambitions were realized when he made the Yale
team at quarterback, the position which his brother Charlie, before him,
had occupied. His spectacular runs, his able generalship, his ability to
handle punts, coupled with that characteristic de Saulles' grit, made
him a famous player.

Let this game little quarterback tell his own story:

"Billy Bull and I have often discussed the fact that when an attempt for
a goal from the field failed, one of the players of the opposing side
always touched the ball back of the goal line (thereby making it dead),
and brought it out to the 25-yard line to kick. Of course, the ball is
never dead until it is touched down. It was in the fall of 1902 when we
were playing West Point. In the latter part of the second half of that
game, with the score 6 to 6, Charlie Daly attempted a field goal, which
was unsuccessful. What Billy Bull and I had discussed many times came
into my mind like a flash. I picked the ball up and walked out with it
as if it had been touched back of the goal. When I passed the 25-yard
line, walking along casually, Bucky Vail, who was the referee, yelled to
me to stop. I walked over to him unconcerned and said: 'Bucky, old boy!
this ball is not dead, because I did not touch it down. And I am going
down the field with it.' By that time the West Point men had taken their
positions in order to receive the kick from the 25-yard line. While I
was still walking down the field, in order to pass all the West Point
men, before making my dash for a certain touchdown, it struck Bucky Vail
that I was right, and he yelled out at the top of his voice. 'The ball
is not dead. It is free.' Whereupon the West Point men started after me.
An Army man tackled me on their 25-yard line, after I had taken the ball
down the field for nearly a touchdown. I have often turned over in my
bed at night since that time, cursing the action of Referee Vail. If he
had not interfered with my play I would have walked down the field for a
touchdown and victory for Yale. The final score remained 6 to 6.

"I have often thought of the painful hours I would have suffered had I
missed the two open field chances in the disastrous game at Cambridge in
the fall of 1902, when Yale was beaten 23 to 0. On two different
occasions in that game a Harvard runner with interference had passed the
whole Yale team. I was the only Yale man between the Harvard man and a
touchdown. The supreme satisfaction I had in nailing both of those
runners is one of the most pleasant recollections of my football career.

"When I was a little shaver, back in 1889, I lived at South Bethlehem,
Pa. Paul Dashiell and Mathew McClung, who were then playing football at
Lehigh University, took an interest in me. Paul Dashiell took me to the
first football game I ever saw. Dibby McClung gave me one of the old
practice balls of the Lehigh team. This was the first football I ever
had in my hands. For weeks afterwards that football was my nightly
companion in bed. These two Lehigh stars have always been my football
heroes, and it was a happy day for me when I played quarterback on the
Yale team and these two men acted as officials that day."

[Illustration: ONE SCENE NEVER PHOTOGRAPHED IN FOOTBALL]




CHAPTER XIX

MEN WHO COACHED


The picture on the opposite page will recall to mind many a serious
moment in the career of men who coached; when something had gone wrong;
when some player had not come up to expectation; when a combination of
poor judgment and ill luck was threatening to throw away the results of
a season's work. Such scenes are never photographed, but they are
preserved no less indelibly in the minds of all who have played this
rôle.

Where is the old football player, who, gazing at this picture, will not
be carried back to those days that will never come again; hours when you
listened perhaps guiltily to the stinging words of the coach; moments
when spurred on by the thunder and lightning of his wrath you could
hardly wait to get out upon the field to grapple with your opponents. At
such times, all that was worth while seemed to surge up within you,
fiercely demanding a chance, while if you were a coach you yearned to
get into the game, only to realize as the team trotted out on the field
that yours was no longer a playing part. All you could expect
henceforth would be to walk nervously up and down the side line with
chills and thrills alternating along your spine.

There were no coaches in the old days. Football history relates that in
the beginning fellows who wanted fun and exercise would chip in and buy
a leather cover for a beef bladder. It was necessary to have a supply of
these bladders on hand, for stout kicks frequently burst them.

In those days the ball was tossed up in the air and all hands rushed for
it. There was no organization then, very few rules, and the football
players developed themselves.

To-day the old-time player stands on the side lines and hears the coach
yelling:

"Play hard! Fall on the ball! Tackle low! Start quick! Charge hard and
fast!"

As far as the fundamentals go, the game seems to him much the same, but
when he begins to recollect he sees how far it has really progressed. He
recalls how the football coach became a reality and how a teacher of
football appeared upon the gridiron.

Better coaching systems were installed as football progressed. Rules
were expanded, trainers crept in, intercollegiate games were scheduled
and competition and keen rivalry developed everywhere. In fact, the
desire to win has become so firmly established in the minds of college
men that we now have a finished product in our great American game of
football--wonderfully attractive, but very expensive.

Competition has grown to such an extent that our coaching systems of
to-day resemble, in a way, the plans for national preparedness--costly,
but apparently necessary. All this means that the American football man,
like the American captain of industry, or the American pioneer in any
field of activity, is never content to stand still. His motto is, "Ever
Onward."

It is not always the star player that makes the greatest coach. The
mediocre man is quite likely to have absorbed as much football teaching
ability as the star; and when his opportunity comes to coach, he
sometimes gets more out of the men than the man with the big reputation.

Personality counts in coaching. In addition to a coach's keen sense of
football, there must be a strong personality around which the players
may rally. All this inspires confidence.

It is a joy for a coach to work with good material--the real foundation
of success. The rules of to-day, however, give what, under old
standards, was the weaker team a much broader opportunity for victory
over physically larger and stronger opponents.

But there are days nevertheless when every coach gets discouraged; times
when there is no response from the men he is coaching--when their
slowness of mind and body seem to justify the despair of Charlie Daly
who said to his team:

"You fellows are made of crockery from the neck down and ivory from the
neck up."

Football is fickle. To-day you may be a hero. After the last game you
may be carried off on the shoulders of enthusiastic admirers and dined
and wined by hosts of friends; but across the field there is a grim
faced coach who may already be scheming out a play for next year which
will snatch you back from the "Hall of Fame" and make your friends
describe you sadly as a "back-number."

Haughton arrived at Harvard at the psychological moment. Harvard had
passed through many distressing years playing for the football
supremacy. He found something to build upon, because, although the game
at Cambridge was in the doldrums, there had been keen and capable
coaching in the past.

Prominent among those who have worked hard for Harvard and whose work
has been more than welcome, are Arthur Cumnock, that brilliant end rush,
George Stewart, Doctor William A. Brooks, a former Harvard captain,
Lewis, Upton, John Cranston, Deland, Hallowell, Thatcher, Forbes,
Waters, Newell, Dibblee, Bill Reid, Mike Farley, Josh Crane, Charlie
Daly, Pot Graves, Leo Leary, and others well versed in the game of
football.

Haughton had had some experience not only in coaching at Cambridge but
coaching at Cornell, and the Harvard football authorities realized that
of all the Harvard graduates Haughton would probably be the best man to
turn the tide in Harvard football.

Percy, who played tackle on a winning Crimson eleven, and Sam Felton
will be well remembered as the fastest punters of their day.

The first Harvard team coached by Haughton defeated Yale. It was in 1908
when Haughton used a spectacular method, when he rushed Vic Kennard into
the Crimson backfield after Ver Wiebe had brought the ball up the field
where Haughton's craft sent Vic Kennard in to make the winning three
points and Kennard himself will tell the story of that game. The next
year Percy Haughton's team could not defeat the great Ted Coy, who
kicked two goals from the field.

The performance of the Harvard 1908 team was the more remarkable because
Burr, who was the captain and the great punter at that time, had been
injured and the team was without his services. How well I remember him
on the side lines keenly following the play, but brilliant in his
self-denial.

There have been times when victories did not come to Harvard with the
regularity that they have under the Haughton régime, but the scales go
up and down year by year, game by game, and from defeats we learn much.

Let us read what this premier coach says upon reflection:

"Surely the game of football brings out the best there is in one. Aside
from the mental and physical exercise, the game develops that
inestimable quality of doing one's best under pressure. What better
training for the game of life than the acid test of a championship game.
Such a test comes not alone to the player but to the coach as well.

"What truer and finer friends can one have than those whom we have met
through the medium of football! And finally as the years tend to narrow
this precious list, through death, what greater privilege than to
associate with the fellow whose muscles are lithe and whose mind is
clean. Such a man was Francis H. Burr, captain of the Harvard team in
1908. Words fail me to express my sincere regard for that gallant
leader. His spirit still lives at Cambridge; his type we miss.

"I am proud of the men who worked shoulder to shoulder in bringing about
Harvard victories. The list is a long one. I shall always cherish the
hearty co-operation of these men who gave their best for Harvard."

It was Al Sharpe, that great Cornell coach, who, in the fall of 1915
found it possible to break through the Harvard line of victories, and
hanging on the walls in the trophy room at Cornell University is a much
prized souvenir of Cornell's visit to Cambridge. That was the only
defeat on the Harvard schedule. But sometimes defeats have to come to
insure victory, and perhaps in that defeat by Cornell lay the reason for
the overwhelming score against Yale.

[Illustration:

Whitney   Dadmun   Harte   L. Curtis   Dougherty   Harris
Haughton  Taylor  McKintock  Weatherhead  R. Curtis  Cowen  Blanchard
King   Parson   Gilman   Mahan   Watson   Wallace   Soucy
Boles   Robinson   Coolidge   Horneen   Rollins

HARVARD, 1915]

Slowly, but surely, Al Sharpe has won his way into the front ranks of
football coaches. Working steadfastly year after year he has built up
and established a system that has set Cornell's football machinery upon
a firm foundation.


Glenn Warner

Glenn Warner has contributed a great deal to football, both as a player
and coach.

Warner was one of the greatest linemen that ever played on the Cornell
team. After leaving college he began his coaching career in 1895 at the
University of Georgia. His success there was remarkable. It attracted so
much attention that he was called back to Cornell in 1897 and 1898. In
1899 Warner moved again and began his historic work at the Carlisle
Indian School, turning out a team year after year that gave the big
colleges a close battle and sometimes beat them.

There never was a team that attracted so much attention as the Carlisle
Indians. They were popular everywhere and drew large crowds, not only on
account of their being Redmen, but on account of their adaptability to
the game. Warner, as their coach, wrought wonders with them, and really
all the colleges at one time or another had their scalps taken by the
Indians. They were the champion travelers of the game. Their games were
generally all away from home, and yet the long trips did not seem to
hamper them in their play. They got enjoyment out of traveling.

Going from Princeton to New York one Friday night some years ago, I was
told by the conductor that the Carlisle football team was in the last
car. I went back and talked with Warner. The Indian team were amusing
themselves in one end of the car, and thus passing the time away by
entering into a game they were accustomed to play on trips. One of the
Carlisle players would stand in the center of the aisle and some fifteen
or so men would group about him, in and about and on top of the seats.
This central figure would bend over and close his eyes. Then some one
from the crowd would reach over and spank the crouching Indian a
terrific blow, hastily drawing back his hand. Then the Indian who had
received the blow would straighten up and try, by the expression of
guilt on the face of the one who had delivered the blow, to find his
man. Their faces were a study, yet nearly every time the right man was
detected.

Who is there in football who will ever forget the Indian team, their red
blankets and all that was typical of them; the yells that the crowds
gave as the Indians appeared. They seemed always to be fit. They were
full of spirit and anxious to clash with their opponents.

[Illustration: THE GREATEST INDIAN OF THEM ALL]

I recall an incident in a Princeton-Carlisle game, when the game was
being fiercely waged. Miller, the great Indian halfback, had scored a
touchdown, after a long run. It was not long after this that a Princeton
player was injured. Maybe the play was being slowed up a little. Anyway,
time was taken out. One of the Indians seemed to sense the situation.
The Princeton players were lying on the ground while the Carlisle men
were prancing about eager to resume the fray, when one of the Indians
remarked:

"White man play for wind. Indian play football."

In 1915 Warner went to the University of Pittsburgh. Here he has already
begun to duplicate former successes. Cruikshank, Peck, and Wagner are
three of Pittsburgh's many stars. Probably the greatest football player
that Warner ever developed at the Carlisle Indian School was Jim Thorpe,
whose picture appears on the opposite page. Unhappy the end, and not
infrequently the back, who had to face this versatile player. Thorpe was
a raider.


Billy Bull

Billy Bull of Yale is one of the old heroes who has kept in very close
touch with the game. He has been a valuable coach at Yale and the Elis'
kicking game is left entirely in his hands. He is an enthusiastic
believer in the game. Immediately after leaving New Haven in 1889 he
started to coach and since that time he has not missed a year. Years ago
he inaugurated a routine system of coaching for the various styles of
kicks. "My object," he said recently, "has been to turn out consistent
rather than wonderful kickers. As a player I was early impressed with
the value of kicking, not only in a general way but also in a particular
way, such as the punt in an offensive way. For more than twenty-five
years I have talked it up. For a long time I talked it to deaf ears,
especially at Yale. I talked it when I coached at West Point for ten
years and was generally set down as a harmless crank on the subject, but
I have lived to see the time when every one agrees on the great value of
this offensive kick.

"When I entered Yale I was an absolute greenhorn, but the greenhorn had
a chance then, for he was able to play in actual scrimmage every day;
now the squads are so big that opportunities for playing the game for
long daily periods are entirely wanting.

"To-day it is a case of a heap big talk, a coach for every position,
more talk, lots of system, blackboard exercises and mighty little actual
play.

"I have often wondered if things were not being overdone as far as
coaching goes in the preparatory schools at the present time. The
superabundance of coaches and the demand for victory combine to force
the boy.

"If there is any forcing to do, the college is the place for it, when
the boy is older and better able to stand the strain. In recent years I
have seen not a few brokendown boys enter college. Boys are coming to
college now who needs must be told everything, and if there is not a
large body of coaches about to tell them, they mutiny. They seem to
forget, or not to know, that most is up to the man himself.

"When a boy comes to college with the idea that all that is necessary is
for him to be told, constantly told how to do this and that, and he will
deliver in the last ditch, I cannot help thinking that something is
wrong.

"I have in mind right now a player in the line, who came to college
after four years of school football. Ever since his entry he has
complained that no one has told him anything. Now this particular player
spends ten months of each year loafing, and expects in his two months of
football to do a man's job in a big game.

"No amount of blackboard and other talk is going to make a player do a
man's job and whip his opponent. No man can play a tackle job properly
if he does not realize the kind of a proposition he is up against twelve
months in the year and act accordingly. He has got to do his own
thinking, and see to it himself that he has the necessary strength and
toughness, to play the game, as one must to win."


Sanford the Unique

George Foster Sanford is unique in football. He made splendid teams when
he coached at Columbia, while his subsequent record with the Rutgers
Eleven attracted wide attention.

In the _Columbia Alumni News_ of October, 1915, Albert W. Putnam, a
former player, reviews seven years of Morningside football, and pays the
following tribute to Foster Sanford:

"Sanford coached the teams of 1899, 1900 and 1901. He coached them ably,
conscientiously and thoroughly, and in my opinion was the best football
coach in the country."

"During my three years' experience as coach at Columbia," says Sanford,
"we beat all the big teams except Harvard. I was fortunate enough to
develop such men as Weekes, Morley, Wright, and Berrien, players whose
records will always stand high in the Hall of Football Fame at Columbia.
I was particularly well satisfied with the work I got out of Slocovitch,
a former Yale player, whom the Yale coaches had never seemed to handle
properly. I did not allow him to play over one day a week. This was
because I had discovered that he was very heavily muscled; that if he
played continuously he would become muscle bound. My treatment proved to
fit the case exactly and Slocovitch became a star end for Columbia. We
defeated Yale the first year; the next year at New Haven the contest was
a strenuous one, and the game attracted unusual attention. It was in my
own home town, and I had to stand for a lot of good natured kidding, but
those who were there will remember how scared the Yale coaches got
during the last part of the game, when Columbia made terrific advances.
How Columbia's team fought Gordon Brown's Eleven almost to a standstill
that day is something that the Yale coaches of that time will long
remember."

An old Yale player, Bob Loree, whose father is a Trustee of Rutgers,
induced Sanford to lend the college his assistance. Apparently this
connection was an unmixed blessing. "Mr. L. F. Loree, Bob's father,"
says Sandy, "has frankly admitted that in his opinion Sanford's gift to
the college (for he works without remuneration) has brought a spirit and
a betterment of conditions which is worth fully as much as donations of
thousands of dollars.

"From the first day I went there," continues Sandy, "I started to build
up football for Rutgers and to rely on Rutgers men for my assistants. It
was there that I met the best football man I ever coached, John T.
Toohey. This remarkable tackle weighed 220 pounds. The life he led and
the example he set will always have a lasting influence upon Rutgers
men. For sad to relate, Toohey was killed in the railroad yards at
Oneonta, where he was yard master. Toohey was a great leader, possessing
a wonderful personality, and winning the immediate respect of every one
who knew him."

Twenty-five years have passed since I saw Sanford that morning in the
Fifth Avenue Hotel. Since then I have followed his football career with
enthusiasm. Boyhood heroes live long in mind. He is what might be called
a major surgeon in football, for it is a matter of record that he has
been called back to Yale, not when the patient was merely sick, but in a
serious condition. Usually the operation has been performed with such
skill that the patient has rallied with disconcerting suddenness.

Talking to the Yale teams between the halves, giving instructions, which
have turned dubious prospects into flaming victories, is a service which
Sanford has rendered Yale more than once. Victory, as it happens, is the
principal characteristic of Sanford's work. Long is the list of players
whom Sanford has developed.

"In my coaching experience," Sandy tells us, "I doubt if I ever coached
a man where my hard work counted for more at Yale than the case of
Charlie Chadwick in 1897. For many years there has been a saying that a
one man defense is as good as an eleven men defense, providing you can
get one man who can do it.

"Of course this never worked out literally, but the case of Charlie
Chadwick is probably the best explanation of its value. Besides being
overdeveloped, he was temperamental. At times he would show great form
and at other times his playing was hopeless. This year I was asked to
come to New Haven and began coaching the linemen. Chadwick looked good
to me, in spite of much criticism that was made by the coaches. In their
opinion they thought he was not to be relied upon, so I decided to stake
my reputation, and began in my own way, feeling sure that I could get
results, in preparing him for the Harvard and Princeton games.

[Illustration: LEARNING THE CHARGE]

"I started out purposely annoying Chadwick in every possible way, going
with him wherever he went. I went with him to his room evenings and did
not leave until he had become so bored that he fell asleep, or that he
got mad and told me to get out. I planned it that Chadwick approach the
coaches whenever he saw them together and say: 'I wish you would let me
play on this team. If you will I will play the game of my life. I will
play like hell.' After he had made this speech two or three times, they
were very positive that he was more than temperamental. I kept steadily
at my plan, however, and felt sure it would work out.

"The line was finally turned over to me and I had opportunity to slip
Chadwick in for two or three plays at left guard. He played like a
demon; he was literally a one man defense, but he received no credit. I
immediately removed him from the game and criticised him severely and
told him to follow up the play and in case I needed him he would be
handy. I realized what a great player he was proving to be, and my great
problem then was how I was to convince the coaches that Chadwick should
start the game. I tried it out a few times, but saw it was useless
trying to convince them, so I decided to concentrate on Jim Rodgers, the
Captain. Jim consented. My plan was to tell no one except Marshall, the
man whose place Chadwick was to take. The lineup was called out in the
dressing room before the game. Chadwick's name was not included. I had
arranged with Julian Curtis, who was in close touch with the cheer
leaders, that when I gave the signal, the Yale crowd would be instructed
to stand and yell nothing but 'Chadwick, Chadwick, Chadwick.' The Yale
team ran out upon the field. I stayed behind with Chadwick and came in
through the gate holding him by the arm. Before going on the side lines
I stopped him and said: 'Look here, Chadwick. It doesn't look as though
you're going to play, but if I put you in that lineup how will you
play?' Like a shot from a cannon he roared: 'I'll play like hell.'

"You could have heard him a mile. 'Well then, give me your sweater and
warm up,' I said, and as I gave the signal to Julian Curtis, he passed
the word on to the cheer leaders and the sight of Chadwick running up
and down those side lines will never be forgotten. It is estimated that
he leaped five yards at a stride, and with the students cheering,
'Chadwick, Chadwick, Chadwick,' he was sent out into the lineup--and the
rest, well, you'd better ask the men who played on the Harvard team that
day. It was a stream of men going on and off the field and they were
headed for right guard position on the Harvard side. Harvard could not
beat Chadwick, so the game ended in a tie."

Jim Rodgers, captain of that team, also has something to say of
Chadwick.

"In the Harvard-Yale game," Rodgers writes, "Charlie Chadwick played the
game of his life. He used up about six men who played against him that
day, but he never could put out Bill Edwards the day we played
Princeton. I played against Chadwick on the Scrub, and the first charge
he made against me I went clean back to fullback. It was just as though
an automobile had hit me. I played against Heffelfinger and a lot of
them. I could hold those fellows. Gee! but I was sore. I said to myself,
you won't do that again, and the next time I was set back just as far.

"One feature of this Yale-Princeton game impressed me tremendously, that
of Bill Edwards' stand, against what I considered a superman, Charles
Chadwick. Before the game I had confidently expected Big Bill to resign
after about five minutes' play, knowing, as I did, how Chadwick was
going. In this, however, Edwards was a great disappointment, as he stuck
the game out and was stronger at the end, than at the start or half way
through. Had he weakened at all, Ad Kelly's great offensive work would
have been doomed to failure. Edwards finished up the game against
Chadwick with a face that resembled a raw beefsteak. To my mind he was
the worst punished man I have ever seen. He stood by his guns to the
finish, and ever since then my hat has been off to him."

One of the most interesting characters in Southern football is W. R.
Tichenor, a thorough enthusiast in the game and known wherever there is
a football in the South. His father was president of the Alabama
Polytechnic. He was a fine player and weighed about 120 pounds. He is
the emergency football man of the South. Whenever there is a football
dispute Tichenor settles it. Whenever a coach is taken sick, Tichenor is
called upon to take his place. Whenever an emergency official is needed,
Tich comes to the rescue. He tells the following story:

"Every boy who has been to Auburn in the last twenty years knows Bob
Frazier. Many of them, however, may not recognize that name, as he has
been called Bob 'Sponsor' for so long that few of them know his real
name. Bob is as black as the inside of a coal mine and has rubbed and
worked for the various teams at Auburn 'since the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary.'

[Illustration: BILLY BULL ADVISING WITH CAPTAIN TALBOT]

"Just after the Christmas holidays one year in the middle nineties, Bob,
with the view of making a touch, called at Bill Williams' room one
night.

"After asking Bill if he had had a good Christmas, 'Sponsor' remarked:
'You know, Mr. Williams, us Auburn niggers went down and played dem
Tuskegee niggers a game of football during Christmas.'

"'Who did you have on the team, Bob?' inquired Bill.

"'Oh--we had a lot of dese niggers roun' town yere. They was me, an'
Crooksie, an' Homer, an' Bear, an' Cockeye, an' a lot of dese yer town
niggers.'

"'How did you come out?' asked Bill.

"'Oh, dem Tuskegee niggers give us a good lickin'.'

"'What position did you play?'

"'Me?' said Bob, 'I was de cap'en. I played all roun'. I played center.
Den I played quarterback. Den I played halfback.'

"'What system of signals did you use and who called them?' was Bill's
next inquiry.

"'Ain't I tole you, Mr. Williams, I was de cap'en. I called the signals.
Dem niggers of mine couldn't learn no signals, so we jus' played lack we
had some. I'd give some numbers to fool the Tuskegee niggers. But dem
numbers didn't mean nothin'. I'd say, "two, four, six, eight, ten--tek
dat ball, Homer, an' go roun' the end." Dat's de only sort of signals
dem niggers could learn and sometimes dey missed dem. Dat's de reason we
got beat and dem Tuskegee niggers got all my money. Mr. Williams, I'm
jus' as nickless as a ha'nt. Can't you lem' me two bits til' Sadday
night, please suh? Honest to God, I'll pay you back den, shore.'"


Listening to Yost

"Hurry Up" Yost is one of the most interesting and enthusiastic football
coaches in the country. The title of "Hurry Up" has been given him on
account of the "pep" he puts into his men and the speed at which they
work. Whether in a restaurant or a crowded street, hotel lobby or on a
railroad train, Yost will proceed to demonstrate this or that play and
carefully explain many of the things well worth while in football. He is
always in deadly earnest. Out of the football season, during business
hours, he is ever ready to talk the game. Yost's football experience as
a player began at the University of West Virginia, where he played
tackle. Lafayette beat them that year 6 to 0. Shortly after this Yost
entered Lafayette. His early experience in football there was under the
famous football expert and writer, Parke Davis.

Yost and Rinehart wear a broad smile as they tell of the way Parke
Davis used to entertain teams off the field. He always kept them in the
finest of humor. Parke Davis, they say, is a born entertainer, and many
an evening in the club house did he keep their minds off football by a
wonderful demonstration of sleight-of-hand with the cards.

"If Parke Davis had taken his coat off and stuck to coaching he would
have been one of the greatest leaders in that line in the country
to-day," says Yost. "He was more or a less a bug on football. You know
that to be good in anything one must be crazy about it. Davis was
certainly a bug on football and so am I. Everybody knows that.

"I shall never forget Davis after Lafayette had beaten Cornell 6 to 0,
in 1895, at Ithaca. That night in the course of the celebration Parke
uncovered everything he had in the way of entertainment and gave an
exhibition of his famous dance, so aptly named the 'dance du venture,'
by that enthusiastic Lafayette alumnus, John Clarke.

"I have been at Michigan fifteen seasons. My 1901 team is perhaps the
most remarkable in the history of football in many ways. It scored 550
points to opponents' nothing, and journeyed 3500 miles. We played
Stanford on New Year's day, using no substitutes. On this great team
were Neil Snow, and the remarkable quarterback Boss Weeks. Willie
Heston, who was playing his first year at Michigan, was another star on
this team. A picture of Michigan's great team appears on the opposite
page.

"Boss Weeks' two teams scored more than 1200 points. If that team had
been in front of the Chinese Wall and got the signal to go, not a man
would have hesitated. Every man that played under Boss Weeks idolized
him, and when word was brought to the university that he had died, every
Michigan man felt that its university had lost one of its greatest men.

"I am perhaps more of a boy's man to-day than I ever was. There is a
great satisfaction in feeling that you have an influence in the lives of
the men under you. Coaching is a sacred job. There's no question about
it.

"There is a wonderful athletic spirit at Michigan, and when we have mass
meetings in the Hill Auditorium 6000 men turn out. At such a time one
feels the great power behind an athletic team. Some of the great
Michigan football players within my recollection were Jimmy Baird, Jack
McLain, Neil Snow, Boss Weeks, Tom Hammond, Willie Heston, Herrnstein,
grand old Germany Schultz, Benbrook, Stan Wells, Dan McGugin, Dave
Allerdice, Hugh White and others I might mention on down to John
Maulbetsch."

Reggie Brown is probably one of the most famous of the Harvard coaches.
His work in Harvard football is to find out what the other teams are
doing. He is on hand at Yale Field every Saturday when the Yale team
plays. He is unique in his scouting work, in that he carries his
findings in his head. His memory is his mental note book.

[Illustration:

Craft   McGugin   Gregory   Yost   Graver   Baird   Fitzpatrick
Wilson   Snow   White   Shorts   Heston
Sweeley   Weeks   Redden   Redner   Herrnstein

MICHIGAN'S FAMOUS 1901 TEAM]

In talking with Harvard men I have found that the general impression is
that the work of this coach is one of Harvard's biggest assets.

Jimmy Knox of Harvard is one of Haughton's most valued scouts. Every
fall Princeton is his haven of scouting. He does it most successfully
and in a truly sportsmanlike way.

One day en route to Princeton I met Knox on the train and sat with him
as far as Princeton Junction. When we arrived at Princeton, a friend of
mine called me aside and said:

"Who is that loyal Princeton man who seems never to miss a game?"

"He is not a Princeton man," I replied. "He is Knox the Harvard scout.
He will be with Haughton to-morrow at Cambridge with his dope book."

"From questions asked me I am quite sure that there is an utter
misconception of the work of the scouts for the big league teams," says
Jimmy. "I have frequently been asked how I get in to see the practice of
our opponents, how I manage to get their signals, how I anticipate what
they are going to do, what is the value of scouting anyway. From five
years' experience, I can say that I have never seen our opponents
except in public games. I have never unconsciously noted a signal even
for a kick, much less made a deliberate attempt to learn the opponents'
signals or code. What little I know of their ultimate plans is merely by
applying common sense to their problem, based on the material and
methods which they command. As to the value of scouting, volumes might
be written, but suffice it to say that it is the principal means of
standardizing the game. If the big teams of the country played
throughout the season in seclusion, the final games would be a
hodge-podge of varying systems which would curtail the interest of the
spectator and all but block the development of the game.

"The reports of the scouts give the various coaching corps a fixed
objective so that the various teams come to their final game with what
might be considered a uniform examination to pass. The result is a
steady, logical development of the game from the inside and the maximum
interest for the spectator. It is unfortunate that the public has
misconstrued scouting to mean spying, for there is nothing underhanded
in the scouting department of football as any big team coach will
testify."

Knox tells of an interesting experience of his Freshman year.

"I never hear the question debated as to whether character is born in a
man or developed as time goes on," says he, "without recalling my first
meeting with Marshall Newell, probably the best loved man that ever
graduated from Harvard. In the middle '90's it was considered beneath
the dignity of a former Varsity player to coach any but Varsity
candidates. Marshall Newell was an exception. Without solicitation he
came over to the Freshman field many times and gave us youngsters the
benefit of his advice. On his first trip he went into the lineup and
gave us an example of how the game could be played by a master. When the
practice was over, Ma Newell came up to me and said: 'I guess I was a
little rough, my boy, but I just wanted to test your grit. You had
better come over to the Varsity field to-morrow with two or three of the
other fellows that I am going to speak to. I'll watch you and help you
after you get there.' And he did. He was loved because he was big enough
to disregard convention, to sympathize with the less proficient and to
make an inferior feel as if he were on a plane of equality. The highest
type of manhood was born with Marshall Newell and developed through
every hour of a too short life.

"Only those who played football in the old days and have carefully
followed it since appreciate the difference in the two types of game. I
frequently wonder if the old type of game did not develop more in a man
than the modern. As a freshman I was playing halfback on the second
Varsity one afternoon when a sudden blow knocked me unconscious while
the play was at one end of the field. When I regained consciousness the
play was at the other end of the field, not a soul was near me or
thinking of me. I had hardly got within ear-shot of the scrimmage when I
heard Lewis, one of the Varsity coaches, call out, 'Come on, get in
here, they can't kill fellows like you.' I went into the scrimmage and
played the rest of the afternoon. It was a simple incident, but I
learned two lessons of life from it: first, you can expect mighty little
sympathy when you are down; second, you are not out if you will only go
back and stick to it."

Dartmouth holds a unique position in college football. There are many
men who were responsible for Dartmouth's success, men who have stood by
year after year and worked out the football policy there.

It is my experience that Dartmouth men universally call Ed Hall the
father of Dartmouth football. He has served faithfully on the Rules
Committee as well as an official in the game.

Myron E. Witham, that great player and captain of the Dartmouth team
which was victorious over Harvard the day that Harvard opened the
Stadium, says: "If one goes back to Hanover and visits the trophy room
he will see hanging there the winning football which Dartmouth men glory
over as they recall that wonderful victory over Harvard. Ed Hall is the
man who is often called upon to speak to the men between the halves.
His talks have a telling effect. Hall's name is traditional at our
college."

There are many football enthusiasts who recall that wonderful backfield
that Dartmouth had, McCornack, Eckstrom, McAndrews and Crolius. These
men got away wonderfully fast and hit the line like one man. They played
every game without a substitute for two years.

Fred Crolius, who takes great delight in recalling the old days, has the
following to say about one who coached:

"One man, whose influence more than any other one thing, succeeded in
laying a foundation for Dartmouth's wonderful results, but whose name is
seldom mentioned in that connection is Doctor Wurtenberg, who was
brought up in the early Yale football school. He had the keenest sense
of fundamental football and the greatest intensity of spirit in
transmitting his hard earned knowledge. Four critical years he worked
with us filling every one with his enthusiasm and those four years
Dartmouth football gained such headway that nothing could stop its
growth."

Enough space cannot be given to pay proper tribute to Walter McCornack,
Dartmouth '97.

Myron Witham relates a humorous incident that happened in practice when
McCornack was coach at Dartmouth. "Mac's serious and exacting demeanor
on the practice field occasionally relaxed to enjoy a humorous
situation. He chose to give a personal demonstration of my position and
duty as quarterback in a particular formation around the end. He took my
place and giving the proper signal, the team or rather ten-elevenths of
the team went through with the play, leaving Mac behind standing in his
tracks. Mac naturally was at a loss to locate the quarter, during the
execution of the play and madly yelled, 'Where in the devil is that
quarterback?' But immediately joined with the squad in the joke upon
himself."

McCornack coached Dartmouth in the falls of 1901 and 1902. He brought
the team up from nothing to a two years' defeat of Brown and two years'
scoring on Harvard. The game with Harvard in the fall of 1902 resulted
in a score of 16 to 6, Dartmouth out-rushing Harvard at least 3 to 1.

McCornack then resigned, but left a wealth of material and a scientific
game at Dartmouth, which was as good as any in the country. This was the
beginning of Dartmouth's success in modern football, and for it
McCornack has been named the father of modern football at Dartmouth.

The greatest compliment ever paid McCornack, in so far as athletics were
concerned, was by President William Jewett Tucker of Dartmouth, who told
an alumnus of the institution:

"The discipline that McCornack maintained on the football field at
Dartmouth was to the advantage of the general discipline of the
institution."

For ten years after McCornack had stopped coaching at Dartmouth, the
captain of the Dartmouth team would wear his sweater in a Harvard game
as an emblem to go by. The sweater is now worn out, and no one knows
where it is.

If Eddie Holt's record at Princeton told of nothing else than the making
of a great guard, this would be enough to establish Holt's ability as a
guard coach. Eddie and Sam Craig played alongside of each other in the
Yale defeat of '97. Holt says:

"The story of the making of Sam Craig is the old story of the stone the
builders rejected, which is now the head stone of the corner. Sam never
forgot the '97 defeat and I never have myself. After this game Sam gave
up football, although he was eligible to play. Two years later, after
Princeton had been defeated by Cornell, something had to be done to
strengthen the Princeton line. Sam Craig was at the Seminary. I
remembered him," said Holt, "and went over to his room and told him that
he was needed. I shall never forget how his face lit up as he felt there
was an opportunity to serve Princeton and a chance to play on a winning
team; a chance to come back. He responded to my hurry call, eager to
make good. Coaching him was the finest thing I ever did in football.
Good old Sam, I can see him now, standing on the side lines telling me
that he guessed he was no good. You can never imagine how happy I was to
see him improve day by day after I had taken a hold of him. The great
game he played against Yale in '99 will always be one of my happiest
recollections in football. My joy was supreme; the joy that comes to a
coach as he sees his man make good--Sam sure did."

It is very doubtful whether the inside story of Harvard's victory over
Yale in 1908 has ever been told. Those who remember this game know that
the way for victory was paved by Ver Wiebe and Vic Kennard. Harry
Kersburg, a Harvard coach, writes of that incident:

"The summer of 1907 and 1908, Kennard worked for several hours each day
perfecting his kicking. This fact was known to only one of the coaches.
In 1906 and 1907, Kennard played as a substitute but was most
unfortunate in being smashed up in nearly every game in which he played.
On account of this record, he was given little or no attention at the
beginning of the 1908 season, even though the one coach who had great
confidence in Kennard's ability as a kicker rooted hard for him at every
coaches' meeting. About the middle of the season, Dave Campbell came on
from the West and with the one lone coach became interested in Kennard.
On the day of the Springfield Training School game, most of the Harvard
coaches went down to New Haven, leaving the team in charge of Campbell
and Kennard's other rooter. The psychological moment had arrived. Just
as soon as the Harvard team had rolled up a tidy little score, Kennard
was sent into the game and instructions were given to the quarterback
that he was to signal for a drop kick every time the Harvard team was
within forty yards of the opponent's goal--no matter what the angle
might be. The game ended with Kennard having kicked four goals from the
field out of six tries. Nearly all of them were kicked from an average
distance of thirty yards and at very difficult angles. At the next
coaches' meeting serious consideration was given to what Kennard had
done and from that time on he came into his own.

"Now for Rex Ver Wiebe. For two years he had plugged away at a line
position on the second team. In his senior year he was advanced to the
Varsity squad. With all his hard work it seemed impossible for him to
develop into anything but a mediocre lineman. The line coaches, with
much regret, had about given up all hope. One afternoon, two weeks
before the Yale game, one of the line coaches was standing on the side
lines talking with Pooch Donovan about Ver Wiebe. Pooch said little, but
kept a close watch on Ver Wiebe for the next two or three days. At the
end of that time he came out with the statement that if Ver Wiebe could
be taught how to start, he would rapidly develop into one of the best
halfbacks on the squad. Pooch's advice was followed and in the Yale
game, Ver Wiebe's rushes outside tackle were one of the features of the
game and were directly responsible for the ball being brought down the
field to such a position that it was possible to substitute Kennard, who
kicked a goal from the field and won the first victory for Harvard
against Yale in many years.

"It is a strange coincidence that the first of Harvard's string of
victories against Yale was won by two men who a few weeks before the
game were in the so-called football discard."

No greater honor can be accorded a football man than the invitation to
come back to his Alma Mater and take charge of the football situation.
Such a man has been selected after he has served efficiently at other
institutions, for it takes long experience to become a great coach and
there are very few men who have given up all their time to consecutive
coaching.

Successful coaches, as a rule, are men who have a genius for it, and
whose strong personalities bring out the natural ability of the men
under them. Successful football is the result of a good system, plus
good material.

Of the men who coach to-day, the experience of John H. Rush, popularly
known as Speedy Rush, stands out as unique. Rush never played football,
for he preferred track athletics, but he understood the theory of the
game. At the University School in Cleveland where Rush taught for
many years, he took charge of the football team, and although coaching
mere boys, his results were marvelous, and in 1915, when the Princeton
coaching system was in a slough of despond, it was decided to give Rush
an opportunity to show what he could do at Princeton.

[Illustration:

Metcalf Peterson Mumford Monroe Elmer Stover Donnell Norton Dwyer Weed
Bullwinkle   McCabe   Franklin   Schulte   Thorpe   Moffat   Simmonds
DeGraff   Buermeyer   Cochran   Fairfield   Todd   Thompson
Calder   Aimee   Noble   Gallagher   Wadleton

COLUMBIA BACK IN THE GAME, 1915]

Rush makes no boasts. He is a silent worker, and football people at
large were unanimous in their praise of his work at Princeton in the
fall of 1915. Whatever the future holds in store for this coach,
Princeton men at least are sure that an efficient policy has been
established which will be followed out year after year, and that the
loyal support of the Alumni is behind Rush.

There was never a time in Yale's history when so much general discussion
and care entered into the selection of its football coach as in 1915.
From the long list of Yale football graduates the honor was bestowed
upon Tad Jones, a man whose remarkable playing record at Yale is well
known. Football records tell of his wonderful runs. His personality
enables him to get close to the men, and he was wonderfully successful
at Exeter, coaching his old school. Tad Jones represents one of the
highest types of college athletes.

In 1915 when the college authorities decided Columbia might re-enter the
football arena, after a lapse of ten years, it was a wonderful victory
for the loyal Columbia football supporters. A most thorough and
exhaustive search was then made for the proper man to teach Columbia the
new football. The man who won the Committee's unanimous vote was Thomas
N. Metcalf, who played football at Oberlin, Ohio. Metcalf earned
recognition in his first year. He realized that Columbia's re-entrance
into football must be gradual, and his schedule was arranged
accordingly. He developed Miller, a quarterback who stood on a par with
the best quarterbacks in 1915. Columbia had great confidence in Metcalf,
and the pick of the old men, notably Tom Thorp, one of the gamest
players any team ever had, volunteered their aid.

One of the most prominent football coaches which Pennsylvania boasts of
to-day, is Bob Folwell. Always a brilliant player, full of spirit and
endowed with a great power of leadership, he was a huge success as a
coach at Lafayette. His team beat Princeton. At Washington and
Jefferson, he beat Yale twice. His ability as a coach was watched
carefully not only by the graduates of Penn, but by the football world
as a whole.

In 1916 this hard-working, energetic up-to-date coach assumed control of
the football situation on Franklin Field.




CHAPTER XX

UMPIRE AND REFEREE


There is a group of individuals connected with football to whom the
football public pays little attention, until at a most inopportune time
in the game, a whistle is blown, or a horn is tooted and you see a
presumptuous individual stepping off a damaging five yard penalty
against your favorite team. At such a time you arise in your wrath and
demand: "Who is that guy anyway? Where did he come from? Why did he give
that penalty?" Other muffled tributes are paid him.

In calmer moments you realize that the officials are the caretakers of
football. They see to it that the game is preserved to us year after
year.

An official is generally a man who has served his time as a player.
Those days over, he enters the arena as Umpire, Referee or Linesman.

One who has a keen desire to succeed in this line of work ought to train
himself properly for the season's work. In anticipation of the
afternoon's work, he must get his proper sleep; no night cafés or late
hours should be his before a big contest.

The workings of football minds towards an official are most narrow and
critical at times. The really wise official will remain away from both
teams until just before the game, lest some one accuse him of being too
familiar with the other side. He can offer no opinion upon the game
before the contest.

Each college has its preferred list of officials. Much time is given to
the selection of officials for the different games. Before a man can be
chosen for any game it must be shown that he has had no ancestors at
either of the colleges in whose game he will act and that he is always
unprejudiced. At the same time the fact that a man has been approved as
a football official by three of four big colleges is about as fine a
football diploma as any one would wish.

For the larger games an official receives one hundred dollars and
expenses. This seems a lot of money for an afternoon's work just for
sport's sake, but there are many officials on the discarded list to-day
who would gladly return all the money they ever received, if they could
but regain their former popularity and prestige in the game. Certainly
an official is not an over-paid man.

The wise official arrives at the field only a scant half hour before the
game. Generally the head coach sends for you, and as he takes you to a
secluded spot he describes in his most serious way an important play he
will use in the game. He tells you that it is within the rules, but for
some curious reason, anxiously asks your opinion. He informs you that
the _opposing_ team has a certain play which is clearly illegal and
wants you to watch for it constantly. He furthermore warns you solemnly
that the other team is going to try to put one of his best players out
of the game and beseeches you to anticipate this cowardly action, and
you smile inwardly. Football seriousness is oftentimes amusing. Some of
our best Umpires always have a little talk with the team before the
game.

I often remember the old days when Paul Dashiell, the famous Umpire,
used to come into our dressing room. Standing in the center of the room,
he would make an appeal to us in his earnest, inimitable way, not to
play off-side. He would explain just how he interpreted holding and the
use of arms in the game. He would urge us to be thoroughbreds and to
play the game fair; to make it a clean game, so that it might be
unnecessary to inflict penalties. "Football," he would say, "is a game
for the players, not for the officials." Then he would depart, leaving
behind him a very clear conviction with us that he meant business. If we
broke the rules our team would unquestionably suffer.

Some of my most pleasant football recollections are those gained as an
official in the game. I count it a rare privilege to have worked in many
games year after year where I came in close contact with the players on
different college teams; there to catch their spirit and to see the
working out of victories and defeats at close range.

Here it is that one comes in close touch with the great power of
leadership, that "do or die" spirit, which makes a player ready to go in
a little harder with each play. Knocked over, he comes up with a grin
and sets his jaw a little stiffer for next time.

As an official you are often thrilled as you see a man making a great
play; you long to pat him on the back and say, "Well done!" If you see
an undiscovered fumbled ball you yearn to yell out--"Here it is!" But
all this you realize cannot be done unless one momentarily forgets
himself like John Bell.

"My recollection is that I acted as an official in but one game," says
he. "I was too intense a partisan. Nevertheless, I was pressed into
service in a Lehigh-Penn game in the late '80's. I recall that Duncan
Spaeth, now Professor of English at Princeton and coach of the Princeton
crew, was playing on Pennsylvania's team. He made a long run with the
ball; was thrown about the 20-yard line; rose, pushed on and was thrown
again between the 5- and 10-yard line. Refusing to be downed, he
continued to roll over a number of times, with several Lehigh players
hanging on to him, until finally he was stopped, within about a foot of
the goal line. Forgetting his official duties, in the excitement of
the moment, it is alleged that the referee (myself) jumped up and down
excitedly, calling out: 'Roll over, Spaethy, just _once_ more!' And
Spaethy did. A touchdown resulted. But the Referee's fate after the game
was like that of St. Stephen--he was stoned."

[Illustration: CLOSE TO A THRILLER

Erwin of Pennsylvania Scoring Against Cornell.]

In the old days one official used to handle the entire game. A man would
even officiate in a game where his own college was a contestant. This
was true in the case of Walter Camp, Tracy Harris, and other heroes of
the past. Later the number of officials was increased. Such a list
records Wyllys Terry, Alex Moffat, Pa Corbin, Ray Tompkins, S. V.
Coffin, Appleton and other men who protected the game in the early
stages.

Within my recollection, for many years the two most prominent, as well
as most efficient officials, whose names were always coupled, were
McClung, Referee, and Dashiell, Umpire. No two better officials ever
worked together and there is as much necessity for team work in
officiating as there is in playing. Both graduated from Lehigh, and the
prominent position that they took in football was a source of great
satisfaction to their university.

Officials come and go. These men have had their day, but no two ever
contributed better work. The game of Football was safe in their hands.

Paul Dashiell and Walter Camp are the only two survivors of the
original Rules Committee.


Dashiell's Reminiscences

"As an official, the first big game I umpired was in 1894 between Yale
and Princeton, following this with nine consecutive years of umpiring
the match," writes Dashiell. "After Harvard and Yale resumed relations,
I umpired their games for six years running. I officiated in practically
all the Harvard-Penn' games and Penn'-Cornell games during those years,
as well as many of the minor games, having had practically every
Saturday taken each fall during those twelve years, so I saw about all
the football there was. When I look back on those years and what they
taught me I feel that I'd not be without them for the world. They showed
so much human nature, so many hundreds of plucky things, mingled with a
lot of mean ones; such a show of manhood under pressure. I learned to
know so many wonderful chaps and some of my most valued friendships were
formed at those times. I liked the responsibility, too; although I knew
that from one game to another I was walking on ice so thin that one bad
mistake, however unintended, would break it.

"The rules were so incomplete that common sense was needed and,
frequently, interpretation was simply by mutual consent. Bitterness of
feeling between the big colleges made my duties all the harder. But it
was an untold satisfaction when I could feel that I had done well, and
as I said, the responsibility had its fascination and, in the main, was
a great satisfaction.

"And then came the inevitable, a foul seen only by me, which called for
an immediate penalty. This led to scathing criticism and accusations of
unfairness by many that did not understand the incident, altogether
leaving a sting that will go down with me to my grave in spite of my
happy recollections of the game. I had always taken a great pride in the
job, and in what the confidence of the big universities from one year to
another meant. I knew a little better than anybody else how
conscientiously I had tried to be fair and to use sense and judgment,
and the end of it all hurt a lot.

"One friendship was made in these years that has been worth more than
words can tell. I refer to that of Matthew McClung. To be known as a
co-official with McClung was a privilege that only those who knew him
can appreciate. I had known him before at Lehigh in his undergraduate
days, and had played on the same teams with him. In after years we were
officials together in a great many of the big games where feeling ran
high and manliness and fairness, as well as judgment, were often put to
a pretty severe test at short notice. Never was there a squarer
sportsman, or a fairer, more conscientious and efficient official; nor a
truer, more gallant type of real man than he. His early death took out
of the game a man of the kind we can ill afford to lose and no tribute
that I could pay him would be high enough.

"One night after a Yale-Harvard game at Cambridge, I was boarding the
midnight train for New York. The porter had my bag, and as we entered
the car, he confided in me, in an almost awestruck tone, that: 'Dad dere
gentlemin in de smokin' compartment am John L. Sullivan.'

"I crept into my berth, but next morning, in the washroom, I recognized
John L. as the only man left. He emerged from his basin and asked:

"'Were you at that football game yesterday?' and then 'Who won?'

"I told him, and by way of making conversation, asked him if he was
interested in all those outdoor games. But his voice dropped to the
sepulchral and confidential, as he said:

"'There's murder in that game!'

"I answered: 'Well! How about the fighting game?'

"He came back with: 'Sparring! It doesn't compare in roughness, or
danger, with football. In sparring you know what you are doing. You know
what your opponent is trying to do, and he's right there in front of
you, and, there's only one! But in football! Say, there's twenty-two
people trying to do you!'

"There being only twenty-one other than the player concerned, I could
not but infer that he meant to indicate the umpire as the
twenty-second."


My Personal Experiences

In my experience as an official I recall the fact that I began
officiating as a Referee, and had been engaged and notified in the
regular way to referee the Penn'-Harvard game on Franklin Field in 1905.
When I arrived at the field, McClung was the other official. He had
never umpired but had always acted as a Referee. In my opinion a man
should be either Referee or Umpire. Each position requires a different
kind of experience and I do not believe officials can successfully
interchange these positions. Those who have officiated can appreciate
the predicament I was in, especially just at that time when there was so
much talk of football reform, by means of changing the rules, changing
the style of the game, stopping mass plays. However, I consented; for
appreciating that McClung was sincere in his statement that he would do
nothing but referee, I was forced to accept the Umpire's task.

It was a game full of intense rivalry. The desire to win was carrying
the men beyond the bounds of an ordinarily spirited contest, and the
Umpire's job proved a most severe task. It was in this game that either
four or five men were disqualified.

I continued several years after this in the capacity of Umpire. One
unfortunate experience as Umpire came as a result of a penalty inflicted
upon Wauseka, an Indian player who had tackled too vigorously a Penn'
player who was out of bounds. Much wrangling ensued and a policeman was
called upon the field. It was the quickest way to keep the game from
getting out of hand.

Washington and Jefferson played the Indians at Pittsburgh some years
ago. I acted as Umpire. The game was played in a driving rain storm and
a muddier field I never saw. The players, as well as the officials, were
covered with mud. In fact my sweater was saturated, the players having
used it as a sort of towel to dry their hands. A kicked ball had been
fumbled on the goal line and there was a battle royal on the part of the
players to get the coveted ball. I dived into the scramble of wriggling,
mud-covered players to detect the man who might have the ball. The
stockings and jerseys of the players were so covered with mud that you
could not tell them apart. As I was forcing my way down into the mass of
players I heard a man shouting for dear life: "I'm an Indian! I'm an
Indian! It's my ball!"

When I finally got hold of the fellow with the ball I could not for the
life of me tell whether he was an Indian or not. However, I held up the
decision until some one got a bucket and sponge and the player's face
was mopped off, whereupon I saw that he was an Indian all right. He had
scored a touchdown for his team.

An official in the game is subject to all sorts of criticisms and abuse.
Sometimes they are humorous and others have a sting which is not readily
forgotten.

I admit, on account of my size, there were times in a game when I would
get in a player's way; sometimes in the spectators' way. During a
Yale-Harvard game, in which I was acting as an official, the play came
close to the side line, and I had taken my position directly between the
players and the spectators, when some kind friend from the bleachers
yelled out:

"Get off the field, how do you expect us to see the game?"

I shall never forget one poor little fellow who had recovered a fumbled
ball, while on top of him was a wriggling mass of players trying to get
the ball. As I slowly, but surely, forced my way down through the pile
of players I finally landed on top of him. I shall never forget how he
grunted and yelled, "Six or seven of you fellows get off of me."

It was in the same game that some man from the bleachers called out as I
was running up the field: "Here comes the Beef Trust."

There was a coach of a Southern college who tried to put over a new one
on me, when I caught him coaching from the side lines in a game with
Pennsylvania on Franklin Field. I first warned him, and when he
persisted in the offense, I put him behind the ropes, on a bench,
besides imposing the regular penalty. It was not long after this, that I
discovered he had left the bench. I found him again on the side line,
wearing a heavy ulster and change of hat to disguise himself, but this
quick change artist promptly got the gate.

I knew a player who had an opportunity to get back at an official, but
there was no rule to meet the situation. A penalty had been imposed,
because the player had used improper language. A heated argument
followed, and I am afraid the Umpire was guilty of a like offense, when
the player exclaimed:

"Well! Well! Why don't you penalize yourself?"

He surely was right. I should have been penalized.

One sometimes unconsciously fails to deal out a kindness for a courtesy
done. That was my experience in a Harvard-Yale game at Cambridge one
year. On the morning before the game, while I was at the Hotel Touraine,
I was making an earnest effort to get, what seemed almost impossible, a
seat for a friend of mine. I had finally purchased one for ten dollars,
and so made known the fact to two or three of my friends in the
corridor. About this time a tall, athletic, chap, who had heard that I
wanted an extra ticket, volunteered to get me one at the regular price,
which he succeeded in doing. I had no difficulty in returning my
speculator's ticket. I thanked the fellow cordially for getting me the
ticket. I did not see him again until late that afternoon when the game
was nearly over. Some rough work in one of the scrimmages compelled me
to withdraw one of the Harvard players from the game. As I walked with
him to the side lines, I glanced at his face, only to recognize my
friend--the ticket producer. The umpire's task then became harder than
ever, as I gave him a seat on the side line. That player was Vic
Kennard.

Evarts Wrenn, one of our foremost officials a few years ago, has had
some interesting experiences of his own.

"While umpiring a game between Michigan and Ohio State, at Columbus," he
says, "Heston, Michigan's fullback, carrying the ball, broke through the
line, was tackled and thrown; recovered his feet, started again, was
tackled and thrown again, threw off his tacklers only to be thrown
again. Again he broke away. All this time I was backing up in front of
the play. As Heston broke away from the last tacklers, I backed suddenly
into the outstretched arms of the Ohio State fullback, who, it appears,
had been backing up step by step with me. Heston ran thirty yards for a
touchdown. You can imagine how unpopular I was with the home team, and
how ridiculous my plight appeared.

"Another instance occurred in a Chicago-Cornell game at Marshall
Field," Wrenn goes on to say. "You know it always seems good to an
official to get through a game without having to make any disagreeable
decisions. I was congratulating myself on having got through this game
so fortunately. As I was hurrying off the field, I was stopped by the
little Cornell trainer, who had been very much in evidence on the side
lines during the game. He called to me.

"'Mr. Wrenn' (and I straightened, chucking out my chest and getting my
hand ready for congratulations). 'That was the ---- ---- piece of
umpiring I ever saw in my life.' I cannot describe my feelings. I was
standing there with my mouth open when he had got yards away."

Dan Hurley, who was captain of the 1904 Harvard team, writes me, as
follows:

"Football rules are changed from year to year. The causes of these
changes are usually new points which have arisen the year previous
during football games. A good many rules are interpreted according to
the judgment of each individual official. I remember two points that
arose in the Harvard-Penn' game in 1904, at Soldiers' Field. In this
year there was great rivalry between the players representing Harvard
and Pennsylvania. The contest was sharp and bitterly fought all the way
through. Both teams had complained frequently to Edwards, the Umpire.
Finally he caught two men red-handed, so to speak. There was no
argument. Both men admitted it. It so happened that both men were very
valuable to their respective teams. The loss of either man would be
greatly felt. Both captains cornered Edwards and both agreed that he was
perfectly right in his contention that both men should have to leave the
field, but--and it was this that caused the new rule to be enforced the
next year. Both captains suggested that they were perfectly willing for
both men to remain in the game despite the penalty, and with eager faces
both captains watched Edwards' face as he pondered whether he should or
should not permit them to remain in the game. He did, however, allow
both to play. Of course, this ruling was establishing a dangerous
precedent; therefore, the next year the Rules Committee incorporated a
new rule to the effect that two captains of opposing teams could not by
mutual agreement permit a player who ought to be removed for committing
a foul to remain in the game."

Bill Crowell of Swarthmore, later a coach at Lafayette, is another
official who has had curious experiences.

"In a Lehigh-Indian game a few years ago at South Bethlehem, in which I
was acting as referee," he says, "in the early part of the game Lehigh
held Carlisle for four downs inside of the three-yard line, and when on
the last try, Powell, the Indian back, failed to take it over, contrary
to the opinion of Warner, their coach. I called out, 'Lehigh's ball,'
and moved behind the Lehigh team which was forming to take the ball out
of danger. Just before the ball was snapped, and everything was quiet in
the stands, Warner called across the field:

"'Hey! Crowell! you're the best defensive man Lehigh's got.'"

Phil Draper, famous in Williams football, and without doubt one of the
greatest halfbacks that ever played, also served his time as an
official. He says:

"From my experience as an official, I believe that most of their
troubles come from the coaches. If things are not going as well with
their team as they ought to go, they have a tendency to blame it on the
officials in order to protect themselves."

"There was, in my playing days, as now, the usual controversy in
reference to the officials of the game," says Wyllys Terry, "and the
same controversies arose in those days in regard to the decisions which
were given. My sympathies have always been with the officials in the
game in all decisions that they have rendered. It is impossible for them
to see everything, but when they come to make a decision they are the
only ones that are on the spot and simply have to decide on what they
see at the moment.

"It is a difficult position. Thousands say you are right, thousands say
you are wrong--but my belief has always been that nine times out of ten
the official's decision is correct. It was my misfortune to officiate
in but one large game; that between Harvard and Princeton in the fall of
'87. This was the year that there was a great outcry regarding the
rules, particularly in reference to tackling. It was decided that a
tackle below the waist was a foul and the penalty was disqualification.
I was appointed Umpire in the Harvard-Princeton game of that year.
Before the game I called the teams together and told them what the
representatives of the three colleges had agreed upon. They had
authorized me to carry the rules out in strict accordance with their
instructions and I proposed to do so. In the early part of the game
there was a scrimmage on one side of the field and after the mass had
been cleared away, I heard somebody call for me. On looking around I
found that the call came from Holden, Captain of the Harvard team. He
called my attention to the fact that he was still being tackled and that
the man had both his arms around his knee, with his head resting on it.
He demanded, under the agreed interpretation of the rules, that the
tackle be decided a foul, and that the man be disqualified and sent from
the field. The question of intent was not allowed me, for I had to
decide on the facts as they presented themselves. The result was that
Cowan, one of the most powerful, and one of the best linemen that ever
stood on a football field, was disqualified. The Captain of the
Princeton team remarked at the time, 'I would rather have any three men
disqualified than Cowan.' As the game up to that time had been very
close, and the Princeton sympathizers were sure of victory, I believe I
was the most cordially hated ex-football player that ever existed.
Shortly after this the Harvard men had the Princeton team near their
goal line and in possession of the ball. Two linemen used their hands,
which on the offense is illegal, and made a hole through which the
Harvard halfback passed and crossed the line for a touchdown amid
tremendous cheers from the Harvard contingent. This touchdown was not
allowed by the Umpire. Again I was the most hated football man that
lived, so far as Harvard was concerned. The result was I had no friends
on either side of the field.

"After the game, in talking it over with Walter Camp, he assured me that
the decisions had been correct, but that he was very glad he had not had
to make them. In spite of these decisions, I was asked to umpire in a
number of big games the next year: but that one experience had been
enough for me. I never appeared again in that or any other official
capacity. I have been trying for the last thirty-two years to get back
the friends which, before that game, I had in both Princeton and Harvard
circles, with only a fair amount of success."

I have always considered it a great privilege to have been associated
as an official in the game with Pa Corbin. I know of no man that ever
worked as earnestly and intelligently to carry out his official duties,
and year after year he has kept up his interest in the game, not only as
a coach, but as a thoroughly competent official.

As a favorite with all colleges his services were eagerly sought. He
recollects the following:--

"The experience that made as much of an impression upon me as any, was
the game with Penn-Lafayette which came just after the experience of the
year before which developed so much rough play. The man agreed upon for
Umpire, did not appear, and after waiting a while the two captains came
to me and asked if I would umpire in addition to acting as referee. I
accused them of conspiracy to put me entirely out of business, but they
insisted and I reluctantly acquiesced. I told both teams that I would be
so busy that I would have no time for arguments or even investigation
and any move that seemed to me like roughness would be penalized to the
full extent of the rules regardless of whom he was or of how many. The
result was that it was one of the most decent games and in fact almost
gentlemanly that I have ever experienced."

Joe Pendleton has been an official for twenty years. He is an alert,
conscientious officer in the game. I have worked many times with Joe
and he is a very interesting partner in the official end of the game.

In the fall of 1915 Joe had a very severe illness and his absence from
the football field was deeply regretted.

Joe always wore his old Bowdoin sweater and when out upon the field, the
big B on the chest of Joe's white sweater almost covered him up.

"A few years ago I had occasion to remove a player from a game for a
foul play," says Joe, "and in a second the quarterback was telling me of
my mistake. 'Why, you can't put that man out,' he said, and when I
questioned him as to where he got such a mistaken idea, his reply was:

"'Why, he is our captain!'

"In another game after the umpire had disqualified a player for kicking
an opponent, the offending player appealed to me, basing his claim on
the ground that he had not kicked the man until after the whistle had
been blown and the play was over. Another man on the same team claimed
exemption from a penalty on the ground that he had slugged his opponent
while out of bounds. He actually believed that we could not penalize for
fouls off the playing field.

"The funniest appeal I ever had made to me was made by a player years
ago who asked that time be taken out in order that he might change a
perfectly good jersey for one of a different color. It seems he had lost
his jersey and had borrowed one from a player on the home team. When I
asked him why he wanted to change his jersey he replied:

"'Because my own team are kicking the stuffing out of me and I must get
a different colored jersey. At times my team mates take me for an
opponent.'

"In a game where it was necessary to caution the players against talking
too much to their opponents one particularly curious incident occurred.

"One team, in order to give one of the larger college elevens a stiff
practice game, had put in the field two or three ringers. The big
college team men were rather suspicious that their opponents were not
entirely made up of bona fide students. A big tackle on the larger team
made the following remark to a supposed ringer:

"'I'll bet you five to one you cannot name the president of your
college.' The answer came back, 'Well, old boy, perhaps I can't, but
perhaps I can show you how to play tackle and that's all I'm here for.'"

The Princeton-Yale game of 1915 was one of the most bitterly contested
in the history of football. Princeton was a strong favorite, but Yale
forced the fighting and had their opponents on the defensive almost from
the beginning. Princeton's chances were materially hurt by a number of
severe penalties which cost her considerably in excess of one hundred
yards. Each of the officials had a hand in the infliction of the
penalties, but the Referee, who happened to be Nate Tufts of Brown, had,
of course, to enforce them all by marking off the distance given to Yale
and putting the ball in the proper place.

In the evening after the game, a number of football officials and others
were dining in New York; in the party was a Princeton graduate, who was
introduced to Mr. Tufts, the Referee of the game of the afternoon. At
the introduction the Princeton man remarked that when he was a boy he
had read of Jesse James, the McCoy brothers, and other noted bandits and
train robbers, but that he took off his hat to Mr. Tufts as the king of
them all.

Okeson, a star player of Lehigh and prominent official, recalls this
game:

"In 1908 I umpired in a memorable game which took place at New Haven
between Yale and Princeton, which resulted in a victory for Yale, 12-10.
This was before any rule was inserted calling for the Referee to notify
the teams to appear on the field at the beginning of the second half. At
that time a ten-minute intermission was allowed between the halves. The
first half closed with the score 10-0 in favor of Princeton. At the end
of about seven minutes Mike Thompson, who was Referee, following the
custom that had grown up, although no rule required it, left the field
to notify the teams to return. When he came back I asked him if he had
found them, for on the old Yale Field it was something of a job to
locate the teams once they had passed through the gates. Mike said that
they were in the Field House on the other side of the baseball field and
that he had called in to them. The Princeton players appeared in a
minute or two, but no sign of Yale. Finally, getting suspicious, Mike
asked Bill Roper, who was head coach at Princeton that year, if the Yale
team had been in the Field House. The answer was 'No,' and we suddenly
woke up to the fact that although time for the intermission had ended
three or four minutes before, the Yale team was not notified, and
furthermore, no one knew where they were except that they were somewhere
under the stands. There were many gates and to leave by one to search
meant running a chance that the Yale team might appear almost
immediately through another and then the game be further delayed by the
absence of the Referee. This being the case, Mike had no choice but to
do as he did, namely, send messengers through all gates. One of these
messengers met the Yale team coming along under the stands. The coaches
had decided that time must be up, although none of them had kept a
record of it, and had started back finally without any notice. Eight
minutes over the legal ten had been taken before they appeared on the
field and Bill Roper was raging. As Yale won in the second half it was
only natural that we officials were greatly censored by Princeton, and
Yale did not escape criticism. Yet the whole thing came from the fact
that a custom had grown up of depending on the Referee to find and bring
the teams back to the field instead of each team either staying on the
field, or failing that, taking the responsibility on themselves of
getting back in time. Yale simply followed the usual custom and 'Mike'
was misled due to being told that both teams had gone to the Field House
by one of those ready volunteers who furnish information whether they
know anything about the subject in hand or not."

[Illustration: CRASH OF CONFLICT

When Charge Meets Charge.]




CHAPTER XXI

CRASH OF CONFLICT


The start of a football game is most exciting; not alone for the
players, but for the spectators as well. Every one is keyed up in
anticipation of the contest. The referee's whistle blows; the ball is
kicked off--the game has begun.

Opponents now meet face to face on the field of battle. What happens on
the gridiron is plainly seen by the spectators, but it is not possible
for them to hear the conversations which take place. There is much good
natured joshing between the players, which brings out the humorous as
well as the serious side of the contest. In a game, and during the hard
days of practice, many remarks are made which, if overheard, would give
the spectators an insight into the personal, human side of the sport.

It behooves every team to make the most of the first five minutes of
play. Every coach in the country will tell his team to get the charge on
their opponents from the start. A good start usually means a good
ending.

From the side lines we see the men put their shoulders to their work,
charging and pushing their opponents aside to make a hole in the line,
through which the man with the ball may gain his distance; or we may see
a man on the defensive, full of grim determination to meet the oncoming
charges of his opponent. As we glance at the accompanying picture of a
Yale-West Point game, we will observe the earnest effort that is being
made in the great game of football--the crash of conflict.

One particularly amusing story is told about a former Lehigh player in a
Princeton game several years ago.

"After the match had been in progress twenty minutes or more," says a
Princeton man who played, "we began to show a large number of bruises on
our faces. This was especially the case with House Janeway, whose
opponent, at tackle, was a big husky Lehigh player. Janeway finally
became suspicious of the big husky, whose arms often struck him during
the scrimmage.

"'What have you got on your arm?' shouted Janeway at his adversary.

"'Never you mind. I'm playing my game,' was the big tackle's retort.

"Janeway insisted that the game be stopped temporarily for an
inspection. The Lehigh tackle demurred. Hector Cowan, whose face had
suffered, backed up Janeway's demand.

"'Have you anything on your arm?' demanded the referee of the Lehigh
player.

"'My sleeve,' was the curt reply.

"'Well, turn up your sleeve then.'

"The big tackle was forced to comply with the official's request, and
disclosed a silver bracelet.

"'Either take that off or go out of the game,' was the referee's orders.

"'But I promised a girl friend that I would wear it through the match,'
protested Lehigh's tackle. 'I can't take it off. Don't you
understand--it was _wished_ on!'

"'Well! I "wish" it off,' the referee replied. 'This is no society
affair.'

"The big tackle objected to this, declaring he would sooner quit the
game than be disloyal to the girl.

"'Then you will quit,' was the command of the umpire, and the big tackle
left the field, a substitute taking his place."

Lueder, a Cornell tackle, one of the best in his day, mentions a
personal affair that occurred in the Penn game in 1900, between Blondy
Wallace and himself.

Blondy's friends when they read this will think he had an off day in his
general football courtesy. Lueder states:

"When I was trying to take advantage of my opponent, I was outwitted and
was told to play on the square. I took Wallace's advice and never played
a nicer game of football in my life. Just this little reprimand, from an
older player, taught me a lot of football."

In the Yale-Brown game, back in 1898, Richardson, that wonderful Brown
quarterback, received the ball on a double pass from Dave Fultz and ran
65-yards before he was downed by Charlie de Saulles, the Yale
quarterback, on Yale's 5-yard line. When Richardson got up, he turned to
de Saulles and said:

"You fool, why did you tackle me? I lost a chance to be a hero."

Yale, by the way, won that game by a score of 18 to 14.

Yost relates a humorous experience he had at Michigan in 1901, which was
his most successful season at that University.

"Buffalo University came to Michigan with a much-heralded team. They
were coached by a Dartmouth man and had not been scored upon. Buffalo
papers referred to Michigan as the Woolly Westerners, and the Buffalo
enthusiasts placed bets that Michigan would not score. The time
regulation of the game, two halves, was thirty-five minutes, without
intermission. At the end of the first half the score was 65 to 0. During
this time many substitutions had been made, some nineteen or twenty men,
so that every player Buffalo brought with them had at one time or
another participated in the game.

"The Buffalo coach came to me and said:

"'Yost, we will have to cut this next half short.'

"'Why?' I asked. Of course, I did not realize that every available man
he had with him was used up, but I felt rather liberal at that stage of
the game and said:

"'Let them rest fifteen or twenty minutes for the intermission, and then
use them over again; use them as often as you like. I don't care.'

"About fifteen minutes after the second half had started, I discovered
on Michigan's side of the field, covered up in a blanket, a big fellow
named Simpson, one of the Buffalo players. I was naturally curious, and
said:

"'Simpson, what are you doing over here? You are on the wrong side.'

"'Don't say anything,' came the quick response, 'I know where I am at.
The coach has put me in three times already and I'm not going in there
again. Enough is enough for any one. _I've had mine._'

"The score was then 120 to 0, in favor of Michigan, and the Buffalo team
quit fifteen minutes before the game should have ended.

"It may be interesting to note that from this experience of Buffalo with
Michigan the expression, 'I've got you Buffaloed,' is said to have
originated, and to-day Michigan players use it as a fighting word."

Yost smiled triumphantly as he related the following:

"The day we played the Michigan Agricultural College we, of course, were
at our best. The M. A. C. was taken on as a preliminary game, which was
to be two twenty-minute halves.

"At the beginning of the second half the score was 118 to 0, in favor of
Michigan.

"At this time, a big husky tackle, after a very severe scrimmage had
taken place, stood up, took off his head gear, threw it across the field
and started for the side line, passing near where I was standing, when I
yelled at him:

"'The game is not over yet. Go back.'

"'Oh,' he said, 'we came down here to get some experience. I've had all
I want. Let the other fellows stay, if they want to; me for the dressing
room.'

"And when this fellow quit, all the other M. A. C. players stopped, and
the game ended right there. There were but four minutes left to play."

Somebody circulated a rumor that Yost had made the statement that
Michigan would beat Iowa one year 80 to 0. Of course, this rumor came
out in the papers on the day of the game, but Yost says:

"I never really said any such thing. However, we did beat them 107 to 0,
whereupon some fellow from Iowa sent me a telegram, after the game,
which read: 'Ain't it awful. Box their remains and send them home.'"

In Tom Shevlin's year at Yale, 1902, Mike Sweeney, his old trainer and
coach at Hill School, was in New Haven watching practice for about four
days before the first game. Practice that day was a sort of survival of
the fittest, for they were weeding out the backs, who were doing the
catching. About five backs were knocked out. A couple had been carried
off, with twisted knees, and still the coaches were trying for more
speed and diving tackles.

Tom had just obliterated a 150-pound halfback, who had lost the ball,
the use of his legs and his Varsity aspirations altogether. Stopped by
Sweeney, on his way back up the field, Tom remarked:

"Mike, this isn't football. It's war."

A Brown man tells the following interesting story:

"In a game that we were playing with some small college back in 1906 out
on Andrews Field, Brown had been continually hammering one tackle for
big gains. The ball was in the middle of the field and time had been
taken out for some reason or other. Huggins and Robby were standing on
the side lines, and just as play was about to be resumed, Robby noticed
that the end on the opposing team was playing out about fifteen feet
from his tackle, and was standing near us, when Robby said to him:

"'What's the idea? Why don't you get in there where you belong?'

"The end's reply was:

"'I'm wise. Do you think I'm a fool? I don't want to be killed.'"

During a scrub game, the year that Brown had the team that trimmed Yale
21 to 0, Huggins says:

"Goldberg, a big guard who, at that time, was playing on the second
eleven, kept holding Brent Smith's foot. Brent was a tackle; one of the
best, by the way, that we ever had here at Brown. Smith complained to
the coaches, who told him not to bother, but to get back into the game
and play football. This he did, but before he settled down to business,
he said to Goldberg:

"'If you hold my foot again, I'll kick you in the face.'

"About two plays had been run off, when Smith once more shouted:

"'He's holding me.' Robby went in back of him and said:

"'Why didn't you kick him?'

"'Kick him!' replied Brent. 'He held _both_ my feet!'"

Hardwick recalls another incident that has its share of humor, which
occurred in the Yale bowl on the day of its christening.

"Yale was far behind--some thirty points--playing rather raggedly. They
had possession of the ball on Harvard's 1-yard line and were attempting
a strong rushing attack in anticipation of a touchdown. They were
meeting with little or no success in penetrating Pennock and Trumbull,
backed by Bradlee. And on the third down they were one yard farther away
from the goal than at the start. They attempted another plunge on
tackle, and were using that uncertain form of offense, the direct pass.
The center was a trifle mixed and passed to the wrong man, with the
result that Yale recovered the ball on Harvard's 25-yard line. Wilson,
then a quarter for Yale, turned to his center and asked him sharply:

"'Why don't you keep track of the signals?'

"In a flash, the center rush turned and replied:

"'How do you expect me to keep track of signals, when I can hardly keep
track of the touchdowns.'"

Brown University was playing the Carlisle Indians some ten years ago at
the Polo Grounds at New York City. Bemus Pierce, the Indian captain,
called time just as a play was about to be run off, and the Brown team
continued in line, while Hawley Pierce, his brother, a tackle on the
Indian team, complained, in an audible voice, that some one on the Brown
team had been slugging him. Bemus walked over to the Brown line with his
brother, saying to him:

"Pick out the man who did it."

Hawley Pierce looked the Brunonians over, but could not decide which
player had been guilty of the rough work. By this time, the two minutes
were up, and the officials ordered play resumed. Bemus shouted to
Hawley:

"Now keep your eyes open and find out who it was. Show him to me, and
after the game I'll take care of him properly."

It is interesting to note that Bemus only weighed 230 pounds and his
little brother tipped the scale at 210 pounds.

In 1900 Brown played the University of Chicago, at Chicago. During the
second half, Bates, the Brown captain, was injured and was taken from
the game, and Sheehan, a big tackle, was made temporary captain. At that
time the score was 6 to 6. Sheehan called the team together and
addressed them in this manner:

"Look here, boys, we've got thirteen minutes to play. Get in and play
like hell. Every one of you make a touchdown. We can beat 'em with
ease."

For many years the last statement was one of Brown's battle-cries.
Brown, by the way, won that game by a score of 12 to 6.

A former Brown man says that in a Harvard game some few years ago, Brown
had been steadily plowing through the Crimson's left guard. Goldberg, of
the Brown team, had been opening up big holes and Jake High, Brown's
fullback, had been going through for eight and ten yards at a time.
Goldberg, who was a big, stout fellow, not only was taking care of the
Harvard guard, but was going through and making an endeavor to clean up
the secondary defense. High, occasionally, when he had the ball, instead
of looking where he was going, would run blindly into Goldberg and the
play would stop dead. Finally, after one of these experiences, Jake
cried out:

[Illustration: AINSWORTH, YALE'S TERROR IN AN UPHILL GAME]

"Goldberg, if you would only keep out of my way, I would make the
All-American."

In the same game, High, on a line plunge, got through, dodged the
secondary defense and was finally brought down by Harvard's backfield
man, O'Flaherty. Jake always ran with his mouth wide open, and
O'Flaherty, who made a high tackle, was unfortunate enough to stick his
finger in High's mouth. He let out a yell as Jake came down on it:

"What are you biting my finger for?" High as quickly responded:

"What are you sticking it in my mouth for?"

Huggins of Brown says: "The year that we beat Pennsylvania so badly out
on Andrews Field, Brown had the ball on Penn's 2-yard line. Time was
called for some reason, and we noticed that the backfield men were
clustered about Crowther, our quarterback. We afterwards learned that
all four of the backfield wanted to carry the ball over. Crowther
reached down and plucked three blades of grass and the halfbacks and the
fullback each drew one with the understanding that the one drawing the
shortest blade could carry the ball. Much to their astonishment, they
found that all the pieces of grass were of the same length. Crowther,
who made the All-American that year, shouted:

"You all lose. I'll take it myself," and over the line he went with the
ball tucked away under his arm.

"Johnny Poe was behind the door when fear went by," says Garry Cochran.
"Every one knows of his wonderful courage. I remember that in the
Harvard '96 game, at Cambridge, near the end of the first half, two of
our best men (Ad Kelly and Sport Armstrong) were seriously hurt, which
disorganized the team. The men were desperate and near the breaking
point. Johnny, with his true Princeton spirit, sent this message to each
man on the team:

"'If you won't be beat, you can't be beat.'"

"This message brought about a miracle. It put iron in each man's soul,
and never from that moment did Harvard gain a yard, and for four
succeeding years--'If you won't be beat, you can't be beat,' was
Princeton's battle-cry.

"The good that Johnny did for Princeton teams was never heralded abroad.
His work was noiseless, but always to the point.

"I remember the Indian game in '96. The score in the first half was 6 to
0, in favor of the Indians. I believe they had beaten Harvard and Penn,
and tied Yale. There wasn't a word said in the club house when the team
came off the field, but each man was digging in his locker for a special
pair of shoes, which we had prepared for Yale. Naturally I was very
bitter and refused to speak to any one. Then I heard the quiet,
confident voice talking to Johnny Baird, who had his locker next to
mine. I can't remember all he said, but this is the gist of his
conversation:

"'Johnny, you're backing up the center. Why can't you make that line
into a fighting unit? Tell 'em their grandfathers licked a hundred
better Indians than these fellows are, and it's up to them to show they
haven't back-bred.'

"Johnny Baird carried out these orders, and the score, 22 to 6, favoring
Princeton, showed the result.

"Once more Johnny Poe's brains lifted Princeton out of a hole. I could
mention many cases where Johnny has helped Princetonians, but they are
personal and could not be published.

"I can only say, that when I lost Johnny Poe, I lost one who can never
be replaced, and I feel like a traitor because I was not beside him when
he fell."

       *       *       *       *       *

Rinehart tells how he tried to get even with Sam Boyle.

"I went into professional football, after leaving Lafayette," says
Rinehart. "I joined the Greensburg Athletic Club team at Greensburg,
Pennsylvania, solely for the purpose of getting back at Sam Boyle,
formerly of the University of Penn. He was playing on the Pittsburgh
Athletic Club."

When I asked Rinehart why he wanted to get square with Sam Boyle, he
said:

"For the reason that Sam, during the Penn-Lafayette contest in '97, had
acted in a very unsportsmanlike manner and kept telling his associates
to kill the Lafayette men and not to forget what Lafayette did to them
last year, and a lot more, but possibly it was fortunate for Sam that he
did not play in our Greensburg-Pittsburgh Athletic Club game. I was
ready to square myself for Lafayette."

A lot of good football stories have been going the rounds, some old,
some new, but none of them better than the one Barkie Donald, afterward
a member of the Harvard Advisory Football Committee, tells on himself,
in a game that Harvard played against the Carlisle Indians in 1896.

It was the first time Harvard and Carlisle had met--Harvard winning--4
to 0--and Donald played tackle against Bemus Pierce.

Donald, none too gentle a player, for he had to fight every day against
Bert Waters, then a coach, knew how to use his arms against the Indian,
and also when charging, how to do a little execution with his elbows and
the open hand, just as the play was coming off. He was playing
legitimately under the old game. He roughed it with the big Indian and
caught him hard several times, but finally Bemus Pierce had something to
say.

"Mr. Donald," he said, quietly, "you have been hitting me and if you do
it again, I shall hit you." But Donald did not heed the warning, and in
the next play he bowled at Bemus harder than ever for extra measure.
Still the big Indian did not retaliate.

"But I thought I was hit by a sledge hammer in the next scrimmage," said
Donald after the game. "I remember charging, but that was all. I was
down and out, but when I came to I somehow wabbled to my feet and went
back against the Indian. I was so dazed I could just see the big fellow
moving about and as we sparred off for the next play he said in a matter
of fact tone:

"'Mr. Donald, you hit me, one, two, three times, I hit you only
one--we're square.'

"And you bet we were square," Donald always adds as he tells the story.

Tacks Hardwick, in common with most football players, thinks the world
of Eddie Mahan.

"I have played football and baseball with Eddie," he says, "and am
naturally an ardent admirer of his ability, his keen wit and his
thorough sportsmanship. One of Eddie's greatest assets is his
temperament. He seldom gets nervous. I have seen him with the bases
full, and with three balls on the batter, turn about in the box with a
smile on his face, wave the outfield back, and then groove the ball
waist high. Nothing worried him. His ability to avoid tacklers in the
broken field had always puzzled me. I had studied the usual methods
quite carefully. Change of pace, reversing the field, spinning when
tackled, etc.,--most of the tricks I had given thought to, but
apparently Eddie relied little on these. He used them all instinctively,
but favored none.

"Charlie Brickley had a favorite trick of allowing his arm to be tackled
flat against his leg, then, at the very moment his opponent thought he
had him, Charlie would wrench up his arm and break the grip.

"Percy Wendell used to bowl over the tackler by running very low. I
relied almost exclusively on a straight arm, and 'riding a man.' This
means that when a tackler comes with such force that a straight arm is
not sufficient to hold him off, and you know he will break through, you
put your hand on the top of his head, throw your hips sharply away, and
vault as you would over a fence rail, using his head as a support. If he
is coming hard, his head has sufficient power to give you quite a boost,
and you can 'ride him' a considerable distance--often four or five
yards. When his momentum dies, drop off and leave him. Well, Eddie
didn't use any of these. Finally I asked him how he figured on getting
by the tackler, and what the trick was he used so effectively.

"'It's a cinch,' Eddie replied. 'All I do is poke my foot out at him,
give it to him; he goes to grab it, and I take it away!'

[Illustration: TWO TO ONE HE GETS AWAY

Brickley Being Tackled by Wilson and Avery.]

"Leo Leary had been giving the ends a talk on being 'cagey.' 'Cagey'
play is foxy--such as never getting in the same position on every play,
moving about, doing the unexpected. If you wish to put your tackle out,
play outside him, and draw him out, and then at the last moment hop in
close to your own tackle, and then charge your opponent. The reverse is
true as well. The unexpected and unusual make up 'cagey' play. Much
emphasis had been laid on this, and we were all thoroughly impressed,
especially Weatherhead, that year a substitute.

"Weatherhead's appearance and actions on the field were well adapted to
cagey play. Opponents could learn nothing by analyzing his expression.
It seldom varied. His walk had a sort of tip-toe roll to it, much
similar to the conventional stage villain, inspecting a room before
robbing a safe. In the course of the afternoon game, Weatherhead put his
coaching in practice.

"We had a habit--practically every team has--of shouting 'Signal'
whenever a player did not understand the orders of the quarterback. Mal
Logan had just snapped out his signals, when Al Weatherhead left his
position. Casting furtive glances at the opponents, and tip-toeing along
like an Indian scout at his best, the very personification of
'caginess,' Weatherhead approached Logan. Logan, thinking Al had
discovered some important weak spot in the defense, leaned forward
attentively. Weatherhead rolled up, and carefully shielding his mouth
with his hand, asked in a stage whisper 'Signal.'

"A piece of thoughtfulness that expressed the spirit of the man who did
it, and also the whole team, took place at the Algonquin Hotel at New
London, on the eve of the Harvard-Yale game in 1914. The Algonquin is
fundamentally a summer hotel, although it is open all the year. The
Harvard team had their headquarters there, and naturally the place was
packed with the squad and the numerous followers. Eddie Mahan and I
roomed together, and in the room adjoining were Watson and Swigert, two
substitute quarterbacks. Folding doors separated the rooms, and these
had been flung open. In the night, it turned cold, and the summer
bedding was insufficient. Swigert couldn't sleep, he was so chilled, so
he got up, and went in search of blankets. He examined all the closets
on that floor, without success; then he explored the floors above and
below, and finally went down to the night clerk, and demanded some
blankets of him. After considerable delay, he obtained two thin
blankets, and thoroughly chilled from his walk in his bare feet,
returned to the room. Passing our door, he spied Eddie curled up and
shivering, about half asleep. I was asleep, but a cold, uncomfortable
sleep that is no real rest. He walked in, and placing one blanket over
Eddie and one over me, went back to his own bed colder than ever.

"I am a firm believer in rough, rugged, aggressive, bruising football,"
says Hardwick. "The rougher, the better, if, and only if, it is
legitimate and clean football. I am glad to say that clean football has
been prevalent in my experience. Only on the rarest occasions have I
felt any unclean actions have been intentional and premeditated. We have
made it a point to play fierce, hard and clean football, and have nearly
always received the same treatment.

"In my freshman year, however, I felt that I had been wronged, and
foolishly I took it to heart. Since that time I have changed my mind as
I have had an opportunity to know the player personally and my own
observation and the general high reputation he has for sportsmanship
have thoroughly convinced me of my mistake. The particular play in
question was in the Yale 1915 game. We started a wide end run, and I was
attempting to take out the end. I dived at his knees but aimed too far
in front, falling at his feet. He leaped in the air to avoid me, and
came down on the small of my back, gouging me quite severely with his
heel cleats. I felt that it was unnecessary and foolishly resented it."

One of the most famous games in football was the Harvard-Yale encounter
at Springfield in '94. Bob Emmons was captain of the Harvard team and
Frank Hinkey captain of Yale. This game was so severely fought that it
was decided best to discontinue football relations between these two
universities and no game took place until three years later.

Jim Rodgers, who was a substitute at Yale that year, relates some
interesting incidents of that game:

"In those old strenuous days, they put so much fear of God in you, it
scared you so you couldn't play. When we went up to Springfield, we were
all over-trained. Instead of putting us up at a regular hotel, they put
us up at the Christian Workers, that Stagg was interested in. The
bedrooms looked like cells, with a little iron bed and one lamp in each
room," says Jim. "You know after one is defeated he recalls these facts
as terrible experiences. None of us slept at all well that night, and my
knees were so stiff I could hardly walk. Yale relied much on Fred
Murphy. Harvard had coached Hallowell to get Murphy excited. Murphy was
quick tempered. If you got his goat, he was pretty liable to use his
hands, and Harvard was anxious to have him put out of the game.
Hallowell went to his task with earnestness. He got Murphy to the point
of rage, but Murphy had been up against Bill Odlin, who used to coach at
Andover, and Bill used to give you hell if you slugged when the umpire
was looking. But when his back was turned you could do anything.

"Murphy stood about all he could and when he saw the officials were in
a conference he gave Hallowell a back-hander, and dropped him like a
brick. His nose was flattened right over his cheek-bone. Fortunately
that happened on the Yale side of the field. If it had happened on the
Harvard side, there would have been a riot. There was some noise when
that blow was delivered; the whole crowd in the stand stood aghast and
held its breath. So Harvard laid for Murphy and in about two plays they
got him. How they got him we never knew, but suddenly it was apparent
that Murphy was gone. The trainer finally helped Murphy up and the
captain of the team told him in which direction his goal was. He would
break through just as fine and fast as before, but the moment his head
got down to a certain angle, he would go down in a heap. He was game to
the core, however, and he kept on going.

"It was in this game that Wrightington, the halfback, was injured,
though this never came out in the newspapers. Wrightington caught a punt
and started back up the field. In those days you could wriggle and
squirm all you wanted to and you could pile on a thousand strong, if you
liked. Frank Hinkey was at the other end of the field playing wide, and
ready if Wrightington should take a dodge. Murphy caught Wrightington
and he started to wriggle. It was at this time that Louis Hinkey came
charging down the field on a dead run. In trying to prevent
Wrightington from advancing any further with the ball, Louis Hinkey's
knee hit Wrightington and came down with a crash on his collar-bone and
neck. Wrightington gave one moan, rolled over and fainted dead away.
Frank Hinkey was not within fifteen yards of the play, and Louis did it
with no evil intention. Frank thought that Wrightington had been killed
and he came over and took Louis Hinkey by the hand, appreciating the
severe criticism which was bound to be heaped upon his brother Louis.
There was a furor. It was on everybody's tongue that Frank Hinkey had
purposely broken Wrightington's collar-bone. Frank knew who did it, but
the 'Silent Hinkey' never revealed the real truth. He protected his
brother.

"Yale took issue on the point, and as a result the athletic relationship
was suspended.

"It was in this game that Bronc Armstrong established the world's brief
record for staying in the game. He was on the field for twenty
seconds--then was ruled out. I think Frank Hinkey is the greatest end
that was ever on a field. To my mind he never did a dirty thing, but he
tackled hard. When Frank Hinkey tackled a man, he left him there. In
later years when I was coaching, an old Harvard player who was visiting
me, came out to Yale Field. He had never seen Hinkey play football, but
he had read much about him. I pointed out several of the men to him,
such as Heffelfinger, and others of about his type, all of whom measured
up to his ideas, and finally said:

[Illustration: SNAPPING THE BALL WITH LEWIS]

[Illustration: "TWO INSEPARABLES"

Frank Hinkey and the Ball.]

"'Where is that fellow Hinkey?' And when I pointed Hinkey out to him, he
said:

"'Great guns, Harvard complaining about that little shrimp, I'm ashamed
of Harvard.'

"Hinkey was a wonderful leader. Every man that ever played under him
worshipped him. He had his team so buffaloed that they obeyed every
order, down to the most minute detail.

"When Hinkey entered Yale, there were two corking end rushes in college,
Crosby and Josh Hartwell. After about two weeks of practice, there was
no longer a question as to whether Hinkey was going to make the team. It
was a question of which one of the old players was going to lose his
job. They called him 'consumptive Hinkey.'"

Every football player, great though he himself was in his prime, has his
gridiron idol. The man, usually some years his elder, whose exploits as
a boy he has followed. Joe Beacham's paragon was and is Frank Hinkey and
the depth of esteem in which the former Cornell star held Hinkey is well
exemplified in the following incident, which occurred on the Black
Diamond Express, Eastbound, as it was passing through Tonawanda, New
York. Beacham had been dozing, but awoke in time to catch a glimpse of
the signboard as the train flashed by. Leaning slightly forward he
tapped a drummer upon the shoulder. The salesman turned around. "Take
off your hat," came the command. "Why?" the salesman began. "Take off
your hat," repeated Beacham. The man did so. "Thank you; now put it on,"
came the command. The drummer summing up courage, faced Beacham and
said, "Now will you kindly tell me why you asked me to do this?" Joe
smiled with the satisfied feeling of an act well performed and said: "I
told you to lift your hat because we are passing through the town where
Frank Hinkey was born."

Later, in the smoking room, Joe heard the drummer discussing the
incident with a crowd of fellow salesmen, and he said, concluding, "What
I'd like to know is who in hell is Frank Hinkey?"

And late that evening when the train arrived in New York Joe Beacham and
the traveling man had become the best of friends. In parting, Joe said:
"If there's anything I haven't told you, I'll write you about it."

Sandy Hunt, a famous Cornell guard and captain, says:

"Here is one on Bill Hollenback, the last year he played for
Pennsylvania against Cornell. Bill went into the game, thoroughly fit,
but Mike Murphy, then training the team, was worried lest he be injured.
In an early scrimmage Bill's ear was nearly ripped off. Blood flowed and
Mike left the side lines to aid. Mike was waved away by Bill. 'It's
nothing but a scratch, Mike, let me get back in the game.' Play was
resumed. Following a scrimmage, Mike saw Bill rolling on the ground in
agony. 'His ankle is gone,' quoth Mike, as he ran out to the field.
Leaning over Bill, Mike said: 'Is it your ankle, or knee, Bill?' Bill,
writhing in agony, gasped:

"'No; somebody stepped on my corn.'"

Hardwick has this to tell of the days when he coached Annapolis:

"One afternoon at Annapolis, the Varsity were playing a practice game
and were not playing to form, or better, possibly, they were not playing
as the coaches had reason to hope. There was an indifference in their
play and a lack of snap and drive in their work that roused Head Coach
Ingram's fighting blood. Incidentally, Ingram is a fighter from his feet
up, every inch, as broad-minded as he is broad-shouldered, and a keen
student of football. The constant letting up of play, and the lack of
fight, annoyed him more and more. At last, a Varsity player sat down and
called for water. Immediately, the cry was taken up by his team mates.
This was more than Ingram could stand. Out he dashed from the side
lines, right into the group of players, shaking his fist and shrieking:

"'Water! Water! What you need is fire, not water!'"

Fred Crolius tells a good story about Foster Sanford when he was
coaching at West Point. One of the most interesting institutions to
coach is West Point. Even in football field practice the same military
spirit is in control, most of the coaches being officers. Only when a
unique character like Sandy appears is the monotony shattered. Sandy is
often humorous in his most serious moments. One afternoon not many weeks
before the Navy game Sandy, as Crolius tells it, was paying particular
attention to Moss, a guard whom Sanford tried to teach to play low. Moss
was very tall and had never appreciated the necessity of bending his
knees and straightening his back. Sanford disgusted with Moss as he saw
him standing nearly erect in a scrimmage, and Sandy's voice would ring
out, "Stop the play, Lieutenant Smith. Give Mr. Moss a side line badge.
Moss, if you want to watch this game, put on a badge, then everybody
will know you've got a right to watch it." In the silence of the parade
ground those few words sounded like a trumpet for a cavalry charge, but
Sandy accomplished his purpose and made a guard of Moss.

The day Princeton played Yale at New Haven in 1899, I had a brother on
each side of the field; one was Princeton Class, 1895, and the other was
an undergraduate at Yale, Class of 1901.

My brother, Dick, told me that his friends at Yale would joke him as to
whether he would root for Yale or Princeton on November 25th of that
year. I did not worry, for I had an idea. A friend of his told me the
following story a week after the game:

"You had been injured in a mass play and were left alone, for the
moment, laid out upon the ground. No one seemed to see you as the play
continued. But Dick was watching your every move, and when he saw you
were injured he voluntarily arose from his seat and rushed down the
aisle to a place opposite to where you were and was about to go out on
the field, when the Princeton trainer rushed out upon the field and
stood you on your feet, and as Dick came back, he took his seat in the
Yale grandstand. Yale men knew then where his interest in the game lay."

After Arthur Poe had kicked his goal from the field, Princeton men lost
themselves completely and rushed out upon the field. In the midst of the
excitement, I remember my brother, George, coming out and
enthusiastically congratulating me.




CHAPTER XXII

LEST WE FORGET


Marshall Newell

There is no hero of the past whose name has been handed down in
Harvard's football traditions as that of Marshall Newell. He left many
lasting impressions upon the men who came in contact with him. The men
that played under his coaching idolized him, and this extended even
beyond the confines of Harvard University. This is borne out in the
following tribute which is paid Newell by Herbert Reed, that was on the
Cornell scrub when Newell was their coach.

"It is poignantly difficult, even to-day, years after what was to so
many of us a very real tragedy," says Reed, "to accept the fact that
Marshall Newell is dead. The ache is still as keen as on that Christmas
morning when the brief news dispatches told us that he had been killed
in a snowstorm on a railroad track at Springfield. It requires no great
summoning of the imagination to picture this fine figure of a man, in
heart and body so like his beloved Berkshire oaks, bending forward, head
down, and driving into the storm in the path of the everyday duty
that led to his death. It was, as the world goes, a short life, but a
fruitful one--a life given over simply and without questioning to
whatever work or whatever play was at hand.

[Illustration: MARSHALL NEWELL]

"To the vast crowds of lovers of football who journeyed to Springfield
to see this superman of sport in action in defense of his Alma Mater he
will always remain as the personification of sportsmanship combined with
the hard, clean, honest effort that marks your true football player. To
a great many others who enjoyed the privilege of adventuring afield with
him, the memory will be that of a man strong enough to be gentle, of
magnetic personality, and yet withal, with a certain reserve that is
found only in men whose character is growing steadily under the urge of
quiet introspection. Yet, for a man so self-contained, he had much to
give to those about him, whether these were men already enjoying place
and power or merely boys just on the horizon of a real man's life. It
was not so much the mere joy and exuberance of living, as the wonder and
appreciation of living that were the springs of Marshall Newell's being.

"It was this that made him the richest poor man it was ever my fortune
to know.

"The world about him was to Newell rich in expression of things
beautiful, things mysterious, things that struck in great measure awe
and reverence into his soul. A man with so much light within could not
fail to shine upon others. He had no heart for the city or the life of
the city, and for him, too, the quest of money had no attraction. Even
before he went to school at Phillips Exeter, the character of this
sturdy boy had begun to develop in the surroundings he loved throughout
his life. Is it any wonder, then, that from the moment he arrived at
school he became a favorite with his associates, indeed, at a very early
stage, something of an idol to the other boys? He expressed an ideal in
his very presence--an ideal that was instantly recognizable as true and
just--an ideal unspoken, but an ideal lived. Just what that ideal was
may perhaps be best understood if I quote a word or two from that little
diary of his, never intended for other eyes but privileged now, a
quotation that has its own little, delicate touch of humor in
conjunction with the finer phrases:

"'There is a fine selection from Carmen to whistle on a load of logs
when driving over frozen ground; every jolt gives a delightful emphasis
to the notes, and the musician is carried along by the dictatorial
leader as it were. What a strength there is in the air! It may be rough
at times, but it is true and does not lie. What would the world be if
all were open and frank as the day or the sunshine?'

"I want to record certain impressions made upon a certain freshman at
Cornell, whither Newell went to coach the football team after his
graduation from Harvard. Those impressions are as fresh to-day as they
were in that scarlet and gold autumn years ago.

"Here was a man built like the bole of a tree, alight with fire,
determination, love of sport, and hunger for the task in hand. He was no
easy taskmaster, but always a just one. Many a young man of that period
will remember, as I do, the grinding day's work when everything seemed
to go wrong, when mere discouragement was gradually giving way to actual
despair, when, somewhat clogged with mud and dust and blood, he felt a
sudden slap on the back, and heard a cheery voice saying, 'Good work
to-day. Keep it up.' Playing hard football himself, Newell demanded hard
football of his pupils. I wish, indeed, that some of the players of
to-day who groan over a few minutes' session with the soft tackling
dummy of these times could see that hard, sole leather tackling dummy
swung from a joist that went clear through it and armed with a shield
that hit one over the head when he did not get properly down to his
work, that Newell used.

"It was grinding work this, but through it one learned.

"That ancient and battered dummy is stowed away, a forgotten relic of
the old days, in the gymnasium at Cornell. There are not a few of us
who, when returning to Ithaca, hunt it up to do it reverence.

"Let him for a moment transfer his allegiance to the scrub eleven, and
in that moment the Varsity team knew that it was in a real football
game. They were hard days indeed on Percy Field, but good days. I have
seen Newell play single-handed against one side of the Varsity line,
tear up the interference like a whirlwind, and bring down his man. Many
of us have played in our small way on the scrub when for purposes of
illustration Newell occupied some point in the Varsity line. We knew
then what would be on top of us the instant the ball was snapped. Yet
when the heap was at its thickest Newell would still be in the middle of
it or at the bottom, as the case might be, still working, and still
coaching. Both in his coaching at Harvard and at Cornell he developed
men whose names will not be forgotten while the game endures, and some
of these developments were in the nature of eleventh-hour triumphs for
skill and forceful, yet none the less sympathetic, personality.

"After all, despite his remarkable work as a gridiron player and tutor,
I like best to think of him as Newell, the man; I like best to recall
those long Sunday afternoons when he walked through the woodland paths
in the two big gorges, or over the fields at Ithaca in company much of
the time with--not the captain of the team, not the star halfback, not
the great forward, but some young fellow fresh from school who was still
down in the ruck of the squad. More than once he called at now one, now
another fraternity house and hailed us: 'Where is that young freshman
that is out for my team? I would like to have him take a little walk
with me.' And these walks, incidentally, had little or nothing to do
with football. They were great opportunities for the little freshman who
wanted to get closer to the character of the man himself. No flower, no
bit of moss, no striking patch of foliage escaped his notice, for he
loved them all, and loved to talk about them. One felt, returning from
one of these impromptu rambles, that he had been spending valuable time
in that most wonderful church of all, the great outdoors, and spending
it with no casual interpreter. Memories of those days in the sharp
practice on the field grow dim, but these others I know will always
endure.

"This I know because no month passes, indeed it is almost safe to say,
hardly a week, year in and year out, in which they are not insistently
resurgent.

"Marshall Newell was born in Clifton, N. J., on April 2, 1871. His early
life was spent largely on his father's farm in Great Barrington, Mass.,
that farm and countryside which seemed to mean so much to him in later
years. He entered Phillips Exeter Academy in the fall of 1887, and was
graduated in 1890. Almost at once he achieved, utterly without effort, a
popularity rare in its quality. Because of his relation with his
schoolmates and his unostentatious way of looking after the welfare of
others, he soon came to be known as Ma Newell, and this affectionate
sobriquet not only clung to him through all the years at Exeter and
Harvard, but followed him after graduation whithersoever he went. While
at school he took up athletics ardently as he always took up everything.
Thus he came up to Harvard with an athletic reputation ready made.

"It was not long before the class of '94 began to feel that subtler
influence of character that distinguished all his days. He was a member
of the victorious football eleven of 1890, and of the winning crew of
1891, both in his freshman year. He also played on the freshman football
team and on the university team of '91, '92, '93, and rowed on the
Varsity crews of '92 and '93. In the meantime he was gaining not only
the respect and friendship of his classmates, but those of the
instructors as well. Socially, and despite the fact that he was little
endowed with this world's goods, he enjoyed a remarkable popularity. He
was a member of the Institute of 1770, Dickey, Hasty Pudding, and
Signet. In addition, he was the unanimous choice of his class for Second
Marshal on Class Day. Many other honors he might have had if he had
cared to seek them. He accepted only those that were literally forced
upon him.

"In the course of his college career he returned each summer to his home
in Great Barrington and quietly resumed his work on the farm.

"After graduation he was a remarkably successful football coach at
Cornell University, and was also a vast help in preparing Harvard
elevens. His annual appearance in the fall at Cambridge was always the
means of putting fresh heart and confidence in the Crimson players.

"He turned to railroading in the fall of 1896, acting as Assistant
Superintendent of the Springfield Division of the Boston and Albany
Railroad. Here, as at college, he made a profound personal impression on
his associates. The end came on the evening of December 24th, in 1897.

"In a memorial from his classmates and friends, the following
significant paragraph appears: 'Marshall Newell belonged to the whole
University. He cannot be claimed by any clique or class. Let us, his
classmates, simply express our gratitude that we have had the privilege
of knowing him and of observing his simple, grand life. We rejoice in
memories of his comradeship; we deeply mourn our loss. To those whose
affliction has been even greater than our own, we extend our sympathy.'
This memorial was signed by Bertram Gordon Waters, Lincoln Davis, and
George C. Lee, Jr., for the class, men who knew him well.

"Harvard men, I feel sure, will forgive me if I like to believe that
Newell belonged not merely to the whole Harvard University, but to every
group of men that came under his influence, whether the football squad
at Cornell or the humble track walkers of the Boston and Albany.

"Remains, I think, little more for me to say, and this can best be said
in Newell's own words, selections from that diary of which I have
already spoken, and which set the stamp on the character of the man for
all time. This, for instance:

"'It is amusing to notice the expression in the faces of the horses on
the street as you walk along; how much they resemble people, not in
feature, but in spirit. Some are cross and snap at the men who pass;
others asleep; and some will almost thank you for speaking to them or
patting their noses.' And this, in more serious vein: 'Happened to think
how there was a resemblance in water and our spirits, or rather in their
sources. Some people are like springs, always bubbling over with
freshness and life; others are wells and have to be pumped; while some
are only reservoirs whose spirits are pumped in and there stagnate
unless drawn off immediately. Most people are like the wells, but the
pump handle is not always visible or may be broken off. Many of the
springs are known only to their shady nooks and velvet marshes, but,
once found, the path is soon worn to them, which constantly widens and
deepens. It may be used only by animals, but it is a blessing and
comfort if only to the flowers and grasses that grow on its edge.'

"Serious as the man was, there are glints and gleams of quiet humor
throughout this remarkable human document. One night in May he wrote,
'Stars and moon are bright this evening; frogs are singing in the
meadow, and the fire-flies are twinkling over the grass by the spring.
Tree toads have been singing to-day. Set two hens to-night, nailed them
in. If you want to see determination, look in a setting hen's eye.
Robins have been carrying food to their nests in the pine trees, and the
barn swallows fighting for feathers in the air; the big barn is filled
with their conversation.'

"In the city he missed, as he wrote, 'the light upon the hills.' Again,
'The stars are the eyes of the sky. The sun sets like a god bowing his
head. Pine needles catch the light that has streamed through them for a
hundred years. The wind drives the clouds one day as if they were waves
of crested brown.' Where indeed in the crowded city streets was he to
listen 'to the language of the leaves,' and how indeed, 'Feel the colors
of the West.'

"Is it not possible that something more even than the example and
influence of his character was lost to the world in his death? What
possibilities were there not in store for a man who could feel and write
like this: 'Grand thunderstorm this evening. Vibrations shook the house
and the flashes of lightning were continuous for a short time. It is
authority and majesty personified, and one instinctively bows in its
presence, not with a feeling of dread, but of admiration and respect.'

"It was in the thunder and shock and blaze of just such a storm that I
stood not long ago among his own Berkshire Hills, hoping thus to prepare
myself by pilgrimage for this halting but earnest tribute to a
great-hearted gentleman, who, in his quiet way, meant so much to so many
of his fellow humans."


Walter B. Street

W. L. Sawtelle of Williams, who knew this great player in his playing
days, writes as follows:

"No Williams contemporary of Walter Bullard Street can forget two
outstanding facts of his college career: his immaculate personal
character and his undisputed title to first rank among the football men
whom Williams has developed. He was idolized because of his athletic
prowess; he was loved because he was every inch a man. His personality
lifted his game from the level of an intercollegiate contest to the
plane of a man's expression of loyalty to his college, and his supremacy
on the football field gave a new dignity to the undergraduate's ideals
of true manhood.

"His name is indelibly written in the athletic annals of Williams, and
his influence, apparently cut off by his early death, is still a vital
force among those who cheered his memorable gains on the gridiron and
who admired him for his virile character."


W. D. Osgood

Gone from among us is that great old-time hero, Win Osgood. In this
chapter of thoroughbreds, let us read the tribute George Woodruff pays
him:

"When my thoughts turn to the scores of fine, manly football players I
have known intimately, Win Osgood claims, if not first place, at least a
unique place, among my memories. As a player he has never been surpassed
in his specialty of making long and brilliant runs, not only around, but
through the ranks of his opponents. After one of his seventy- or
eighty-yard runs his path was always marked by a zig-zag line of
opposing tacklers just collecting their wits and slowly starting to get
up from the ground. None of them was ever hurt, but they seemed
temporarily stunned as though, when they struck Osgood's mighty legs,
they received an electric shock.

"While at Cornell in 1892, Osgood made, by his own prowess, two to three
touchdowns against each of the strong Yale, Harvard and Princeton
elevens, and in the Harvard-Pennsylvania game at Philadelphia in 1894,
he thrilled the spectators with his runs more than I have ever seen any
man do in any other one game.

"But I would belittle my own sense of Osgood's real worth if I confined
myself to expatiating on his brilliant physical achievements. His moral
worth and gentle bravery were to me the chief points in him that arouse
true admiration. When I, as coach of Penn's football team, discovered
that Osgood had quietly matriculated at Pennsylvania, without letting
anybody know of his intention, I naturally cultivated his friendship, in
order to get from him his value as a player; but I found he was of even
more value as a moral force among the players and students. In this way
he helped me as much as by his play, because, to my mind, a football
team is good or bad according to whether the bad elements or the good,
both of which are in every set of men, predominate.

"In the winter of 1896, Osgood nearly persuaded me to go with him on his
expedition to help the Cubans, and I have often regretted not having
been with him through that experience. He went as a Major of Artillery
to be sure, but not for the title, nor the adventure only, but I am sure
from love of freedom and overwhelming sympathy for the oppressed. He
said to me:

"'The Cubans may not be very lovely, but they are human, and their cause
is lovely.'

"When Osgood, with almost foolhardy bravery, sat his horse directing his
dilapidated artillery fire in Cuba, and thus conspicuous, made himself
even more marked by wearing a white sombrero, he was not playing the
part of a fool; he was following his natural impulse to exert a moral
force on his comrades who could understand little but liberty and
bravery.

"When the Angel of Death gave him the accolade of nobility by touching
his brow in the form of a Mauser bullet, Win Osgood simply welcomed his
friend by gently breathing 'Well,' a word typical of the man, and even
in death, it is reported, continued to sit erect upon his horse."


Gordon Brown

There are many young men who lost a true friend when Gordon Brown died.
He was their ideal. After his college days were over, he became very
much interested in settlement work on the East Side in New York. He
devoted much of his time after business to this great work which still
stands as a monument to him. He was as loyal to it as he was to football
when he played at Yale. Gordon Brown's career at Yale was a remarkable
one. He was captain of the greatest football team Yale ever had.
Whenever the 1900 team is mentioned it is spoken of as Gordon Brown's
team. The spirit of this great thoroughbred still lives at Yale, still
lives at Groton School where he spent six years. He was captain there
and leader in all the activities in the school. He was one of the
highest type college men I have ever known. He typified all the best
there was in Yale. He was strong mentally, as well as physically.

It was my pleasure to have played against him in two Yale-Princeton
games, '98 and '99. I have never known a finer sportsman than he. He
played the game hard, and he played it fair. He had nothing to say to
his opponents in the game. He was there for business. Always urging his
fellow players on to better work. Every one who knew this gallant leader
had absolute confidence in him. All admired and loved him. There was no
one at Yale who was more universally liked and acknowledged as a leader
in all the relations of the University than was Gordon Brown. The
influence of such a man cannot but live as a guide and inspiration for
all that is best at Yale University.

Gordon Brown's name will live in song and story. There were with him
Yale men not less efficient in the football sense, as witnesses the
following:

A Yale Song verse from the _Yale Daily News_, November 16th, 1900:

    Jimmy Wear and Gordon Brown,
    Fincke and Stillman gaining ground;
    Olcott in the center stands
    With Perry Hale as a battering ram--
    No hope for Princeton;


James J. Hogan

The boys who were at Exeter when that big raw-boned fellow, Jim Hogan,
entered there will tell of the noble fight he made to get an education.
He worked with his hands early and late to make enough money to pay his
way. His effort was a splendid one. He was never idle, and was an honor
man for the greater part of his stay at school. He found time to go out
for football, however, and turned out to be one of the greatest players
that ever went to Exeter. Jim Hogan was one of the highest type of
Exeter men, held up as an example of what an Exeter boy should be. His
spirit still lives in the school. In speaking of Hogan recently,
Professor Ford of Exeter, said:

"Whenever Hogan played football his hands were always moving in the
football line. It was almost like that in the classroom, always on the
edge of his seat fighting for every bit of information that he could get
and determined to master any particularly difficult subject. It was
interesting and almost amusing at times to watch him. One could not help
respecting such earnestness. He possessed great powers of leadership and
there was never any question as to his sincerity and perfect
earnestness. He was not selfish, but always trying to help his fellow
students accomplish something. His influence among the boys was
thoroughly good, and he held positions of honor and trust from the time
of his admission."

Jim was hungry for an education--eager to forge ahead. His whole college
career was an earnest endeavor. He never knew what it was to lose
heart. "Letting go" had no part in his life.

Jim was a physical marvel. His 206 pounds of bone and muscle counted for
much in the Yale rush line. Members of the faculty considered him the
highest type of Yale man, and it is said that President Hadley of Yale
once referred to 1905 as "Hogan's Class."

As a football player, Jim had few equals. He was captain of the Yale
team in his senior year and was picked by the experts as an
"All-American Tackle."

Jim Hogan at his place in the Yale rush line was a sight worth seeing.
With his jersey sleeves rolled up above his elbows and a smile on his
face, he would break into the opposing line, smash up the interference
and throw the backs for a loss.

I can see him rushing the ball, scoring touchdowns, making holes in the
line, doing everything that a great player could do, and urging on his
team mates:

"Harder, Yale; hard, harder, Yale."

He was a hard, strong, cheerful player; that is, he was cheerful as long
as the other men fought fair.

Great was Jim Hogan. To work with him shoulder to shoulder was my
privilege. To know him, was to love, honor and respect him.

Jim spent his last hours in New Haven, and later in a humble home on the
hillside in Torrington, Conn., surrounded by loving friends, and the
individual pictures of that strong Gordon Brown team hanging on the wall
above him, a loving coterie of friends said good-bye. Many a boy now out
of college realizes that he owes a great deal to the brotherly spirit of
Jim Hogan.

[Illustration: McCLUNG, REFEREE SHEVLIN HOGAN]


Thomas J. Shevlin

There is a college tradition which embodies the thought that a man can
never do as much for the university as the university has done for him.

But in that great athletic victory of 1915, when Yale defeated Princeton
at New Haven, I believe Tom Shevlin came nearer upsetting that tradition
than any one I know of. He contributed as much as any human being
possibly could to the university that brought him forth.

Tom Shevlin's undergraduate life at New Haven was not all strewn with
roses, but he was glad always to go back when requested and put his
shoulder to the wheel. The request came usually at a time when Yale's
football was in the slough of despond. He was known as Yale's emergency
coach.

Tom Shevlin had nerve. He must have been full of it to tackle the great
job which was put before him in the fall of 1915. Willingly did he
respond and great was the reward.

When I saw him in New York, on his way to New Haven, I told him what a
great honor I thought it was for Yale to single him out from all her
coaches at this critical time to come back and try to put the Yale team
in shape. It did not seem either to enthuse or worry him very much. He
said:

"I just got a telegram from Mike Sweeney to wait and see him in New York
before going to New Haven. I suppose he wants to advise me not to go and
tackle the job, but I'm going just the same. Yale can't be much worse
off for my going than she is to-day."

The result of Shevlin's coaching is well known to all, and I shall
always remember him after the game with that contented happy look upon
his face as I congratulated him while he stood on a bench in front of
the Yale stand, watching the Yale undergraduates carry their victorious
team off the field. Walter Camp stood in the distance and Shevlin yelled
to him:

"Well, how about it, Walter?"

This victory will go down in Yale's football history as an almost
miraculous event. Here was a team beaten many times by small colleges,
humiliated and frowned upon not only by Yale, but by the entire college
world. They presented themselves in the Yale bowl ready to make their
last stand.

As for Princeton it seemed only a question as to how large her score
would be. Men had gone to cheer for Princeton who for many years had
looked forward to a decisive victory over Yale. The game was already
bottled up before it started; but when Yale's future football history
is written, when captain and coaches talk to the team before the game
next year, when mass meetings are called to arouse college spirit, at
banquets where victorious teams are the heroes of the occasion, some one
will stand forth and tell the story of the great fighting spirit that
Captain Wilson and his gallant team exhibited in the Yale bowl that
November day.

Although Tom Shevlin, the man that made it possible, is now dead, his
memory at Yale is sacred and will live long. Many will recall his
wonderful playing, his power of leadership, his Yale captaincy, his
devotion to Yale at a time when he was most needed. If, in the last game
against Harvard, the team that fought so wonderfully well against
Princeton could not do the impossible and defeat the great Haughton
machine, it was not Shevlin's fault. It simply could not be done. It
lessens in not the slightest degree the tribute that we pay to Tom
Shevlin.


Francis H. Burr

Ham Fish was a great Harvard player in his day. When his playing days
were over Walter Camp paid him the high tribute of placing him on the
All Time, All-American team at tackle. Fish played at Harvard in 1907
and 1908, and was captain of the team in 1909. I know of no Harvard man
who is in a better position to pay a tribute to Francis Burr, whose
spirit still lives at Cambridge, than Ham Fish. They were team mates,
and when in 1908 Burr remained on the side lines on account of injuries,
Ham Fish was the acting Harvard captain. Fish tells us the following
regarding Burr:

"Francis Burr was of gigantic frame, standing six feet three and agile
as a young mountain lion. He weighed 200 pounds. The incoming class of
1905 was signalized by having this man who came from Andover. He stood
out above his fellows, not only in athletic prowess but in all around
manly qualities, both mental and moral. Burr had no trouble in making a
place on the Varsity team at Guard. He was a punter of exceeding worth.
In the year of 1908 he was captain of the Harvard team and wrought the
most inestimable service to Harvard athletics by securing Percy Haughton
as Head Coach. Hooks Burr was primarily responsible for Haughton and the
abundance of subsequent victories. Just when Burr's abilities as player
and captain were most needed he dislocated his collar bone in practice.
I shall never forget the night before the Yale game how Burr, who had
partially recovered, and was very anxious to play, reluctantly and
unselfishly yielded to the coaches who insisted that he should not incur
the risk of a more serious break. Harvard won that day, the first time
in seven years and a large share of the credit should go to the injured
leader. We were all happy over the result but none of us were as happy
as he.

"Stricken with pneumonia while attending the Harvard Law School in 1910
he died, leaving a legacy full of encouragement and inspiration to all
Harvard men. He exemplified in his life the Golden Rule,--'Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you.' Of him it can be truly said,
his life was gentle as a whole, and the elements so mixed in him that
'nature might stand up and say to all the world,--"He was a man."'"


Neil Snow

The University of Michigan never graduated a man who was more
universally loved than Neil Snow. What he did and the way he did it has
become a tradition at Michigan. He was idolized by every one who knew
him. As a player and captain he set a wonderful example for his men to
pattern after. He was a powerful player; possessing such determination
and fortitude that he would go through a stone wall if he had to. He was
their great all-around athlete; good in football, baseball and track. He
had the unique record of winning his Michigan M twelve times during his
college course at Ann Arbor.

He played his last game of football at Pasadena, California. Neil was
very fond of exercise. He believed in exercise, and when word was sent
out that Neil Snow had gone, it was found that he had just finished
playing in a game of racquets in Detroit, and before the flush and zest
were entirely gone, the last struggle and participation in athletic
contests for Neil Snow were over.

It was my experience to have been at Ann Arbor in 1900, when Biffy Lee
coached the Michigan team. It was at this time that I met Neil Snow, who
was captain of the team, and when I grew to know him, I soon realized
how his great, quiet, modest, though wonderful personality, made
everybody idolize him. Modesty was his most noticeable characteristic.
He was always the last to talk of his own athletic achievements. He
believed in action, more than in words. After his playing days were over
he made a great name for himself as an official in the big games. The
larger colleges in the East had come to realize with what great
efficiency Neil Snow acted as an official and his services were eagerly
sought.

Neil Snow loved athletics. He often referred to his college experiences.
His example was one held up as ideal among the men who knew him.

When Billy Bannard died Johnny Poe wrote to Mrs. Bannard a letter, a
portion of which follows:

     I greatly enjoy thinking of those glorious days in the fall of '95,
     '96 and '97, when I was coaching at Princeton and saw so much of
     Billy, and if I live to a ripe old age I do not think I shall
     forget how he and Ad Kelly came on in the Yale game of '95, and
     with the score of 16-0 against us started in by steadily rushing
     the ball up to and over the Yale goal, and after the kick-off, once
     more started on the march for another touchdown.

     It was a superb exhibition of nerve in the face of almost certain
     defeat and showed a spirit that would not be downed, and I have
     often thought of this game in different far-off parts of the world.

     While Yale finally won 20-10 still Billy showed the same spirit
     that Farragut showed when told that the river was filled with
     torpedoes and that it would be suicidal to proceed. He replied,
     "Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!"

     I love to think of Billy's famous fifty yard run for a touchdown
     through the Harvard team in '96 at Cambridge, when the score had
     been a tie, and how he with Ad Kelly and Johnny Baird went through
     the Yale team in that '96 game and ran the score up to 24,
     representing five touchdowns. Never before had a Yale team been
     driven like chaff before the wind, as that blue team was driven.

Billy Bannard and Ad Kelly's names were always coupled in their playing
days at Princeton. These two halfbacks were great team mates. When Bill
Bannard died Ad Kelly lost one of his best friends.

In Ad Kelly's recollections, we read:

"Whenever I think of my playing days I always recall the
Harvard-Princeton game of 1896, and with it comes a tribute to one of us
who has passed to the great beyond; one with whom I played side by side
for three years, Bill Bannard. I always thought that in this particular
game he never received the credit due him. In my opinion his run on
that memorable day was the best I have ever seen. His running and
dodging and his excellent judgment had no superior in the football
annals of our day.

"In speaking of great individual plays that have won close games, his
name should go down with Charlie Daly, Clint Wyckoff, Arthur Poe, Snake
Ames and Dudley Dean, for with Reiter's splendid interference in putting
out the Harvard left end, Billy Bannard's touchdown gave Princeton the
confidence to carry her to victory that day and to the ultimate
championship two weeks later."


Harry Hooper

When Henry Hooper, one of Dartmouth's greatest players, was taken away,
every man who knew Hooper felt it a great personal loss. Those who had
seen him play at Exeter and there formed his acquaintance and later at
Dartmouth saw him develop into the mighty center rush of the 1903
Dartmouth team, idolized him.

C. E. Bolser of Dartmouth, who knew him well, says:

"Harry Hooper was a great center on a great team. The success of this
eleven was due to its good fellowship and team work. The central figure
was the idol of his fellow players. Such was Hooper. Shortly after the
football season that year he was operated upon for appendicitis and it
soon became evident that he could not recover. He was told of his
plight.

"He bravely faced the inevitable and expressed the wish that if he
really had to go he might have with him at the last his comrades of the
football field. These team mates rallied at his request. They surrounded
him; they talked the old days over, and supported by those with whom he
had fought for the glory of his college this real hero passed into the
Great Beyond, and deep down in the traditions of Dartmouth and Exeter
the name of Harry Hooper is indelibly written."

The game of football is growing old. The ranks of its heroes are being
slowly but surely thinned. The players are retiring from the game of
life; some old and some young. The list might go on indefinitely. There
are many names that deserve mention. But this cannot be. The list of
thoroughbreds is a long one. Yours must be a silent tribute.

Doctor Andrew J. McCosh, Ned Peace, Gus Holly, Dudley Riggs, Harry
Brown, Symmes, Bill Black, Pringle Jones, Jerry McCauley, Jim Rhodes,
Bill Swartz, Frank Peters, George Stillman, H. Schoellkopf, Wilson of
the Navy and Byrne of the Army, Eddie Ward, Albert Rosengarten, McClung,
Dudley and Matthews.

Richard Harding Davis and Matthew McClung were two Lehigh men whose
position in the football world was most prominent. The esteem in which
they are held by their Alma Mater is enduring. I had talked with Dick
Davis when this book was in its infancy. He was very much interested and
asked that I write him a letter outlining what I would like to have him
send me. Just before he died I received this letter from him. I regret
he did not live to tell the story he had in mind.

[Illustration: (Handwritten Letter)

RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
MOUNT KISCO
NEW YORK

April 2nd

My Dear Edwards,

Yes, indeed. As soon as I finish something I am at work on, I'll "think
back", and write you some memoirs.

With all good wishes

Richard Harding Davis]

His interest in football had been a keen one. He was one of the leaders
at Lehigh, who first organized that University's football team. He was a
truly remarkable player. What he did in football is well known to men of
his day. He loved the game; he wrote about the game; he did much to help
the game.




CHAPTER XXIII

ALOHA


"Hail and Farewell," crowded by the Hawaiians into one pregnant word!
Would that this message might mean as much in as little compass. I can
promise only brevity and all that brevity means in so vast a matter as
football to a man who would love nothing better than to talk on forever.

We know that football has really progressed and improved, and that the
boys of to-day are putting football on a higher plane than it has ever
been on before. We are a progressive, sporting public.

Gone are the old Fifth Avenue horse buses, that used to carry the men to
the field of battle; gone, too, are the Fifth Avenue Hotel and the
Hoffman House, with their recollections of great victories fittingly
celebrated. The old water bucket and sponge, with which Trainer Jim
Robinson used to rush upon the field to freshen up a tired player, are
now things of the past. To-day we have the spectacle of Pooch Donovan
giving the Harvard players water from individual sanitary drinking cups!

The old block game is no more. Heavy mass play has been opened up.
To-day there is something for the public to _see_; something interesting
to watch at every point; something significant in every move. As a
result, greatly increased multitudes witness the game. No longer do
football enthusiasts stand behind ropes on the side lines. The
popularity of the game has made it necessary to build huge _stadia_ for
the sport, to take the place of the old wooden stands.

College games, for the most part, nowadays are played on college
grounds. Accordingly the sport has been withdrawn from the miscellaneous
multitude and confined to the field where it really belongs and the
spirit of the game is now just what it should be--exclusively
collegiate.

Best of all, the modern style of play has made the game more than ever a
heroic see-saw, with one side uppermost for a time only to jar the very
ground with the shock of its fall.

Yet, victorious or defeated, the spirit through it all is one of
splendid and overflowing college enthusiasm. While there is abounding
joy in an unforeseen or hard won victory there is also much that is
inspirational in the sturdy, courageous, devoted support of
college-mates in the hour of defeat.

Isaac H. Bromley, Yale '53, once summed up eloquently the spirit of
college life and sport in the following words:

"These contests and these triumphs are not all there is of college life,
but they are a not unimportant part of it. The best education, the most
useful training, come not from the classroom and from books, but from
the attrition of mind on mind, from the wholesome emulation engendered
by a common aim and purpose, from the whetting of wits by good-natured
rivalry, the inspiration of youthful enthusiasms, the blending together
of all of us in undying love for our common Mother.

"As to the future: We may not expect this unbroken round of victories to
go on forever; we shall need sometimes, more than the inspiration of
victory, the discipline of defeat. And it will come some day. Our
champions will not last forever. Some time Stagg must make his last home
run, and Camp his final touchdown. Some day Bob Cook will 'hear the dip
of the golden oars' and 'pass from sight with the boatman pale.'

"It would be too much to think that all their successors will equally
succeed. It might be monotonous. But of one thing we may be
assured--that whatever happens, we shall never fail to extend the meed
of praise to the victors. We shall be hereafter, as in the past we have
always been, as stout in adversity as we have been merry in sunshine."

       *       *       *       *       *

    "Then strip, lads, and to it
    Though sharp be the weather;
    And if, by mischance you should happen to fall
    There are worse things in life
    Than a tumble on heather
    And life is itself, but a game, of football."




[Transcriber's Note:

Many words in this text were inconsistently hyphenated or spelled, so I
have normalized them. The majority are football terms that originally
appeared inconsistently as "full-back," "fullback," and "full back,"
for example.]