THE HARVARD-YALE GAME.
Yale's defense stiffened and made her opponent's going become harder.
With five yards to go for a first down, the Harvard quarter and his
right end executed a neat forward pass which put the ball on Yale's
twelve-yard line directly opposite the posts, and one smash at right
tackle put it three yards nearer the goal line.
"Touchdown! touchdown! touchdown!" begged the Harvard stand.
"Hold 'em, hold 'em, hold 'em!" pleaded Yale, but the pleading was of
no avail, for that splendid Harvard team, working like a well-oiled
piece of machinery, drove on and over their opponents till the
ball lay only three yards away from the goal. A touchdown seemed
inevitable.
Captain Baldwin drew his men together in a little group and exhorted
them to such good purpose that the next charge was stopped dead in
its tracks. Again the lines faced each other, again came the crash
of body meeting body. The Harvard back with the ball tucked under
his arm shot off to the left, slipped inside his own tackle and was
clear of the first line of defense. But as he straightened up from
his running crouching position, Turner met him with a bull-like rush,
picked him clear off his feet and threw him with such violence that
the ball flew from his grasp and bounced crazily along the ground in
the direction of the goal. Man after man took a diving shot at it as
it rolled until the turf was covered with sprawling figures. Finally
the ball disappeared beneath a mass of bodies which the referee
slowly dug apart and found--Frank Armstrong wrapped around the ball
in a loving embrace!
"Yale's ball," was the silent announcement of the scoreboard, but
never was an announcement before or since greeted with such a yell.
From that moment the tide of battle turned. Porter got off a long,
low twisting punt which caught the Harvard backfield man napping.
He made a desperate effort to reach it, but although he got his
hands on the ball he could not hold it, and was swept away by a blue
avalanche. When the smoke cleared away, Captain Baldwin was lying on
the ball on Harvard's forty-yard line. Before the teams could line
up again, the whistle blew to end the quarter and the teams changed
ends of the field.
Three minutes later the game was on again, this time with Yale the
aggressor and Harvard on the defensive. Conditions of the first
quarter were reversed and now it was Yale, the team fighting like
one man, who was pushing her opponents steadily down the field. Held
at the thirty-yard line with three yards to go for a first down,
the Yale quarter sent a pretty forward pass to Armstrong who made a
beautiful catch and was not downed till he was run out of bounds at
the fifteen-yard line. Pandemonium reigned among the Yale hosts, and
the cheer-leaders tried vainly to get a unison cheer. The crowd would
not look but kept their eyes glued on the play.
Now it was Yale's turn to call for a touchdown, and the tiered
thousands did it right lustily, but unfortunately, for their hopes, a
bad pass on the next play lost five yards and Turner was stopped on
the next attempt.
"Armstrong back!" cried the quarter.
Frank left his place at end and took up his position fifteen yards
back of the line of scrimmage, measuring carefully the distance to
the goal posts, thirty-five yards away, while the crowd waited in
breathless silence. The lines crouched tense and ready. The ball
shot back from Biddle on a long pass to Frank but it came so low
that he had almost to pick it from the ground. Quick as a flash he
straightened up, dropped the ball to the ground, and drove his toe
against it as it rose again. Away it spun on its course, while the
eyes of forty thousand people strained after its flight. But luck was
against Yale that day. The ball, traveling straight and true, had not
been given quite enough power. It struck the cross-bar, bounced high
in the air and fell back into the playing field where a Harvard back
pounced upon it. Harvard punted on the kick-out over forty-five yards
and after several exchanges without result, the half ended and the
tired players tramped slowly off to the Locker House to be told by
the coaches why they had not done their work just right.
Fifteen minutes later the game was on again, but not with its first
fierceness. No human beings could continue the pace set in that first
half, and the play settled into a punting duel between Porter and his
opponent, with neither team able to gain much by straight rushing.
Both tried forward passes but with a few exceptions they failed
for one reason or another. The quarter passed without either team
threatening the other's goal, and predictions were beginning to be
made that barring accidents the game would be a tie.
Five minutes after the fourth period began, a fumbled punt by the
Yale quarter and a recovery by an alert Harvard end shifted the
battle with jarring suddenness into Yale territory, with Yale on the
defensive. Again the Harvard machine began to work with its first
smoothness and down, down they drove the ball in spite of a desperate
defense.
Held at the ten-yard line, the Harvard quarter, who in the early
season had been heralded as a great drop-kicker but who had shown
nothing of his ability in late games, dropped back ten or twelve
yards behind his line and put the ball between the posts with
neatness and dispatch. When the tumult, which the field goal had
brought to pass in the Harvard stands, quieted down again Yale set
out to win back the points lost. But it seemed like a hopeless task,
for Harvard, with victory in sight met every effort, and stopped it.
Time was flying, and many of the Harvard people, feeling assured of
Harvard's victory, were filing out of the stands. Yale supporters
stayed on, hoping against hope, for only five minutes were left to
play.
Suddenly the Yale quarter changed his tactics. Catching the Harvard
backs in a favorable position for the play, he snapped a forward
pass to Armstrong who caught it and made the middle of the field
on a dodging run, where he was brought down from behind. The gain
brought hope back to drooping Yale spirits, and a cheer rattled
across the field. Immediately on the heels of this successful pass,
which drew out the Harvard defense, he sent Turner into the line and
added another eight yards. The tide of Harvard departure was suddenly
checked by this hostile demonstration, and seeing that the defense
did not close up, the heady little quarter tried Turner again with
such effect that it was a first down.
The Yale stands were cheering like mad, at this unlooked-for burst of
speed when the team was supposed to be beaten. The captain himself,
with Turner clearing the way, lunged forward five yards and added
two more a moment later. Again the Harvard defense crept in and the
Yale quarter, seeing his opportunity, drove another forward pass
to Armstrong who caught it cleanly and was off like the wind. He
sidestepped the tackle by the opposing end, ran obliquely toward the
side-line, stopped and let the rush of tacklers pass him, slipped
out of what seemed an impossible position, and with a clear field,
with the exception of one man, cut straight for the goal line with
friend and foe thundering behind. Straight at the tackler, who waited
with outstretched arms, he ran. The muscles, which had been crying
for rest a moment before, were now like steel. Now he was within
two steps of the Harvard back. He appeared to be running straight
to certain disaster, but as the Harvard tackler lunged forward,
Frank swung his body to one side, brought his forearm down with all
his force on the outstretched arm nearest him, and was past. The
momentary check, however, brought a fleet Harvard end up to him, who,
unwilling to take a chance at the Yale man's flying legs, sprang
full upon his back. The force carried Frank off his feet, staggering
headlong. Even with the burden on his back he managed to fall
head-first toward the goal line, where he was instantly pinned to the
ground by two tacklers with such force that he lay stunned.
He required the services of the trainer with sponge and water bottle
before the play could be resumed. The ball lay exactly ten yards from
the goal and in the face of the known defensive strength of Harvard,
it seemed an impossible task to put it over from there.
Captain Baldwin took the ball two yards on the first try and then the
red-headed Turner, like a maddened bull, drove through for four yards
in a whirling mass of red and blue-legged players. Again Turner was
called upon and when the pile untangled, he had laid the ball within
two yards of the coveted white line which to cross meant glorious
victory.
Captain Baldwin drew his men back for a conference while the stands
stopped their cheering long enough to speculate whether he would
attempt a goal from the field or risk defeat on an attempt to carry
the ball across for a touchdown. Doubts were soon set at rest for the
Yale team sprang back into regular formation and crouched for the
signal.
You might have heard a pin drop in that vast crowd, so still they
were as the two lines crouched, with swaying arms and tense bodies.
Snappily came the signal, sounding high, clear and shrill in that
amazing quiet, followed by the crash of meeting lines. Turner with
his head down between his mighty shoulders, drove like a catapult
into the struggling mass on the heels of his captain. There was a
moment of squirming and grinding, then the whole mass fell in a sort
of pyramid which refused to untangle itself even at the orders of the
referee, and he was obliged to pull and dig to get at the bottom. And
what he found at the bottom was Turner, bruised and bleeding, but
joyfully happy with the ball hugged to his breast and across the goal
line by four inches!
It was of no account that the kick-out (for the touchdown had been
made well toward the corner of the field) was bungled. Yale had
scored a touchdown and the lead. Two minutes afterward the whistle
ended the game, and the wildest sort of celebration began. Every
member of the Yale team was seized, protesting, and carried by the
half-crazed students in a whirling march around the field. Hats were
thrown over the goal posts by the hundreds, the owners entirely
indifferent as to whether they ever got their headgear back again.
Many students went back to New Haven that night minus their hats, but
little did it matter as Yale had won a glorious battle in the face
of what seemed certain defeat. And the names of Turner and Armstrong
were on every tongue.
That night Turner was elected captain and Frank cast his vote for his
old friend although he himself had been nominated as a candidate.