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.