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.