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."