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."