"The world belongs to those who come the last."
"The world belongs to those who come the last."
Our records will remain as we left them on the gridiron. Many a man is recalled in football circles as the one who lost his temper in the big games and caused his team to suffer by his being ruled out of the game. Men say, "Why, that is the fellow who muffed a punt at a critical moment," or recall him as the one who "fumbled the ball," when, if he had held it, the team would have been saved from defeat.
You recall the man who gave the signals with poor judgment. Maybe you are thinking of the man who missed a great tackle or allowed a man to get through the line and block a kick. Perhaps a mistaken signal in the game caused the loss of a first down, maybe defeat—who knows?
Through our recollection of the things we should have done but failed to do for one reason or another, our defeats rise before us more vividly now than our victories.
There is only one day to make good and that is the day of the game. The next day is too late.
Then there is the ever-present recollection of the fellow who let athletics be the big thing in his college life. He did not make good in the classroom. He was unfair to himself. He failed to realize that athletics was only a part of his college life, that it should have been an aid to better endeavor in his studies.
He may have earned his college letter or received a championship gold football. And nowthat he is out in the world he longs for the college degree that he has forfeited.
His regrets are the deeper when he realizes that if he had given his best and been square with his college and himself, his presence might have meant further victories for his team. This is not confined to any one college. It is true of all of them and probably always will be true, although it is encouraging to note that there is a higher standard of scholarship attained on the average by college athletes to-day than a decade or so ago.
I wish I could impress this lesson indelibly upon the mind of every young football enthusiast—that athletics should go hand in hand with college duties. After all it is the same spirit of team work instilled into him on the football field that should inspire him in the classroom, where his teacher becomes virtually his coach.
When I was at Princeton, we beat Yale three years out of the four, but the defeat of 1897 at New Haven stands out most vividly of all in my memory. And it is not so much what Yale did as what Princeton did not do that haunts me.
One day in practice in 1897, Sport Armstrong, conceded to be one of the greatest guards playing, was severely injured in a scrimmage. It was found that his neck and head had become twisted and for days he lay at death's door on his bed in the Varsity Club House. After along serious illness he got well, but never strong enough to play again. I took his place.
Jim Rodgers' TeamBenjamin Brown McBride Cadwalader CorwinHazen Hall Rodgers Chamberlin Chadwick DudleyDe SaullesJIM RODGERS' TEAM
Nearly all of the star players of the '96 Princeton championship team were in the lineup. It was Cochran's last year and my first year on the Varsity. Our team was heralded as a three-to-one winner. We had beaten Dartmouth 30 to 0 and won a great 57 to 0 victory over Lafayette. Yale had a good, strong team that had not yet found itself. But there were several of us Princeton players who knew from old association in prep. school the calibre of some of the men we were facing.
Cochran and I have often recalled together that silent reunion with our old team-mates of Lawrenceville. There in front of us on the Yale team were Charlie de Saulles, George Cadwalader and Charlie Dudley. We had not seen them since we all left prep. school, they to go to New Haven and we to Princeton.
When the teams lined up for combat there were no greetings of one old schoolmate to another. It was not the time nor place for exchange of amenities. As some one has since remarked, "The town was full of strangers."
The fact that Dudley was wearing one Lawrenceville stocking only urged us on to play harder.
My opponent on the Yale team was Charlie Chadwick, Yale's strong man. Foster Sanfordtells elsewhere in this book how he prepared him for the Harvard game the week before and for this game with Princeton. Our coaches had made, as they thought, a study of Chadwick's temperament and had instructed me accordingly. I delivered their message in the form of a straight arm blow. The compliment was returned immediately by Chadwick, and the scrap was on. Dashiell, the umpire, was upon us in a moment. I had visions of being ruled out of the game and disgraced.
"You men are playing like schoolboys and ought to be ruled out of the game," Dashiell exclaimed, but he decided to give us another chance.
Chadwick played like a demon and I realized before the game had progressed very far that I had been coached wrong, for instead of weakening his courage my attack seemed to nerve him. He played a very wide, defensive guard and it was almost impossible to gain through him.
The play of the Princeton team at the outset was disappointing. Jim Rodgers, the Yale captain, was driving his men hard and they responded heartily. Some of them stood out conspicuously by their playing. De Saulles' open field work was remarkable. I remember well the great run of fifty-five yards which he made. He was a wonderfully clever dodger and used the stiff arm well. He evaded the Princeton tacklers successfully, until Billy Bannard made a tackle on Princeton's 25-yard line.
Garry Cochran was one of the Princeton players who failed in his effort to tackle de Saulles, although it was a remarkable attempt with a low, diving tackle. De Saulles hurdled over him and Cochran struck the ground, breaking his right shoulder.
That Cochran was so seriously injured did not become known until after de Saulles had finished his long run. Then it was seen that Cochran was badly hurt. The trainer ran out and took him to the side lines to fix up his injury.
Time was being taken out and as we waited for Cochran to return to the game we discussed the situation and hoped that his injury would not prove serious. Every one of us realized the tremendous handicap we would be under without him.
The tension showed in the faces of Alex Moffat and Johnny Poe as they sat there on the side line, trying to reach a solution of the problem that confronted them as coaches. They realized better than the players that the tide was against them.
To conceal the true location of his injury from the Yale players, Cochran had his left shoulder bandaged and entered the scrimmage again, game though handicapped, remaining on the field until the trainer finally dragged him to the side line.
This was the last football contest in which Garry Cochran took part. He was game to the end.
At New Haven that fall Frank Butterworth and some of the other coaches had heard a rumor that when Cochran and de Saulles parted at Lawrenceville they had a strange understanding. Both had agreed, so the rumor went, that should they ever meet in a Yale-Princeton game, one would have to leave the game.
Butterworth told de Saulles what he had heard and cautioned him, reminding him that he wanted him to play a game that would escape criticism. De Saulles put every ounce of himself into his game, Cochran did the same. To this day Frank Butterworth and the coaches believe that when de Saulles was making his great run up the field he kept his pledge to Cochran.
De Saulles and Cochran laugh at the suggestion that it was other than an accident, but they have never been able to convince their friends. The dramatic element in it was too strong for a mere chance affair.
Princeton's handicap when Cochran had to go out was increased by the withdrawal because of injuries of Johnny Baird, the quarterback, that wonderful drop-kicker of previous games. He was out of condition and had to be carried from the field with a serious injury.
Dudley, the ex-Lawrencevillian, here began toget in his telling work. The Yale stands were wild with enthusiasm as they saw their team about to score against the much-heralded Princeton team. We were a three to one bet. On the next play Dudley went through the Princeton line. At the bottom of the heap, hugging the ball and happy in his success, was Charlie Dudley, Yale hero, Lawrenceville stocking and all.
Cochran was game to the endCOCHRAN WAS GAME TO THE END
After George Cadwalader had kicked the goal, the score stood 6 to 0.
One of the greatest problems that confronts a coach is to select the proper men to start in a game. Injuries often handicap a team. Ad Kelly, king of all line-plunging halfbacks, had been injured the week before at Princeton and for that reason was not in the original lineup that day at New Haven. He was on the side lines waiting for a chance to go in. His chance came.
Kelly was Princeton's only hope. Herbert Reed, known among writers on football as "Right Wing," thus describes this stage of the game:
"With almost certain defeat staring them in the face, the Tigers made one last desperate rally and in doing so called repeatedly on Kelly, with the result that with this star carrying the ball in nearly every rush the Princeton eleven carried the ball fifty-five yards up the field only to lose it at last on a fumble to Jim Rodgers.
"Time and again in the course of this heroicadvance, Kelly went into or slid outside of tackle practically unaided, bowling along more like a huge ball than a human being. It was one of the greatest exhibitions of a born runner, of a football genius and much more to be lauded than his work the previous year, when he was aided by one of the greatest football machines ever sent into a big game."
But Kelly's brilliant work was unavailing and when the game ended the score was still 6 to 0. Yale had won an unexpected victory.
The Yale supporters descended like an avalanche upon the field and carried off their team. Groups of men paraded about carrying aloft the victors. There were Captain Jim Rodgers, Charlie Chadwick, George Cadwalader, Gordon Brown, Burr Chamberlain, John Hall, Charlie de Saulles, Dudley, Benjamin, McBride, and Hazen.
Many were the injuries in this game. It was a hard fought contest. There were interesting encounters which were known only to the players themselves. As for myself, it may best be said that I spent three weeks in the University of Pennsylvania Hospital with water on the knee. I certainly had plenty of time to think about the sadness of defeat—the ever present thought—"Wait until next year"—was in my mind. Garry Cochran used to say in his talks to the team: "We must win this year—make it twoyears straight against Yale. If you lose, Princeton will be a dreary old place for you. It will be a long, hard winter. The frost on the window pane will be an inch thick." And, in the sadness of our recollections, his words came back to us and to him.
These words came back to me again in 1899.
I had looked forward all the year to our playing Cornell at Ithaca. It was just the game we wanted on our schedule to give us the test before we met Yale. We surely got a test, and Cornell men to this day will tell you of their great victory in 1899 over Princeton, 5 to 0.
There were many friends of mine in Ithaca, which was only thirty miles from my old home, and I was naturally happy over the fact that Princeton was going to play there. But the loyal supporters who had expected a Princeton victory were as disappointed as I was. Bill Robinson, manager of the Princeton team, reserved seats for about thirty of my closest boyhood friends who came over from Lisle to see the game. The Princeton cheering section was rivalled in enthusiasm by the "Lisle section." And the disappointment of each one of my friends at the outcome of that memorable game was as keen as that of any man from Princeton.
Our team was clearly outplayed. Unfortunately we had changed our signals that week and we did not play together. But all the honors were Cornell's, her sure footed George Young in the second half made a goal from the field, fixing the score at 5 to 0.
I remember the wonderful spirit of victory that came over the Cornell team, the brilliant playing of Starbuck, the Cornell captain, and of Bill Warner, Walbridge, Young and the other men who contributed to the Cornell victory. Percy Field swarmed with Cornell students when the game ended, each one of them crazy to reach the members of their team and help to carry them victoriously off the field.
Never will I forget the humiliation of the Princeton team. Trolley cars never seemed to move as slowly as those cars that carried us that day through the streets of Ithaca. Enthusiastic, yelling undergraduates grinned at us from the sidewalks as we crawled along to the hotel. Sadness reigned supreme in our company. We were glad to get to our rooms.
Instead of leaving Ithaca at 9:30 as we had planned, we hired a special engine to take our private cars to Owego there to await the express for New York on the main line.
My only pleasant recollection of that trip was a brief call I made at the home of a girl friend of mine, who had attended the game. My arm was in a sling and sympathy was welcome.
As our train rolled over the zig-zag road out of Ithaca, we had a source of consolation in the fact that we had evaded the send-off which theCornell men had planned in the expectation that we were to leave on the later train.
There were no outstretched hands at Princeton for our homecoming. But every man on that Princeton team was grimly determined to learn the lesson of the Cornell defeat, to correct faults and leave nothing undone that would insure victory for Princeton in the coming game with Yale.
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 strikingcontrast to the regular everyday football costumes and campus clothes.
On to New HavenON TO NEW HAVENAll 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 atPrinceton. 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 manthan 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 wasinjured and I have resurrected a photograph that was snapped of the game at the moment that he was lying on the ground, knocked out.
Hillebrand's last chargeHILLEBRAND'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 wehad 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 YaleNews, 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 theYale 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.
Al Sharpe's goalAL 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 describethe 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.
Touching the match to victoryTOUCHING 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.
HEROES OF THE PASTTHE 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 andreverently 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 sameintrepid 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 ofhisachievements 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 thehistory 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 greatconfidence 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 factthat 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 teamthe 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 Campthat 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 wellas 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 playgame, 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. Butduring 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.