How it hurts to loseHOW IT HURTS TO LOSE
NIGHTMARES
There are few players who never experienced defeat in football. At such a time sadness reigns. Men who are big in mind and body have broken down and cried bitterly. How often in our experience have we seen men taken out of the game leaving it as though their hearts would break, only to go to the side lines, and there through dimmed eyes view the inevitable defeat, realizing that they were no longer a factor in the struggle. Such an experience came to Frank Morse in that savage Penn-Princeton game of years ago at Trenton. He had given of his best; he played a wonderful game, but through an injury he had to be removed to the side lines. Let this great hero of the past tell us something about the pangs of defeat as he summons them to mind in his San Francisco office after an interval of twenty-two years.
"The average American university football player takes his defeats too seriously—in the light of my retrospect—much too seriously," writes Morse. "As my memory harks back tothe blubbering bunch of stalwart young manhood that rent the close air of the dressing-room with its dismal howls after each of the five defeats in which I participated, I am convinced that this is not what the world expects of strong men in the hour of adversity.
"A stiff upper lip is what the world admires, and it will extend the hand of sympathy and help to the man who can wear it. This should be taught by football coaches to their men as a part of the lessons of life that football generally is credited with teaching.
"Alex Moffat, than whom no more loyal and enthusiastic Princetonian ever lived, to my mind, had the right idea. During one of those periods of abysmal depths of despondency into which a losing team is plunged, he rushed into the room, waving his arms over his head in his characteristic manner, and in his high-pitched voice yelled:
"'Here, boys, get down to work; cut out this crying and get to cussing.'
"Doubtless much of this was due to the strain and the high tension to which the men were subjected, but much of it was mere lack of effort at restraint.
"Johnny Poe, as stout-hearted a man as ever has, or ever will stand on a football field, once said to me:
"'This sob stuff gives me a pain in the neck but, like sea-sickness, when the rest of the crowd start business, it's hard to keep out of it. Besides, I don't suppose there's any use getting the reputation of being exclusive and too stuck up to do what the rest of the gang do.'
"Of the defeats in which I participated, probably none was more disheartening than the one suffered at the hands of the University of Pennsylvania in 1892 at the Manheim cricket grounds near Philadelphia. I shall always believe that the better Princeton team would have won with comparative ease had it not been for the wind. In no game in which I ever played was the wind so largely the deciding factor in the result. The flags on the poles along the stands stood out stiffly as they snapped in the half gale.
"Pennsylvania won the toss and elected to have the wind at their backs. For forty-five minutes every effort made against the Red and Blue was more than nullified by the blustering god Æolus. When Pennsylvania kicked, it was the rule and not the exception for the ball to go sailing for from one-half to three quarters the length of the field. On the other hand, I can see in my mind's eye to-day, as clearly as I did during the game, a punt by Sheppard Homans, the Princeton fullback, which started over the battling lines into Pennsylvania territory, slowed up, hung for an instant in the air and then was swept back to a point approximating the line from where it started.
"It was the most helpless and exasperating feeling that I ever experienced. The footballplayer who can conceive of a game in which under no circumstances was it permissible to kick, but instead provided a penalty, can perhaps appreciate the circumstances.
"In the second half, when we changed goals, the flags hung limply against their staffs, but we had spent ourselves in the unequal contest during the first half."
Nightmares, even those of football, do not always beget sympathy. Upon occasion a deal of fun is poked at the victim, and this holds true even in the family circle.
Tom Shevlin was noted as the father of a great many good stories, but it was proverbial that he refrained from telling one upon himself. However, in at least one instance he deviated from habit to the extent of relating an incident concerning his father and the father of Charlie Rafferty, captain of the Yale 1903 eleven. Tom at the time was a sophomore, and Shevlin, senior, who idolized his son, made it a practice of attending all important contests in which he participated, came on from Minneapolis in his private car to witness the spectacle of Tom's single-handed defeat of "The Princetons." As it chanced the Shevlin car was put upon a siding adjoining that on which the car of Gill Rafferty lay. Rafferty, as a matter of fact, was making his laborious way down the steps as Mr. Shevlin emerged from his car. Mr. Rafferty looked up, blinked in the November sunlight and thennodded cheerfully. "Well, Shevlin," he said, "I suppose by to-night we'll be known simply as the fathers of two great Yale favorites." Shevlin nodded and said "he fancied such would be the case." A few hours later, in the gloom of the twilight, after Yale had been defeated, the elder Shevlin was finding his somber way to the steps of his car and met Rafferty face to face. Shevlin nodded and was about to pass on without speaking, when Rafferty placed his hand upon his shoulder. "Well, Shevlin," he said solemnly, "I see we are still old man Shevlin and old man Rafferty."
W. C. Rhodes
One has only to hear Jim Rodgers tell the story of Billy Rhodes to realize how deeply the iron of football disaster sinks into the soul.
"Rhodes was captain of the losing team in the fall of '90, when Yale's Eleven was beaten by Harvard's," Rodgers tells us. "Arthur Cumnock was the Harvard captain, and the score was 12 to 6. Two remarkable runs for touchdowns made by Dudley Dean and Jim Lee decided the contest.
"For twenty years afterwards, back to Springfield, New Haven or Cambridge, wherever the Yale-Harvard games were played, came with the regularity of their occurrence, Billy Rhodes.
"He was to be seen the night before, and themorning of the game. He always had his tickets for the side line and wore the badge as an ex-Yale captain. But the game itself Billy Rhodes never saw.
"If at Springfield, he was to be found in the Massasoit House, walking the floor until the result of the game was known. If at New Haven, he was not at the Yale Field. He walked around the field and out into the woods. If the game was at Cambridge, he was not at Holmes Field, or later, at Soldiers' Field.
"When the game was over he would join in the celebration of victory, or sink into the misery of defeat, as the case might be. But he never could witness a game. The sting of defeat had left its permanent wound."
A YALE NIGHTMARE
Those who saw the Army defeat Yale at West Point in 1904 must realize what a blow it was to the Blue. The first score came as a result of a blocked kick by West Point, which was recovered by Erwin, who picked up the ball and dashed across the line for a touchdown. The Army scored the second time when Torney cut loose and ran 105 yards for a touchdown.
Sam Morse, captain of the Yale 1906 team, who played right halfback in this game, tells how the nightmare of defeat may come upon us at any time, even in the early season, and incidentally how it may have its compensations.
"An instance of the psychology of football is to be found in the fall of 1904, when Jim Hogan was captain of the Yale team," says Morse. "I had the pleasure of playing back of him on the defensive in almost every game of that year, and I got to depend so much on those bull-like charges of his that I fear that if I had been obliged to play back of some one else my playing would have been of inferior quality.
"Yale had a fine team that year, defeating both Harvard and Princeton with something to spare. The only eleven that scored on us was West Point, and they beat us. It is a strange thing that the Cadets always seem to give Yale a close game, as in that year even though beaten by both Harvard and Princeton by safe scores, and even though Yale beat Harvard and Princeton handily, the Army played us to a standstill.
"After the game, as is so often the case when men have played themselves out, there was a good deal of sobbing and a good many real tears were shed. Every man who has played football will appreciate that there are times when it is a very common matter for even a big husky man to weep. We were all in the West Point dressing-room when Jim Hogan arose. He felt what we all took to be a disgrace more keenly than any of us. There was no shake in his voice, however, or any tears in his eyes when he bellowed at us to stop blubbering.
"'Don't feel sorry for yourselves. I hope thisthing will hurt us all enough so that we will profit by it. It isn't a matter to cry over—it's a matter to analyze closely and to take into yourself and to digest, and finally to prevent its happening again.'
"He drove it home as only Jim Hogan could. At the close Ralph Bloomer jumped to his feet and cried:
"'Jim, old man, we are with you, and you are right about it, and we will wipe this thing out in a way which will satisfy you and all the rest of the college.'
"The whole team followed him. Right then and there that aggregation became a Yale football team in the proper sense, and one of the greatest Yale football teams that ever played. It was the game followed by Jim's speech that made the eleven men a unit for victory.
"If Jim had been allowed to live a few more years the quality of leadership that he possessed would have made of him a very prominent and powerful man. His memory is one of the dearest things to all of us who were team mates or friends of his, but I hardly ever think of him without picturing him that particular day in the dressing-room at West Point, when in five minutes he made of eleven men a really great football team."
Even Eddie Mahan is not immune to the haunting memory of defeat, and perhaps because of the very fact that disaster came into hisbrilliant gridiron career only once, and then in his senior year, it hit him hard. The manner of its telling by this great player is sufficient proof of that. Here is Eddie's story:
Cornell's great team--1915Hunkin Tilley Bailey Snyder Jewett Gillies Miller LalleyShiverick Anderson Menler Barrett Cool Shelton CollinsEckley Schock Schlicter ZanderCORNELL'S GREAT TEAM--1915
"I enjoyed my football days at Harvard so well that I would like to go back each fall and play football for the rest of my life. I wish to goodness I could go back and play just one game over—that is the Cornell game of 1915. My freshman team won all its games, and during the three years that I played for the Harvard Varsity I never figured in a losing game except that one. Cornell beat Harvard 10 to 0. The score of that game will haunt me all my life long. This game has been a nightmare to me ever since. Every time I think of football that game is one of the first things that comes to mind. I fumbled a lot. I don't know why, but I couldn't seem to hold onto the ball.
"We blocked four kicks, but Cornell recovered every one. We sort of felt that there was more than the Cornell team playing against us—a goal from the field and a touchdown. Shiverick, of Cornell, stands out in my recollection of that game. He was a good kicker. Once he had to kick out from behind the goal post down in his own territory. Watson and I were both laying for a line buck; playing up close. Shiverick kicked one over my head, out of bounds at his own 45-yard line.
"I felt like a burglar after this game, becauseI felt that I had lost it. I was feeling pretty blue until the Monday after the game, when the coaches picked eleven men as the Varsity team, and just as soon as they sent these eleven men to a section of the field to get acquainted with each other—that was the beginning of team work. From the way those fellows went at it that day, and from the spirit they showed, we felt that no team could ever lick us again, neither Princeton nor Yale. The Cornell game acted like a tonic on the whole crowd. Instead of disheartening the team it instilled in us determination. We said:
"'We know what it is to be licked, and we'll be damned if we'll be licked again.'"
Jack de Saulles' football ambitions were realized when he made the Yale team at quarterback, the position which his brother Charlie, before him, had occupied. His spectacular runs, his able generalship, his ability to handle punts, coupled with that characteristic de Saulles' grit, made him a famous player.
Let this game little quarterback tell his own story:
"Billy Bull and I have often discussed the fact that when an attempt for a goal from the field failed, one of the players of the opposing side always touched the ball back of the goal line (thereby making it dead), and brought it out to the 25-yard line to kick. Of course, the ball is never dead until it is touched down. It was inthe fall of 1902 when we were playing West Point. In the latter part of the second half of that game, with the score 6 to 6, Charlie Daly attempted a field goal, which was unsuccessful. What Billy Bull and I had discussed many times came into my mind like a flash. I picked the ball up and walked out with it as if it had been touched back of the goal. When I passed the 25-yard line, walking along casually, Bucky Vail, who was the referee, yelled to me to stop. I walked over to him unconcerned and said: 'Bucky, old boy! this ball is not dead, because I did not touch it down. And I am going down the field with it.' By that time the West Point men had taken their positions in order to receive the kick from the 25-yard line. While I was still walking down the field, in order to pass all the West Point men, before making my dash for a certain touchdown, it struck Bucky Vail that I was right, and he yelled out at the top of his voice. 'The ball is not dead. It is free.' Whereupon the West Point men started after me. An Army man tackled me on their 25-yard line, after I had taken the ball down the field for nearly a touchdown. I have often turned over in my bed at night since that time, cursing the action of Referee Vail. If he had not interfered with my play I would have walked down the field for a touchdown and victory for Yale. The final score remained 6 to 6.
"I have often thought of the painful hours Iwould have suffered had I missed the two open field chances in the disastrous game at Cambridge in the fall of 1902, when Yale was beaten 23 to 0. On two different occasions in that game a Harvard runner with interference had passed the whole Yale team. I was the only Yale man between the Harvard man and a touchdown. The supreme satisfaction I had in nailing both of those runners is one of the most pleasant recollections of my football career.
"When I was a little shaver, back in 1889, I lived at South Bethlehem, Pa. Paul Dashiell and Mathew McClung, who were then playing football at Lehigh University, took an interest in me. Paul Dashiell took me to the first football game I ever saw. Dibby McClung gave me one of the old practice balls of the Lehigh team. This was the first football I ever had in my hands. For weeks afterwards that football was my nightly companion in bed. These two Lehigh stars have always been my football heroes, and it was a happy day for me when I played quarterback on the Yale team and these two men acted as officials that day."
One scene never photographed in footballONE SCENE NEVER PHOTOGRAPHED IN FOOTBALL
MEN WHO COACHED
The picture on the opposite page will recall to mind many a serious moment in the career of men who coached; when something had gone wrong; when some player had not come up to expectation; when a combination of poor judgment and ill luck was threatening to throw away the results of a season's work. Such scenes are never photographed, but they are preserved no less indelibly in the minds of all who have played this rôle.
Where is the old football player, who, gazing at this picture, will not be carried back to those days that will never come again; hours when you listened perhaps guiltily to the stinging words of the coach; moments when spurred on by the thunder and lightning of his wrath you could hardly wait to get out upon the field to grapple with your opponents. At such times, all that was worth while seemed to surge up within you, fiercely demanding a chance, while if you were a coach you yearned to get into the game, only to realize as the team trotted out on the field that yours was no longer a playing part. Allyou could expect henceforth would be to walk nervously up and down the side line with chills and thrills alternating along your spine.
There were no coaches in the old days. Football history relates that in the beginning fellows who wanted fun and exercise would chip in and buy a leather cover for a beef bladder. It was necessary to have a supply of these bladders on hand, for stout kicks frequently burst them.
In those days the ball was tossed up in the air and all hands rushed for it. There was no organization then, very few rules, and the football players developed themselves.
To-day the old-time player stands on the side lines and hears the coach yelling:
"Play hard! Fall on the ball! Tackle low! Start quick! Charge hard and fast!"
As far as the fundamentals go, the game seems to him much the same, but when he begins to recollect he sees how far it has really progressed. He recalls how the football coach became a reality and how a teacher of football appeared upon the gridiron.
Better coaching systems were installed as football progressed. Rules were expanded, trainers crept in, intercollegiate games were scheduled and competition and keen rivalry developed everywhere. In fact, the desire to win has become so firmly established in the minds of college men that we now have a finished product in ourgreat American game of football—wonderfully attractive, but very expensive.
Competition has grown to such an extent that our coaching systems of to-day resemble, in a way, the plans for national preparedness—costly, but apparently necessary. All this means that the American football man, like the American captain of industry, or the American pioneer in any field of activity, is never content to stand still. His motto is, "Ever Onward."
It is not always the star player that makes the greatest coach. The mediocre man is quite likely to have absorbed as much football teaching ability as the star; and when his opportunity comes to coach, he sometimes gets more out of the men than the man with the big reputation.
Personality counts in coaching. In addition to a coach's keen sense of football, there must be a strong personality around which the players may rally. All this inspires confidence.
It is a joy for a coach to work with good material—the real foundation of success. The rules of to-day, however, give what, under old standards, was the weaker team a much broader opportunity for victory over physically larger and stronger opponents.
But there are days nevertheless when every coach gets discouraged; times when there is no response from the men he is coaching—when their slowness of mind and body seem to justifythe despair of Charlie Daly who said to his team:
"You fellows are made of crockery from the neck down and ivory from the neck up."
Football is fickle. To-day you may be a hero. After the last game you may be carried off on the shoulders of enthusiastic admirers and dined and wined by hosts of friends; but across the field there is a grim faced coach who may already be scheming out a play for next year which will snatch you back from the "Hall of Fame" and make your friends describe you sadly as a "back-number."
Haughton arrived at Harvard at the psychological moment. Harvard had passed through many distressing years playing for the football supremacy. He found something to build upon, because, although the game at Cambridge was in the doldrums, there had been keen and capable coaching in the past.
Prominent among those who have worked hard for Harvard and whose work has been more than welcome, are Arthur Cumnock, that brilliant end rush, George Stewart, Doctor William A. Brooks, a former Harvard captain, Lewis, Upton, John Cranston, Deland, Hallowell, Thatcher, Forbes, Waters, Newell, Dibblee, Bill Reid, Mike Farley, Josh Crane, Charlie Daly, Pot Graves, Leo Leary, and others well versed in the game of football.
Haughton had had some experience not onlyin coaching at Cambridge but coaching at Cornell, and the Harvard football authorities realized that of all the Harvard graduates Haughton would probably be the best man to turn the tide in Harvard football.
Percy, who played tackle on a winning Crimson eleven, and Sam Felton will be well remembered as the fastest punters of their day.
The first Harvard team coached by Haughton defeated Yale. It was in 1908 when Haughton used a spectacular method, when he rushed Vic Kennard into the Crimson backfield after Ver Wiebe had brought the ball up the field where Haughton's craft sent Vic Kennard in to make the winning three points and Kennard himself will tell the story of that game. The next year Percy Haughton's team could not defeat the great Ted Coy, who kicked two goals from the field.
The performance of the Harvard 1908 team was the more remarkable because Burr, who was the captain and the great punter at that time, had been injured and the team was without his services. How well I remember him on the side lines keenly following the play, but brilliant in his self-denial.
There have been times when victories did not come to Harvard with the regularity that they have under the Haughton régime, but the scales go up and down year by year, game by game, and from defeats we learn much.
Let us read what this premier coach says upon reflection:
"Surely the game of football brings out the best there is in one. Aside from the mental and physical exercise, the game develops that inestimable quality of doing one's best under pressure. What better training for the game of life than the acid test of a championship game. Such a test comes not alone to the player but to the coach as well.
"What truer and finer friends can one have than those whom we have met through the medium of football! And finally as the years tend to narrow this precious list, through death, what greater privilege than to associate with the fellow whose muscles are lithe and whose mind is clean. Such a man was Francis H. Burr, captain of the Harvard team in 1908. Words fail me to express my sincere regard for that gallant leader. His spirit still lives at Cambridge; his type we miss.
"I am proud of the men who worked shoulder to shoulder in bringing about Harvard victories. The list is a long one. I shall always cherish the hearty co-operation of these men who gave their best for Harvard."
It was Al Sharpe, that great Cornell coach, who, in the fall of 1915 found it possible to break through the Harvard line of victories, and hanging on the walls in the trophy room at Cornell University is a much prized souvenir of Cornell'svisit to Cambridge. That was the only defeat on the Harvard schedule. But sometimes defeats have to come to insure victory, and perhaps in that defeat by Cornell lay the reason for the overwhelming score against Yale.
Harvard, 1915Whitney Dadmun Harte L. Curtis Dougherty HarrisHaughton Taylor McKintock Weatherhead R. Curtis Cowen BlanchardKing Parson Gilman Mahan Watson Wallace SoucyBoles Robinson Coolidge Horneen RollinsHARVARD, 1915
Slowly, but surely, Al Sharpe has won his way into the front ranks of football coaches. Working steadfastly year after year he has built up and established a system that has set Cornell's football machinery upon a firm foundation.
Glenn Warner
Glenn Warner has contributed a great deal to football, both as a player and coach.
Warner was one of the greatest linemen that ever played on the Cornell team. After leaving college he began his coaching career in 1895 at the University of Georgia. His success there was remarkable. It attracted so much attention that he was called back to Cornell in 1897 and 1898. In 1899 Warner moved again and began his historic work at the Carlisle Indian School, turning out a team year after year that gave the big colleges a close battle and sometimes beat them.
There never was a team that attracted so much attention as the Carlisle Indians. They were popular everywhere and drew large crowds, not only on account of their being Redmen, but on account of their adaptability to the game. Warner, as their coach, wrought wonders with them,and really all the colleges at one time or another had their scalps taken by the Indians. They were the champion travelers of the game. Their games were generally all away from home, and yet the long trips did not seem to hamper them in their play. They got enjoyment out of traveling.
Going from Princeton to New York one Friday night some years ago, I was told by the conductor that the Carlisle football team was in the last car. I went back and talked with Warner. The Indian team were amusing themselves in one end of the car, and thus passing the time away by entering into a game they were accustomed to play on trips. One of the Carlisle players would stand in the center of the aisle and some fifteen or so men would group about him, in and about and on top of the seats. This central figure would bend over and close his eyes. Then some one from the crowd would reach over and spank the crouching Indian a terrific blow, hastily drawing back his hand. Then the Indian who had received the blow would straighten up and try, by the expression of guilt on the face of the one who had delivered the blow, to find his man. Their faces were a study, yet nearly every time the right man was detected.
Who is there in football who will ever forget the Indian team, their red blankets and all that was typical of them; the yells that the crowds gave as the Indians appeared. They seemedalways to be fit. They were full of spirit and anxious to clash with their opponents.
The greatest Indian of them allTHE GREATEST INDIAN OF THEM ALL
I recall an incident in a Princeton-Carlisle game, when the game was being fiercely waged. Miller, the great Indian halfback, had scored a touchdown, after a long run. It was not long after this that a Princeton player was injured. Maybe the play was being slowed up a little. Anyway, time was taken out. One of the Indians seemed to sense the situation. The Princeton players were lying on the ground while the Carlisle men were prancing about eager to resume the fray, when one of the Indians remarked:
"White man play for wind. Indian play football."
In 1915 Warner went to the University of Pittsburgh. Here he has already begun to duplicate former successes. Cruikshank, Peck, and Wagner are three of Pittsburgh's many stars. Probably the greatest football player that Warner ever developed at the Carlisle Indian School was Jim Thorpe, whose picture appears on the opposite page. Unhappy the end, and not infrequently the back, who had to face this versatile player. Thorpe was a raider.
Billy Bull
Billy Bull of Yale is one of the old heroes who has kept in very close touch with the game. He has been a valuable coach at Yale and theElis' kicking game is left entirely in his hands. He is an enthusiastic believer in the game. Immediately after leaving New Haven in 1889 he started to coach and since that time he has not missed a year. Years ago he inaugurated a routine system of coaching for the various styles of kicks. "My object," he said recently, "has been to turn out consistent rather than wonderful kickers. As a player I was early impressed with the value of kicking, not only in a general way but also in a particular way, such as the punt in an offensive way. For more than twenty-five years I have talked it up. For a long time I talked it to deaf ears, especially at Yale. I talked it when I coached at West Point for ten years and was generally set down as a harmless crank on the subject, but I have lived to see the time when every one agrees on the great value of this offensive kick.
"When I entered Yale I was an absolute greenhorn, but the greenhorn had a chance then, for he was able to play in actual scrimmage every day; now the squads are so big that opportunities for playing the game for long daily periods are entirely wanting.
"To-day it is a case of a heap big talk, a coach for every position, more talk, lots of system, blackboard exercises and mighty little actual play.
"I have often wondered if things were not being overdone as far as coaching goes in the preparatory schools at the present time. The superabundance of coaches and the demand for victory combine to force the boy.
"If there is any forcing to do, the college is the place for it, when the boy is older and better able to stand the strain. In recent years I have seen not a few brokendown boys enter college. Boys are coming to college now who needs must be told everything, and if there is not a large body of coaches about to tell them, they mutiny. They seem to forget, or not to know, that most is up to the man himself.
"When a boy comes to college with the idea that all that is necessary is for him to be told, constantly told how to do this and that, and he will deliver in the last ditch, I cannot help thinking that something is wrong.
"I have in mind right now a player in the line, who came to college after four years of school football. Ever since his entry he has complained that no one has told him anything. Now this particular player spends ten months of each year loafing, and expects in his two months of football to do a man's job in a big game.
"No amount of blackboard and other talk is going to make a player do a man's job and whip his opponent. No man can play a tackle job properly if he does not realize the kind of a proposition he is up against twelve months in the year and act accordingly. He has got to do his own thinking, and see to it himself that he has thenecessary strength and toughness, to play the game, as one must to win."
Sanford the Unique
George Foster Sanford is unique in football. He made splendid teams when he coached at Columbia, while his subsequent record with the Rutgers Eleven attracted wide attention.
In theColumbia Alumni Newsof October, 1915, Albert W. Putnam, a former player, reviews seven years of Morningside football, and pays the following tribute to Foster Sanford:
"Sanford coached the teams of 1899, 1900 and 1901. He coached them ably, conscientiously and thoroughly, and in my opinion was the best football coach in the country."
"During my three years' experience as coach at Columbia," says Sanford, "we beat all the big teams except Harvard. I was fortunate enough to develop such men as Weekes, Morley, Wright, and Berrien, players whose records will always stand high in the Hall of Football Fame at Columbia. I was particularly well satisfied with the work I got out of Slocovitch, a former Yale player, whom the Yale coaches had never seemed to handle properly. I did not allow him to play over one day a week. This was because I had discovered that he was very heavily muscled; that if he played continuously he would become muscle bound. My treatment proved to fit the case exactly and Slocovitch became a starend for Columbia. We defeated Yale the first year; the next year at New Haven the contest was a strenuous one, and the game attracted unusual attention. It was in my own home town, and I had to stand for a lot of good natured kidding, but those who were there will remember how scared the Yale coaches got during the last part of the game, when Columbia made terrific advances. How Columbia's team fought Gordon Brown's Eleven almost to a standstill that day is something that the Yale coaches of that time will long remember."
An old Yale player, Bob Loree, whose father is a Trustee of Rutgers, induced Sanford to lend the college his assistance. Apparently this connection was an unmixed blessing. "Mr. L. F. Loree, Bob's father," says Sandy, "has frankly admitted that in his opinion Sanford's gift to the college (for he works without remuneration) has brought a spirit and a betterment of conditions which is worth fully as much as donations of thousands of dollars.
"From the first day I went there," continues Sandy, "I started to build up football for Rutgers and to rely on Rutgers men for my assistants. It was there that I met the best football man I ever coached, John T. Toohey. This remarkable tackle weighed 220 pounds. The life he led and the example he set will always have a lasting influence upon Rutgers men. For sad to relate, Toohey was killed in the railroad yardsat Oneonta, where he was yard master. Toohey was a great leader, possessing a wonderful personality, and winning the immediate respect of every one who knew him."
Twenty-five years have passed since I saw Sanford that morning in the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Since then I have followed his football career with enthusiasm. Boyhood heroes live long in mind. He is what might be called a major surgeon in football, for it is a matter of record that he has been called back to Yale, not when the patient was merely sick, but in a serious condition. Usually the operation has been performed with such skill that the patient has rallied with disconcerting suddenness.
Talking to the Yale teams between the halves, giving instructions, which have turned dubious prospects into flaming victories, is a service which Sanford has rendered Yale more than once. Victory, as it happens, is the principal characteristic of Sanford's work. Long is the list of players whom Sanford has developed.
"In my coaching experience," Sandy tells us, "I doubt if I ever coached a man where my hard work counted for more at Yale than the case of Charlie Chadwick in 1897. For many years there has been a saying that a one man defense is as good as an eleven men defense, providing you can get one man who can do it.
"Of course this never worked out literally, but the case of Charlie Chadwick is probably the bestexplanation of its value. Besides being overdeveloped, he was temperamental. At times he would show great form and at other times his playing was hopeless. This year I was asked to come to New Haven and began coaching the linemen. Chadwick looked good to me, in spite of much criticism that was made by the coaches. In their opinion they thought he was not to be relied upon, so I decided to stake my reputation, and began in my own way, feeling sure that I could get results, in preparing him for the Harvard and Princeton games.
Learning the chargeLEARNING THE CHARGE
"I started out purposely annoying Chadwick in every possible way, going with him wherever he went. I went with him to his room evenings and did not leave until he had become so bored that he fell asleep, or that he got mad and told me to get out. I planned it that Chadwick approach the coaches whenever he saw them together and say: 'I wish you would let me play on this team. If you will I will play the game of my life. I will play like hell.' After he had made this speech two or three times, they were very positive that he was more than temperamental. I kept steadily at my plan, however, and felt sure it would work out.
"The line was finally turned over to me and I had opportunity to slip Chadwick in for two or three plays at left guard. He played like a demon; he was literally a one man defense, but he received no credit. I immediately removedhim from the game and criticised him severely and told him to follow up the play and in case I needed him he would be handy. I realized what a great player he was proving to be, and my great problem then was how I was to convince the coaches that Chadwick should start the game. I tried it out a few times, but saw it was useless trying to convince them, so I decided to concentrate on Jim Rodgers, the Captain. Jim consented. My plan was to tell no one except Marshall, the man whose place Chadwick was to take. The lineup was called out in the dressing room before the game. Chadwick's name was not included. I had arranged with Julian Curtis, who was in close touch with the cheer leaders, that when I gave the signal, the Yale crowd would be instructed to stand and yell nothing but 'Chadwick, Chadwick, Chadwick.' The Yale team ran out upon the field. I stayed behind with Chadwick and came in through the gate holding him by the arm. Before going on the side lines I stopped him and said: 'Look here, Chadwick. It doesn't look as though you're going to play, but if I put you in that lineup how will you play?' Like a shot from a cannon he roared: 'I'll play like hell.'
"You could have heard him a mile. 'Well then, give me your sweater and warm up,' I said, and as I gave the signal to Julian Curtis, he passed the word on to the cheer leaders and the sight of Chadwick running up and down thoseside lines will never be forgotten. It is estimated that he leaped five yards at a stride, and with the students cheering, 'Chadwick, Chadwick, Chadwick,' he was sent out into the lineup—and the rest, well, you'd better ask the men who played on the Harvard team that day. It was a stream of men going on and off the field and they were headed for right guard position on the Harvard side. Harvard could not beat Chadwick, so the game ended in a tie."
Jim Rodgers, captain of that team, also has something to say of Chadwick.
"In the Harvard-Yale game," Rodgers writes, "Charlie Chadwick played the game of his life. He used up about six men who played against him that day, but he never could put out Bill Edwards the day we played Princeton. I played against Chadwick on the Scrub, and the first charge he made against me I went clean back to fullback. It was just as though an automobile had hit me. I played against Heffelfinger and a lot of them. I could hold those fellows. Gee! but I was sore. I said to myself, you won't do that again, and the next time I was set back just as far.
"One feature of this Yale-Princeton game impressed me tremendously, that of Bill Edwards' stand, against what I considered a superman, Charles Chadwick. Before the game I had confidently expected Big Bill to resign after about five minutes' play, knowing, as I did, how Chadwick was going. In this, however, Edwards was a great disappointment, as he stuck the game out and was stronger at the end, than at the start or half way through. Had he weakened at all, Ad Kelly's great offensive work would have been doomed to failure. Edwards finished up the game against Chadwick with a face that resembled a raw beefsteak. To my mind he was the worst punished man I have ever seen. He stood by his guns to the finish, and ever since then my hat has been off to him."
One of the most interesting characters in Southern football is W. R. Tichenor, a thorough enthusiast in the game and known wherever there is a football in the South. His father was president of the Alabama Polytechnic. He was a fine player and weighed about 120 pounds. He is the emergency football man of the South. Whenever there is a football dispute Tichenor settles it. Whenever a coach is taken sick, Tichenor is called upon to take his place. Whenever an emergency official is needed, Tich comes to the rescue. He tells the following story:
"Every boy who has been to Auburn in the last twenty years knows Bob Frazier. Many of them, however, may not recognize that name, as he has been called Bob 'Sponsor' for so long that few of them know his real name. Bob is as black as the inside of a coal mine and has rubbed and worked for the various teams at Auburn'since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.'
Billy Bull advising with Captain TalbotBILLY BULL ADVISING WITH CAPTAIN TALBOT
"Just after the Christmas holidays one year in the middle nineties, Bob, with the view of making a touch, called at Bill Williams' room one night.
"After asking Bill if he had had a good Christmas, 'Sponsor' remarked: 'You know, Mr. Williams, us Auburn niggers went down and played dem Tuskegee niggers a game of football during Christmas.'
"'Who did you have on the team, Bob?' inquired Bill.
"'Oh—we had a lot of dese niggers roun' town yere. They was me, an' Crooksie, an' Homer, an' Bear, an' Cockeye, an' a lot of dese yer town niggers.'
"'How did you come out?' asked Bill.
"'Oh, dem Tuskegee niggers give us a good lickin'.'
"'What position did you play?'
"'Me?' said Bob, 'I was de cap'en. I played all roun'. I played center. Den I played quarterback. Den I played halfback.'
"'What system of signals did you use and who called them?' was Bill's next inquiry.
"'Ain't I tole you, Mr. Williams, I was de cap'en. I called the signals. Dem niggers of mine couldn't learn no signals, so we jus' played lack we had some. I'd give some numbers to fool the Tuskegee niggers. But dem numbersdidn't mean nothin'. I'd say, "two, four, six, eight, ten—tek dat ball, Homer, an' go roun' the end." Dat's de only sort of signals dem niggers could learn and sometimes dey missed dem. Dat's de reason we got beat and dem Tuskegee niggers got all my money. Mr. Williams, I'm jus' as nickless as a ha'nt. Can't you lem' me two bits til' Sadday night, please suh? Honest to God, I'll pay you back den, shore.'"
Listening to Yost
"Hurry Up" Yost is one of the most interesting and enthusiastic football coaches in the country. The title of "Hurry Up" has been given him on account of the "pep" he puts into his men and the speed at which they work. Whether in a restaurant or a crowded street, hotel lobby or on a railroad train, Yost will proceed to demonstrate this or that play and carefully explain many of the things well worth while in football. He is always in deadly earnest. Out of the football season, during business hours, he is ever ready to talk the game. Yost's football experience as a player began at the University of West Virginia, where he played tackle. Lafayette beat them that year 6 to 0. Shortly after this Yost entered Lafayette. His early experience in football there was under the famous football expert and writer, Parke Davis.
Yost and Rinehart wear a broad smile as theytell of the way Parke Davis used to entertain teams off the field. He always kept them in the finest of humor. Parke Davis, they say, is a born entertainer, and many an evening in the club house did he keep their minds off football by a wonderful demonstration of sleight-of-hand with the cards.
"If Parke Davis had taken his coat off and stuck to coaching he would have been one of the greatest leaders in that line in the country to-day," says Yost. "He was more or a less a bug on football. You know that to be good in anything one must be crazy about it. Davis was certainly a bug on football and so am I. Everybody knows that.
"I shall never forget Davis after Lafayette had beaten Cornell 6 to 0, in 1895, at Ithaca. That night in the course of the celebration Parke uncovered everything he had in the way of entertainment and gave an exhibition of his famous dance, so aptly named the 'dance du venture,' by that enthusiastic Lafayette alumnus, John Clarke.
"I have been at Michigan fifteen seasons. My 1901 team is perhaps the most remarkable in the history of football in many ways. It scored 550 points to opponents' nothing, and journeyed 3500 miles. We played Stanford on New Year's day, using no substitutes. On this great team were Neil Snow, and the remarkable quarterback Boss Weeks. Willie Heston, whowas playing his first year at Michigan, was another star on this team. A picture of Michigan's great team appears on the opposite page.
"Boss Weeks' two teams scored more than 1200 points. If that team had been in front of the Chinese Wall and got the signal to go, not a man would have hesitated. Every man that played under Boss Weeks idolized him, and when word was brought to the university that he had died, every Michigan man felt that its university had lost one of its greatest men.
"I am perhaps more of a boy's man to-day than I ever was. There is a great satisfaction in feeling that you have an influence in the lives of the men under you. Coaching is a sacred job. There's no question about it.
"There is a wonderful athletic spirit at Michigan, and when we have mass meetings in the Hill Auditorium 6000 men turn out. At such a time one feels the great power behind an athletic team. Some of the great Michigan football players within my recollection were Jimmy Baird, Jack McLain, Neil Snow, Boss Weeks, Tom Hammond, Willie Heston, Herrnstein, grand old Germany Schultz, Benbrook, Stan Wells, Dan McGugin, Dave Allerdice, Hugh White and others I might mention on down to John Maulbetsch."
Reggie Brown is probably one of the most famous of the Harvard coaches. His work in Harvard football is to find out what the otherteams are doing. He is on hand at Yale Field every Saturday when the Yale team plays. He is unique in his scouting work, in that he carries his findings in his head. His memory is his mental note book.