Book: Football Days

W >> William H. Edwards >> Football Days




"How it was possible for a man, with a broken leg, to walk around and
dance, as he did, is more than I can fathom."

What is there in a man's make-up that leads him to conceal from the
trainer an injury that he receives in a game; that makes him stay in the
field of play? Why is it that he disregards himself, and goes on in the
game, suffering physical as well as mental tortures, plucky though
handicapped? The playing of such men is extended far beyond the point of
their usefulness. Yes, even into the danger zone. Such men give
everything they have in them while it lasts. It is not intelligent
football, however, and what might be called bravery is foolishness after
all. It is an unwritten law in football that a fresh substitute is far
superior to a crippled star. The keen desire to remain in the game is so
firmly fixed in his mind that he is willing to sacrifice himself, and at
the same time by concealing his injury from the trainer and coaches he,
unconsciously, is sacrificing his team; his power is gone.

One of the greatest exhibitions of grit ever seen in a football game was
given by Harry Watson of Williams in a game at Newton Center between
Williams and Dartmouth. He was knocked out about eight times but
absolutely refused to leave the field.

Another was furnished by W. H. Lewis, the Amherst captain and center
rush, against Williams in his last game at Amherst--the score was 0-0 on
a wet field. Williams was a big favorite but Lewis played a wonderful
game, and was all over the field on the defense. When the game was over
he was carried off, but refused to leave the field until the final
whistle.

One of the most thrilling stories of a man who was game, though
handicapped, is told by Morris Ely, quarterback for Yale, 1898.

"My most vivid recollection of the Harvard-Yale game of 1898 is that
Harvard won by the largest score Yale had ever been beaten by up to that
time, 17 to 0. Next, that the game seemed unusually long. I believe I
proved a good exponent of the theory of being in good condition. I
started the game at 135 pounds, in the best physical condition I have
ever enjoyed, and while I managed to accumulate two broken ribs, a
broken collar-bone and a sprained shoulder, I was discharged by the
doctor in less than three weeks as good as ever.

"I received the broken ribs in the first half when Percy Jaffrey fell on
me with a proper intention of having me drop a fumbled ball behind our
goal line, which would have given Harvard an additional touchdown
instead of a touchback. I did not know just what had gone wrong but
tried to help it out by putting a shin guard under my jersey over the
ribs during the intermission. No one knew I was hurt.

"In the second half I tried to stop one of Ben Dibblee's runs on a punt
and got a broken collar-bone, but not Dibblee. About the end of the game
we managed to work a successful double pass and I carried the ball to
Harvard's ten-yard line when Charlie Daly, who was playing back on
defense, stopped any chance we had of scoring by a hard tackle. There
was no getting away from him that day, and as I had to carry the ball
in the wrong arm with no free arm to use to ward him off, I presume, I
got off pretty well with only a sprained shoulder. The next play ended
the game, when Stub Chamberlin tried a quick place goal from the field
and, on a poor pass and on my poor handling of the ball, hit the goal
post and the ball bounded back. I admit that just about that time the
whistle sounded pretty good as apparently the entire Harvard team landed
on us in their attempt to block a kick."

Val Flood, once a trainer at Princeton, recalls a game at New Haven,
when Princeton was playing Yale:

"Frank Bergen was quarterback," he says. "I saw he was not going right,
and surprised the coaches by asking them to make a change. They asked me
to wait. In a few minutes I went to them again, with the same result. I
came back a third time, and insisted that he be taken out. A substitute
was put in. I will never forget Bergen's face when he burst into tears
and asked me who was responsible for his being taken out. I told him I
was. It almost broke his heart, for he had always regarded me as a
friend. I knew how much he wanted to play the game out. He lived in New
Haven. When the doctor examined him, it was found that he had three
broken ribs. There was great danger of one of them piercing his lungs
had he continued in the game. Of course, there are lots of boys that
are willing to do such things for their Alma Mater, but the gamest of
all is the man who, with a broken neck to start with, went out and put
in four years of college football. I refer to Eddie Hart, who was not
only the gamest, but one of the strongest, quickest, cleanest men that
ever played the game, and any one who knows Eddie Hart and those who
have seen him play, know that he never saved himself but played the game
for all it was worth. He was the life and spirit of every team he ever
played on at Exeter or Princeton."

Ed Wylie, an enthusiastic Hill School Alumnus, football player at Hill
and Yale, tells the following anecdote:

"The nerviest thing I ever saw in a football game was in the
Hill-Hotchkiss 0 to 0 game in 1904. At the start of the second half,
Arthur Cable, who was Hill's quarterback, broke his collar-bone. He
concealed the fact and until the end of the game, no one knew how badly
he was hurt. He was in every play, and never had time called but once.
He caught a couple of punts with his one good arm and every other punt
he attempted to catch and muffed he saved the ball from the other side
by falling on it. In the same game, a peculiar thing happened to me. I
tackled Ted Coy about fifteen minutes before the end of the game, and
until I awoke hours later, lying in a drawing-room car, pulling into
the Grand Central Station, my mind was a blank. Yet I am told the last
fifteen minutes of the game I played well, especially when our line was
going to pieces. I made several gains on the offensive, never missed a
signal and punted two or three times when close to our goal line."

No less noteworthy is the spirit of a University of Pennsylvania player,
who was handicapped during his gridiron career with Penn' by many severe
injuries. This man had worked as hard as any one possibly could to make
the varsity for three years. His last year was no different from
previous seasons; injuries always worked against him. In his final year
he had broken his leg early in the season. A short time before the
Cornell game he appeared upon the field in football togs, full of spirit
and determined to get in the game if they needed him. This was his last
chance to play on the Penn' team.

I was an official in that game. Near its close I saw him warming up on
the side line. His knee was done up in a plaster cast. He could do
nothing better than hobble along the side lines, but in the closing
moments when Penn' had the game well in hand, a mighty shout went up
from the side lines, as that gallant fellow, who had been handicapped
all during his football career, rushed out upon the field to take his
place as the defensive halfback. Cornell had the ball, and they were
making a tremendous effort to score. The Cornell captain, not knowing
of this man's physical condition, sent a play in his direction. The
interference of the big red team crashed successfully around the Penn'
end and there was left only this plucky, though handicapped player,
between the Cornell runner and a touchdown.

Putting aside all personal thought, he rushed in and made a wonderful
tackle. Then this hero was carried off the field, and with him the
tradition of one who was willing to sacrifice himself for the sport he
loved.

Andy Smith, a former University of Pennsylvania player, was a man who
was game through and through. He seemed to play better in a severe game,
when the odds were against him. Smith had formerly been at Pennsylvania
State College. In a game between Penn' State and Dartmouth, Fred
Crolius, of Dartmouth, says of Smith:

"Andy Smith was one of the gamest men I ever played against. This big,
determined, husky offensive fullback and defensive end, when he wasn't
butting his head into our impregnable line, was smashing an interference
that nearly killed him in every other play. Battered and bruised he kept
coming on, and to every one's surprise he lasted the entire game. Years
afterward he showed me the scars on his head, where the wounds had
healed, with the naive remark: 'Some team you fellows had that year,
Fred.' Some team was right. And we all remember Andy and his own
individual greatness."

There is no finer, unselfish spirit brought out in football, than that
evidenced in the following story, told by Shep Homans, an old time
Princeton fullback:

"A young fellow named Hodge, who was quarterback on the Princeton scrub,
was making a terrific effort to play the best he could on the last day
of practice before the Yale game. He had hoped even at the last hour
that the opportunity might be afforded him to be a substitute quarter in
the game. However, his leg was broken in a scrimmage. As he lay on the
ground in great pain, realizing what had happened and forgetting
himself, he looked up and said:

"'I'm mighty glad it is not one of the regulars who is hurt, so that our
chance against Yale will not be affected.'"

Crolius, one of the hardest men to stop that Dartmouth ever had, tells
of Arthur Poe's gameness, when they played together on the Homestead
Athletic Club team, after they left college. "Arthur Poe was about as
game a man as the football world ever saw. He was handicapped in his
playing by a knee which would easily slip out of place. We men who
played with him on the Homestead team were often stopped after Arthur
had made a magnificent tackle and had broken up heavy interference, with
this quiet request:

"'Pull my bum knee back into place.'

"After this was done, he would jump up and no one would ever know that
it had been out. This man, who perhaps was the smallest man playing at
that time, was absolutely unprotected. His suit consisted of a pair of
shoes, stockings, unpadded pants, jersey and one elastic knee bandage."

Mike Donohue, a Yale man who had been coach at Auburn for many years,
vouches for the following story:

When Mike went to Auburn and for several years thereafter he had no one
to assist him, except a few of the old players, who would drop in for a
day or so during the latter part of the season. One afternoon Mike
happened to glance down at the lower end of the field where a squad of
grass-cutters (the name given to the fourth and fifth teams) were
booting the ball around, when he noticed a pretty good sized boy who was
swinging his foot into the ball with a good stiff leg and was kicking
high and getting fine distance. Mike made a mental note of this fact and
decided to investigate later, as a good punter was very hard to find.

Later in the afternoon he again looked towards the lower end of the
field and saw that the grass-cutters were lining up for a scrimmage
among themselves, using that part of the field, which was behind the
goal post, so he dismissed the squad with which he had been working and
went down to see what the boy he had noticed early in the afternoon
really looked like. When he arrived he soon found the boy he was looking
for. He was playing left end and Mike immediately noticed that he had
his right leg extended perfectly straight behind him. Stopping the play,
Mike went over to the fellow and slapping him on the back said:

"Don't keep that right leg stiff behind you like that. Pull it up under
you. Bend it at the knee so you can get a good start."

With a sad expression on his face, and tears almost in his eyes, the boy
turned to Mike and said:

"Coach, that damn thing won't bend. It's wood."

Vonalbalde Gammon, one of the few players who met his death in an
intercollegiate game, lived at Rome, Georgia, and entered the University
of Georgia in 1896. He made the team his first year, playing quarterback
on the eleven which was coached by Pop Warner and which won the Southern
championship. He received the injury which caused his death in the
Georgia-Virginia game, played in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 30th,
1897. He was a fine fellow personally and one of the most popular men at
the University. As a football player, he was an excellent punter, a
good plunger, and a strong defensive man. On account of his kicking and
plunging ability he was moved to fullback in his second year.

In the Virginia game he backed up the line on the defense. All that
afternoon he worked like a Trojan to hold in check the powerful masses
Virginia had been driving at the tackles. Early in the second half Von
dove in and stopped a mass aimed at Georgia's right tackle, but when the
mass was untangled, he was unable to get up. An examination showed that
he was badly hurt. In a minute or two, however, he revived and was set
on his feet and was being taken from the field by Coach McCarthy, when
Captain Kent, thinking that he was not too badly hurt to continue in the
game, said to him:

"Von, you are not going to give up, are you?"

"No, Bill," he replied, "I've got too much Georgia grit for that."

These were his last words, for upon reaching the side lines he lapsed
into unconsciousness and died at two o'clock the next morning.

Gammon's death ended the football season that year at the University. It
also came very near ending football in the State of Georgia, as the
Legislature was in session, and immediately passed a bill prohibiting
the playing of the game in the State.

However, Mrs. Gammon--Von's mother--made a strong, earnest and personal
appeal to Governor Atkinson to veto the bill, which he did.

Had it not been for Mrs. Gammon, football would certainly have been
abolished in the State of Georgia by an act of the Legislature of 1897.

I knew a great guard whose whole heart was set on making the Princeton
team, and on playing against Yale. This man made the team. In a
Princeton-Columbia game he was trying his best to stop that wonderful
Columbia player, Harold Weekes, who with his great hurdling play was
that season's sensation. In his hurdling he seemed to take his life in
his hands, going over the line of the opposing team feet first. When the
great guard of the Princeton team to whom I refer tried to stop Weekes,
his head collided with Weekes' feet and was badly cut.

The trainer rushed upon the field, sponged and dressed the wound and the
guard continued to play. But that night it was discovered that blood
poisoning had set in. There was gloom on the team when this became
known. But John Dana, lying there injured in the hospital, and knowing
how badly his services were needed in the coming game with Yale, with
his ambition unsatisfied, used his wits to appear better than he really
was in order to get discharged from the hospital and back on the team.

The physician who attended him has told me since that Dana would keep
his mouth open slyly when the nurse was taking his temperature so that
it would not be too high and the chart would make it appear that he was
all right.

At any rate, he seemed to improve steadily, and finally reported to the
trainer, Jim Robinson, two days before the Yale game. He was full of
hope and the coaches decided to have Robinson give him a try-out, so
that they could decide whether he was as fit as he was making it appear
he was.

I shall never forget watching that heroic effort, as Robinson took him
out behind the training house, to make the final test. With a head-gear,
especially made for him, Dana settled down in his regular position,
ready for the charge, anticipating the oncoming Yale halfback and
throbbing with eagerness to tackle the man with the ball.

Then he plunged forward, both arms extended, but handicapped by his
terrible injury, he toppled over upon his face, heart-broken. The spirit
was there, but he was physically unfit for the task.

The Yale game started without Dana, and as he sat there on the side
lines and saw Princeton go down to defeat, he was overcome with the
thought of his helplessness. He was needed, but he didn't have a chance.




CHAPTER XIV

BRINGING HOME THE BACON


Happy is the thought of victory, and while we realize that there should
always be eleven men in every play, each man doing his duty, there
frequently comes a time in a game, when some one man earns the credit
for winning the game, and brings home the bacon. Maybe he has been the
captain of the team, with a wonderful power of leadership which had held
the Eleven together all season and made his team a winning one. From the
recollections of some of the victories, from the experiences of the men
who participated in them and made victory possible, let us play some of
those games over with some of the heroes of past years.


Billy Bull

One of the truly great bacon-getters of the past is Yale's Billy Bull.
Football history is full of his exploits when he played on the Yale team
in '85, '86, '87 and '88. Old-time players can sit up all night telling
stories of the games in which he scored for Yale. His kicking proved a
winning card and in happy recollection the old-timers tell of Bull, the
hero of many a game, being carried off the field on the shoulders of an
admiring crowd of Yale men after a big victory.

"In the course of my years at Yale, six big games were played," says
Bull, "four with Princeton and two with Harvard. I was fortunate in
being able to go through all of them, sustaining no injury whatsoever,
except in the last game with Princeton. In this game, Channing came
through to me in the fullback position and in tackling him I received a
scalp wound which did not, however, necessitate my removal from the
game.

"Of the six games played, only one was lost, and that was the Lamar game
in the fall of '85. In the five games won I was the regular kicker in
the last three, and, in two of these, kicking proved to be the deciding
factor. Thus in '87--Yale 17, Harvard 8--two place kicks and one drop
kick were scored in the three attempts, totaling nine points.
Considering the punting I did that day, and the fact that both
place-kicks were scored from close to the side lines, I feel that that
game represents my best work.

"The third year of my play was undoubtedly my best year; in fact the
only year in which I might lay claim to being anything of a kicker. Thus
in the Rutgers game of '87 I kicked twelve straight goals from
placement. Counting the two goals from touchdowns against Princeton I
had a batting average of 1000 in three games.

"Through the last year I was handicapped with a lame kicking leg and
was out of form, for in the final game with Princeton that year, '88, I
tried at least four times before scoring the first field goal of the
game. In the second half I had but one chance and that was successful.
This was the 10-0 game, in which all the points were scored by kicking,
although the ground was wet and slippery.

"It is of interest to note, in connection with drop-kicking in the old
days, that the proposition was not the simple matter it is to-day. Then,
the ball had to go through the quarter's hands, and the kicker in
consequence had so little time in which to get the ball away that he was
really forced to kick in his tracks and immediately on receipt of the
ball. Fortunately I was able to do both, and I never had a try for a
drop blocked, and only one punt, the latter due to the fact that the
ball was down by the side line, and I could not run to the left (which
would have taken me out of bounds) before kicking.

"Perhaps one of the greatest sources of satisfaction to me, speaking of
punting in particular, was the fact that I was never blocked by
Princeton. And yet it was extremely fortunate for me that I was a
left-footed kicker and thus could run away from Cowan, who played a left
tackle before kicking. If I had had to use my right foot I doubt if I
could have got away with anything, for Cowan was certainly a wonderful
player and could get through the Yale line as though it were paper. He
always brought me down, but always after the ball had left my foot. I
know that it has been thought at Princeton that I stood twelve yards
back from the line when kicking. This was not so. Ten yards was the
regular distance, always. But, I either kicked in my tracks or directly
after running to the left."


THE DAY COLUMBIA BEAT YALE

Columbia men enthusiastically recall the day Columbia beat Yale. A
Columbia man who is always on hand for the big games of the year is
Charles Halstead Mapes, the ever reliable, loyal rooter for the game. He
has told the tale of this victory so wonderfully well that football
enthusiasts cannot but enjoy this enthusiastic Columbia version.

"Fifteen years ago Yale was supreme in football," runs Mapes' story.
"Occasionally, but only very occasionally, one of their great rivals,
Princeton or Harvard, would win a game from them, but for any outsider,
anybody except one of the 'Eternal Triangle,' to beat Yale was out of
the question--an utter impossibility. And, by the way, that Triangle at
times got almost as much on the nerves of the outside public as the
Frenchmen's celebrated three--wife, husband, lover--the foundation of
their plays.

"The psychological effect of Yale's past prestige was all-powerful in
every game. The blue-jerseyed figures with the white Y would tumble
through the gate and spread out on the field; the stands would rise to
them with a roar of joyous welcome that would raise the very
skies--Y-a-l-e! Y-a-l-e! Y--A--L--E!

[Illustration: TWO ACES--BILL MORLEY AND HAROLD WEEKS]

"'Small wonder that each man was right on his toes, felt as though he
were made of steel springs. All other Yale teams had won, 'We will win,
of course.'

"But the poor other side--they might just as well throw their canvas
jackets and mole-skin trousers in the old suit-case at once and go home.
'Beat Yale! boys, we're crazy, but every man must try his damnedest to
keep the score low,' and so the game was won and lost before the referee
even blew his starting whistle.

"This was the general rule, but every rule needs an exception to prove
it, and on a certain November afternoon in 1899 we gave them their
belly-full of exception. We had a very strong team that year, with some
truly great players, Harold Weekes and Bill Morley (there never were two
better men behind the line), and Jack Wright, old Jack Wright, playing
equally well guard or center, as fine a linesman as I have ever seen.
Weekes, Morley, and Wright were on the All-American team of that year,
and Walter Camp in selecting his All-American team for All Time several
years ago picked Harold Weekes as his first halfback.

"I can see the game now; there was no scoring in the first half. To
the outsider the teams seemed evenly matched, but we, who knew our
men, thought we saw that the power was there; and if they could but
realize their strength and that they had it in them to lay low at
last that armor-plated old rhinoceros, the terror of the college
jungle--Yale,--with an even break of luck, the game must be ours.

"In the second half our opportunity came. By one of the shifting chances
of the game we got the ball on about their 25-yard line; one yard, three
yards, two yards, four yards, we went through them; there was no
stopping us, and at last--over, well over, for a touchdown.

"Through some technicality in the last rush the officials, instead of
allowing the touchdown, took the ball away from us and gave it to Yale.
They were right, probably quite right, but how could we think so? Yale
at once kicked the ball to the middle of the field well out of danger.
The teams lined up.

"On the very next play, with every man of that splendidly trained Eleven
doing his allotted work, Harold Weekes swept around the end, aided by
the magnificent interference of Jack Wright, which gave him his start.
He ran half the length of the field, through the entire Yale team, and
planted the ball squarely behind the goal posts for the touchdown which
won the game. If we had ever had any doubt that cruel wrong is righted,
that truth and justice must prevail, it was swept away that moment in a
great wave of thanksgiving.

"I shall never forget it--Columbia had beaten Yale! Tears running down
my cheeks, shaken by emotion, I couldn't speak, let alone cheer. My best
girl was with me. She gave one quick half-frightened glance and I
believe almost realized all I felt. She was all gold. I feel now the
timid little pressure on my arm as she tried to help me regain control
of myself. God! why has life so few such moments!"


BEHIND THE SCENES

Let us go into the dressing room of a victorious team, which defeated
Yale at Manhattan Field a good many years ago and let us read with that
great lover of football, the late Richard Harding Davis, as he describes
so wonderfully well some of the unique things that happened in the
celebration of victory.

"People who live far away from New York and who cannot understand from
the faint echoes they receive how great is the enthusiasm that this
contest arouses, may possibly get some idea of what it means to the
contestants themselves through the story of a remarkable incident, that
occurred after the game in the Princeton dressing room. The team were
being rubbed down for the last time and after their three months of
self-denial and anxiety and the hardest and roughest sort of work that
young men are called upon to do, and outside in the semi-darkness
thousands of Princeton followers were jumping up and down and hugging
each other and shrieking themselves hoarse. One of the Princeton coaches
came into the room out of this mob, and holding up his arm for silence
said,

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