Book: Football Days

W >> William H. Edwards >> Football Days




"Murphy's sense of system was wonderful; he was a keen observer and had
a remarkable memory; he seemed to do very little in the way of
bookkeeping, but his mind was carefully pigeon-holed and was a perfect
card index.

"He could have thirty men on the field at once and carry on
conversations with visitors and graduates; issue orders to workmen and
never lose sight of a single one of his men. He was popular wherever he
went. His fame was not only known here, but abroad. His charm of manner
and his cheerful courage will be remembered by all who knew him, but
only those who knew him well realize what an influence he had on the
boys with whom he worked, and how high were his ideals of manhood. The
amount of good done by Mike Murphy in steering boys into the right track
can never be estimated."

Prep' School boys athletically inclined followed Murphy. Many a man went
to college in order to get Murphy's training. He was an athletic magnet.


"The Old Mike"

The town of Natick, Mass., boasts of Mike Murphy's early days. Wonderful
athletic traditions centered there. His early days were eventful for his
athletic success, as he won all kinds of professional prizes for short
distance running. Boyhood friends of Mike Murphy tell of the comradeship
among Mike Murphy, Keene Fitzpatrick, Pooch and Piper Donovan--all
Natick boys. They give glowing accounts of the "truck team" consisting
of this clever quartet, each of whom were "ten-second" men in the
sprinting game.

If that great event which was run off at the Marlboro Fair and Cattle
Show could be witnessed to-day, thousands of admirers would love to see
in action those trainers, see them as the Natick Hose truck defeated
the Westboro team that day, and sent the Westboro contingent home with
shattered hopes and empty pocketbooks.

"In connection with Army-Navy games," writes Crolius of Dartmouth, "I'll
never forget Mike Murphy's wonderful ability to read men's condition by
their 'mental attitude.' He was nearly infallible in his diagnosis."

Once we questioned Mike. He said, "Go get last year's money back, you're
going to lick them!" And true to his uncanny understanding he was right.
Was it any wonder that men gave Murphy the credit due him?

Mike Murphy had a strong influence over the players. He was their
ever-present friend. He could talk to a man, and his personality could
reach farther than any of the coaches. The teams that Murphy talked to
between the halves, both at Yale and Pennsylvania, were always inspired.
Mike Murphy always gave a man something of himself.

It is interesting to read what a fellow trainer, Keene Fitzpatrick, has
to say of Mike:

"Mike first started to train at Yale. Then he went to the Detroit
Athletic Club in Detroit; then he came back to Yale; then he went to the
University of Pennsylvania; then back to Yale again, and finally back to
the University of Penn', where he died.

"We were always great friends and got together every summer; we used to
go up to a little country town, Westboro, on a farm; had a little room
in a farmhouse outside of the town of Natick, and there we used to get
together every year (Mike and Fitz') and share our opinions, and compare
and give each other the benefit of our discoveries of the season's work.

"Murphy was one of the greatest sprinters this world ever had. They
called him 'stucky' because he had so much grit and determination. The
year after Mike died the Intercollegiate was held at Cambridge. All the
trainers got together and a lot of flowers were sent out to Mike's grave
in Hopkinton, Massachusetts."


A CHAT WITH POOCH DONOVAN

Pooch Donovan's success at Harvard goes hand in hand with that of
Haughton.

In the great success of Harvard's Varsity, year after year, the fine
hand of the trainer has been noticeable. Harvard's teams have stood the
test wonderfully well, and all the honors that go with victory have been
heaped upon Pooch Donovan's head.

Every man on the Harvard squad knows that Donovan can get as much work
out of his players as it is possible for any human being to get out of
them. Pooch Donovan served at Yale in 1888, 1889 and 1890, when Mike
Murphy was trainer there. He and Donovan used to have long talks
together and they were ever comparing notes on the training of varsity
teams. Pooch Donovan owes much to Mike Murphy, and the latter was
Pooch's loyal supporter.

"What made Mike Murphy a sturdy man, was that he was such a hard
loser--he could not stand to lose," says Donovan.

"You know the thing that keeps me young is working shoulder to shoulder
with these young fellows." This to me, in the dressing-room, where we
have no time for anything but cold truths. "It was the same thing that
kept Mike Murphy going ten years after the doctors said he would soon be
all in. That was when he returned to Yale, after he had been at
Pennsylvania. There is something about this sort of work that
invigorates us and keeps us young. I'm no longer a young man in years,
but it is the spirit and inspiration of youth with which this work
identifies me that keeps me really young."

When I asked Pooch about Eddie Mahan's great all-around ability, his
face lighted up, and I saw immediately that what I had heard was
true--that Donovan simply idolized Eddie Mahan. Mahan lives in Natick,
Massachusetts, where Donovan also has his home. He has seen Ned Mahan
grow to manhood. Mahan had his first football training as a player on
the Natick High School team.

"Ned Mahan," said Pooch, "was the best all-around football man I have
ever handled. He was easy to handle, eager to do as he was told, and he
never caused the trainer any worry. Up to the very last moment he
played, he was eager to learn everything he could that would improve his
game. He had lots of football ability.

"You know Mahan was a great star at Andover. He kicked wonderfully there
and was good in all departments of the game, and he improved a hundred
per cent. after he came to Harvard."

Pooch Donovan told me about the first day that Eddie Mahan came out upon
the Harvard field. At Cambridge, little is known by the head coach about
a freshman's ability. One day Haughton said to Pooch Donovan:

"Where is that Natick friend of yours? Bring him over to the Stadium and
let's see him kick."

Donovan got Mahan and Haughton said to Mahan:

"Let's see you kick."

Mahan boosted the ball seventy yards, and Haughton said:

"What kind of a kick is that?"

Mahan thought it was a great kick.

"How do you think any ends can cover that?" said Haughton.

Mahan thereupon kicked a couple more, low ones, but they went about as
far.

"Who told you _you_ could kick?" quoth Haughton. "You must kick high
enough for your ends to cover the distance."

"Take it easy and don't get excited," Donovan was whispering to Mahan
on the side. "Take your time, Ned."

But Mahan continued kicking from bad to worse. Haughton was getting
disgusted, and finally remarked:

"Your ends never can cover those punts."

Mahan then kicked one straight up over his head, and the first word ever
uttered by him on the Harvard field, was his reply to Haughton:

"I guess almost any end can cover _that_ punt," he said.

Donovan tells me that he used to carry in his pocket a few blank
cartridges for starting sprinters. Sitting on a bench with some friends,
on Soldiers' Field, one day he reached into his hip pocket for some
loose tobacco. Unconsciously he stuffed into the heel of his pipe a
blank cartridge that had become mixed with the tobacco. The gun club was
practicing within hearing distance of the field. As Donovan lighted his
pipe the cartridge went off. He thought he was shot. Leaping to his feet
he ran down the field, his friends after him.

"I was surprised at my own physical condition--at my being able to stand
so well the shock of being shot," says Donovan in telling the story. "My
friends thought also that I was shot. But when I slowed up, still
bewildered, and they caught up with me, they were puzzled to see my face
covered with powder marks and a broken pipe stem sticking out of my
mouth.

"Not until then did any of us realize what had really happened. The
cartridge had grazed my nose slightly, but outside of that I was all
right. Since then I am very careful what I put in my tobacco."

Eddie is known as "Pooch Donovan's pet." Probably the bluest time that
Donovan ever had--in fact, he says it was the bluest--was when Eddie
Mahan had an off-day in the Stadium. That was the day when Cornell beat
Harvard. Mahan himself says it was the worst day he ever had in his
life, and he blames himself.

"It was just as things will come sometimes," Pooch said to me. "Nobody
knows why they will come, but come they will once in a while."

"Burr, the great Harvard captain," said Pooch, "was a natural born
leader of men. He knew a lot of football and Haughton thought the world
of him. Burr went along finely until the last week of the season. Then,
in falling on the ball, he bruised his shoulder, and would not allow
himself to go into the Yale game. It was really this display of good
judgment on his part that enabled Harvard to win.

"Too often a team has been handicapped by the playing of a crippled
veteran. As a matter of fact, the worst kind of a substitute is often
better than a crippled player. The fact that the great captain, Burr,
stood on the side lines while his team was playing, urged his team mates
on to greater efforts.

"In this same game the opposite side of this question was demonstrated.
Bobbie Burch, the Yale captain, who had been injured the week before the
game, was put in the game. His injury handicapped the Yale team
considerably."

Pooch Donovan has been eight years at Harvard. He has five gold
footballs, which he prizes and wears on his watch chain. During the
eight years there have been five victories over Yale, two ties and one
defeat. Pooch has been a football player himself and the experience has
made him a better trainer.

In 1895 he played on Temple's team of the Duquesne Athletic Club. He was
trainer and halfback, and was very fond of the game. Later on he played
in Cleveland against the Chicago Athletic Club, on whose team played
Heffelfinger, Sport Donnelly, and other famous knights of the gridiron.

"In the morning we did everything we could to make the stay of the
visiting team pleasant," says Donovan, regarding those days, "but in the
afternoon it was different, and in the midst of the game a fellow
couldn't help wondering how men could be so nice to each other in the
morning and so rough in the afternoon."

Pooch Donovan cannot say enough in favor of Doctor E. H. Nichols, the
doctor for the Harvard team. Pooch's judgment is endorsed by many a
Harvard man that I have talked to.


Keene Fitzpatrick

When Biffy Lea was coaching at the University of Michigan in 1901, it
was my opportunity and privilege to see something of Western football. I
was at Ann Arbor assisting Lea the last week before Michigan played
Chicago. Michigan was defeated. That night at a banquet given to the
Michigan team, there arose a man to respond to a toast.

His words were cheering to the men and roused them out of the gloom of
despair and defeat to a strong hope for the coming year. That man was
Keene Fitzpatrick. I had heard much about him, but now that I really had
come to meet him I realized what a magnetic man he was.

He knew men and how to get the best out of them. Fitzpatrick went from
Michigan to Yale, from Yale back to Michigan, and then to Princeton,
where Princeton men hope he will always stay.

Michigan admirers were loath to lose Fitzpatrick and their tribute to
him on leaving was as follows:

"The University of Michigan combination was broken yesterday when Keene
Fitzpatrick announced that he had accepted Princeton's offer, to take
effect in the fall of 1910. He was trainer for Michigan for 15 years.
For five years Fitz' has been sought by every large university in the
East.

"What was Michigan's loss, was Princeton's gain. He made men better,
not alone physically, but morally. His work has been uplifting along all
lines of university activities. In character and example he is as great
and untiring as in his teaching and precept. The final and definite
knowledge of his determination to leave Michigan is a severe blow to the
students all of whom know and appreciate his work. Next to President
Angell, no man of the University of Michigan, in the last ten years, has
exerted a more wholesome influence upon the students than has Keene
Fitzpatrick. His work brought him in close touch with the students and
his influence over them for good has been wonderful. He is a man of
ideals and clean life."

"To 'Fitz,' as the boys called him, as much as to the great coach Yost
is due Michigan's fine record in football. His place will be hard to
fill. Fitz has aided morally in placing athletics on a high plane and in
cultivating a fine spirit of sportsmanship. He was elected an honorary
member of the class of 1913 at Princeton. The Secretary of the class
wrote him a letter in which he said: 'The senior class deeply
appreciates your successful efforts, and in behalf of the University
takes this opportunity of expressing its indebtedness to you for the
valuable results which you have accomplished.'"

Yost had a high opinion of Fitzpatrick.

"Fitz and I worked together for nine years," writes Yost. "We were like
brothers during that association at Michigan. There is no one person
who contributed so much to the University of Michigan as this great
trainer. His wonderful personality, his expert assistance and that great
optimism of his stood out as his leading qualifications. My association
with him is one of the pleasantest recollections of my life. He put the
men in shape, trained them and developed them. They were 'usable' all
the time. He is a trainer who has his men in the finest mental condition
possible. I don't think there was ever a trainer who kept men more fit,
physically and mentally, than Keene Fitzpatrick."

There were in Michigan two players, brothers, who were far apart in
skill. Keene says one was of varsity calibre, but wanted his brother,
too, to make the Eleven. "Once," says Keene, "when we were going on a
trip, John, who was a better player, said, 'I will not go if Joe cannot
go,' so in order to get John, we had to take Joe."

Fitzpatrick tells of an odd experience in football. "In 1901 Michigan
went out to Southern California and played Leland Stanford University at
Pasadena, January 1. When the Michigan team left Ann Arbor for
California in December, it was 12 deg. below zero and when they played on
New Year's it was 80 deg. at 3 P. M."

Stanford was supposed to have a big advantage due to the climate.
Michigan won by a score of 49 to 0. Michigan used but eleven men in the
game, and it was their first scrimmage since Thanksgiving Day. A funny
thing happened en route to Pasadena.

"Every time the train stopped," said Keene, "we hustled the men out to
give them practice running through signals and passing the ball.
Everything went well until we arrived in Ogden, Utah. We hustled the men
out as usual for a work-out, and in less than two minutes the men were
all in, lying down on the ground, gasping for breath. We could not
understand what was wrong, until some one came along and reminded us
that we were in a very high altitude and that it affected people who
were not accustomed to it. We all felt better when we received that
information."


Michael J. Sweeney

There are few trainers in our prep. schools who can match the record of
Mike Sweeney. He has been an important part of the Hill School's
athletics for years. Many of the traditions of this school are grouped,
in fact, about his personality. Hill School boys are loud in their
praises of Sweeney's achievements. He always had a strong hold on the
students there. He has given many a boy words of encouragement that have
helped him on in the school, and this same boy has come back to him in
after life to get words of advice.

Many colleges tried to sever his connection with Hill School. I know
that at one time Princeton was very anxious to get Sweeney's services.
He was happy at Hill School, however, and decided to stay. It was there
at Hill School that Sweeney turned out some star athletes. Perhaps one
of the most prominent was Tom Shevlin. Sweeney saw great possibilities
in Shevlin. He taught him the fundamentals that made Shevlin one of the
greatest ends that ever played at Yale. He typified Sweeney's ideal
football player. Shevlin never lost an opportunity to express
appreciation of what Sweeney had done for him.

Tom gave all credit for his athletic ability to Mike Sweeney of Hill and
Mike Murphy of Yale. His last desire for Yale athletics was to bring
Sweeney to Yale and have him installed, not as a direct coach or trainer
of any team, but more as a general athletic director, connected with the
faculty, to advise and help in all branches of college sport.

Tom Shevlin idolized Sweeney. Those who were at the banquet of the 1905
team at Cambridge will recall the tribute that Shevlin then paid to him.
He declared that he regarded Sweeney as "the world's greatest brain on
all forms of athletics."

Whenever Mike Sweeney puts his heart into his work he is one of the most
completely absorbed men I know.

Sweeney possesses an uncanny insight into the workings of the games and
individuals. Oftentimes as he sits on the side lines he can foretell an
accident coming to a player.

Mike was sitting on the Yale side lines one day, and remarked to Ed
Wylie, a former Hill School player--a Yale substitute at that time:

"They ought to take Smith out of the game; he shows signs of weakening.
You'd better go tell the trainer to do it."

But before Wylie could get to the trainer, several plays had been run
off and the man who had played too long received an injury, and was done
for. Sweeney's predictions generally ring true.

It is rather remarkable, and especially fortunate that a prep. school
should have such an efficient athletic director. For thirteen years
Sweeney acted in that capacity and coached all the teams. He taught
other men to teach football.


Jack Moakley

Had any one gone to Ithaca in the hope of obtaining the services of Jack
Moakley, the Cornell trainer, he would have found this popular trainer's
friends rising up and showing him the way to the station, because there
never has been a human being who could sever the relations between Jack
Moakley and Cornell.

The record he has made with his track teams alone entitles him to a high
place, if not the highest place, on the trainer's roll of honor. To tell
of his achievements would fill an entire chapter, but as we are
confining ourselves to football, his work in this department of Cornell
sports stands on a par with any football trainer.

Jack Moakley takes his work very seriously and no man works any harder
on the Cornell squad than does their trainer. Costello, a Cornell
captain of years ago, relates the following incident:

"Jack Moakley had a man on his squad who had a great habit of digging up
unusual fads, generally in the matter of diet. At this particular time
he had decided to live solely on grape nuts. As he was one of the best
men on the team, Jack did not burden himself with trouble over this fad,
although at several times Moakley told him that he might improve if he
would eat some real food. However, when this man started a grape nut
campaign among the younger members of the squad he aroused Jack's ire
and upon his arrival at the field house he wiped the black board clean
of all instructions and in letters a foot high wrote:

"They who eat beef are beefy."
"They who eat nuts are nutty."

The resultant kidding finally made the old beefsteak popular with our
friend.


Johnny Mack

It would not seem natural if one failed to see Johnny Mack on the side
lines where Yale is playing. In eleven years at New Haven Yale teams
were never criticised on account of their condition. The physical
condition of the Yale team has always been left entirely in Johnny
Mack's hands, and the hard contests that they went through in the season
of 1915 were enough to worry any trainer. Johnny Mack was always
optimistic.

There is much humor in Johnny Mack. It is amusing to hear Johnny tell of
the experience that he and Pooch Donovan had in a Paris restaurant, and
I'm sure you can all imagine the rest. Johnny said they got along pretty
well with their French until they ordered potatoes and the waiters
brought in a peck of peas.

It is a difficult task for a trainer to tell whether a player is fully
conscious of all that is going on in a game. Sometimes a hard tackle or
a blow on the head will upset a man. Johnny Mack tells a story that
illustrates this fact:

"There was a quarterback working in the game one day. I thought he was
going wrong. I said to the coach: 'I think something has happened to our
quarterback.' He told me to go out and look him over. I went out and
called the captain to one side after I had permission from the Referee.
I asked him if he thought the quarterback was going right. He replied
that he thought he was, but called out some signals to him to see if he
knew them. The quarter answered the captain's questions after a fashion
and the captain was satisfied, but, just the same, he didn't look good
to me. I asked the captain to let me give him a signal; one we never
used, and one the captain did not even know.

"Said I, 'What's this one--48-16-32-12?'

"'That's me through the right end,' he said.

"'Not on your life, old man,' said I, 'that's you and me to the side
lines!'

"I remember one fall," says Johnny, "when we were very shy on big
material at Yale. The coaches told me to take a walk about the campus
and hunt up some big fellows who might possibly come out for football.
While going along the Commons at noon, the first fellow I met was a big,
fine looking man, a 210 pounder at least, with big, broad shoulders. I
stopped him and asked if he had ever played football.

"'Yes,' he said, 'I played a little at school. I'll come out next week.'
I told him not to bother about next week, but to come out that
afternoon--that I'd meet him at the gym' at one o'clock and have some
clothes for him. He came at one o'clock and I told one of the rubbers to
have some clothes ready. When I came back at 1:30 and looked around I
couldn't recognize him. 'Where in the world is my big fellow?' I said to
Jim the rubber.

"'Your big fellow? Why, he just passed you,' said Jim.

"'No,' said I, 'that can't be the man; that must be some consumptive.'

"'Just the same, that's your big fellow in his football suit,' said
Jim. 'The biggest part of him is hanging up in there on a nail.'

"_Some_ tailors, these fellows have nowadays."

Johnny Mack further tells of an amusing incident in Foster Sanford's
coaching.

"At early practice in New Haven Sanford was working the linemen," says
Johnny. "He picked a green, husky looking boy out of the line of
candidates and was soon playing against him. He didn't know who Sandy
was, and believe me, Sandy was handling him pretty rough to see what he
was made of. The first thing you know the fellow was talking to himself
and, when Sandy was careless, suddenly shot over a stiff one on Sandy's
face and yelled:

"'I'm going to have you know that no man's going to push _me_ around
this field.'

"Sandy was happy as could be. He patted the chap on the back and roared,
'Good stuff; you're all right. You're the kind of a man I want. We can
use men like you!'

"But Foster Sanford was not the only old-timer who could take the young
ones' hard knocks," says Johnny. "I've seen Heffelfinger come back to
Yale Field after being out of college twenty years and play with the
scrubs for fifty-five minutes without a layoff! I never saw a man with
such endurance.

"Ted Coy was a big, good-natured fellow. He was never known to take time
out in a game in the four years he played football. In his senior year
he didn't play until the West Point game. While West Point was putting
it all over us, Coy was on the side lines, frantically running up and
down. But we had strict instructions from the doctor not to play him, no
matter what happened.

"Suddenly Coy said: 'Johnny, let me in. I'm not going to have my team
licked by this crowd.' And in he jumped.

"I saw him call Philbin up alongside of him and the first thing I knew I
saw Philbin and Coy running up the field like a couple of deer. In just
three plays they took the ball from our own 5-yard line to a touchdown.
After that there was a different spirit in the team. Coy was an
inspiration to his players."

"One more story," says Johnny.

"There were two boys at New Haven. Their first names were Jack, and both
were substitutes on the scrub. About the middle of the second half in
the Harvard game, the coach told me to go and warm up Jack. One of the
Jacks jumped up, while the other Jack sank back on the bench with
surprise and sorrow on his face. Seeing that a mistake had been made, I
said, 'Not you, but _you_, Jack,' and pointed to the other. As the right
Jack jumped up, the cloudy face turned to sunshine, as only a football
player can imagine, and the sunny smile of the first Jack turned to
deepest gloom, an affecting sight I shall never forget."

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.