Book: Football Days

W >> William H. Edwards >> Football Days




The last half of this game is everlastingly impressed upon my memory.
Every man that played for Princeton, although eight of them were
substitutes, played like a veteran. I shall ever treasure the memory of
the loyal support that those men gave me as captain, and their response
to my appeal to stand together and play not only for Princeton but for
the injured men on the side-lines whose places they had taken.

The Yale team had also heard some words of football wisdom in their
dressing room. Previous encounters with Princeton had taught them that
the Tiger could also rally. They came on the field prepared to fight
harder than ever. McBride and Brown were exhorting their men to do
their utmost.

Princeton was out-rushing Yale but not out-kicking them. Yale knew that
as well as we did.

It was a Yale fumble that gave us the chance we were waiting for. Bill
Roper, who had taken Lew Palmer's place at left end, had his eyes open.
He fell on the ball. Through his vigilance, Princeton got the chance to
score. Now was our chance.

Time was passing quickly. We all knew that something extraordinary would
have to be done to win the day. It remained for Arthur Poe to
crystallize this idea into action. It seemed an inspiration.

"We've got to kick," he said to me, "and I would like to try a goal from
the field. We haven't got much time."

Nobody appreciated the situation more than I did. I knew we would have
to take a chance and there was no one I would have selected for the job
quicker than Arthur Poe. How we needed a touchdown or a goal from the
field!

Poe, Pell and myself were the three members of the original team left.
How the substitutes rallied with us and gave the perfect defence that
made Poe's feat possible is a matter of history. As I looked around from
my position to see that the defensive formation was right, I recall how
small Arthur Poe looked there in the fullback position. Here was a man
doing something we had never rehearsed as a team. But safe and sure the
pass went from Horace Bannard and as Biffy Lea remarked after the game,
"when Arthur kicked the ball, it seemed to stay up in the air about
twenty minutes."

Some people have said that I turned a somersault and landed on my ear,
and collapsed. Anyhow, it all came our way at the end, the ball sailed
over the cross bar. The score then was 11 to 10, and the Princeton stand
let out a roar of triumph that could be heard way down in New Jersey.

There were but thirty-six seconds left for play. Yale made a splendid
supreme effort to score further. But it was futile.

Crowds had left the field before Poe made his great goal kick. They had
accepted a Yale victory as inevitable. Some say that bets were paid on
the strength of this conviction. The Yale _News_, which went to press
five minutes before the game ended, got out an edition stating that Yale
had won. They had to change that story.

During the seconds preceding Poe's kick for a goal I had a queer
obsession. It was a serious matter to me then. I can recall it now with
amusement. "Big" was a prefix not of my own selection. I had never
appreciated its justification, however, until that moment.

Horace Bannard was playing center. I had my left hand clasped under the
elastic in his trouser leg, ready to form a barrier against the Yale
forwards. Brown, Hale and McBride tried to break through to block the
kick. I thought of a million things but most of all I was afraid of a
blocked kick. To be frank, I was afraid I would block it--that Poe
couldn't clear me, that he would kick the ball into me.

[Illustration: AL SHARPE'S GOAL]

I crouched as low as I could, and the more I worried the larger I seemed
to be and I feared greatly for what might occur behind me. It seemed as
if I were swelling up. But finally, as I realized that the ball had gone
over me and was on its way to the goal, I breathed a sigh of relief and
said,

"Thank God, it cleared!"

How eager we were to get that ball, the hard-earned prize, which now
rests in the Princeton gymnasium, a companion ball to the one of the
1898 victory. Yes, it had all been accomplished, and we were happy. New
Haven looked different to us. It was many years since Princeton had sent
Yale down to defeat on Yale Field.

Victory made us forget the sadness of former defeats. It was a joyous
crowd that rode back to the private cars. Varsity players and
substitutes shared alike in the joy, which was unrestrained. We soon had
our clothes changed, and were on our way to New York for the banquet and
celebration of our victory.

Arthur Poe was the lion of the hour. No finer fellow ever received more
just tribute.

It would take a separate volume to describe the incidents of that trip
from New Haven to New York. Before it had ended we realized if we never
had realized it before how sweet was victory, and how worth while the
striving that brought it to us.

Suffice it to say that that Yale football was the most popular
"passenger" on the train. Over and over we played the game and a million
caresses were lavished upon the trophy.

This may seem an excess of sentiment to some, but those who have played
football understand me. Looking back through the retrospect of seventeen
years, I realize that I did not fully understand then the meaning of
those happy moments. I now appreciate that it was simply the deep
satisfaction that comes from having made good--the sense of real
accomplishment.

Enthusiastic Princeton men were waiting for us at the Grand Central
Station. They escorted us to the Murray Hill Hotel, and the wonderful
banquet that awaited us. The spirit of the occasion will be understood
by football players and enthusiasts who have enjoyed similar
experiences.

The members of the team just sat and listened to speeches by the alumni
and coaches. It all seemed too good to be true. When the gathering broke
up, the players became members of different groups, who continued their
celebration in the various ways provided by the hospitality of the great
city.

[Illustration: TOUCHING THE MATCH TO VICTORY]

Hillebrand and I ended the night together. When we awoke in the
morning, the Yale football was there between our pillows, the bandaged
shoulder and collar-bone of Hillebrand nestling close to it.

Then came the home-going of the team to Princeton, and the huge bonfire
that the whole university turned out to build. Some nearby wood yard was
looking the next day for thirty-six cords of wood that had served as the
foundation for the victorious blaze. It was learned afterward that the
owner of the cord-wood had backed the team--so he had no regrets.

The team was driven up in buses from the station. It was a proud
privilege to light the bonfire. Every man on the team had to make a
speech and then we had a banquet at the Princeton Inn. Later in the year
the team was banqueted by the alumni organizations around the country.
Every man had a peck of souvenirs--gold matchsafes, footballs, and other
things. Nothing was too good for the victors. Well, well, "To the
victors belong the spoils." That is the verdict of history.




CHAPTER VI

HEROES OF THE PAST

THE EARLY DAYS


We treasure the memory of the good men who have gone before. This is
true of the world's history, a nation's history, that of a state, and of
a great university. Most true is it of the memory of men of heroic mold.
As schoolboys, our imaginations were fired by the records of the
brilliant achievements of a Perry, a Decatur or a Paul Jones; and, as we
grow older, we look back to those heroes of our boyhood days, and our
hearts beat fast again as we recall their daring deeds and pay them
tribute anew for the stout hearts, the splendid fighting stamina, and
the unswerving integrity that made them great men in history.

In every college and university there is a hall of fame, where the
heroes of the past are idolized by the younger generations. Trophies,
portraits, old flags and banners hang there. Threadbare though they may
be, they are rich in memories. These are, however, only the material
things--"the trappings and the suits" of fame--but in the hearts of
university men the memory of the heroes of the past is firmly and
reverently enshrined. Their achievements are a distinguished part of
the university's history--a part of our lives as university men--and we
are ever ready now to burn incense in their honor, as we were in the old
days to burn bonfires, in celebration of their deeds.

It is well now that we recall some of the men who have stood in the
front line of football; in the making and preservation of the great
game. Many of them have not lived to see the results of their service to
the sport which they deemed to be manly and worth while. It is, however,
because they stood there during days, often full of stress and severe
criticism of the game, staunch and resistless, that football occupies
its present high plane in the athletic world.

It may be that some of their names are not now associated with football.
Some of them are captains of industry. They are in the forefront of
public affairs. Some of them are engaged in the world's work in far-away
lands. But the spirit that these men apply to their life work is the
same spirit that stirred them on the gridiron. Their football training
has made them better able to fight the battle of life.

Men who gave signals, are now directing large industries. Players who
carried the ball, are now carrying trade to the ends of the world. Men
who bucked the line, are forging their way sturdily to the front. Men
who were tackles, are still meeting their opponents with the same
intrepid zeal. The men who played at end in those days, are to-day
seeing that nothing gets around them in the business world. The public
is the referee and umpire. It knows their achievements in the greater
game of life.

It is not my purpose to select an all-star football team from the long
list of heroes past and present. It is not possible to select any one
man whom we can all crown as king. We all have our football idols, our
own heroes, men after whom we have patterned, who were our inspiration.

We can never line up in actual scrimmage the heroes of the past with
those of more recent years. What a treat if this could be arranged!

There are many men I have idolized in football, not only for their
record as players, but for the loyalty and spirit for the game which
they have inspired.


Walter Camp

When I asked Walter Camp to write the introduction to this book, I told
him that as he had written about football players for twenty years it
was up to some one to relate some of _his_ achievements as a football
player. We all know Walter Camp as a successful business man and as a
football genius whose strategy has meant much to Yale. His untiring
efforts, his contributions to the promotion of the best interests of the
game, stand as a brilliant record in the history of football. To give
him his just due would require a special volume. The football world
knows Walter Camp as a thoroughbred, a man who has played the game
fairly, and sees to it that the game is being played fairly to-day.

We have read his books, enjoyed his football stories, and kept in touch
with the game through his newspaper articles. He is the loyal,
ever-present critic on the side lines and the helpful adviser in every
emergency. He has helped to safeguard the good name of football and kept
pace with the game until to-day he is known as the "Father of football."

Let us go back into football history where, in the recollections of
others, we shall see Freshman Camp make the team, score touchdowns, kick
goals and captain Yale teams to victory.

F. R. Vernon, who was a freshman at Yale when Camp was a sophomore,
draws a vivid word picture of Camp in his active football days. Vernon
played on the Yale team with Camp.

"Walter Camp in his football playing days," says Vernon, "was built
physically on field running lines; quick on his legs and with his arms.
His action was easy all over and seemed to be in thorough control from a
well-balanced head, from which looked a pair of exceptionally keen,
piercing, expressive brown eyes.

"Camp was always alert, and seemed to sense developments before they
occurred. One of my chief recollections of Camp's play was his great
confidence with the ball. In his room, on the campus, in the gym',
wherever he was, if possible, he would have a football with him. He
seemed to know every inch of its surface, and it seemed almost as if the
ball knew him. It would stick to his palm, like iron to a magnet.

"In one of his plays, Camp would run down the side of the field, the
ball held far out with one arm, while the other arm was performing
yeoman service in warding off the oncoming tacklers. Frequently he would
pass the ball from one hand to the other, while still running, depending
upon which arm he saw he would need for defense. Smilingly and
confidently, Camp would run the gauntlet of opposing players for many
consecutive gains. I do not recall one instance in which he lost the
ball through these tactics.

"It was a pretty game to play and a pretty game to look at. Would that
the rules could be so worded as to make the football of Camp's time the
football of to-day!

"Walter Camp's natural ability as a football player was recognized as
soon as he entered Yale in 1876. He made the 'varsity at once and played
halfback. It was in the first Harvard football game at Hamilton Park
that the Harvard captain, who was a huge man with a full, bushy beard,
saw Walter Camp, then a stripling freshman in uniform, and remarked to
the Yale Captain:

"'You don't mean to let that child play; he is too light; he will get
hurt.'

"Walter made a mental note of that remark, and during the game the
Harvard captain had occasion to remember it also, when in one of the
plays Camp tackled him, and the two went to the ground with a heavy
thud. As the Harvard captain gradually came to, he remarked to one of
his team mates:

"'Well, that little fellow nearly put me out!'

"Camp's brilliant playing earned him the captaincy of the team in 1878
and 1879. He had full command of his men and was extremely popular with
them, but this did not prevent his being a stickler for discipline.

"In my day on the Yale team with Camp," Vernon states, "Princeton was
our dire opponent. For a week or so before a Princeton game, we all
agreed to stay on the campus and to be in bed every night by eleven
o'clock. Johnny Moorhead, who was one of our best runners, decided one
night to go to the theatre, however, and was caught by Captain Camp,
whereupon we were all summoned out of bed to Camp's room, shortly before
midnight. After the roundup we learned the reason for our unexpected
meeting. There was some discussion in which Camp took very little part.
No one expected that Johnny would receive more than a severe reprimand
and this feeling was due largely to the fact that we needed him in the
game. Imagine our surprise, therefore, when Camp, who had left us for a
moment, returned to the room and handed in his resignation as captain of
the team. We revolted at this. Johnny, who sized up the situation,
rather than have the team lose Camp, decided to quit the team himself.
What occurred the next day between Camp and Johnny Moorhead we never
knew, but Johnny played in the game and squared himself."

Walter Camp's name is coupled with that of Chummy Eaton in football
history. "Eaton was on the left end rush line," says Vernon, "and played
a great game with Camp down the side line. When one was nearly caught
for a down, the other would receive the ball from him on an over-head
throw and proceed with the run. Camp and Eaton would repeat this play,
sending the ball back and forth down the side of the field for great
gains.

"In one of the big games in the fall of 1879, Eaton had a large muscle
in one of his legs torn and had to quit playing for that season." Vernon
was put in Chummy's place. "But I couldn't fill Chummy's shoes," Vernon
acknowledges, "for he and Camp had practiced their beautiful side line
play all the fall.

"The next year Chummy's parents wouldn't let him play, but Chummy was
game--he simply couldn't resist--it was a case of Love Before Duty with
him. He played on the Yale team the next fall, however, but not as
Eaton, and every one who followed football was wondering who that star
player 'Adams' was and where he came from. But those on the inside knew
it was Chummy.

"Frederic Remington," says Vernon, "was a member of our team. We were
close friends and spent many Sunday afternoons on long walks. I can see
him now with his India ink pencil sketching as we went along, and I must
laugh now at the nerve I had to joke him about his efforts.

"Remy was a good football player and one of the best boxers in college.
Dear Old Remy is gone, but he left his mark."

Other men, equally prominent old Yale men tell me, who were on the team
that year were Hull, Jack Harding, Ben Lamb, Bob Watson, Pete Peters and
many others.

Walter Camp, as Yale gridiron stories go, was not only captain of his
team, but in reality also its coach. Perhaps he can be called the
pioneer coach of Yale football. It is most interesting to listen to old
time Yale players relate incidents of the days when they played under
Walter Camp as their captain: how they came to his room by invitation at
night, sat on the floor with their backs to the wall, with nothing in
the center of the room but a regulation football. There they got
together, talked things over, made suggestions and comparisons. And it
is said of Camp that he would do more listening by far than talking.
This was characteristic, for although he knew so much of the game he was
willing to get every point of view and profit by every suggestion.

In 1880 Camp relinquished the captaincy to R. W. Watson. Yale again
defeated Harvard, Camp kicking a goal from placement. Following this
R. W. Watson ran through the entire Harvard team for a touchdown.

Harvard men were greatly pained when Walter Camp played again in 1881.
He should have graduated in 1880. This game was also won by Yale, thus
making the fourth victorious Yale team that Camp played on. This record
has never been equalled. Camp played six years at Yale.

John Harding was another of the famous old Yale stars who played on
Walter Camp's team.

"It is now more than thirty-five years since my days on the football
gridiron," writes Harding. "What little elementary training I got in
football, I attribute to the old game of 'theory,' which for two years
on spring and summer evenings, after supper, we used to play at St.
Paul's School in Concord, N. H., on the athletic grounds near the Middle
School. One fellow would be 'it' as we dashed from one side of the
grounds to the other and when one was trapped he joined the 'its,' until
everybody was caught. I learned there how to dodge, as well as the
rudiments of the necessary football accomplishment of how to fall down
without getting hurt. As a result of this experience, with my chum,
W. A. Peters, when we got down to Yale in the fall of '76, we offered
ourselves as willing victims for the University football team, and with
the result that we both 'made' the freshman team, and had our first
experience in a match game of football against the Harvard freshman at
Boston. I don't remember who won that contest, but I do remember the
University eleven, under Eugene Baker's careful training, beating
Harvard that fall at New Haven and my football enthusiasm being fired up
to a desire to make the team, if it were possible.

"Of course, Walter Camp has for many years, and deservedly so, been
regarded as the father of football at Yale, but in my day, and at least
until Baker left college, he was only an ordinary mortal and a good
halfback. Baker was the unquestioned star and I cannot disabuse my mind
that he was the original football man of Yale, and at least entitled to
the title of 'grandfather' of the game there and it was from him that my
tuition mainly came.

"My impression is that Baker was always for the open running and passing
game and that mass playing and flying wedges and the various refinements
of the game that depended largely on 'beef' were of a later day.

"For four years I played in the rush line with Walter Camp as a
halfback, and for two years, at least, with Hull and Ben Lamb on either
side of me, all of us somehow understanding each other's game and all
being ready and willing to help each other out. Whatever ability and
dexterity I may have developed seemed to show itself at its best when
playing with them and to prove that good team work and 'knowing your
man' wins.

"I got to know Walter Camp's methods and ways of playing, so that,
somehow or other, I could judge pretty well where the ball was going to
drop when he kicked and could navigate myself about so that I was, more
often than any one else on our side, near the ball when it dropped to
the ground, and, if perchance, it happened to be muffed by an opposing
player, which put me 'on side,' the chances of a touchdown, if I got the
ball, were excellent, and Hull and Lamb were somehow on hand to back me
up and were ready to follow me in any direction.

"During my last two years of football the 'rushers' were unanimously of
the opinion that the kicking, dodging and passing open game was the game
we should strive for and that it was the duty of the halfback and backs
to end their runs with a good long punt, wherever possible, and give us
a chance to get under the ball when it came down, while the rest of the
team behind the line were in favor of a running mass play game,
particularly in wet and slippery weather.

"I remember once in my senior year our divergence of views on this
question, about three weeks before the final game, nearly split our
team, and that as a result I nearly received the doubtful honor of
becoming the captain of a defeated Yale team. Camp, fearful of wet
weather and possible snow at the Thanksgiving game, and with Channing,
Eaton and Fred Remington as the heavy Yale ends and everybody 'big' in
the rush line excepting myself, was trying to develop us with as little
kicking as possible, and was sensitive because of the protests from the
rush line that there was no kicking. We were all summoned one evening to
his room in Durfee; the situation explained, together with his
unwillingness to assume the responsibility of captain unless his ideas
were followed; his fear of defeat, if they were not followed, his
willingness to continue on the team as a halfback and to do his best and
his resignation as captain with the suggestion of my taking the
responsibility of the position. Things looked blue for Yale when Walter
walked out of the door, but after some ten minutes' discussion we
decided that the open game was the better, despite Camp's opinion to the
contrary, but that we could not play the open game without Camp as
captain. Some one was sent out to bring Walter back; matters were
smoothed out; we played the open game and never lost a touchdown during
the season. But during the four years I was on the Yale varsity we
never lost but one touchdown, from which a goal was kicked and there
were no goals kicked from the field. This goal was lost to Princeton,
and I think was in the fall of '78, the year that Princeton won the
championship. The two men that were more than anybody else responsible
for the record were Eugene Baker and Walter Camp, but behind it all was
the old Yale spirit, which seems to show itself better on the football
field than in any other branch of athletics."


Theodore M. McNair

On December 19th, 1915, there appeared in the newspapers a notice of the
death of an old Princeton athlete, in Japan--Theodore M. McNair--who,
while unknown to the younger football enthusiasts, was considered a
famous player in his day. To those who saw him play the news brought
back many thrills of his adventures upon the football field. The
following is what an old fellow player has to say about his team mate:

"Princeton has lost one of her most remarkable old time athletes in the
death of Theodore M. McNair of the class of 1879.

"McNair was a classmate of Woodrow Wilson. After his graduation he
became a Presbyterian missionary, a professor in a Tokio college and the
head of the Committee that introduced the Christian hymnal into Japan.

"To old Princeton graduates, however, McNair is known best as a great
football player who was halfback on the varsity three years and was
regarded as a phenomenal dodger, runner and kicker. In the three years
of his varsity experience McNair went down to defeat only once, the
first game in which he appeared as a regular player. The contest was
with Harvard and was played between seasons--April 28th, 1877--at
Cambridge. Harvard won the game by 2 touchdowns to 1 for the Tigers.
McNair made the touchdown for his team. This match is interesting in
that it marked the first appearance of the canvas jacket on the football
field. Smock, one of the Princeton halfbacks, designed such a jacket for
himself and thereafter for many seasons football players of the leading
Eastern colleges adopted the garment because it made tackling more
difficult under the conditions of those days. McNair was of large frame
and fleet of foot. He was especially clever in handling and passing the
ball, which in those days was more of an art than at present. It was not
unusual for the ball to be passed from player to player after a
scrimmage until a touchdown or a field goal was made.

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