Book: Football Days

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"Walter Camp was one of McNair's Yale adversaries. They had many punting
duels in the big games at St. George's Cricket Grounds, Hoboken, but
Camp never had the satisfaction of sending McNair off the field with a
beaten team."


Alexander Moffat

Every football enthusiast who saw Alex Moffat play had the highest
respect for his ability in the game. Alex Moffat was typically
Princetonian. His interest in the game was great, and he was always
ready to give as much time as was needed to the coaching of the
Princeton teams. His hard, efficient work developed remarkable kickers.
He loved the game and was a cheerful, encouraging and sympathetic coach.
From a man of his day I have learned something about his playing, and
together we can read of this great all-round athlete.

Alex Moffat was so small when he was a boy that he was called
"Teeny-bits." He was still small in bone and bulk when he entered
Princeton. Alex had always been active in sport as a boy. Small as he
was, he played a good game of baseball and tennis and he distinguished
himself by his kicking in football before he was twelve years of age.
The game was then called Association Football, and kicking formed a
large part of it. At an early age, he became proficient in kicking with
right or left foot. When he was fifteen he created a sensation over at
the Old Seminary by kicking the black rubber Association football clear
over Brown Hall. That was kick enough for a boy of fifteen with an old
black, rubber football. If anybody doubts it, let him try to do the
trick.

[Illustration:

Wanamaker Belknap Finney Travers Harlan
Kennedy Lamar Bird Kimball De Camp
Baker Alex Moffat Harris

ALEX MOFFAT AND HIS TEAM]

The Varsity team of Princeton in the fall of '79 was captained by Bland
Ballard of the class of '80. He had a bunch of giants back of him. There
were fifteen on the team in those days, and among them were such men as
Devereaux, Brotherlin, Bryan, Irv. Withington, and the mighty McNair.
The scrub team player at that time was pretty nearly any chap that was
willing to take his life in his hands by going down to the field and
letting those ruthless giants step on his face and generally muss up his
physical architecture.

When Alex announced one day that he was going to take a chance on the
scrub team, his friends were inclined to say tenderly and regretfully,
"Good night, sweet prince." But Alex knew he was there with the kick,
whether it came on the left or right, and he made up his mind to have a
go with the canvas-backed Titans of the Varsity team. One fond friend
watching Alex go out on the field drew a sort of consolation from the
observation that "perhaps Alex was so small the Varsity men wouldn't
notice him." But Alex soon showed them that he was there. He got in a
punt that made Bland Ballard gasp. The big captain looked first at the
ball, way up in the air, then looked at Alex and he seemed to say as the
Scotsman said when he compared the small hen and the huge egg, "I hae me
doots. It canna be."

After that the Varsity men took notice of Alex. When the ball was
passed back to him next the regulars got through the scrub line so fast
that Alex had to try for a run. Bland Ballard caught him up in his arms,
and finding him so light and small, spared himself the trouble of
throwing him down. Ballard simply sank down on the ground with Alex in
his arms and began rolling over and over with him towards the scrub
goal. Alex cried "Down! Down!" in a shrill, treble voice that brought an
exclamation from the side line. "It's a shame to do it. Bland Ballard is
robbing the cradle."

Such was Alex Moffat in the fall of '79, still something of the
"Teeny-bits" that he was in early boyhood. In two years Alex's name was
on the lips of every gridiron man in the country, and in his senior
year, as captain, he performed an exploit in goal kicking that has never
been equalled.

In the game with Harvard in the fall of '83, he kicked five goals, four
being drop kicks and one from a touchdown. His drop kicks were all of
them long and two of them were made with the left foot. Alex grew in
stature and in stamina and when he was captain he was regarded as one of
the most brilliant fullbacks that the game had ever known. He never was
a heavy man, but he was swift and slippery in running, a deadly tackler,
and a kicker that had not his equal in his time.

Alex remained prominent in football activity until his death in 1914.
He served in many capacities, as member of committees, as coach, as
referee and as umpire. He was a man of happy and sunny nature who made
many friends. He loved life and made life joyous for those who were with
him. He was idolized at Princeton and his memory is treasured there now.


Wyllys Terry

One of the greatest halfbacks that ever played for Yale is Wyllys Terry,
and it is most interesting to hear this player of many years ago tell of
some of his experiences. Terry says:

"It has been asked of me who were the great players of my time. I can
only say, judging from their work, that they were all great, but if I
were compelled to particularize, I should mention the names of Tompkins,
Peters, Hull, Beck, Twombly, Richards; in fact, I would have to mention
each team year by year. To them I attribute the success of Yale's
football in my time, and for many years after that to the unfailing zeal
and devotion of Walter Camp.

"There were no trainers, coaches, or rubbers at that time. The period of
practice was almost continuous for forty-five minutes. It was the idea
in those days that by practice of this kind, staying power and ability
would be brought out. The principal points that were impressed upon the
players were for the rushers to tackle low and follow their man.

"This was to them practically a golden text. The fact that a man was
injured, unless it was a broken bone, or the customary badly sprained
ankle, did not relieve a man from playing every day.

"It was the spirit, though possibly a crude one, that only those men
were wanted on the team who could go through the battering of the game
from start to finish.

"The discipline of the team was rigorous; men were forced to do as they
were told. If a man did not think he was in any condition to play he
reported to the captain. These reports were very infrequent though, for
I know in my own case, the first time I reported, I was so lame I could
hardly put one foot before the other, but was told to take a football
and run around the track, which was a half mile long and encircled the
football field. On my return I was told to get back in my position and
play. As a result, there were very few players who reported injuries to
the captain.

"This, when you figure the manner in which teams are coached to-day, may
appear brutal and a waste of good material, but as a matter of fact, it
was not. It made the teams what they were in those days--strong, hard
and fast.

"As to actual results under this policy, I can only say that, during my
period in college, we never lost a game.

"Training to-day is quite different. I think more men are injured
nowadays than in my time under our severe training. I think further that
this softer training is carried to an extreme, and that the football
player of to-day has too much attention paid to his injury, and what he
has to say, and the trainer, doctors and attendants are mostly
responsible for having the players incapacitated by their attention.

"The spirit of Yale in my day, a spirit which was inculcated in our
minds in playing games, was never to let a member of the opposing team
think he could beat you. If you experienced a shock or were injured and
it was still possible to get back to your position either in the line or
backfield--get there at once. If you felt that your injury was so severe
that you could not get back, report to your captain immediately and
abide by his decision, which was either to leave the field or go to your
position.

"It may be said by some of the players to-day that the punts in those
days were more easily caught than those of to-day. There is nothing to a
remark like that. The spiral kick was developed in the fall of '82, and
I know that both Richards and myself knew the fellow who developed it.
From my experience in the Princeton game I can testify that Alex Moffat
was a past master at it.

"One rather amusing thing I remember hearing years ago while standing
with an old football player watching a Princeton game. The ball was
thrown forward by the quarterback, which was a foul. The halfback, who
was playing well out, dashed in and caught the ball on the run, evaded
the opposing end, pushed the half back aside and ran half the length of
the field, scoring a touchdown. The applause was tremendous. But the
Umpire, who had seen the foul, called the ball back. A fair spectator
who was standing in front of me, asked my friend why the ball was called
back. My friend remarked: 'The Princeton player has just received an
encore, that's all.'

"While the game was hard and rough in the early days, yet I consider
that the discipline and the training which the men went through were of
great assistance to them, physically, morally and intellectually, in
after years. Some of the pleasantest friendships that I hold to-day were
made in connection with my football days, among the graduates of my own
and other colleges.

"When fond parents ask the advisability of letting their sons play
football, I always tell them of an incident at the Penn-Harvard game at
Philadelphia, one year, which I witnessed from the top of a coach. A
young girl was asked the question:

"'If you were a mother and had a son, would you allow him to play
football?'

"The young lady thought for a moment and then answered in this spirited,
if somewhat devious, fashion:

"'If I were a son and had a mother, _you bet I'd play!_'"


Memories of John C. Bell

In my association with football, among the many friendships I formed, I
prize none more highly than that of John C. Bell, whose activity in
Pennsylvania football has been kept alive long since his playing day.
Let us go back and talk the game over with him.

"I played football in my prep. school days," he says, "and on the
'Varsity teams of the University of Pennsylvania in the years
'82-'83-'84. After graduation, following a sort of nominating mass
meeting of the students, I was elected to the football committee of the
University, about 1886, and served as chairman of that committee until
1901; retiring that season when George Woodruff, after a term of ten
years, terminated his relationship as coach of our team.

"I also served, as you know, as a representative of the University on
the Football Rules Committee from about 1886 until the time I was
appointed Attorney General in 1911.

"More pleasant associations and relationships I have never had than
those with my fellow-members of that Committee in the late '80's and the
'90's, including Camp of Yale; Billy Brooks, Bert Waters, Bob Wrenn and
Percy Haughton of Harvard; Paul Dashiell of Annapolis; Tracy Harris,
Alex Moffat and John Fine of Princeton; and Professor Dennis of
Cornell. Later the Committee, as you know, was enlarged by the admission
of representatives from the West; and among them were Alonzo Stagg, of
Chicago University, and Harry Williams of Minnesota. Finer fellows I
have never known; they were one and all Nature's noblemen.

"Some of them, alas! like Alex Moffat, have gone to the Great Beyond.
Representing rival universities, between whose student bodies and some
of whose alumni, partisan feeling ran high in the '90's, nothing,
however, save good fellowship and good cheer ever existed between Alex
and me.

"I am genuinely glad that I played the game with my team-mates;
witnessed for many years nearly all the big games of the eastern
colleges; mingled season after season with the players and the
enthusiastic alumni of the competing universities in attendance at the
annual matches; sat and deliberated each recurring year, as I have said,
with those fine fellows who made and amended the rules, and in this way
helped to develop the game, the manliest of all our sports; and that I
have thus breathed, recreated and been invigorated in a football
atmosphere every autumn for more than a third of a century. Growing
older every year, one still remains young--as young in heart and spirit
as when he donned the moleskins, and caught and kicked and carried the
ball himself. And all these football experiences make one a happier,
stronger and more loyal man.

"I remember in my prep. school days playing upon a team made up largely
of high school boys. One game stands out in my recollection. It was
against the Freshmen team of the University of Pennsylvania, captained
by Johnny Thayer who went down with the _Titanic_.

"Arriving after the game had started, I came out to the side-lines and
called to the captain asking whether I was to play. He glowered at me
and made no answer. A few minutes later our 'second captain' called to
me to come into the game, saying that Smith was only to play until I
arrived. Quick as a flash I stepped into the field of play, and almost
instantly Thayer kicked the ball over the rush line and it came bounding
down right into my arm. Off I went like a flash through the line, past
the backs and fullbacks, only to be over-taken within a few yards of the
goal. The teams lined up, and thereupon Thayer, with his eagle eye
looking us over, called out to our captain 'how many fellows are you
playing anyway?' Instantly our captain ordered Smith off the field
saying 'you were only to play until Bell came,' and poor Smith left
without any audible murmur. This is what might be called one of the
accidents of the game.

"Perhaps the most memorable game in which I played was against Harvard
in 1884 when Pennsylvania won upon Forbes Field by the score of 4 to 0.
It was our first victory over the Crimson, not to be repeated again
until the memorable game of 1894, which triumph was again repeated,
after still another decade, in our great victory of 1904. This last
victory came after five years of continuing defeats, and I remember that
we were all jubilant when we heard the news from Cambridge. I recall
that Dr. J. William White, C. S. Packard and I were playing golf at the
Country Club and when some one brought out the score to us we dropped
our clubs, clasped hands and executed an Indian dance, shouting "Rah!
rah! rah! Pennsylvania!" Why, old staid philosopher, should the leading
surgeon of the city, the president of its oldest and largest trust
company, and the district attorney of Philadelphia, thus jump for joy
and become boys once more?

"Recurring to the game of 1884 I can hear the cheers of the University
still ringing in my ears when we returned from Harvard. A few weeks
later our team went up to Princeton to see the Harvard-Princeton match
and I recall, as though it were yesterday, Alex Moffat kicking five
goals against Appleton's team, three of them with the right and two with
the left foot. No other player I ever knew or heard of was so
ambipedextrous (if I may use the word) as Alex Moffat. I remember
walking in from the field with Harvard's captain, and he said to me
'Moffat is a phenomenon.' Truly he was."




CHAPTER VII

HEROES OF THE PAST--GEORGE WOODRUFF'S STORY


Enthusiastic George Woodruff tells of his football experiences in the
following words:

"I went to Yale a green farmer boy who had never heard of the college
game of football until I arrived at New Haven to take my examinations in
the fall of '85. Incidentally I made the team permanently the second day
I was on the field, having scored against the varsity from the middle of
the field in three successive runs; whereas the varsity was not able to
score against the scrub. I was used perhaps more times than any other
man in running with the ball up to a very severe injury to my knee in
the fall of '87, just a week and a day before the Princeton game, from
which time, until I left college (although I played in all of the
championship games) I was not able to run with the ball, actually being
on the field only two days after my injury in '87 until the end of the
'88 season, outside of the days on which I played the games. I tried not
to play in the fall of '88 because of the condition of my knee and
because I was Captain of the Crew, but Pa Corbin insisted that I must
play in the championship games or he would not row: and of course I
acceded to his wishes thereby secretly gratifying my own.

"And now about the men with whom I played: Kid Wallace played end the
entire four years. Wallace was a great amusement and comfort to his
fellow-players on account of his general desire to put on the appearance
of a 'tough' of the worst description; whereas he was at heart a very
fine and gallant gentleman.

"Pudge Heffelfinger played the other guard from me in my last year and
when he first appeared on the Yale field he was a ridiculous example of
a raw-boned Westerner, being 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing only
about 178 pounds. During the season, however, the exercise and good food
at the training table caused Heffelfinger to gain 25 pounds of solid
bone, sinew and muscle. The green days of his first year in 1888 were
remembered against him in an affectionate way by the use of Yale for
several years of 'Pa' Corbin's oft reiterated expression brought forth
by Pudge's greenness, which would cause 'Pa' to exclaim: 'Darn you,
Heffelfinger!' with great emphasis on the 'Darn.'

"Billy Graves played on the team during most of these years, he being
the most graceful football runner I have ever seen, unless it were
Stevenson of Pennsylvania.

"Lee McClung was a harder worker in his running than most of the men
named above, but tremendously effective. He is accredited with being the
first man who intentionally started as though to make an end run and
then turned diagonally back through the line, in order to open up the
field through which he then ran with incredible speed and determination.
This was one of the first premeditated plays of a trick nature which
ultimately led to my invention of the delayed pass which works upon the
same principle only with incalculably greater ease and effect.

"The game with Princeton in the Fall of 1885 clings to my memory beyond
any other game I ever played in, because it was the first real
championship game of my career, and I had not as yet fully developed
into an actual player. The loss of this game to Princeton in the last
six minutes of playing because of the Lamar run--Yale had Princeton 5 to
0--has been a nightmare to most of the Yale players ever since. I
attribute the fact that Yale only had five points to two hard-luck
facts.

"Through my own intensity at the beginning of the game I over-ran Harry
Beecher on my first signal, causing the signal giver to think that I was
rattled so that, although I afterward ran with the ball some 25 or 30
times with consistent gains of from 2 to 5 yards under the almost
impossible conditions known as the 'punt rush,' the signal for my
regular play was not given again in spite of the fact that my ground
gaining had been one of the steadiest features of the Yale play
throughout the year, and because Watkinson was allowed to try five times
in succession for goals from the field, close up, only one of which he
made; whereas Billy Bull could probably have made at least three out of
the five; but of course Bull's ability was not so well-known then. The
direct cause of the Lamar run was due to the fact that all the fast
runners and good tacklers of the Yale line were down the field under a
kick, so close to Toler, the other halfback from Lamar, that when Toler
muffed the ball so egregiously that it bounded over our heads some 15
yards, Lamar who had not come across the field to back Toler up, had
been able to get the ball on the bound and on the dead run, thus having
in front of him all the Princeton team except Toler; whereas the Yale
team was depleted by the fact that Wallace, Corwin, Gill (who had come
on as a substitute) myself and even Harry Beecher from quarterback, had
run down the field to within a few yards of Toler before he muffed the
ball. We all turned and watched Lamar run, being so petrified that not
one of us took a step, and, although the scene is photographed on my
memory, I cannot see one of all the Yale players making a tackle at
Lamar. Hodge, the Princeton quarterback, kicked the goal, thus making
the score 6 to 5 and winning the game. The outburst from the Princeton
contingent at the end of the game was one of the most heartfelt and
spontaneous I have ever heard or seen. I understand that practically all
of Lamar's uniform was torn into pieces and handed out to the various
Princeton girls and their escorts who had come to New Haven to see the
game.

"The Yale-Princeton game in the fall of 1886 was a remarkable as well as
a disagreeable one. We played at Princeton when the field at that time
combined the elements of stickiness and slipperiness to an unbelievable
extent. It rained heavily throughout the game and the proverbial 'hog on
ice' could not have slipped and slathered around worse than all the
players on both sides. There was a long controversy about who should act
as referee (in those days we had only one official) and after a delay of
about an hour from the time the game should have begun, Harris, a
Princeton man, was allowed to do the officiating. Bob Corwin, who was
end-rush, only second to Wallace in his ability, was captain of the
team.

"Yale made one touchdown which seemed to be perfectly fair but which was
disallowed; and later, in the second half, Watkinson for Yale kicked the
ball so that it rolled across the goal line, whereupon a crowd, which
was standing around the ropes (in those days there was practically no
grandstand) crowded onto the field where Savage, the Princeton fullback
had fallen on the ball. The general report is that Kid Wallace held
Savage while Corwin pulled the slippery ball away from him, and that
when Harris, the referee, was able to dig his way through the crowd he
found Corwin on the ball, and in view of the great fuss that had been
made about his previous decision, was not able to credit Savage's
statement that he (Savage) had said 'down' long before the Yale ends had
been able to pull the ball away from him. The result was that the
touchdown was allowed. Thereupon the crowd all came onto the field and
we were not able to clear it for some 10 or 15 minutes, so that there
was not time enough to finish the full 45 minutes of the second-half of
the game before dark. This led to some bitter discussion between Yale
and Princeton as to whether the game had been played. This discussion
was settled by the intercollegiate committee in declaring that Yale had
won the game, 4 to 0, but that no championship should be awarded. It is
interesting to note, however, that all the gold footballs worn by the
Yale players of this game are marked 'Champions, 1886.'

"A word about the Princeton men who were playing during my four years at
college.

"Irvine was a fine steady player and his success at Mercersburg is in
keeping with the promise shown in his football days.

"Hector Cowan played against me three years at guard and he fully
deserved the great reputation he had at that time in every particular
of the game, including running with the ball.

"George was one of the very best center rushes I have ever seen and
probably would have made a great player elsewhere along the line if he
had been relieved from the obscuring effect of playing center at the
time a center had no particular opportunity to show his ability.

"Snake Ames for some reason was never able to do anything against the
Yale team during the time I was playing, but his work in some later
games that I saw and in which I officiated, convinced me that he was
worthy of his nickname, because there are only a few men who are able to
wind their way through an entire field of opponents with as much
celerity and effect as Ames would display time after time.

"In the fall of '86 Yale beat Harvard 29 to 4, with great ease, and if
it had not been for injuries to Yale players, could probably have made
it 50 or 60 to 0. Most of the Yale players came out of the game with
very disgraceful marks of the roughness of the Harvard men. I had a
badly broken nose from an intentional blow. George Carter had a cut
requiring eight stitches above his eye. The tackle next to me had a face
which was pounded black and blue all over. To the credit of the Harvard
men I will say that they came to the box at the theater that night
occupied by the Yale team and apologized for what they had done, stating
that they had been coached to play in that way and that they would
never again allow anybody to coach who would try to have the Harvard
players use intentionally unfair roughness.

"When I entered Pennsylvania I found a more or less happy-go-lucky
brilliant man, Arthur Knipe, who was not considered fully worthy of
being on even the Pennsylvania teams of those days, namely: teams that
were being beaten 60 or 70 to 0 by Yale, Harvard and Princeton. I
succeeded in arousing the interest of Knipe, and although in my mind he
never, during his active membership of the Pennsylvania team, came up to
75 per cent. of his true playing value, he was, even so, undoubtedly the
peer of any man that ever played football. Knipe was brilliant but
careless, and was at once the joy and despair of any coach who took an
interest in his men. He captained the 1894 Pennsylvania team with which
I sprung the 'guards back' and 'short end defense.'

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