Book: Football Days

W >> William H. Edwards >> Football Days




"Gordon Brown's team, under Malcolm McBride as head coach, was a wonder.
This eleven, to our minds, was the best ever turned out by Yale
University. They defeated Princeton 29 to 5, and the powerful Harvard
team 28 to 0. Their one weakness was that they had no long punter, but,
as they expressed it to me afterward, they had no need of one. At one
time during the game with Harvard they took the ball on their own
10-yard line and, instead of kicking, marched it up the field, and in a
very few rushes scored a touchdown. Harvard men afterwards told me that
after seeing a few minutes of the game they forgot the strain of
Harvard's defeat in their admiration of Yale's playing. This team showed
the highest co-ordination between the Yale coaching staff, the college,
and the players, and they set a high-water mark for all future teams to
aim at, which was all due to Gordon Brown's genius for organization and
leadership."

It has been my experience in talking of football stars with some of the
old-timers that Frank Hinkey heads the list. I cannot let Frank Hinkey
remain silent this time. He says:

"I think it was in the Fall of '95 that Skim Brown, who played the
tackle position, was captain of the scrubs team at New Haven. Brown was
a very energetic scrub captain. He was continuously urging on his men to
better work. As you recall, the cry, 'Tackle low and run low,' was
continuously called after the teams in those days. Brown's particular
pet phrase in urging his men was, 'Run low.' So that he, whenever the
halfback received the ball, would immediately start to holler, 'Run
low,' and would keep this up until the ball was dead. He got so in the
habit of using this call when on the offense that one day when the
quarterback called upon him to run with the ball from the tackle
position even before he got the ball he started to cry, 'Run low,' while
carrying the ball himself, and continued to cry out, 'Run low,' even
after he had gained ground for about fifteen yards and until the ball
was dead.

"It was in the Fall of '92 when Vance McCormick was captain of the Yale
team, and Diney O'Neal was trying for the guard position. As you know,
the linemen are very apt to know only the signals on offense which call
for an opening at their particular position. And even then a great many
of them never know the signals. Now Diney was bright enough, but like
most linemen did not know the signals. It happened one day that
McCormick, at the quarterback position, called several plays during the
afternoon that required O'Neal to make an opening. O'Neal invariably
failed because he didn't know the signals. McCormick, suspecting this,
finally gave O'Neal a good calling down. The calling down fell flat in
its effects on O'Neal as his reply to McCormick was, 'To Hell with your
mystic signs and symbols--give me the ball!'"

"The real founder of football at Dartmouth was Bill Odlin," writes Ed
Hall. "Odlin learned his football at Andover, and came to Dartmouth with
the class of '90 and it was while he was in college that football really
started. He was practically the only coach. He was a remarkable
kicker--certainly one of the best, if not the best. In the Fall of '89
Odlin was captain of the team and playing fullback. Harvard and Yale
played at Springfield and on the morning of the Harvard-Yale game
Dartmouth and Williams played on the same field. It was in this game in
the Fall of '89 that he made his most remarkable kick in which the wind
was a very important element. In the second half Odlin was standing
practically on his own ten yard line. The ball was passed back to him to
be kicked and he punted. The kick itself was a remarkable kick and
perfect in every way, but when the wind caught it it became a wonder and
it went along like a balloon. The wind was really blowing a gale and the
ball landed away beyond the Williams' quarterback and the first bounce
carried it several yards beyond their goal line. Of course any such kick
as this would have been absolutely impossible except for the extreme
velocity and pressure of the wind, but it was easily the longest kick I
ever saw.

"Three times during Odlin's football playing he kicked goals from the 65
yard line and while at Andover he kicked a placed kick from a mark in
the exact center of the field, scoring a goal."

When Brown men discuss football their recollections go back to the days
of Hopkins and Millard, of Robinson, McCarthy, Fultz, Everett Colby and
Gammons, Fred Murphy, Frank Smith, the giant guard; that great
spectacular player, Richardson, and other men mentioned elsewhere in
this book.

In a recent talk with that sterling fellow, Dave Fultz, he told me
something about his football career. It was, in part, as follows:--

"I played at Brown in '94, '95, '96 and '97, captaining the team in my
last year. Gammons and I played in the backfield together. He was
unquestionably a great runner with the ball; one of the hardest men to
hurt, I think, I ever saw. I have often seen him get jolts, go down, and
naturally one would think go out entirely, but when I would go up to
him, he would jump up as though he had not felt it. I think Everett
Colby was as good a man interfering for the runner as I have seen. He
played quarterback and captained the Brown team in '96. I don't think
there was ever a better quarterback than Wyllys D. Richardson, Rich, as
we used to call him."

[Illustration: BARRETT ON ONE OF HIS FAMOUS DASHES]

[Illustration: EXETER-ANDOVER GAME, 1915]

Dave Fultz is very modest and when he discusses his football experiences
he sidetracks one and talks of his fellow college players. Now that I
have pinned him down, he goes on to say:

"The day before we played the Indians one year my knee hurt me so much
that I had to go to the doctor. He put some sort of ointment on it. Two
days before this game I could hardly move my leg; the doctor threatened
me with water on the knee; he told me to go to bed and stay there, but I
told him we had a game in New York and I had to go. He said, 'All right,
if you want water on the knee.' I said, 'I've got to go if I am at all
able.' Anyway, I went on down to New York with the team and played in
the game. All I needed was to get warmed up good and I went along in
great shape."

Those who remember reading the accounts of that game will recall that
Dave Fultz made some miraculous runs that day and was a team in himself.

Fred Murphy, who was captain of the '98 team at Brown and played end
rush, says:

"I think Dave Fultz played under more difficulties than any man that
ever played the game. I have seen him play with a heavy knee brace. He
had his shoulder dislocated several times and I have seen him going into
the game with his arm strapped down to his side, so he could just use
his forearm. He played a number of games that way. That happened when he
was captain. He was absolutely conscientious, fearless and a good
leader."

In 1904, Fred Murphy coached at Exeter. Fred says:

"This was probably the best team that Exeter had had up to that time.
The team was captained by Tommy Thompson, who afterwards played at
Cornell. Eddie Hart at that time stripped at about 195 pounds. This was
the famous team on which Donald MacKenzie MacFadyen played and later
made the Princeton varsity. Tad Jones was quarterback the first year he
came to school. In those days they took to football intuitively without
much coaching. You never had to tell Tad Jones a thing more than once.
He would think things out for himself. He showed great powers of
leadership and good football sense. Howard Jones and Harry Vaughn played
on this team."

"Charlie McCarthy of Brown will long be remembered for his great punting
ability," says Fred Murphy. "He had a great many pet theories. McCarthy
is one of the best football men in the Brown list." In a letter which I
have received from Charlie McCarthy, as a result of a wonderful victory
over Minnesota one year, McCarthy writes:

"The students of the University gave me a beautiful gold watch engraved
on the inside--'To our Friend Mac from the students of the University of
Wisconsin.'" This shows how highly McCarthy is held at this University.

McCarthy continues, "I go out every fall and kick around with the boys
still and I hope to do so the rest of my life if I get a chance. I think
the greatest football player I ever saw was Frank Hinkey. Speaking of my
own ability as a player, I haven't much to say. I was not much of a
football player but I got by some way. I neither had the physique, nor
the ability, but tried to do my best. I am glad to say no one ever
called me a quitter. I am proud to say that Brown University gave me a
beautiful silver cup at the end of my four years for the best work in
football, although the said cup belongs by rights to ten other men on
the team."

As one visits the dressing room of the New York Giants and sees the
attendant work upon the wonderful physique of Christy Mathewson, one
cannot help but realize what a potent factor he must have been on
Bucknell's team. When Christy played he was 6 feet tall and weighed 168
pounds stripped. He prepared at Keystone Academy, playing in the line.
In 1898, when he went to Bucknell, he was immediately put at fullback
and played there three years.

Fred Crolius says of him: "Of all the long distance punters with hard
kicks to handle, Percy Haughton and Christy Mathewson stand out in his
memory. Mathewson had the leg power to turn his spiral over. That is,
instead of dropping where ordinary spirals always drop, an additional
turn seemed to carry the ball over the head of the back who was waiting
for the ball, often carrying some fifteen or twenty yards beyond."

Football has no more ardent admirer than Christy Mathewson. It will be
interesting to hear what he has to say of his experience in the game of
football.

"I liked to play football," says Mathewson. "I was a better football
player than a baseball player in those days. I was considered a good
punter. I was not much as a line bucker. The captain of the team always
gave me a football to take with me in the summer. I occasionally had an
opportunity to practice kicking after I was through with my baseball
work.

"At Taunton, Mass., my first summer, I ran across a fellow who was
playing third base on the team for which I was pitching. MacAndrews was
his name. He was a Dartmouth man. He showed me how to kick. He showed me
how to drop a spiral. I liked to drop-kick and used to practice it
quite a little."

[Illustration:

Means Langford Hollenback Douglass Gaston Marks Allerdice
Miller Manier Schultz Draper

BILL HOLLENBACK COMING AT YOU]

"I remember how tough it was for me when Bucknell played Annapolis the
year before when the Navy team had a man who could kick such wonderful
spirals. They were terribly hard to handle, and I was determined to
profit by his example. So I just hung on for dear life, punting spirals
all summer. Later I used to watch George Brooke punt a good deal when he
was coaching."

"At that time drop kickers were not so numerous. I had some recollection
of a fellow named O'Day, who had a great reputation as a drop-kicker, as
did Hudson of Carlisle. In 1898 we were to play Pennsylvania. Our team
served as a preliminary game for Pennsylvania. They often beat us by
large scores. Since then we have had teams which made a 6 to 5 score.
But they had good teams in my time. We never scored on Penn, as I
recall.

"Our coach said one day, at the training table, 'I'll give a raincoat to
the fellow who scores on Penn to-day.' The manager walked in and
overheard his remark and added, 'Yes, and I'll give a pair of shoes to
the man who makes the second score against Penn.' That put some 'pep'
into us. Anyway, we were on Penn's 35-yard line and I kicked a field
goal. After this we rushed the ball and got up to Penn's 40-yard line,
and from there I scored again, thereby winning the shoes and the
raincoat.

"I went up to Columbia one day to see them practice. It was in the days
when Foster Sanford was their coach. He saw me standing on the side
lines; came over to where I was; looked me over once or twice and
finally said:

"'Why aren't you trying for the team? I think you'd make a football
player if you came out.'

"I said I guessed I would not be eligible.

"'Why?' asked Sandy.

"'Well," I said, 'because I'm a professional.' Then some fellows around
me grinned and told Sanford who I was.

"I love to think of the good old football days and some of the spirit
that entered collegiate contests. Once in a while, in baseball, I feel
the thrill of that spirit. It was only recently that I experienced that
get-together spirit, where a team full of life with everybody working
together wrought great results. That same old thrill came to me during
one of the Giants' trips in the West in which they won seventeen
straight victories.

"There is much good fellowship in football. I played against teams whose
cheer leaders would give you a rousing cheer as you made a good play;
then again you would meet the fellow who, when you were down in the
scrimmage, or after you had kicked the ball, would try to put you down
and out.

"One of the pleasantest recollections I have of playing was my
experience against the two great academy teams, West Point and
Annapolis.

"Never shall I forget one year when Bucknell played West Point. At an
exciting moment in the game, Bucknell players made it possible for me to
be in a position to kick the goal from the field from a difficult angle.
After the score had been made the West Point team stood there stupefied,
and when the crowd got the idea that a goal had been kicked from a
peculiar angle, they gave us a rousing cheer. Such is the proper spirit
of American football; to see some sunshine in your opponent's play.

"Cheering helps so much to build up one's enthusiasm."

Al Sharpe was one of the greatest all-around athletes that ever wore the
blue of Yale. He, too, recalls the Yale-Princeton game of 1899 at New
Haven, but the memory comes to him as a nightmare.

"When I think about the 11 to 10 game at New Haven, which Princeton
won," said Sharpe the last time I saw him, "I remember that after I had
kicked a goal from the field and the score was 10 to 6, Skim Brown
rushed up to me, and nearly took me off my feet with one of his friendly
slaps across my back. Well do I remember the joy of that great Yale
player at this stage of the game. Later, when Poe made his kick and I
saw that the ball was going over the bar, I remember that the thing I
wished most was that I could have been up in the line where I might have
had a chance to block the kick.

"My recollections of making the Yale team centered chiefly around three
facts, none of which I was allowed to forget. First, that I was not any
good, second that I couldn't tackle, and third that I ran like an
ice-wagon. Since then I have seen so many really good players upon my
different squads that I must admit the truth of the above statement,
although at the time I am frank to say I took exception to it. Such is
the optimism of youth."

Jack Munn, a former Princeton halfback, tells the following story:

"My brother, Edward Munn, was the manager of the Princeton team in 1893.
In the spring of that year there was a conference with Yale
representatives to decide where the game was to be played the following
fall. Berkeley Oval, Brooklyn, Manhattan Field, and the respective
fields of the two colleges all came under discussion, and I believe that
some of the newspapers must have taken it up. One afternoon in the
Murray Hill Hotel, when representatives of Yale and Princeton were
discussing the various possibilities, a bellboy knocked at the door and
handed my brother an elaborately engraved card on which, among various
decorations, the name of Colonel Cody was to be distinguished. Buffalo
Bill was invited to come up, and it seems that, reading or hearing of
the discussion about the field for the game, he came to make a formal
offer of the use of his tent. After setting forth the desirability of
staging the game under the auspices of his Wild West Show, he brought
his offer to a close with his trump card.

"'For, gentlemen,' said he, 'besides all the other advantages which I
have mentioned, there is this further attraction--my tent is well and
sufficiently lighted so that you can not only hold a matinee, but you
can give an evening performance as well.'

"And those were the days of the flying wedge and two forty-five minute
halves with only ten minutes intermission!"


Walter C. Booth

Walter C. Booth, a former Princeton center rush, was one of the select
coterie of Eastern football men that wended its way westward to carry
the eastern system into institutions that had had no opportunity to
build up the game, yet were hungry for real football. Booth's trip was a
successful one.

"In the autumn of 1900, after graduating from college, I arrived at
Lincoln, Nebraska, in the dual role of law student and football coach of
the State University," says Booth. "This was my first trip west of
Pittsburgh and I viewed my new duties with some apprehension. All doubts
and fears were soon put at rest by the hearty encouragement and support
that I received and retained in my Nebraska football relations.

"Most of the Faculty were behind football, and H. Benjamin Andrews, at
that time head of the University, was a staunch supporter of the game.
Doctor Roscoe Pound, later dean of Harvard Law School, was the father of
Nebraska football. He had as intimate an acquaintance with the rule book
as any official I have ever known. His advice on knotty problems was
always valuable. James I. Wyer, afterward State Librarian of New York,
was our first financial director, and it was largely by reason of his
unflagging zeal that football survived.

"Football spirit ran high in the Missouri Valley and there were many
hard fought contests among the teams of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and
Nebraska. Those who saw these games or played in them will never forget
them.

"Many amusing things happened in that section as well as in the East.
The Haskell Indians were a picturesque team. They represented the
Government School at Lawrence, Kansas--an institution similar to that of
Carlisle. In fact, many of the same players played on both teams at
different times. We always found them a hard nut to crack, and Redwater,
Archiquette, Hauser and other Indian stars made their names well known
on our field.

"John Outland, the noted Pennsylvania player, had charge of the Indians
when I knew them. He was a great player and a fine type of man, who
succeeded in imparting some of his own personality to his pupils. He
once showed me a dark faced Indian in Lawrence who must have been at
least six feet four inches tall and of superb physique. He was a full
blooded Cheyenne and went by the name of Bob Tail Billy. Outland tried
hard to break him in at guard, but as no one understood Bob Tail's
dialect, and he understood no one else, he never learned the signals,
and proved unavailable.

"We traveled far to play in those days; west to Boulder, Colorado,
handicapped by an altitude of 5000 feet, south to Kansas City and north
as far as St. Paul and Minneapolis. We were generally about 500 miles
from our base. We were not able to take many deadheads."

Harry Kersburg is one of the most enthusiastic Harvard football players
I have ever met. He played guard on Harvard in 1904, '05 and '06 and is
often asked back to Cambridge to coach the center men. From his playing
days let us read what he prizes in his recollections:

"My college career began at Lehigh, with the idea of eventually going to
Harvard. As a football enthusiast, I came under the observation of
Doctor Newton, who was coaching Lehigh at that time. Doc taught me the
first football I ever knew. In one of the games against Union College
Doc asked me before the game whether if he put me in I would deliver the
goods. I said I would try and do my best. He said, 'That won't do. I
don't want any man on my team who says, "I'll try." A man has got to say
"I'll do it." From that time on I never said, 'I'll try,' but always
said 'I'll do it.'

"I shall never forget the day I played against John DeWitt. I did not
know much about the finer points of football then. I weighed about 165
pounds with my football clothes on, was five feet nine inches tall and
sixteen years old. I shall always remember seeing that great big hawk of
a man opposite me. I did not have cold feet. I knew I had to go in and
give the best account of myself I could. It was like going up against a
stone wall. John DeWitt certainly could use his hands, with the result
that I resembled paper pulp when I came out of that game. DeWitt did
everything to me but kill me. After I got my growth, weight and
strength, plus my experience, I always had a desire to play against
DeWitt to see if he could the same thing again.

"In a Harvard-Yale game one year I remember an incident that took place
between Carr, Shevlin and myself," says Harry.

"Tom Shevlin usually stood near the goal line when Yale received the
kick-off. As a matter of fact he caught the ball most of the time. The
night before the Yale game in 1905, Bill Carr and myself were discussing
what might come up the following day. Inasmuch as we always lined up
side by side on the kick off, we made a wager that if Harvard kicked off
we would each be the first to tackle Shevlin.

"The next day Harvard won the toss and chose to kick off, and as we had
hoped, Shevlin caught the ball. Carr and I raced down the field, each
intent on being the first to tackle him. I crashed into Shevlin and
spilled him, upsetting myself at the same time. When I picked myself up
and looked around, Carr had Shevlin pinned securely to the ground. After
the game we told Shevlin of our wager and he said that under the
circumstances all bets were off as both had won."

Former U. S. Attorney-General William H. Lewis, who is one of the
leading representatives of the colored race, needs no introduction to
the football world, says Kersburg. 'Bill,' or 'Lew,' as he is familiarly
known to all Harvard men, laid the foundation for the present system of
line play at Cambridge. He was actively engaged in coaching until 1907
when he was obliged to give it up due to pressure of business.

"In 1905 'Hooks' Burr and I played the guard positions. 'Lew' seemed to
center his attention on us as we always received more 'calls' after each
game than the other linemen for doing this, that, or the other thing
wrong. In the Brown game of this year Hooks played against a colored
man who was exceptionally good and who, Hooks admitted afterward, 'put
it all over' him. The Monday following this game we received our usual
'call.' After telling me what a rotten game I had played he turned on
Burr and remarked. 'What the devil was the matter with you on Saturday,
Hooks? That guard on the Brown team "smeared" you.' Burr replied, 'I
don't know what was the matter with me. I used my hands on that nigger's
head and body all through the game but it didn't seem to do any good.'
Several of us who were listening felt a bit embarrassed that Hooks had
unwittingly made this remark. The tension was relieved, however, when
Lew drawled out, 'Why the devil didn't you kick him in the shins?' A
burst of laughter greeted this sally."

Donald Grant Herring, better known to football men in and out of
Princeton as Heff, is one of the few American players of international
experience. After a period of splendid play for the Tigers he went to
England with a Rhodes Scholarship. At Merton College he continued his
athletic career, and it was not long before he became a member of one of
the most famous Rugby fifteens ever turned out by Oxford.

Heff has always said that he enjoyed the English game, but whether the
brand he played was American or English, his opponent usually got
little enjoyment out of a hard afternoon with this fine Princeton
athlete.

"In the late summer of 1903, I was on a train coming east from Montana,"
Heff tells me, "after a summer spent in the Rockies. A companion
recognized among the passengers Doc Hillebrand, who was coming East from
his ranch to coach the Princeton team. This companion who was still a
Lawrenceville schoolboy, had the nerve to brace Hillebrand and tell him
in my presence that I was going to enter Princeton that fall and that I
was a star football player. You can imagine what Doc thought, and how I
felt. However, Doc was kind enough to tell me to report for practice and
to recognize me when I appeared on the field several weeks later. I soon
drifted over to the freshman field and I want to admit here what caused
me to do so. It was nothing more nor less than the size of Jim Cooney's
legs. Jim was a classmate of mine whom I first saw on the football field
when he and another tackle candidate were engaged in that delicate
pastime known to linemen as breaking through. I realized at once that,
if Jim and I were ever put up against one another, I would stand about
as much chance of shoving him back as I would if I tried to push a steam
roller. So I went over to the freshman field, where Howard Henry was
coaching at the time. He was sending ends down the field and I remember
being thrilled, after beating a certain bunch of them, at hearing him
say: 'You in the brown jersey, come over here in the first squad.'

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