Football Days - free ebook by William H. (William Hanford) Edwards

MEMORIES OF THE GAME AND OF THE MEN BEHIND THE BALL

BY PRINCETON 1900 WITH INTRODUCTION BY WALTER CAMP YALE 1880 MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY NEW YORK 1916 Copyright, 1916, By MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY NEW YORK...

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Dedicated to John P. Poe, Jr.

Princeton '95 HONORED AND BELOVED BY HOSTS OF FRIENDS, HE REPRESENTED THE HIGHEST IDEALS OF AMERICAN FOOTBALL, NOT ONLY IN LIFE, BUT IN HIS DEATH UPON THE BATTLEFIELD IN FRANCE. AS I THINK OF HIM, THE STIRRING LINES OF HENRY NEWBOLDT COME TO ME AS A FITTING EULOGY: VITA LAMPADA...

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GREETING

I value more highly than any other athletic gift I have ever received, the Princeton football championship banner that hangs on my wall. It was given to me by a friend who sent three boys to Princeton. It is a duplicate of the one that hangs in the trophy room of the gymnasium there. How often have I gazed longingly at the names of my loyal team-mates inscribed upon it. Many times have I run over in my mind the part that each one played on the memorable occasion when that banner was won. Memorie

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PROLOGUE

They say that no man ever made a successful football player who was lacking in any quality of imagination. If this be true, and time and again has it been proved, then there is no more fitting dedication to a book dealing with the gridiron heroes of the past than to a man like Johnny Poe. For football is the abandon of body and mind to the obsession of the spirit that knows no obstacle, counts no danger and for the time being is dull and callous to physical pain or exhaustion. It is a something

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FOOTBALL DAYS CHAPTER I

PREP. SCHOOL DAYS To every man there comes a moment that marks the turning point of his career. For me it was a certain Saturday morning in the autumn of 1891. As I look back upon it, across the years, I feel something of the same thrill that stirred my boyish blood that day and opened a door through which I looked into a new world. I had just come to the city, a country boy, from my home in Lisle, N. Y., to attend the Horace Mann School. As I walked across Madison Square, I glanced toward the o

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CHAPTER II

FRESHMAN YEAR I believe that every man who has had the privilege of going to college will agree with me that as a freshman lands in a college town, he is a very happy and interested individual. The newness of things and his freedom are very attractive. He comes to college fresh from his school day experiences ready to conform himself to the traditions and customs of the new school, his college choice. The world will never again look quite so big to a boy as it did then. Entering as boys do, in t

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CHAPTER III

ELBOW TO ELBOW "I wonder where my shoes are?" "Who's got my trousers on?" "I wonder if the tailor mended my jersey?" "What has become of my head-gear?" "I wonder if the cobbler has put new cleats on my shoes?" "Somebody must have my stockings on—these are too small." "What has become of my ankle brace—can't seem to find it anywhere? I just laid it down here a minute ago. I think that freshman pinched my sweater." All of which is directed to no one in particular, and the Trainer, who sits far off

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CHAPTER IV

MISTAKES IN THE GAME Many a football player who reads this book will admit that there arises in all of us a keen desire to go back into the game. It is not so much a desire just to play in the game for the mere sake of playing as to remedy the mistakes we all know we made in the past. In our football recollections, the defeats we have experienced stand out the most vividly. Sometimes they live on as nightmares through the years. As we review the old days we realize that we did not always give ou

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CHAPTER V

MY LAST GAME Every player knows the anxious anticipation and the nerve strain connected with the last game of the football season. In my last year there were many men on the team who were to say good-bye to their playing days. Every player who reads these lines will agree with me that it was his keenest ambition to make his last game his best game. It was in the fall of 1899. There were many of us who had played on a victorious team the year before. Princeton had never beaten Yale two years in s

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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 d

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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 aga

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CHAPTER VIII

ANECDOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS In the latter eighties the signal from the quarterback to the center for putting the ball in play was a pressure of the fingers and thumb on the hips of the center. In the '89 championship game between Yale and Princeton, Yale had been steadily advancing the ball and it looked as if they had started out for a march up the field for a touchdown. In those days signals were not rattled off with the speed that they are given now, and the quarterback often took some time t

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CHAPTER IX

THE NINETIES AND AFTER Men of to-day who never had an opportunity of seeing Foster Sanford play will be interested in some anecdotes of his playing days and to read in another chapter of this book some of his coaching experiences. "As a boy," said Sandy, "I lived in New Haven. I chalked the lines on the football field for the game in which Tilly Lamar made his famous run for Princeton. I played on the college team two years before I entered Yale. I learned a lot of football playing against Billy

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CHAPTER X

COLLEGE TRADITIONS AND SPIRIT College life in America is rich in traditions. Customs are handed down class by class and year by year until finally they acquire the force of law. Each college and university has a community life and a character of its own. The spirit of each institution abides within its walls. It cannot be invaded by an outsider, or ever completely understood by one who has not grown up in it. The atmosphere of a college community is conservative. It is the outcome of generations

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CHAPTER XI

JOHNNY POE'S OWN STORY Johnny Poe was a member of the Black Watch, that famous Scotch Regiment whose battles had followed the English flag. On the graves of the Black Watch heroes the sun never sets. Johnny Poe's death came on September 25th, 1915, in the Battle of Loos. Nelson Poe has given me the following information regarding Johnny's death. It comes direct from Private W. Faulkner, a comrade who was in the charge when Johnny fell. In the morning during the attack we went out on a party carr

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CHAPTER XII

ARMY AND NAVY There is a distinctive flavor about an Army-Navy football game which, irrespective of the quality of the contending elevens and of their relative standing among the high-class teams in any given season, rates these contests annually as among the "big games" of the year. Tactically and strategically football bears a close relation to war. That is a vital rea son why it should be studied and applied in our two government schools. On the part of the public there is general appreciatio

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CHAPTER XIII

HARD LUCK IN THE GAME It is as true in football, as it is in life, that we have no use for a quitter. The man who shirks in time of need—indeed there is no part in this chapter or in this book for such a man. Football was never made for him. He is soon discovered and relegated to the side line. He is hounded throughout his college career, and afterwards he is known as a man who was yellow. As Garry Cochran used to say: "If I find any man on my football squad showing a white feather, I'll have hi

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CHAPTER XIV

BRINGING HOME THE BACON Happy is the thought of victory, and while we realize that there should always be eleven men in every play, each man doing his duty, there frequently comes a time in a game, when some one man earns the credit for winning the game, and brings home the bacon. Maybe he has been the captain of the team, with a wonderful power of leadership which had held the Eleven together all season and made his team a winning one. From the recollections of some of the victories, from the e

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CHAPTER XV

"THE BLOODY ANGLE" Football in its very nature is a rough game. It calls for the contact of bodies under high momentum and this means strains and bruises! Thanks to the superb physical condition of players, it usually means nothing more serious. The play, be it ever so hard, is not likely to be dangerous provided it is clean, and the worst indictment that can be framed against a player of to-day, and that by his fellows, is that he is given to dirty tactics. This attitude has now been establishe

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CHAPTER XVI

THE FAMILY IN FOOTBALL It is almost possible, I think, to divide football men into two distinct classes—those who are made into players (and often very good ones) by the coaches and those who are born with the football instinct. Just how to define football instinct is a puzzle, but it is very easy to discern it in a candidate, even if he never saw a football till he set foot on the campus. By and large, it will be read first in a natural aptitude for following the ball. After that, in the genera

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CHAPTER XVII

OUR GOOD OLD TRAINERS There are not many football enthusiasts who analyze the factors that bring victory. Many of us do not appreciate the importance attached to the trainer, or realize the great part that he plays, until we are out of college. We know that the men who bore the brunt of the battle have received their full share of glory—the players and coaches. But there arises in the midst of our athletic world men who trained, men who safeguarded the players. Trainers have been associated with

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CHAPTER XVIII

NIGHTMARES There are few players who never experienced defeat in football. At such a time sadness reigns. Men who are big in mind and body have broken down and cried bitterly. How often in our experience have we seen men taken out of the game leaving it as though their hearts would break, only to go to the side lines, and there through dimmed eyes view the inevitable defeat, realizing that they were no longer a factor in the struggle. Such an experience came to Frank Morse in that savage Penn-Pr

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CHAPTER XIX

MEN WHO COACHED The picture on the opposite page will recall to mind many a serious moment in the career of men who coached; when something had gone wrong; when some player had not come up to expectation; when a combination of poor judgment and ill luck was threatening to throw away the results of a season's work. Such scenes are never photographed, but they are preserved no less indelibly in the minds of all who have played this rôle. Where is the old football player, who, gazing at this pictur

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CHAPTER XX

UMPIRE AND REFEREE There is a group of individuals connected with football to whom the football public pays little attention, until at a most inopportune time in the game, a whistle is blown, or a horn is tooted and you see a presumptuous individual stepping off a damaging five yard penalty against your favorite team. At such a time you arise in your wrath and demand: "Who is that guy anyway? Where did he come from? Why did he give that penalty?" Other muffled tributes are paid him. In calmer mo

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CHAPTER XXI

CRASH OF CONFLICT The start of a football game is most exciting; not alone for the players, but for the spectators as well. Every one is keyed up in anticipation of the contest. The referee's whistle blows; the ball is kicked off—the game has begun. Opponents now meet face to face on the field of battle. What happens on the gridiron is plainly seen by the spectators, but it is not possible for them to hear the conversations which take place. There is much good natured joshing between the players

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CHAPTER XXII

LEST WE FORGET Marshall Newell There is no hero of the past whose name has been handed down in Harvard's football traditions as that of Marshall Newell. He left many lasting impressions upon the men who came in contact with him. The men that played under his coaching idolized him, and this extended even beyond the confines of Harvard University. This is borne out in the following tribute which is paid Newell by Herbert Reed, that was on the Cornell scrub when Newell was their coach. "It is poign

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CHAPTER XXIII

ALOHA "Hail and Farewell," crowded by the Hawaiians into one pregnant word! Would that this message might mean as much in as little compass. I can promise only brevity and all that brevity means in so vast a matter as football to a man who would love nothing better than to talk on forever. We know that football has really progressed and improved, and that the boys of to-day are putting football on a higher plane than it has ever been on before. We are a progressive, sporting public. Gone are the

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