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 Rhodes, that great Yale tackle.

"I'll tell you about the day I made the Yale team in my freshman year. Pa Corbin took me in hand. I think he wanted to see if I had lots of nerve. He told me to report at nine o'clock for practice. He put me through a hard, grueling work-out, showing me how to snap the ball; how to charge and body check. All this took place in a driving rain, and he kept me out until one o'clock, when he said:

"'You can change your jersey now; that is, put on a dry one.'

"I went over to the training table then to see if I couldn't get some dinner. Believe me, I was hungry. But every one had finished his meal and all I could pick up was the things that were left. Here I ran into a fellow named Brennen, who said:

"'They're trying to do you up. This is the day they are deciding whether you will be center rush or not.'

"I then went out to Yale Field and joined the rest of the players, and the stunts they put me through that afternoon I will never forget. But I remembered what Brennen had told me, and it made me play all the harder. To tell the truth, after practice, I realized that I was so sore I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. To make matters worse, the coaches told me to run in to town, a distance of two miles, while they drove off in a bus. I didn't catch the bus until they were on Park Street, but I pegged along just the same and beat them in to the gate. Billy Rhodes and Pa Corbin took care of me and rubbed me down. It seems as though they rubbed every bit of skin off of me. I was like fire.

"That's the day I made the Yale team.

"I was twenty years old, six feet tall, and weighed about 200 pounds."

When I asked Sandy who gave him the hardest game of his life, he replied promptly:

"Wharton, of Pennsylvania. He got through me."

Parke Davis' enthusiasm for football is known the country over. From his experience as a player, as a coach and writer, he has become an authority. Let us read some of his recollections.

"Years ago there was a high spirited young player at Princeton serving his novitiate upon the scrub. One day an emergency transferred him for the first time in his career to the Varsity. The game was against a small college. This sudden promotion was possible through his fortunate knowledge of the varsity signals. Upon the first play a fumble occurred. Our hero seized the ball. A long service upon the scrub had ingrained him to regard the Princeton Varsity men always as opponents. In the excitement of the play he became confused, when lo! he leaped into flight toward the wrong goal. Dashing around Princeton's left end he reversed his field and crossed over to the right. Phil King, Princeton's quarterback, was so amazed at the performance that he was too spellbound to tackle his comrade. Down the backfield the player sped towards his own goal. Shep Homans, his fullback, took in the impending catastrophe at a glance and dashed forward, laid the halfback low with a sharp tackle, thereby preventing a safety. The game was unimportant, the Princeton's score was large, so the unfortunate player, although the butt of many a jest, soon survived all jokes and jibes and became in time a famous player."

"The first Princeton-Yale game in 1873 being played under the old Association rules was waged with a round ball. In the first scrimmage a terrific report sounded across the field. When the contending players had been separated the poor football was found upon the field a flattened sheet of rubber. Two toes had struck it simultaneously or some one's huge chest had crushed it and the ball had exploded.

"Whenever men are discussing the frantic enthusiasm of some fellows of the game I always recall the following episode as a standard of measurement. The Rules Committee met one night at the Martinique in New York for their annual winter session. Just as the members were going upstairs to convene, I had the pleasure of introducing George Foster Sanford to Fielding H. Yost. The introduction was made in the middle of the lobby directly in the way of the traffic passing in and out of the main door. The Rules Committee had gone into its regular session; the hour was eight o'clock in the evening. When they came down at midnight these two great football heroes were standing in the very spot where they were introduced four hours before and they were talking as they had been every minute throughout the four hours about football. Members of the Committee joked with the two enthusiasts and then retired. When they came down stairs the next morning at eight o'clock they found the two fanatics seated upon a bench nearby still talking football, and that afternoon when the Committee had finished its labors and had adjourned sine die they left Sanford and Yost still in the lobby, still on the bench, hungry and sleepy and still talking football."

This anecdote will be a good one for Parke Davis' friends to read, for how he ever stayed out of that talk-fest is a mystery—maybe he did.

Now that Yost and Sanford have retired we will let Parke continue.

"A few years ago everybody except Dartmouth men laughed at the football which, bounding along the ground at Princeton suddenly jumped over the cross bar and gave to Princeton a goal from the field which carried with it the victory. But did you ever hear that in the preceding season, in a game between two Southern Pennsylvania colleges, a ball went awry from a drop kick, striking in the chest a policeman who had strayed upon the field? The ball rebounded and cleanly caromed between the goal post for a goal from the field. Years ago Lafayette and Pennsylvania State College were waging a close game at Easton. Suddenly, and without being noticed, Morton F. Jones, Lafayette's famous center-rush in those days, left the field of play to change his head gear. The ball was snapped in play and a fleet Penn State halfback broke through Lafayette's line, and, armed with the ball, dodged the second barriers and threatened by a dashing sprint to score in the extreme corner of the field. As he reached the 10-yard line, to the amazement of all, Jones dashed out of the side line crowd upon the field between the 10-yard line and his goal, thereby intercepting the State halfback, tackling him so sharply that the latter dropped the ball. Jones picked it up and ran it back 40 yards. There was no rule at that time which prevented the play, and so Penn-State ultimately was defeated. Jones not only was a hero, but his exploit long remained a mystery to many who endeavored to figure out how he could have been 25 yards ahead of the ball and between the runner and his own goal line."

A story is told of the wonderful dodging ability of Phil King, Princeton '93. He was known throughout the football world as one of the shiftiest runners of his day. Through his efficient work, King had fairly won the game against Yale in '93. The next year the Yale men made up their minds that the only way to defeat Princeton was to take care of King, and they were ever on the alert to watch him whenever he got the ball. The whole Yale team was looking for King throughout this game.

On the kick-off Phil got the ball, and all the Yale forwards began to shout, "Here he comes, here he comes," and then as he was cleverly dodging and evading the Yale players, one of the backs, who was waiting to tackle him low, was heard to say, "There he goes."

Those of the old-timers who study the picture of the flying wedge on the opposite page will get a glimpse of Phil King about to set in motion one of the most devilishly ingenious maneuvers in the history of the game. With all the formidable power behind him, the old reliables of what the modern analytical coaches are pleased to term the farce plays. Balliet, Beef Wheeler, Biffy Lea, Gus Holly, Frank Morse, Doggy Trenchard, Douglas Ward, Knox Taylor, Harry Brown, Jerry McCauley, and Jim Blake; King, nevertheless, stood out in lonely eminence, ready to touch the ball down, await the thunder of the joining lines of interference and pick up the tremendous pace, either at the apex of the crashing V or cunningly concealed and swept along to meet the terrific impact with the waiting line of Blue. Great was the crash thereof, and it was a safe wager that King with the ball would not go unscathed.

This kind of football brought to light the old-time indomitable courage of which the stalwarts of those days love to talk at every gridiron reunion.

But for the moment let us give Yale the ball and stand the giant Princeton team upon defense. Let us watch George Adee get the ball from Phil Stillman and with his wonderful football genius develop a smashing play enveloped in a locked line of blue, grim with the menace of Orville Hickok, Jim McCrea, Anse Beard, Fred Murphy, Frank Hinkey and Jack Greenway.

Onward these mighty Yale forwards ground their way through the Princeton defense, making a breach through which the mighty Butterworth, Bronc Armstrong and Brink Thorne might bring victory to Yale.

This was truly a day when giants clashed.

As you look at these pictures do the players of to-day wonder any longer that the heroes of the olden time are still loyal to the game of their first love?

If you ever happen to go to China, I am sure one of the first Americans you will hear about would be Pop Gailey, once a king of football centers and now a leader in Y.M.C.A. work in China.

Lafayette first brought Pop Gailey forth in '93 and '94, and he was the champion All-American center of the Princeton team in '96. He had a wonderful influence over the men on the team. He was an example well worth following. His manly spirit was an inspiration to those about him. After one of the games a newspaper said:

"Old Gailey stands firm as the Eternal Calvinistic Faith, which he intends to preach when his football scrimmages are over."

To Charlie Young, the present professor of physical instruction of the Cornell University gymnasium, I cannot pay tribute high enough for the fine football spirit and the high regard with which we held him while he was at the Princeton Seminary. He certainly loved to play football and he used to come out and play on the scrub team against the Princeton varsity. He was not eligible to play on the Princeton team, as he had played his allotted time at Cornell.

The excellent practice he gave the Princeton team—yes, more than practice: it was oftentimes victory for him as well as the scrub. He made Poe and Palmer ever alert and did much to make them the stars they were, as Charlie's long suit was running back punts. His head work was always in evidence. He was a great field general; one of his most excellent qualities was that of punting. His was an ideal example for men to follow. Princeton men were the better for having played with and against a high type man like Charlie Young.

AN EVENING WITH JIM RODGERS

Jim Rodgers gave all there was in him to Yale athletics. Not a single year has passed since he played his last game of football but has seen him back at the Yale field, coaching and giving the benefit of his experience.

Jim Rodgers was captain of the '97 team at New Haven, and the traditions that can be written about a winning captain are many. No greater pleasure can be afforded any man who loves to hear an old football player relate experiences than to listen, while Rodgers tells of his own playing days, and of some of the men in his experience.

It was once my pleasure to spend an evening with Jim in his home; really a football home. Mrs. Rodgers knows much of football and as Jim enthusiastically and with wonderfully keen recollection tells of the old games, a twelve-year-old boy listens, as only a boy can to his father, his great hero, and as Jim puts his hand on the boy's shoulders he tells him the ideal of his dreams is to have him make the Yale team some day, and an enthusiastic daughter who sits near hopes so too. His scrap books and athletic pictures go to make a rare collection.

Many of us would like to have seen Jim Rodgers begin his football career at Andover when he was sixteen years old. It was there that his 180 pounds of bone and muscle stood for much. It was at Andover that Bill Odlin, that great Dartmouth man, coached so many wonderful prep. school stars, who later became more famous at the colleges to which they went.

Rodgers went to Yale with a big rep. He had been captain of the Andover team. In the fall of '92 Andover beat Brown 24 to 0. Jim Rodgers was very conspicuous on the field, not only on account of his good playing and muscular appearance, but because his blond hair, which he wore very long as a protection, was very noticeable.

From this Yale player, whose friends are legion, let us read some experiences and catch his spirit:

"I was never a star player, but I was a reliable. In my freshman year I did not make the team, owing to the fact that I had bad knees and better candidates were available. This was the one year in Yale football, perhaps in all football, when the team that played the year before came back to college with not a man missing. Frank Hinkey had been captain the year before and then came through as senior captain. There was not a senior on Frank Hinkey's team. The first team, therefore, all came back.

"Al Jerrems and Louis Hinkey were the only additions to the old team.

"Perhaps the keenest disappointment that ever came to me in football was the fact that I could not play in that famous Yale-Harvard game my freshman year. However, I came so very near it that Billy Rhodes and Heffelfinger came around to where I was sitting on the side lines, after Fred Murphy had been taken out of the game. They started to limber me up by running me up and down the side line, but Hinkey, the captain, came over to the side line and yelled for Chadwick, who went into the game. I had worked myself up into a highly nervous condition anticipating going in, but now I realized my knees would not allow it. The disappointment that day, though, was very severe. To show you what a hold these old games had on me, many years after this game Hinkey and I were talking about this particular game, when he said to me: 'You never knew how close you came to getting into that Springfield game, Jim.' Then I told him of my experience, but he told me he had it in his mind to put me in at halfback, and ever since then, when I think of it, cold chills run up and down my spine. It absolutely scared me stiff to think how I might have lost that game, even though I never actually participated in it.

"The Yale football management, however, on account of my work during the season decided to give me my Y, gold football and banner. The banner was a blue flag with the names of the team and the position they played and the score, 12 to 6. It was a case where I came so near winning it that they gave it to me."

Jim Rodgers played three years against Garry Cochran and this great Princeton captain stands out in his recollections of Yale-Princeton games. He goes on to say:

"If it had not been for Garry Cochran, I might be rated as one of the big tackles of the football world to-day. I used to dream of him three weeks before the Princeton game; how I was going to stand him off, and let me tell you if you got in between Doc Hillebrand and Garry Cochran you were a sucker. Those games were a nightmare to me. Cochran used to fall on my foot, box me in and hold me there, and keep me out of the play."

Jim Rodgers is very modest in this statement. The very reason that he is regarded as a truly wonderful tackle is on account of the great game he played against Cochran. How wonderfully reliable he was football history well records. He was always to be depended upon.

"In the fall of 1897 when I was captain of the Yale team," Rodgers continues, "perhaps the most spectacular Yale victory was pulled off, when Princeton, with the exception of perhaps two men, and virtually the same team that had beaten Yale the year before, came on the field and through overconfidence or lack of training did not show up to their best form. We were out for blood that day. I said to Johnny Baird, Princeton quarterback: 'Princeton is great to-day. We have played ten minutes and you haven't scored.' Johnny, with a look of determination upon his face, said, 'You fellows can play ten times ten minutes and you'll never score,' but the Princeton football hangs in the Yale trophy room.

"I have always claimed that Charlie de Saulles put the Yale '97 team on the map. Charlie de Saulles, with his three wonderful runs, which averaged not less than 60 yards each, really brought about the victory.

"Frank Butterworth as head coach will always have my highest regard; he did more than any one alive could have done to pull off an apparently impossible victory."

"One great feature of this game was Ad Kelly's series of individual gains, aided by Hillebrand and Edwards, through Rodgers and Chadwick. Kelly took the ball for 40 consecutive yards up the field in gains of from one to three yards each, when fortunately for Yale, a fumble gave them the ball. When the fumble occurred, I happened at the time to break through very fast. There lay the ball on the ground, and nobody but myself near it. The great chance was there to pick it up and perhaps, even with my slow speed, gain 20 to 30 yards for Yale. No such thought, however, entered my head. I wanted that ball and curled up around it and hugged it as a tortoise would close in its shell. My recollection is now that I sat there for about five minutes before anybody deigned to fall on me. At all events, I had the ball.

"Gordon Brown played as a freshman on my team. He had a football face that I liked. He weighed 185 pounds and was 6 feet 4 inches tall. Gordon went up against BouvÉ in the Harvard game, and the critics stated that BouvÉ was the best guard in the country that year. I said to Gordon, 'Play this fellow the game of his life, and when you get him, let me know and I'll send some plays through you.' After about sixty minutes of play Gordon came to me and said, 'Jim, I've got him,' and he had him all right, for we were then successful in gaining through that part of the Harvard line. Gordon Brown was a very earnest player. He would allow nothing to stop him. He got his ears pretty well bruised up and they bothered him a great deal. In fact, he did have to lay off two or three days. He came to me and said, 'Do you think this injury will keep me out of the big game?' 'Well, I'll see if the trainer cannot make a head-gear for you.' 'Well, I'll tell you this, Jim,' said Gordon, 'I'll have 'em cut off before I'll stay out of the game.' This amused me, and I said, 'Gordon, you have nothing of beauty to lose. You will keep your ears and you will play in the big games.'

"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."

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."

"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 rÔle 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.'

"DeWitt's team beat Cornell 44-0. For years there hung on the walls of the Osborn Club at Princeton a splendid action picture of Dana Kafer making one of the touchdowns in that game. It was a mass on tackle play, and Jim Cooney was getting his Cornell opponent out of the way for Kafer to go over the line. The picture gave Jim dead away. He had a firm grip of the Cornell man's jersey and arm. Ten years or more afterward, a group, including Cooney, was sitting in the Osborn Club. In a spirit of fun one man said, 'Jim, we know now how you got your reputation as a tackle. We can see it right up there on the wall.' The next day the picture was gone.

"After I was graduated from Princeton in 1907 I went to Merton College, Oxford. There are twenty-two different colleges in Oxford and eighteen in Cambridge. Each one has its own teams and crews and plays a regular schedule. From the best of these college teams the university teams are drawn. Each college team has a captain and a secretary, who acts as manager. At the beginning of the college year (early October) the captain and secretary of each team go around among the freshmen of the college and try to get as many of them as possible to play their particular sport; mine Rugby football. After a few days the captain posts on the college bulletin board, which is always placed at the Porter's Lodge, a notice that a squash will be held on the college field. A squash is what we would call practice.

"Sometimes for a few days before the game an Old Blue may come down to Oxford and give a little coaching to the team. Here often the captain does all the coaching. The Cambridge match is for blood, and, while friendly enough, is likely to be much more savage than any other. In the match I played in, which Oxford won 35-3, the record score in the whole series, which started in 1872, we had three men severely injured. In the first three minutes of the game one of our star backs was carried off the field with a broken shoulder, while our captain was kicked in the head and did not come out of his daze until about seven o'clock that evening. He played throughout the game, however. Our secretary was off the field with a knee cap out of place for more than half the game. A game of Rugby, by the way, consists of two 45-minute halves, with a three minute intermission. There are no substitutes, and if a man is injured, his team plays one man short. We beat Cambridge that year with thirteen men the greater part of the game, twelve for some time against their full team of fifteen. Their only try (touchdown in plain American) was scored when we had twelve men on the field. We were champions of England that year, and did not lose a match through the fall season, though we tied one game with the great Harlequins Club of London, whom we afterward beat in the return game. Of the fine fellows who made up that great Oxford team, six are dead, five of them 'somewhere in France.'"

Carl Flanders was a big factor in the Yale rush line. Foster Sanford considers him one of the greatest offensive centers that ever played. He was six feet three and one-fourth inches tall and weighed 202 pounds.

In 1906 Flanders coached the Indian team at Carlisle. Let us see some of the interesting things that characterize the Indian players, through Flanders' experience.

The nicknames with which the Indians labelled each other were mostly those of animals or a weapon of defense. Mount Pleasant and Libby always called each other Knife. Bill Gardner was crowned Chicken Legs, Charles, one of the halfbacks, and a regular little tiger, was called Bird Legs. Other names fastened to the different players were Whale Bone, Shoe String, Tommyhawk and Wolf.

The Indians always played cleanly as long as their opponents played that way. Dillon, an old Sioux Indian, and one of the fastest guards I ever saw, was a good example of this. If anybody started rough play, Dillon would say:

"Stop that, boys!" and the chap who was guilty always stopped. But if an opponent continually played dirty football, Dillon would say grimly: "I'll get you!" On the next play or two, you'd never know how, the rough player would be taken out. Dillon had "got" his man.

"Wallace Denny and Bemus Pierce got up a code of signals, using an Indian word which designated a single play. Among the Indian words which designated these signals were Water-bucket, Watehnee, Coocoohee. I never could find out what it all meant, and following the Indian team by this code of signals was a task which was too much for me."

Bill Horr, renowned in Colgate and Syracuse, writes: "Colgate University and Colgate Academy are under the same administration, and the football teams were practicing when I entered school. I went out for the team and after the second practice I was put into the scrimmage. I was greatly impressed with the game and continued for the afternoon practice, and played at tackle in the first game of the season. In four years of winning football I became acquainted with such wonderful athletes as Riley Castleman and Walter Runge of the Colgate Varsity team.

"In the fall of 1905 I entered Syracuse University and played right tackle on the varsity team for four years and was captain of the victorious 1908 team. In the four years I never missed a scrimmage or a game.

"I think that one of the hardest games I ever played in was the game against Princeton in 1908, when they had such stars as Siegling, MacFadyen, Eddie Dillon and Tibbott. The game ended in a scoreless tie with the ball see-sawing back and forth on the 40-yard line. I had been accustomed to carry the ball, and had been successful in executing a forward pass of fifty-five yards in the Yale game the week before, placing the ball on the 1-yard line, only to lose it on a fumble.

"I had the reputation of being a good-natured player, and indirectly heard it rumored many times by coaches and football players that they would like to see me fighting mad on the football field. The few Syracuse rooters who journeyed to Easton the day we played Lafayette had that opportunity. Dowd was the captain of the Lafayette team. Next to me was Barry, a first-class football player, who stripped in the neighborhood of 200 pounds. Just before the beginning of the second half I was in a crouching position ready to start, when some one dealt me a stinging blow on the ear. I was dazed for the time being. I turned to Barry and asked him who did it. He pointed to Dowd. From that instant I was determined to seek revenge. I was ignorant of the true culprit until about a year afterward, when Anderson, who played center, and was a good friend of mine, told me about it. It seemed that just before we went on the field for the second half Buck O'Neil, who was coaching the Syracuse team, told Barry to hit me and make me mad."