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-Princeton game of years ago at Trenton. He had given of his best; he played a wonderful game, but through an injury he had to be removed to the side lines. Let this great hero of the past tell us something about the pangs of defeat as he summons them to mind in his San Francisco office after an interval of twenty-two years.

"The average American university football player takes his defeats too seriously—in the light of my retrospect—much too seriously," writes Morse. "As my memory harks back to the blubbering bunch of stalwart young manhood that rent the close air of the dressing-room with its dismal howls after each of the five defeats in which I participated, I am convinced that this is not what the world expects of strong men in the hour of adversity.

"A stiff upper lip is what the world admires, and it will extend the hand of sympathy and help to the man who can wear it. This should be taught by football coaches to their men as a part of the lessons of life that football generally is credited with teaching.

"Alex Moffat, than whom no more loyal and enthusiastic Princetonian ever lived, to my mind, had the right idea. During one of those periods of abysmal depths of despondency into which a losing team is plunged, he rushed into the room, waving his arms over his head in his characteristic manner, and in his high-pitched voice yelled:

"'Here, boys, get down to work; cut out this crying and get to cussing.'

"Doubtless much of this was due to the strain and the high tension to which the men were subjected, but much of it was mere lack of effort at restraint.

"Johnny Poe, as stout-hearted a man as ever has, or ever will stand on a football field, once said to me:

"'This sob stuff gives me a pain in the neck but, like sea-sickness, when the rest of the crowd start business, it's hard to keep out of it. Besides, I don't suppose there's any use getting the reputation of being exclusive and too stuck up to do what the rest of the gang do.'

"Of the defeats in which I participated, probably none was more disheartening than the one suffered at the hands of the University of Pennsylvania in 1892 at the Manheim cricket grounds near Philadelphia. I shall always believe that the better Princeton team would have won with comparative ease had it not been for the wind. In no game in which I ever played was the wind so largely the deciding factor in the result. The flags on the poles along the stands stood out stiffly as they snapped in the half gale.

"Pennsylvania won the toss and elected to have the wind at their backs. For forty-five minutes every effort made against the Red and Blue was more than nullified by the blustering god Æolus. When Pennsylvania kicked, it was the rule and not the exception for the ball to go sailing for from one-half to three quarters the length of the field. On the other hand, I can see in my mind's eye to-day, as clearly as I did during the game, a punt by Sheppard Homans, the Princeton fullback, which started over the battling lines into Pennsylvania territory, slowed up, hung for an instant in the air and then was swept back to a point approximating the line from where it started.

"It was the most helpless and exasperating feeling that I ever experienced. The football player who can conceive of a game in which under no circumstances was it permissible to kick, but instead provided a penalty, can perhaps appreciate the circumstances.

"In the second half, when we changed goals, the flags hung limply against their staffs, but we had spent ourselves in the unequal contest during the first half."

Nightmares, even those of football, do not always beget sympathy. Upon occasion a deal of fun is poked at the victim, and this holds true even in the family circle.

Tom Shevlin was noted as the father of a great many good stories, but it was proverbial that he refrained from telling one upon himself. However, in at least one instance he deviated from habit to the extent of relating an incident concerning his father and the father of Charlie Rafferty, captain of the Yale 1903 eleven. Tom at the time was a sophomore, and Shevlin, senior, who idolized his son, made it a practice of attending all important contests in which he participated, came on from Minneapolis in his private car to witness the spectacle of Tom's single-handed defeat of "The Princetons." As it chanced the Shevlin car was put upon a siding adjoining that on which the car of Gill Rafferty lay. Rafferty, as a matter of fact, was making his laborious way down the steps as Mr. Shevlin emerged from his car. Mr. Rafferty looked up, blinked in the November sunlight and then nodded cheerfully. "Well, Shevlin," he said, "I suppose by to-night we'll be known simply as the fathers of two great Yale favorites." Shevlin nodded and said "he fancied such would be the case." A few hours later, in the gloom of the twilight, after Yale had been defeated, the elder Shevlin was finding his somber way to the steps of his car and met Rafferty face to face. Shevlin nodded and was about to pass on without speaking, when Rafferty placed his hand upon his shoulder. "Well, Shevlin," he said solemnly, "I see we are still old man Shevlin and old man Rafferty."

W.C. Rhodes

One has only to hear Jim Rodgers tell the story of Billy Rhodes to realize how deeply the iron of football disaster sinks into the soul.

"Rhodes was captain of the losing team in the fall of '90, when Yale's Eleven was beaten by Harvard's," Rodgers tells us. "Arthur Cumnock was the Harvard captain, and the score was 12 to 6. Two remarkable runs for touchdowns made by Dudley Dean and Jim Lee decided the contest.

"For twenty years afterwards, back to Springfield, New Haven or Cambridge, wherever the Yale-Harvard games were played, came with the regularity of their occurrence, Billy Rhodes.

"He was to be seen the night before, and the morning of the game. He always had his tickets for the side line and wore the badge as an ex-Yale captain. But the game itself Billy Rhodes never saw.

"If at Springfield, he was to be found in the Massasoit House, walking the floor until the result of the game was known. If at New Haven, he was not at the Yale Field. He walked around the field and out into the woods. If the game was at Cambridge, he was not at Holmes Field, or later, at Soldiers' Field.

"When the game was over he would join in the celebration of victory, or sink into the misery of defeat, as the case might be. But he never could witness a game. The sting of defeat had left its permanent wound."

A YALE NIGHTMARE

Those who saw the Army defeat Yale at West Point in 1904 must realize what a blow it was to the Blue. The first score came as a result of a blocked kick by West Point, which was recovered by Erwin, who picked up the ball and dashed across the line for a touchdown. The Army scored the second time when Torney cut loose and ran 105 yards for a touchdown.

Sam Morse, captain of the Yale 1906 team, who played right halfback in this game, tells how the nightmare of defeat may come upon us at any time, even in the early season, and incidentally how it may have its compensations.

"An instance of the psychology of football is to be found in the fall of 1904, when Jim Hogan was captain of the Yale team," says Morse. "I had the pleasure of playing back of him on the defensive in almost every game of that year, and I got to depend so much on those bull-like charges of his that I fear that if I had been obliged to play back of some one else my playing would have been of inferior quality.

"Yale had a fine team that year, defeating both Harvard and Princeton with something to spare. The only eleven that scored on us was West Point, and they beat us. It is a strange thing that the Cadets always seem to give Yale a close game, as in that year even though beaten by both Harvard and Princeton by safe scores, and even though Yale beat Harvard and Princeton handily, the Army played us to a standstill.

"After the game, as is so often the case when men have played themselves out, there was a good deal of sobbing and a good many real tears were shed. Every man who has played football will appreciate that there are times when it is a very common matter for even a big husky man to weep. We were all in the West Point dressing-room when Jim Hogan arose. He felt what we all took to be a disgrace more keenly than any of us. There was no shake in his voice, however, or any tears in his eyes when he bellowed at us to stop blubbering.

"'Don't feel sorry for yourselves. I hope this thing will hurt us all enough so that we will profit by it. It isn't a matter to cry over—it's a matter to analyze closely and to take into yourself and to digest, and finally to prevent its happening again.'

"He drove it home as only Jim Hogan could. At the close Ralph Bloomer jumped to his feet and cried:

"'Jim, old man, we are with you, and you are right about it, and we will wipe this thing out in a way which will satisfy you and all the rest of the college.'

"The whole team followed him. Right then and there that aggregation became a Yale football team in the proper sense, and one of the greatest Yale football teams that ever played. It was the game followed by Jim's speech that made the eleven men a unit for victory.

"If Jim had been allowed to live a few more years the quality of leadership that he possessed would have made of him a very prominent and powerful man. His memory is one of the dearest things to all of us who were team mates or friends of his, but I hardly ever think of him without picturing him that particular day in the dressing-room at West Point, when in five minutes he made of eleven men a really great football team."

Even Eddie Mahan is not immune to the haunting memory of defeat, and perhaps because of the very fact that disaster came into his brilliant gridiron career only once, and then in his senior year, it hit him hard. The manner of its telling by this great player is sufficient proof of that. Here is Eddie's story:

"I enjoyed my football days at Harvard so well that I would like to go back each fall and play football for the rest of my life. I wish to goodness I could go back and play just one game over—that is the Cornell game of 1915. My freshman team won all its games, and during the three years that I played for the Harvard Varsity I never figured in a losing game except that one. Cornell beat Harvard 10 to 0. The score of that game will haunt me all my life long. This game has been a nightmare to me ever since. Every time I think of football that game is one of the first things that comes to mind. I fumbled a lot. I don't know why, but I couldn't seem to hold onto the ball.

"We blocked four kicks, but Cornell recovered every one. We sort of felt that there was more than the Cornell team playing against us—a goal from the field and a touchdown. Shiverick, of Cornell, stands out in my recollection of that game. He was a good kicker. Once he had to kick out from behind the goal post down in his own territory. Watson and I were both laying for a line buck; playing up close. Shiverick kicked one over my head, out of bounds at his own 45-yard line.

"I felt like a burglar after this game, because I felt that I had lost it. I was feeling pretty blue until the Monday after the game, when the coaches picked eleven men as the Varsity team, and just as soon as they sent these eleven men to a section of the field to get acquainted with each other—that was the beginning of team work. From the way those fellows went at it that day, and from the spirit they showed, we felt that no team could ever lick us again, neither Princeton nor Yale. The Cornell game acted like a tonic on the whole crowd. Instead of disheartening the team it instilled in us determination. We said:

"'We know what it is to be licked, and we'll be damned if we'll be licked again.'"

Jack de Saulles' football ambitions were realized when he made the Yale team at quarterback, the position which his brother Charlie, before him, had occupied. His spectacular runs, his able generalship, his ability to handle punts, coupled with that characteristic de Saulles' grit, made him a famous player.

Let this game little quarterback tell his own story:

"Billy Bull and I have often discussed the fact that when an attempt for a goal from the field failed, one of the players of the opposing side always touched the ball back of the goal line (thereby making it dead), and brought it out to the 25-yard line to kick. Of course, the ball is never dead until it is touched down. It was in the fall of 1902 when we were playing West Point. In the latter part of the second half of that game, with the score 6 to 6, Charlie Daly attempted a field goal, which was unsuccessful. What Billy Bull and I had discussed many times came into my mind like a flash. I picked the ball up and walked out with it as if it had been touched back of the goal. When I passed the 25-yard line, walking along casually, Bucky Vail, who was the referee, yelled to me to stop. I walked over to him unconcerned and said: 'Bucky, old boy! this ball is not dead, because I did not touch it down. And I am going down the field with it.' By that time the West Point men had taken their positions in order to receive the kick from the 25-yard line. While I was still walking down the field, in order to pass all the West Point men, before making my dash for a certain touchdown, it struck Bucky Vail that I was right, and he yelled out at the top of his voice. 'The ball is not dead. It is free.' Whereupon the West Point men started after me. An Army man tackled me on their 25-yard line, after I had taken the ball down the field for nearly a touchdown. I have often turned over in my bed at night since that time, cursing the action of Referee Vail. If he had not interfered with my play I would have walked down the field for a touchdown and victory for Yale. The final score remained 6 to 6.

"I have often thought of the painful hours I would have suffered had I missed the two open field chances in the disastrous game at Cambridge in the fall of 1902, when Yale was beaten 23 to 0. On two different occasions in that game a Harvard runner with interference had passed the whole Yale team. I was the only Yale man between the Harvard man and a touchdown. The supreme satisfaction I had in nailing both of those runners is one of the most pleasant recollections of my football career.

"When I was a little shaver, back in 1889, I lived at South Bethlehem, Pa. Paul Dashiell and Mathew McClung, who were then playing football at Lehigh University, took an interest in me. Paul Dashiell took me to the first football game I ever saw. Dibby McClung gave me one of the old practice balls of the Lehigh team. This was the first football I ever had in my hands. For weeks afterwards that football was my nightly companion in bed. These two Lehigh stars have always been my football heroes, and it was a happy day for me when I played quarterback on the Yale team and these two men acted as officials that day."