Football Days Part 23

When I asked Mahan about fun in football he said:

"We didn't seem to do much kidding. There was a sort of serious spirit; Haughton had such an influence over everybody, they were afraid to laugh before practice, while waiting for Haughton, and after practice everybody was usually so tired there was not much fooling in the dressing room; but we got a lot of fun out of the game."

Of Haughton's coaching methods and the Harvard system Eddie has a few things to tell us that will be news to many football men.

"Haughton coaches a great deal by the use of photographs which are taken of us in practice as well as regular games. He would get us all together and coach from the pictures--point out the poor work. Seldom were the good points shown. Nevertheless, he always gave credit to the man who got his opponent in the interference. Haughton used to say:

"'Any one can carry a ball through a bunch of dead men.'

"Haughton is a good organizer. He has been the moving spirit at Cambridge but by no means the whole Harvard coaching staff. The individual coaches work with him and with each other. Each one has control or supreme authority over his own department. The backfield coach has the picking of men for their positions. Harvard follows Charlie Daly's backfield play; improved upon somewhat, of course, according to conditions. Each coach is considered an expert in his own line. No coach is considered an expert in all fields. This is the method at Harvard.

"Outside of Haughton, Bill Withington, Reggie Brown, and Leo Leary have been the most recent prominent coaches. The Harvard generals.h.i.+p has been the old Charlie Daly system. Reggie Brown has been a great strategist. Harvard line play came from Pot Graves of West Point."

[Ill.u.s.tration: KING, OF HARVARD, MAKING A RUN; MAHAN PUTTING BLACK ON HIS HEAD]

George Chadwick

What George Chadwick, captain of Yale's winning team of 1902, gave of himself to Yale football has amply earned the thoroughly remarkable tributes constantly paid to this great Yale player. He was a most deceptive man with the ball. In the Princeton game John DeWitt was the dangerous man on the Princeton team, feared most on account of his great kicking ability.

DeWitt has always contended that Chadwick's team was the best Yale team he ever saw. He says: "It was a better team than Gordon Brown's for the reason that they had a kicker and Gordon Brown's team did not have a kicker. But this is only my opinion."

Yale and Princeton men will not forget in a hurry the two wonderful runs for touchdowns, one from about the center of the field, that Chadwick made in 1902.

"I note," writes Chadwick, "that there is a general impression that the opening in the line through which I went was large enough to accommodate an express train. As a matter of fact, the opening was hardly large enough for me to squeeze through. The play was not to make a large opening, and I certainly remember the sensation of being squeezed when going through the line.

"There were some amusing incidents in connection with that particular game that come back to me now. I remember that when going down on the train from New York to Princeton, I was very much amused at Mike Murphy's efforts to get Tom Shevlin worked up so he would play an extra good game. Mike kept telling Tom what a good man Davis was and how the latter was going to put it all over him. Tom clenched his fists, put on a silly grin and almost wept. It really did me a lot of good, as it helped to keep my mind off the game. When it did come to the game, his first big game, Shevlin certainly played wonderful football.

"I had been ill for about a week and a half before this game and really had not played in practice for two or three weeks. Mike was rather afraid of my condition, so he told me to be the last man always to get up before the ball was put in play. I carefully followed his advice and as a result a lot of my friends in the stand kept thinking that I had been hurt.

"Toward the end of the game we were down about on Princeton's 40-yard line. It was the third down and the probabilities were that we would not gain the distance, so I decided to have Bowman try for a drop-kick. I happened to glance over at the side line and there was old Mike Murphy making strenuous motions with his foot. The umpire, Das.h.i.+ell, saw him too, and put him off the side lines for signalling. I remember being extremely angry at the time because I was not looking at the side lines for any signals and had decided on a drop kick anyhow.

"In my day it was still the policy to work the men to death, to drill them to endure long hours of practice scrimmage. About two weeks before the Princeton game in my senior year, we were in a slump. We had a long, miserable Monday's practice. A lot of the old coaches insisted that football must be knocked into the men by hard work, but it seemed to me that the men knew a lot of football. They were fundamentally good and what they really needed was condition to enable them to show their football knowledge. It is needless to say that I was influenced greatly in this by Mike Murphy and his knowledge of men and conditioning them.

Joe Swann, the field coach, and Walter Camp were in accord, so we turned down the advice of a lot of the older coaches and gave the Varsity only about five minutes' scrimmage during the week and a half preceding the Princeton game, with the exception of the Bucknell game the Sat.u.r.day before. During the week before the Princeton and Harvard games we went up to Ardsley and had no practice for three days. There was a five-minutes' scrimmage on Thursday. This was an unusual proceeding, but it was so intensely hot the day of the Princeton game, and we all lost so much weight something unusual had to be done. The team played well in the Princeton game, but it was simply a coming team then. In the Harvard game, which we won 23 to 0, it seemed to me that we were at the top of our form.

"I think the whole incident was a lesson to us at New Haven of the great value of condition to men who know a great deal of football. I know from my own experience during the three preceding years that it had been too little thought of. The great cry had too often been 'We must drum football into them, no matter what their physical condition.'

"After the terribly exhausting game at Princeton, which we won, 12 to 5, DeWitt Cochrane invited the team to go to his place at Ardsley and recuperate. It really was our salvation, and I have always been most grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Cochrane for so generously giving up their house completely to a mob of youngsters. We spent three delightful days, almost forgot football entirely, ate ravenously and slept like tops.

"Big Eddie Gla.s.s was a wonderful help in interference. I used to play left half and Eddie left guard. On plays where I would take the ball around the end, or skirting tackle, Eddie would either run in the interference or break through the line and meet me some yards beyond. We had a great pulling and hauling team that year, and the greatest puller and hauler was Eddie Gla.s.s. Perry Hale, who played fullback my soph.o.m.ore year, was a great interferer. He was big, and strong and fast.

On a straight buck through tackle, when he would be behind me, if there was not a hole in the proper place, he would whirl me all the way round and shoot me through a hole somewhere else. It would, of course, act as an impromptu delayed play. In one game I remember making a forty yard run to a touchdown on such a manoeuver."

[Ill.u.s.tration:

McCord Mills Roper Burke Pell Craig Mattis Lathrope Lloyd Bannard Booth Wheeler Reiter Poe Edwards Hillebrand Hutchinson Palmer McClave

PRINCETON'S 1899 TEAM]

Arthur Poe

There never was as much real football ability concealed in a small package as there was in that great player, Arthur Poe. He was always using his head, following the ball, strong in emergency. He was endowed with a wonderful personality, and a man who always got a lot of fun out of the game and made fun for others, but yet was on the job every minute. He always inspired his team mates to play a little harder.

Rather than write anything more about this great player, let us read with him the part he so ably played in some of Princeton's football games.

"The story of my run in 1898 is very simple. Yale tried a ma.s.s play on Doc Hillebrand, which, as usual, was very unsuccessful in that quarter.

He broke through and tackled the man with the ball. While the Yale men were trying to push him forward, I grabbed the ball from his arms and had a clear field and about ten yards start for the goal line. I don't believe I was ever happier in my life than on this day when I made the Princeton team and scored this touchdown against Yale.

"In the second half McBride tried a center drive on Booth and Edwards.

The line held and I rushed in, and grabbed the ball, but before I got very far the Referee blew his whistle, and after I had run across the goal line I realized that the touchdown was not going to be allowed.

"Lew Palmer and I were tried at end simply to endeavor to provide a defense against the return runs of de Saulles on punts. He, by the way, was the greatest open field runner I have ever seen.

"My senior year started auspiciously and the prospects for a victorious eleven appeared especially bright, as only two of the regular players of the year before had graduated. The first hard game was against Columbia, coached by Foster Sanford, who had a wealth of material drawn from the four corners of the earth. In the latter part of the game my opponent by way of showing his disapproval of my features attempted to change them, but was immediately a.s.sisted to the ground by my running mate and was undergoing an unpleasant few moments, when Sanford, reinforced by several dozen subst.i.tutes, ran to his rescue and bestowed some unkind compliments on different parts of my pal's anatomy. With the arrival of Burr McIntosh and several old grads, however, we were released from their clutches, and the game proceeded.

"After the Cornell game the Yale game was close at hand. We were confident of our ability to win, though we expected a bitter hard struggle, in which we were not disappointed. Through a well developed interference on an end run, Reiter was sent around the end for several long gains, resulting in a touchdown, but Yale retaliated by blocking a kick and falling on the ball for a touchdown. Sharpe, a few minutes later, kicked a beautiful goal, so that the score was 10 to 6 in Yale's favor. The wind was blowing a gale all through the first half and as Yale had the wind at their backs we were forced to play a rus.h.i.+ng game, but shortly after the second half began the wind died down considerably so that McBride's long, low kicks were not effective to any great extent.

"Yale was on the defensive and we were unable to break through for the coveted touchdown, though we were able to gain ground consistently for long advances. In the shadow of their goal line Yale held us mainly through the wonderful defensive playing of McBride. I never saw a finer display of backing up the rush line than that of McBride during the second half. So strenuous was the play that eight subst.i.tutions had been made on our team, but with less than five minutes to play we started a furious drive for the goal line from the middle of the field, and with McClave, Mattis and Lathrope carrying the ball we went to Yale's 25-yard line in quick time.

"With only about a minute to play it was decided to try a goal from the field. I was selected as the one to make the attempt. I was standing on the 34-yard line, about ten yards to the left of centre when I kicked; the ball started straight for the far goal post, but apparently was deflected by air currents and curved in not more than a yard from the post. I turned to the Referee, saw his arms raised and heard him say 'Goal' and then everything broke loose.

"I saw members of the team turning somersaults, and all I remember after that was being seized by a crowd of alumni who rushed out upon the field, and hearing my brother Ned shout, 'You d.a.m.ned lucky kid, you have licked them again.' I kicked the ball with my instep, having learned this from Charlie Young of Cornell, who was then at Princeton Seminary and was playing on the scrub team. The reason I did this was because Lew Palmer and myself wore light running shoes with light toes, not kicking shoes at all.

"After the crowd had been cleared off the field there were only 29 seconds left to play, and after Yale had kicked off we held the ball without risking a play until the whistle blew, when I started full speed for the gate, followed by Bert Wheeler. I recall knocking down several men as we were bursting through and making our way to the bus. It was the first, last and only goal from the field I ever attempted, and the most plausible explanation for its success was probably predestination."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NOTHING GOT BY JOHN DeWITT"]

Arthur Poe was a big factor in football, even when he wasn't running or kicking Yale down to defeat.

"Bill Church's roughness, in my freshman year, had the scrub bluffed,"

continues Arthur. "When Lew Palmer volunteered to play halfback and take care of Bill on punts, Bill was surprised on the first kick he attempted to block to feel Lew's fist on his jaw and immediately shouted:

"'I like you for that, you d.a.m.n freshman.'

"That was the first accident that attracted attention to Lew. Palmer was one of the gamest men and he won a Varsity place by the hardest kind of work.

"Well do I recall the indignation meeting of the scrub to talk over plans of curbing Johnny Baird and Fred Smith in their endeavor to kill the scrub."

John DeWitt

Big John DeWitt was the man who brought home the Yale bacon for the Tigers in 1903. To be exact he not only carried, but also kicked it home. Two surprise parties by a single player in so hard a game are rare indeed. Whenever I think of DeWitt I think of his great power of leaders.h.i.+p. He was an ideal captain. He thought things out for himself.

He was the spirit of his team.

This great Princeton captain was one of the most versatile football men known to fame. Playing so remarkably in the guard position, he also did the kicking for his team and was a great power in running with the ball.

DeWitt thought things out almost instantly and took advantage of every possible point. The picture on the opposite page ill.u.s.trates wonderfully well how he exerted and extended himself. This man put his whole soul into his work and was never found wanting. His achievements will hold a conspicuous place in football history. Nothing got by John DeWitt.

DeWitt's team in 1903 was the first to bring victory over Yale to Princeton since 1899. On that day John DeWitt scored a touchdown and kicked a placement goal, which will long be remembered. Let us go back and play a part of that game over with John himself.