Football Days Part 26

On account of their a.s.sociation, the trainers keep pace with the men about them; not limiting their interest to athletics. They are always found entertaining at the athletic banquets, and their personalities count for much on the campus. They are all but boys grown up, with well known athletic records behind them. In the hospital, or in the quietness of a college room, or on trips, the trainer is a friend and adviser.

Go and talk to the trainer of the football team if you want to get an unbiased opinion of the team's work or of the value of the individual coaches. Some of our trainers know much about the game of football--the technical side--and their advice is valuable.

Every trainer longs to handle good material, but more power to the trainer who goes ahead with what he's got and makes the best out of it without a murmur. In our recollections we know of teams that were reported to be going stale--"over-trained"--"a team of cripples"--who slumped--could not stand the test--were easily winded--could not endure.

They were nightmares to the trainer. Soon you read in the daily press indications that a change of trainer is about to take place in such a college.

Then we turn to another page of our recollections where we read:

"The team is fit to play the game of their lives." "Only eleven men were used in to-day's game." "Great tribute to the trainer." "Men could have played all day"--"no time taken out"--"not a man injured"--"pink of condition." Usually all this spells victory.

Jack McMasters was the first trainer that I met. "Scottie," as every one affectionately called him, never asked a man to work for him any harder than he would work himself. In a former chapter you have read how Jack and I put in some hard work together.

I recall a trip to Boston, where Princeton was to play Harvard. Most of the Princeton team had retired for the night. About ten o'clock Arthur Poe came down into the corridor of the Vendome Hotel and told "Scottie"

that Bill Church and Johnny Baird were upstairs taking a cold shower.

Jack was furious, and without stopping for the elevator hustled upstairs two steps at a time only to find both of these players sound asleep in bed. Needless to say that Arthur Poe kept out of sight until Jack retired for the night. A trainer's life is not all pleasure.

Once after the train had started from Princeton this same devilish Arthur Poe, as Jack would call him, rushed up forward to where Jack was sitting in the train and said:

"Jack, I don't see b.u.mmie Booth anywhere on the train. I guess he must have been left behind."

With much haste and worry Jack made a hurried search of the entire train to find Booth sitting in the last seat in the rear car with a broad grin on his face.

Jack's training experience was a very broad one. He trained many victorious teams at Harvard after he left Princeton and was finally trainer at Annapolis. A p.r.o.nounced decoration that adorns "Scottie" is a much admired bunch of gold footb.a.l.l.s and baseb.a.l.l.s, which he wears suspended from his watch chain--in fact, so many, that he has had to have his chain reinforced. If you could but sit down with Jack and admire this prized collection and listen to some of his prized achievements--humorous stories of the men he has trained and some of the victories which these trophies designate you would agree with me that no two covers could hold them.

But we must leave Jack for the present at home with his family in Sandy Hook Cottage, Drummore by Stranraer, Scotland, in the best of health, happy in his recollection of a service well rendered and appreciated by every one who knew him.

Jim Robinson

There was something about Jim Robinson that made the men who knew him in his training days refer to him as "Dear Old Jim," and although he no longer cries out from the side lines "trot up, men," a favorite expression of his when he wanted to keep the men stirring about, there still lives within all of us who knew him a keen appreciation of his service and loyalty to the different colleges where he trained.

He began training at Princeton in 1883 and he finished his work there.

How fine was the tribute that was paid him on the day of his funeral!

Dolly Dillon, captain of the 1906 team, and his loyal team mates, all of whom had been carefully attended by Jim Robinson on the football field that fall, acted as pallbearers. There was also a host of old athletes and friends from all over the country who came to pay their last tribute to this great sportsman and trainer.

Mike Murphy and Jim Robinson were always contesting trainers. At Princeton that day with the team gathered around, Murphy related some interesting and touching experiences of Jim's career.

Jim's family still lives at Princeton, and on one of my recent visits there, I called upon Mrs. Robinson. We talked of Jim, and I saw again the loving cups and trophies that Jim had shown me years before.

Jim Robinson trained many of the heroes of the old days, Hector Cowan being one of them. In later years he idolized the playing of that great football hero, John DeWitt, who appreciated all that Jim did to make his team the winner. The spirit of Jim Robinson was comforting as well as humorous. No mention of Jim would be complete without his dialect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ELECT]

He was an Englishman and abused his h's in a way that was a delight to the team. Ross McClave tells of fun at the training table one day when he asked Jim how to spell "saloon." Jim, smiling broadly and knowing he was to amuse these fellows as he had the men in days gone by, said: "Hess--Hay--h.e.l.l--two Hoes--and--a Hen."

Few men got more work out of a team than did Jim Robinson. There was always a time for play and a time for work with Jim.

Mike Murphy

Mike Murphy was the dean of trainers.

Bob Torrey, one of the most remarkable center-rushes that Pennsylvania ever had, is perhaps one of the greatest admirers of Mike Murphy during his latter years. Torrey can tell it better than I can.

"Murphy's sense of system was wonderful; he was a keen observer and had a remarkable memory; he seemed to do very little in the way of bookkeeping, but his mind was carefully pigeon-holed and was a perfect card index.

"He could have thirty men on the field at once and carry on conversations with visitors and graduates; issue orders to workmen and never lose sight of a single one of his men. He was popular wherever he went. His fame was not only known here, but abroad. His charm of manner and his cheerful courage will be remembered by all who knew him, but only those who knew him well realize what an influence he had on the boys with whom he worked, and how high were his ideals of manhood. The amount of good done by Mike Murphy in steering boys into the right track can never be estimated."

Prep' School boys athletically inclined followed Murphy. Many a man went to college in order to get Murphy's training. He was an athletic magnet.

"The Old Mike"

The town of Natick, Ma.s.s., boasts of Mike Murphy's early days. Wonderful athletic traditions centered there. His early days were eventful for his athletic success, as he won all kinds of professional prizes for short distance running. Boyhood friends of Mike Murphy tell of the comrades.h.i.+p among Mike Murphy, Keene Fitzpatrick, Pooch and Piper Donovan--all Natick boys. They give glowing accounts of the "truck team" consisting of this clever quartet, each of whom were "ten-second" men in the sprinting game.

If that great event which was run off at the Marlboro Fair and Cattle Show could be witnessed to-day, thousands of admirers would love to see in action those trainers, see them as the Natick Hose truck defeated the Westboro team that day, and sent the Westboro contingent home with shattered hopes and empty pocketbooks.

"In connection with Army-Navy games," writes Crolius of Dartmouth, "I'll never forget Mike Murphy's wonderful ability to read men's condition by their 'mental att.i.tude.' He was nearly infallible in his diagnosis."

Once we questioned Mike. He said, "Go get last year's money back, you're going to lick them!" And true to his uncanny understanding he was right.

Was it any wonder that men gave Murphy the credit due him?

Mike Murphy had a strong influence over the players. He was their ever-present friend. He could talk to a man, and his personality could reach farther than any of the coaches. The teams that Murphy talked to between the halves, both at Yale and Pennsylvania, were always inspired.

Mike Murphy always gave a man something of himself.

It is interesting to read what a fellow trainer, Keene Fitzpatrick, has to say of Mike:

"Mike first started to train at Yale. Then he went to the Detroit Athletic Club in Detroit; then he came back to Yale; then he went to the University of Pennsylvania; then back to Yale again, and finally back to the University of Penn', where he died.

"We were always great friends and got together every summer; we used to go up to a little country town, Westboro, on a farm; had a little room in a farmhouse outside of the town of Natick, and there we used to get together every year (Mike and Fitz') and share our opinions, and compare and give each other the benefit of our discoveries of the season's work.

"Murphy was one of the greatest sprinters this world ever had. They called him 'stucky' because he had so much grit and determination. The year after Mike died the Intercollegiate was held at Cambridge. All the trainers got together and a lot of flowers were sent out to Mike's grave in Hopkinton, Ma.s.sachusetts."

A CHAT WITH POOCH DONOVAN

Pooch Donovan's success at Harvard goes hand in hand with that of Haughton.

In the great success of Harvard's Varsity, year after year, the fine hand of the trainer has been noticeable. Harvard's teams have stood the test wonderfully well, and all the honors that go with victory have been heaped upon Pooch Donovan's head.

Every man on the Harvard squad knows that Donovan can get as much work out of his players as it is possible for any human being to get out of them. Pooch Donovan served at Yale in 1888, 1889 and 1890, when Mike Murphy was trainer there. He and Donovan used to have long talks together and they were ever comparing notes on the training of varsity teams. Pooch Donovan owes much to Mike Murphy, and the latter was Pooch's loyal supporter.

"What made Mike Murphy a st.u.r.dy man, was that he was such a hard loser--he could not stand to lose," says Donovan.

"You know the thing that keeps me young is working shoulder to shoulder with these young fellows." This to me, in the dressing-room, where we have no time for anything but cold truths. "It was the same thing that kept Mike Murphy going ten years after the doctors said he would soon be all in. That was when he returned to Yale, after he had been at Pennsylvania. There is something about this sort of work that invigorates us and keeps us young. I'm no longer a young man in years, but it is the spirit and inspiration of youth with which this work identifies me that keeps me really young."

When I asked Pooch about Eddie Mahan's great all-around ability, his face lighted up, and I saw immediately that what I had heard was true--that Donovan simply idolized Eddie Mahan. Mahan lives in Natick, Ma.s.sachusetts, where Donovan also has his home. He has seen Ned Mahan grow to manhood. Mahan had his first football training as a player on the Natick High School team.