Football Days Part 3

"What is your name?" Back came the reply, which almost broke up the football practice for the day: "_Ketchum_ is my name."

Falling on the ball is one of the fundamentals in football. It is the ground work that every player must learn. Frank Hinkey, that great Yale Captain and player, was an artist in performing this fundamental.

Playing so wonderfully well the end-rush position, his alertness in falling on the ball often meant much distance for Yale. He had wonderful judgment in deciding whether to fall on the ball or pick it up.

One of the most important things in football is knowing how to tackle properly. Some men take to it naturally and others only learn after hard, strenuous practice.

In the old days men were taught to tackle by what is known as "live tackling." I recall especially that earnest coach, Johnny Poe, whose main object in football coaching was to see that the men tackled hard and sure.

Poe, without any padding on at all, would let the men dive into him running at full speed, and the men would throw him in a way that seemed as though it would maim him for life. Some of the men weighed a hundred pounds more than he did, but he would get up and, with a smile, say:

"Come on men, hit me harder; knock me out next time."

After the first two weeks of the season, Johnny Poe was a complete ma.s.s of black and blue marks; and yet how wonderful and how self sacrificing he was in his eagerness to make the Princeton players good tacklers.

But there are few men like Johnny Poe, who are willing to sacrifice their own bodies for the instruction of others; and the next best method, and one which does not injure the players so much, is tackling the "dummy."

As we look at this picture of Howard Henry of Princeton tackling the "dummy," we all remember when we were back in the game trying our very best to put our shoulder into our opponent's knees and "hit him hard, throw him, and hold him." Henry always got his man.

But the thrill of the game is not in tackling the dummy. The joy comes in a game, when a man is coming through the line, or making a long run, and you throw yourself at his knees, and get your tackle; then up and ready for another.

I recall an experience I had at Princeton one year. When I went to the Club House to get my uniform, which I wanted to wear in coaching, I asked Keene Fitzpatrick, the Trainer, where my suit was. He said:

[Ill.u.s.tration: HIT YOUR MAN LOW]

"It's hanging outside."

I went outside of the dressing room but could see no suit anywhere. He came out wearing a broad smile.

"No," he said, "it isn't out here, it's out there hanging in the air. We made a dummy out of it."

And there before me I saw my old uniform stuffed with sawdust. I looked at myself--in suspense.

After the men have been given the other preliminary work they are taken to the charging board. The one shown here is used at Yale. It teaches the men quick starting and the use of their hands. It trains them to keep their eyes on the ball and impresses them with the fact that if they start before the ball is put in play, a penalty will follow. A fast charging line has its great value, and every coach is keen to have the forwards move fast to clear the way.

Then after the individual coaching is over, the team runs through signals, and the practice is on. Before very long the head coach announces that practice is over, and the trainer yells:

"Everybody in on the jump," and you soon find yourself back in the dressing room.

It does not take you long to get your clothes off and ready for the bath. How well some of you will recall that after a hard practice you were content to sit and rest awhile on the bench in the dressing-room.

It may be that, in removing your clothes, you favored an injured knee, looked at a sprained ankle, or helped some fellow off with his jersey.

What is finer, after a hard day's practice, than to stand beneath a warm shower and gradually let the water grow cold? Everything is lovely until some rascal in the bunch throws a cold sponge on you and slaps you across the back, or turns the cold water on, when you only want hot.

Then comes the dry-off and the rub-down, which seems to soothe all your bruises. This picture of Pete Balliet standing on the end of a bench, while Jack McMasters ma.s.sages an injured knee may recall to many a football player the day when the trainer was his best friend. From his wonderful physique it is easy to believe that Balliet must have been the great center-rush whom the heroes of years ago tell about.

Harry Brown, that great Princeton end-rush, is on the other end of the bench, being taken care of by Bill Buss, a jovial old colored attendant, who was for so many years a rubber at Princeton.

I know men who never enthuse over football, but just play from a sense of college loyalty, and a fear of censure should they not play; who are sorry that they were ever big or showed any football ability. College sentiment will not allow a football man to remain idle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REPAIRS]

I knew a man in college, who, on his way to the football field, said:

"Oh, how I hate to drag my body down to the Varsity field to-day to have it battered and bruised!"

One does not always enthuse over the hard drudgery of practice. Those that witness only the final games of the year, little realize the gruesome task of preparedness. Every football player will acknowledge that some day he has had these thoughts himself.

But suddenly the day comes when this discouraged player sees a light.

Perhaps he has developed a hidden power, or it may be that he has broken through and made a clean tackle behind the line; perhaps he has made a good run and received a compliment from the coach. It may be that his side partner has given him a word of encouragement, which may have instilled into him a new spirit, and, as a result, he has turned out to be a real football player. He then forgets all the bruises and all the hard knocks.

How true it is that in one play, or in a practice game, or in a contest against an opposing college, a player has found himself. Do you players of football remember the day you made the team, the day your chance came and you took advantage of it? At such a time a player shows great possibilities. He is told by the captain to report at the training house for the Varsity signals. Who that has experienced the thrill of that moment can ever forget it?

He earns his seat at the Varsity table. He is now on the Varsity squad.

He goes on, determined to play a better game, and realizes he must hold his place at the training table by hard, conscientious work.

One is not unmindful of the traditions that are centered about the board where so many heroes of the past have sat. You have a keen realization of the fact that you are filling the seat of men who have gone before you, and that you must make good, as they made good. Their spirit lives.

The training table is a great school for team spirit. To have a successful team, any coach will tell you, there must be a brotherly feeling among the members of the team. The men must chum together on and off the field. Team work on the field is made much easier if there is team work off the field.

I never hear the expression "team mates" used but I recall a certain Princeton team, the captain of which was endowed with a wonderful power of leaders.h.i.+p. There was nothing the men would not do for him. Every man on the team regarded him as a big brother. Yet there was one man on the squad who seemed inclined to be alone. He had little to say, and when his work was over on the field he always went silently away to his room.

He did not mingle with the other players in the club house after dinner, and there did not seem to be much warmth in him.

Garry Cochran, the captain, took some of us into his confidence, and we made it our business to draw this fellow out of his sh.e.l.l. It was not long before we found that he was an entirely different sort of a person from what he had seemed to be.

In a short time, the fellow who was unconsciously r.e.t.a.r.ding good fellows.h.i.+p among the members of the team was no longer a silent negative individual, but was soon urging us on in a get-together spirit.

It will be impossible to relate all the good times had at a college training table. I think that every football man will agree with me that we now have a great deal of sympathy for the trainer, whereas in the old days we roasted him when it seemed that dinner would never be ready.

How the hungry mob awaited the signal!

"The flag is down," as old Jim Robinson would say, and Arthur Poe would yell:

"Fellows, the hash is ready."

Then the hungry crowd would scramble in for the big event of the day.

There awaited them all the delicacies of a trainer's menu; the food that made touchdowns. If the service was slow, the good-natured trainer was all at fault, and he too joined in the spirit of their criticism. If the steak was especially tender, they would say it was tough. There was much juggling of the portions distributed. Fred Daly recalls the first week that he and Johnnie Kilpatrick were at the Yale training table. Kil called for some chocolate, and Johnnie Mack, the trainer, yelled back:

"What do you think this is, anyway, a hospital?"

That started something for awhile in the way of jollying. Daly recalls another incident, that happened often at Yale one year. It is about Bill Goebel, who certainly could put the food away. After disposing of about twelve plates of ice cream, which he had begged, borrowed or stolen, he called one of the innocent waiters over to him and asked in a gentle voice: "Say, George, what is the dessert for to-night?"

Then there comes the good-natured "jos.h.i.+ng" of the fellow who has made a fine play during the practice, or in the game of the day. One or two of the fun makers rush around, put their hands on him and hold him tight for fear he will not be able to contain himself on account of his success of the day. This sort of jollification makes the fellow who has made a bad play forget what he might have done, and he too becomes buoyant amidst the good fellows.h.i.+p about him.

We all realize what a modest individual the trainer is. If in a reminiscent mood to change the subject from football to himself, he tells his "ever-on-to-him" admirers some of his achievements in the old days there is immediately evidence of preparedness among the players, as the following salute is given--with fists beating on the table in unison--

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD FAITHFULS]

"One, two, three! _Oh, what a gosh darn lie!_"