Football Days Part 32

"Of course this never worked out literally, but the case of Charlie Chadwick is probably the best explanation of its value. Besides being overdeveloped, he was temperamental. At times he would show great form and at other times his playing was hopeless. This year I was asked to come to New Haven and began coaching the linemen. Chadwick looked good to me, in spite of much criticism that was made by the coaches. In their opinion they thought he was not to be relied upon, so I decided to stake my reputation, and began in my own way, feeling sure that I could get results, in preparing him for the Harvard and Princeton games.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEARNING THE CHARGE]

"I started out purposely annoying Chadwick in every possible way, going with him wherever he went. I went with him to his room evenings and did not leave until he had become so bored that he fell asleep, or that he got mad and told me to get out. I planned it that Chadwick approach the coaches whenever he saw them together and say: 'I wish you would let me play on this team. If you will I will play the game of my life. I will play like h.e.l.l.' After he had made this speech two or three times, they were very positive that he was more than temperamental. I kept steadily at my plan, however, and felt sure it would work out.

"The line was finally turned over to me and I had opportunity to slip Chadwick in for two or three plays at left guard. He played like a demon; he was literally a one man defense, but he received no credit. I immediately removed him from the game and criticised him severely and told him to follow up the play and in case I needed him he would be handy. I realized what a great player he was proving to be, and my great problem then was how I was to convince the coaches that Chadwick should start the game. I tried it out a few times, but saw it was useless trying to convince them, so I decided to concentrate on Jim Rodgers, the Captain. Jim consented. My plan was to tell no one except Marshall, the man whose place Chadwick was to take. The lineup was called out in the dressing room before the game. Chadwick's name was not included. I had arranged with Julian Curtis, who was in close touch with the cheer leaders, that when I gave the signal, the Yale crowd would be instructed to stand and yell nothing but 'Chadwick, Chadwick, Chadwick.' The Yale team ran out upon the field. I stayed behind with Chadwick and came in through the gate holding him by the arm. Before going on the side lines I stopped him and said: 'Look here, Chadwick. It doesn't look as though you're going to play, but if I put you in that lineup how will you play?' Like a shot from a cannon he roared: 'I'll play like h.e.l.l.'

"You could have heard him a mile. 'Well then, give me your sweater and warm up,' I said, and as I gave the signal to Julian Curtis, he pa.s.sed the word on to the cheer leaders and the sight of Chadwick running up and down those side lines will never be forgotten. It is estimated that he leaped five yards at a stride, and with the students cheering, 'Chadwick, Chadwick, Chadwick,' he was sent out into the lineup--and the rest, well, you'd better ask the men who played on the Harvard team that day. It was a stream of men going on and off the field and they were headed for right guard position on the Harvard side. Harvard could not beat Chadwick, so the game ended in a tie."

Jim Rodgers, captain of that team, also has something to say of Chadwick.

"In the Harvard-Yale game," Rodgers writes, "Charlie Chadwick played the game of his life. He used up about six men who played against him that day, but he never could put out Bill Edwards the day we played Princeton. I played against Chadwick on the Scrub, and the first charge he made against me I went clean back to fullback. It was just as though an automobile had hit me. I played against Heffelfinger and a lot of them. I could hold those fellows. Gee! but I was sore. I said to myself, you won't do that again, and the next time I was set back just as far.

"One feature of this Yale-Princeton game impressed me tremendously, that of Bill Edwards' stand, against what I considered a superman, Charles Chadwick. Before the game I had confidently expected Big Bill to resign after about five minutes' play, knowing, as I did, how Chadwick was going. In this, however, Edwards was a great disappointment, as he stuck the game out and was stronger at the end, than at the start or half way through. Had he weakened at all, Ad Kelly's great offensive work would have been doomed to failure. Edwards finished up the game against Chadwick with a face that resembled a raw beefsteak. To my mind he was the worst punished man I have ever seen. He stood by his guns to the finish, and ever since then my hat has been off to him."

One of the most interesting characters in Southern football is W. R.

Tichenor, a thorough enthusiast in the game and known wherever there is a football in the South. His father was president of the Alabama Polytechnic. He was a fine player and weighed about 120 pounds. He is the emergency football man of the South. Whenever there is a football dispute Tichenor settles it. Whenever a coach is taken sick, Tichenor is called upon to take his place. Whenever an emergency official is needed, Tich comes to the rescue. He tells the following story:

"Every boy who has been to Auburn in the last twenty years knows Bob Frazier. Many of them, however, may not recognize that name, as he has been called Bob 'Sponsor' for so long that few of them know his real name. Bob is as black as the inside of a coal mine and has rubbed and worked for the various teams at Auburn 'since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: BILLY BULL ADVISING WITH CAPTAIN TALBOT]

"Just after the Christmas holidays one year in the middle nineties, Bob, with the view of making a touch, called at Bill Williams' room one night.

"After asking Bill if he had had a good Christmas, 'Sponsor' remarked: 'You know, Mr. Williams, us Auburn n.i.g.g.e.rs went down and played dem Tuskegee n.i.g.g.e.rs a game of football during Christmas.'

"'Who did you have on the team, Bob?' inquired Bill.

"'Oh--we had a lot of dese n.i.g.g.e.rs roun' town yere. They was me, an'

Crooksie, an' Homer, an' Bear, an' c.o.c.keye, an' a lot of dese yer town n.i.g.g.e.rs.'

"'How did you come out?' asked Bill.

"'Oh, dem Tuskegee n.i.g.g.e.rs give us a good lickin'.'

"'What position did you play?'

"'Me?' said Bob, 'I was de cap'en. I played all roun'. I played center.

Den I played quarterback. Den I played halfback.'

"'What system of signals did you use and who called them?' was Bill's next inquiry.

"'Ain't I tole you, Mr. Williams, I was de cap'en. I called the signals.

Dem n.i.g.g.e.rs of mine couldn't learn no signals, so we jus' played lack we had some. I'd give some numbers to fool the Tuskegee n.i.g.g.e.rs. But dem numbers didn't mean nothin'. I'd say, "two, four, six, eight, ten--tek dat ball, Homer, an' go roun' the end." Dat's de only sort of signals dem n.i.g.g.e.rs could learn and sometimes dey missed dem. Dat's de reason we got beat and dem Tuskegee n.i.g.g.e.rs got all my money. Mr. Williams, I'm jus' as nickless as a ha'nt. Can't you lem' me two bits til' Sadday night, please suh? Honest to G.o.d, I'll pay you back den, sh.o.r.e.'"

Listening to Yost

"Hurry Up" Yost is one of the most interesting and enthusiastic football coaches in the country. The t.i.tle of "Hurry Up" has been given him on account of the "pep" he puts into his men and the speed at which they work. Whether in a restaurant or a crowded street, hotel lobby or on a railroad train, Yost will proceed to demonstrate this or that play and carefully explain many of the things well worth while in football. He is always in deadly earnest. Out of the football season, during business hours, he is ever ready to talk the game. Yost's football experience as a player began at the University of West Virginia, where he played tackle. Lafayette beat them that year 6 to 0. Shortly after this Yost entered Lafayette. His early experience in football there was under the famous football expert and writer, Parke Davis.

Yost and Rinehart wear a broad smile as they tell of the way Parke Davis used to entertain teams off the field. He always kept them in the finest of humor. Parke Davis, they say, is a born entertainer, and many an evening in the club house did he keep their minds off football by a wonderful demonstration of sleight-of-hand with the cards.

"If Parke Davis had taken his coat off and stuck to coaching he would have been one of the greatest leaders in that line in the country to-day," says Yost. "He was more or a less a bug on football. You know that to be good in anything one must be crazy about it. Davis was certainly a bug on football and so am I. Everybody knows that.

"I shall never forget Davis after Lafayette had beaten Cornell 6 to 0, in 1895, at Ithaca. That night in the course of the celebration Parke uncovered everything he had in the way of entertainment and gave an exhibition of his famous dance, so aptly named the 'dance du venture,'

by that enthusiastic Lafayette alumnus, John Clarke.

"I have been at Michigan fifteen seasons. My 1901 team is perhaps the most remarkable in the history of football in many ways. It scored 550 points to opponents' nothing, and journeyed 3500 miles. We played Stanford on New Year's day, using no subst.i.tutes. On this great team were Neil Snow, and the remarkable quarterback Boss Weeks. Willie Heston, who was playing his first year at Michigan, was another star on this team. A picture of Michigan's great team appears on the opposite page.

"Boss Weeks' two teams scored more than 1200 points. If that team had been in front of the Chinese Wall and got the signal to go, not a man would have hesitated. Every man that played under Boss Weeks idolized him, and when word was brought to the university that he had died, every Michigan man felt that its university had lost one of its greatest men.

"I am perhaps more of a boy's man to-day than I ever was. There is a great satisfaction in feeling that you have an influence in the lives of the men under you. Coaching is a sacred job. There's no question about it.

"There is a wonderful athletic spirit at Michigan, and when we have ma.s.s meetings in the Hill Auditorium 6000 men turn out. At such a time one feels the great power behind an athletic team. Some of the great Michigan football players within my recollection were Jimmy Baird, Jack McLain, Neil Snow, Boss Weeks, Tom Hammond, Willie Heston, Herrnstein, grand old Germany Schultz, Benbrook, Stan Wells, Dan McGugin, Dave Allerdice, Hugh White and others I might mention on down to John Maulbetsch."

Reggie Brown is probably one of the most famous of the Harvard coaches.

His work in Harvard football is to find out what the other teams are doing. He is on hand at Yale Field every Sat.u.r.day when the Yale team plays. He is unique in his scouting work, in that he carries his findings in his head. His memory is his mental note book.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

Craft McGugin Gregory Yost Graver Baird Fitzpatrick Wilson Snow White Shorts Heston Sweeley Weeks Redden Redner Herrnstein

MICHIGAN'S FAMOUS 1901 TEAM]

In talking with Harvard men I have found that the general impression is that the work of this coach is one of Harvard's biggest a.s.sets.

Jimmy Knox of Harvard is one of Haughton's most valued scouts. Every fall Princeton is his haven of scouting. He does it most successfully and in a truly sportsmanlike way.

One day en route to Princeton I met Knox on the train and sat with him as far as Princeton Junction. When we arrived at Princeton, a friend of mine called me aside and said:

"Who is that loyal Princeton man who seems never to miss a game?"

"He is not a Princeton man," I replied. "He is Knox the Harvard scout.

He will be with Haughton to-morrow at Cambridge with his dope book."

"From questions asked me I am quite sure that there is an utter misconception of the work of the scouts for the big league teams," says Jimmy. "I have frequently been asked how I get in to see the practice of our opponents, how I manage to get their signals, how I antic.i.p.ate what they are going to do, what is the value of scouting anyway. From five years' experience, I can say that I have never seen our opponents except in public games. I have never unconsciously noted a signal even for a kick, much less made a deliberate attempt to learn the opponents'

signals or code. What little I know of their ultimate plans is merely by applying common sense to their problem, based on the material and methods which they command. As to the value of scouting, volumes might be written, but suffice it to say that it is the princ.i.p.al means of standardizing the game. If the big teams of the country played throughout the season in seclusion, the final games would be a hodge-podge of varying systems which would curtail the interest of the spectator and all but block the development of the game.

"The reports of the scouts give the various coaching corps a fixed objective so that the various teams come to their final game with what might be considered a uniform examination to pa.s.s. The result is a steady, logical development of the game from the inside and the maximum interest for the spectator. It is unfortunate that the public has misconstrued scouting to mean spying, for there is nothing underhanded in the scouting department of football as any big team coach will testify."

Knox tells of an interesting experience of his Freshman year.

"I never hear the question debated as to whether character is born in a man or developed as time goes on," says he, "without recalling my first meeting with Marshall Newell, probably the best loved man that ever graduated from Harvard. In the middle '90's it was considered beneath the dignity of a former Varsity player to coach any but Varsity candidates. Marshall Newell was an exception. Without solicitation he came over to the Freshman field many times and gave us youngsters the benefit of his advice. On his first trip he went into the lineup and gave us an example of how the game could be played by a master. When the practice was over, Ma Newell came up to me and said: 'I guess I was a little rough, my boy, but I just wanted to test your grit. You had better come over to the Varsity field to-morrow with two or three of the other fellows that I am going to speak to. I'll watch you and help you after you get there.' And he did. He was loved because he was big enough to disregard convention, to sympathize with the less proficient and to make an inferior feel as if he were on a plane of equality. The highest type of manhood was born with Marshall Newell and developed through every hour of a too short life.

"Only those who played football in the old days and have carefully followed it since appreciate the difference in the two types of game. I frequently wonder if the old type of game did not develop more in a man than the modern. As a freshman I was playing halfback on the second Varsity one afternoon when a sudden blow knocked me unconscious while the play was at one end of the field. When I regained consciousness the play was at the other end of the field, not a soul was near me or thinking of me. I had hardly got within ear-shot of the scrimmage when I heard Lewis, one of the Varsity coaches, call out, 'Come on, get in here, they can't kill fellows like you.' I went into the scrimmage and played the rest of the afternoon. It was a simple incident, but I learned two lessons of life from it: first, you can expect mighty little sympathy when you are down; second, you are not out if you will only go back and stick to it."

Dartmouth holds a unique position in college football. There are many men who were responsible for Dartmouth's success, men who have stood by year after year and worked out the football policy there.

It is my experience that Dartmouth men universally call Ed Hall the father of Dartmouth football. He has served faithfully on the Rules Committee as well as an official in the game.