Football Days Part 38

One of the most famous games in football was the Harvard-Yale encounter at Springfield in '94. Bob Emmons was captain of the Harvard team and Frank Hinkey captain of Yale. This game was so severely fought that it was decided best to discontinue football relations between these two universities and no game took place until three years later.

Jim Rodgers, who was a subst.i.tute at Yale that year, relates some interesting incidents of that game:

"In those old strenuous days, they put so much fear of G.o.d in you, it scared you so you couldn't play. When we went up to Springfield, we were all over-trained. Instead of putting us up at a regular hotel, they put us up at the Christian Workers, that Stagg was interested in. The bedrooms looked like cells, with a little iron bed and one lamp in each room," says Jim. "You know after one is defeated he recalls these facts as terrible experiences. None of us slept at all well that night, and my knees were so stiff I could hardly walk. Yale relied much on Fred Murphy. Harvard had coached Hallowell to get Murphy excited. Murphy was quick tempered. If you got his goat, he was pretty liable to use his hands, and Harvard was anxious to have him put out of the game.

Hallowell went to his task with earnestness. He got Murphy to the point of rage, but Murphy had been up against Bill Odlin, who used to coach at Andover, and Bill used to give you h.e.l.l if you slugged when the umpire was looking. But when his back was turned you could do anything.

"Murphy stood about all he could and when he saw the officials were in a conference he gave Hallowell a back-hander, and dropped him like a brick. His nose was flattened right over his cheek-bone. Fortunately that happened on the Yale side of the field. If it had happened on the Harvard side, there would have been a riot. There was some noise when that blow was delivered; the whole crowd in the stand stood aghast and held its breath. So Harvard laid for Murphy and in about two plays they got him. How they got him we never knew, but suddenly it was apparent that Murphy was gone. The trainer finally helped Murphy up and the captain of the team told him in which direction his goal was. He would break through just as fine and fast as before, but the moment his head got down to a certain angle, he would go down in a heap. He was game to the core, however, and he kept on going.

"It was in this game that Wrightington, the halfback, was injured, though this never came out in the newspapers. Wrightington caught a punt and started back up the field. In those days you could wriggle and squirm all you wanted to and you could pile on a thousand strong, if you liked. Frank Hinkey was at the other end of the field playing wide, and ready if Wrightington should take a dodge. Murphy caught Wrightington and he started to wriggle. It was at this time that Louis Hinkey came charging down the field on a dead run. In trying to prevent Wrightington from advancing any further with the ball, Louis Hinkey's knee hit Wrightington and came down with a crash on his collar-bone and neck. Wrightington gave one moan, rolled over and fainted dead away.

Frank Hinkey was not within fifteen yards of the play, and Louis did it with no evil intention. Frank thought that Wrightington had been killed and he came over and took Louis Hinkey by the hand, appreciating the severe criticism which was bound to be heaped upon his brother Louis.

There was a furor. It was on everybody's tongue that Frank Hinkey had purposely broken Wrightington's collar-bone. Frank knew who did it, but the 'Silent Hinkey' never revealed the real truth. He protected his brother.

"Yale took issue on the point, and as a result the athletic relations.h.i.+p was suspended.

"It was in this game that Bronc Armstrong established the world's brief record for staying in the game. He was on the field for twenty seconds--then was ruled out. I think Frank Hinkey is the greatest end that was ever on a field. To my mind he never did a dirty thing, but he tackled hard. When Frank Hinkey tackled a man, he left him there. In later years when I was coaching, an old Harvard player who was visiting me, came out to Yale Field. He had never seen Hinkey play football, but he had read much about him. I pointed out several of the men to him, such as Heffelfinger, and others of about his type, all of whom measured up to his ideas, and finally said:

[Ill.u.s.tration: SNAPPING THE BALL WITH LEWIS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "TWO INSEPARABLES"

Frank Hinkey and the Ball.]

"'Where is that fellow Hinkey?' And when I pointed Hinkey out to him, he said:

"'Great guns, Harvard complaining about that little shrimp, I'm ashamed of Harvard.'

"Hinkey was a wonderful leader. Every man that ever played under him wors.h.i.+pped him. He had his team so buffaloed that they obeyed every order, down to the most minute detail.

"When Hinkey entered Yale, there were two corking end rushes in college, Crosby and Josh Hartwell. After about two weeks of practice, there was no longer a question as to whether Hinkey was going to make the team. It was a question of which one of the old players was going to lose his job. They called him 'consumptive Hinkey.'"

Every football player, great though he himself was in his prime, has his gridiron idol. The man, usually some years his elder, whose exploits as a boy he has followed. Joe Beacham's paragon was and is Frank Hinkey and the depth of esteem in which the former Cornell star held Hinkey is well exemplified in the following incident, which occurred on the Black Diamond Express, Eastbound, as it was pa.s.sing through Tonawanda, New York. Beacham had been dozing, but awoke in time to catch a glimpse of the signboard as the train flashed by. Leaning slightly forward he tapped a drummer upon the shoulder. The salesman turned around. "Take off your hat," came the command. "Why?" the salesman began. "Take off your hat," repeated Beacham. The man did so. "Thank you; now put it on,"

came the command. The drummer summing up courage, faced Beacham and said, "Now will you kindly tell me why you asked me to do this?" Joe smiled with the satisfied feeling of an act well performed and said: "I told you to lift your hat because we are pa.s.sing through the town where Frank Hinkey was born."

Later, in the smoking room, Joe heard the drummer discussing the incident with a crowd of fellow salesmen, and he said, concluding, "What I'd like to know is who in h.e.l.l is Frank Hinkey?"

And late that evening when the train arrived in New York Joe Beacham and the traveling man had become the best of friends. In parting, Joe said: "If there's anything I haven't told you, I'll write you about it."

Sandy Hunt, a famous Cornell guard and captain, says:

"Here is one on Bill Hollenback, the last year he played for Pennsylvania against Cornell. Bill went into the game, thoroughly fit, but Mike Murphy, then training the team, was worried lest he be injured.

In an early scrimmage Bill's ear was nearly ripped off. Blood flowed and Mike left the side lines to aid. Mike was waved away by Bill. 'It's nothing but a scratch, Mike, let me get back in the game.' Play was resumed. Following a scrimmage, Mike saw Bill rolling on the ground in agony. 'His ankle is gone,' quoth Mike, as he ran out to the field.

Leaning over Bill, Mike said: 'Is it your ankle, or knee, Bill?' Bill, writhing in agony, gasped:

"'No; somebody stepped on my corn.'"

Hardwick has this to tell of the days when he coached Annapolis:

"One afternoon at Annapolis, the Varsity were playing a practice game and were not playing to form, or better, possibly, they were not playing as the coaches had reason to hope. There was an indifference in their play and a lack of snap and drive in their work that roused Head Coach Ingram's fighting blood. Incidentally, Ingram is a fighter from his feet up, every inch, as broad-minded as he is broad-shouldered, and a keen student of football. The constant letting up of play, and the lack of fight, annoyed him more and more. At last, a Varsity player sat down and called for water. Immediately, the cry was taken up by his team mates.

This was more than Ingram could stand. Out he dashed from the side lines, right into the group of players, shaking his fist and shrieking:

"'Water! Water! What you need is fire, not water!'"

Fred Crolius tells a good story about Foster Sanford when he was coaching at West Point. One of the most interesting inst.i.tutions to coach is West Point. Even in football field practice the same military spirit is in control, most of the coaches being officers. Only when a unique character like Sandy appears is the monotony shattered. Sandy is often humorous in his most serious moments. One afternoon not many weeks before the Navy game Sandy, as Crolius tells it, was paying particular attention to Moss, a guard whom Sanford tried to teach to play low. Moss was very tall and had never appreciated the necessity of bending his knees and straightening his back. Sanford disgusted with Moss as he saw him standing nearly erect in a scrimmage, and Sandy's voice would ring out, "Stop the play, Lieutenant Smith. Give Mr. Moss a side line badge.

Moss, if you want to watch this game, put on a badge, then everybody will know you've got a right to watch it." In the silence of the parade ground those few words sounded like a trumpet for a cavalry charge, but Sandy accomplished his purpose and made a guard of Moss.

The day Princeton played Yale at New Haven in 1899, I had a brother on each side of the field; one was Princeton Cla.s.s, 1895, and the other was an undergraduate at Yale, Cla.s.s of 1901.

My brother, d.i.c.k, told me that his friends at Yale would joke him as to whether he would root for Yale or Princeton on November 25th of that year. I did not worry, for I had an idea. A friend of his told me the following story a week after the game:

"You had been injured in a ma.s.s play and were left alone, for the moment, laid out upon the ground. No one seemed to see you as the play continued. But d.i.c.k was watching your every move, and when he saw you were injured he voluntarily arose from his seat and rushed down the aisle to a place opposite to where you were and was about to go out on the field, when the Princeton trainer rushed out upon the field and stood you on your feet, and as d.i.c.k came back, he took his seat in the Yale grandstand. Yale men knew then where his interest in the game lay."

After Arthur Poe had kicked his goal from the field, Princeton men lost themselves completely and rushed out upon the field. In the midst of the excitement, I remember my brother, George, coming out and enthusiastically congratulating me.

CHAPTER XXII

LEST WE FORGET

Marshall Newell

There is no hero of the past whose name has been handed down in Harvard's football traditions as that of Marshall Newell. He left many lasting impressions upon the men who came in contact with him. The men that played under his coaching idolized him, and this extended even beyond the confines of Harvard University. This is borne out in the following tribute which is paid Newell by Herbert Reed, that was on the Cornell scrub when Newell was their coach.

"It is poignantly difficult, even to-day, years after what was to so many of us a very real tragedy," says Reed, "to accept the fact that Marshall Newell is dead. The ache is still as keen as on that Christmas morning when the brief news dispatches told us that he had been killed in a snowstorm on a railroad track at Springfield. It requires no great summoning of the imagination to picture this fine figure of a man, in heart and body so like his beloved Berks.h.i.+re oaks, bending forward, head down, and driving into the storm in the path of the everyday duty that led to his death. It was, as the world goes, a short life, but a fruitful one--a life given over simply and without questioning to whatever work or whatever play was at hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARSHALL NEWELL]

"To the vast crowds of lovers of football who journeyed to Springfield to see this superman of sport in action in defense of his Alma Mater he will always remain as the personification of sportsmans.h.i.+p combined with the hard, clean, honest effort that marks your true football player. To a great many others who enjoyed the privilege of adventuring afield with him, the memory will be that of a man strong enough to be gentle, of magnetic personality, and yet withal, with a certain reserve that is found only in men whose character is growing steadily under the urge of quiet introspection. Yet, for a man so self-contained, he had much to give to those about him, whether these were men already enjoying place and power or merely boys just on the horizon of a real man's life. It was not so much the mere joy and exuberance of living, as the wonder and appreciation of living that were the springs of Marshall Newell's being.

"It was this that made him the richest poor man it was ever my fortune to know.

"The world about him was to Newell rich in expression of things beautiful, things mysterious, things that struck in great measure awe and reverence into his soul. A man with so much light within could not fail to s.h.i.+ne upon others. He had no heart for the city or the life of the city, and for him, too, the quest of money had no attraction. Even before he went to school at Phillips Exeter, the character of this st.u.r.dy boy had begun to develop in the surroundings he loved throughout his life. Is it any wonder, then, that from the moment he arrived at school he became a favorite with his a.s.sociates, indeed, at a very early stage, something of an idol to the other boys? He expressed an ideal in his very presence--an ideal that was instantly recognizable as true and just--an ideal unspoken, but an ideal lived. Just what that ideal was may perhaps be best understood if I quote a word or two from that little diary of his, never intended for other eyes but privileged now, a quotation that has its own little, delicate touch of humor in conjunction with the finer phrases:

"'There is a fine selection from Carmen to whistle on a load of logs when driving over frozen ground; every jolt gives a delightful emphasis to the notes, and the musician is carried along by the dictatorial leader as it were. What a strength there is in the air! It may be rough at times, but it is true and does not lie. What would the world be if all were open and frank as the day or the suns.h.i.+ne?'

"I want to record certain impressions made upon a certain freshman at Cornell, whither Newell went to coach the football team after his graduation from Harvard. Those impressions are as fresh to-day as they were in that scarlet and gold autumn years ago.

"Here was a man built like the bole of a tree, alight with fire, determination, love of sport, and hunger for the task in hand. He was no easy taskmaster, but always a just one. Many a young man of that period will remember, as I do, the grinding day's work when everything seemed to go wrong, when mere discouragement was gradually giving way to actual despair, when, somewhat clogged with mud and dust and blood, he felt a sudden slap on the back, and heard a cheery voice saying, 'Good work to-day. Keep it up.' Playing hard football himself, Newell demanded hard football of his pupils. I wish, indeed, that some of the players of to-day who groan over a few minutes' session with the soft tackling dummy of these times could see that hard, sole leather tackling dummy swung from a joist that went clear through it and armed with a s.h.i.+eld that hit one over the head when he did not get properly down to his work, that Newell used.

"It was grinding work this, but through it one learned.

"That ancient and battered dummy is stowed away, a forgotten relic of the old days, in the gymnasium at Cornell. There are not a few of us who, when returning to Ithaca, hunt it up to do it reverence.

"Let him for a moment transfer his allegiance to the scrub eleven, and in that moment the Varsity team knew that it was in a real football game. They were hard days indeed on Percy Field, but good days. I have seen Newell play single-handed against one side of the Varsity line, tear up the interference like a whirlwind, and bring down his man. Many of us have played in our small way on the scrub when for purposes of ill.u.s.tration Newell occupied some point in the Varsity line. We knew then what would be on top of us the instant the ball was snapped. Yet when the heap was at its thickest Newell would still be in the middle of it or at the bottom, as the case might be, still working, and still coaching. Both in his coaching at Harvard and at Cornell he developed men whose names will not be forgotten while the game endures, and some of these developments were in the nature of eleventh-hour triumphs for skill and forceful, yet none the less sympathetic, personality.

"After all, despite his remarkable work as a gridiron player and tutor, I like best to think of him as Newell, the man; I like best to recall those long Sunday afternoons when he walked through the woodland paths in the two big gorges, or over the fields at Ithaca in company much of the time with--not the captain of the team, not the star halfback, not the great forward, but some young fellow fresh from school who was still down in the ruck of the squad. More than once he called at now one, now another fraternity house and hailed us: 'Where is that young freshman that is out for my team? I would like to have him take a little walk with me.' And these walks, incidentally, had little or nothing to do with football. They were great opportunities for the little freshman who wanted to get closer to the character of the man himself. No flower, no bit of moss, no striking patch of foliage escaped his notice, for he loved them all, and loved to talk about them. One felt, returning from one of these impromptu rambles, that he had been spending valuable time in that most wonderful church of all, the great outdoors, and spending it with no casual interpreter. Memories of those days in the sharp practice on the field grow dim, but these others I know will always endure.