CHAPTER IX THE 90'S AND AFTER, PART B In 1904 Fred Murphy coached at Exeter. Fred says, this was probably the best team that Exeter had had up to that time. The team was captained by Tommy Thompson, who afterwards played at Cornell. Eddie Hart at that time stripped at about 195 pounds. This was the famous team on which Donald Mackenzie McFade and played and later made the Princeton Varsity. Tad Jones was quarterback. The first year he came to school. In those days they took to football intuitively, without much coaching. You never had to tell Tad Jones a thing more than once. He would think things out for himself. He showed great powers of leadership and good football sense. Howard Jones and Harry Vaughn played on this team. Charlie McCarthy of Brown will long be remembered for his great punting ability, says Fred Murphy. He had a great many pet theories. McCarthy is one of the best footballmen in the Brown list. In a letter which I have received from Charlie McCarthy as a result of a wonderful victory over Minnesota one year, McCarthy writes, the students of the university gave me a beautiful gold watch engraved on the inside, to our friend Mack from the students of the University of Wisconsin. This shows how highly McCarthy is held at this university. McCarthy continues, I go out every fall and kick around with the boys still, and I hope to do so the rest of my life if I get a chance. I think the greatest football player I ever saw was Frank Hinky. Speaking of my own ability as a player, I haven't much to say. I was not much of a football player, but I got by some way. I neither had the physique nor the ability, but tried to do my best. I'm glad to say no one ever called me a quitter. I am proud to say that Brown University gave me a beautiful silver cup at the end of my four years for the best work in football, although the said cup belongs by rights to ten other men on the team. As one visits the dressing room of the New York Giants and sees the attendant work upon the wonderful physique of Christie Matheson, one cannot help but realize what a potent factor he must have been on Bucknell's team. When Christie played, he was six feet tall and weighed 168 pounds stripped. He prepared at Keystone Academy, playing in the line. In 1898, when he went to Bucknell, he was immediately put at fullback and played there three years. Fred Crowlius says of him, of all the long-distance punters with hard kicks to handle, Percy Hotten and Christie Matheson stand out in his memory. Matheson had the leg power to turn his spiral over. That is, instead of dropping where ordinary spirals always drop, an additional turn seemed to carry the ball over the head of the back who was waiting for the ball, often carrying some 15 or 20 yards beyond. Football has no more ardent admirer than Christie Matheson. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say of his experience in the game of football. I like to play football, says Matheson. I was a better football player than a baseball player in those days. I was considered a good punter. I was not much as a linebacker. The captain of the team always gave me a football to take with me in the summer. I occasionally had an opportunity to practice kicking after I was through with my baseball work. At Taunton, Massachusetts, my first summer, I ran across a fellow who was playing third base on the team for which I was pitching. McAndrews was his name. He was a Dartmouth man. He showed me how to kick. He showed me how to drop a spiral. I like to drop kick and used to practice it quite a little. I remember how tough it was for me when Bucknell played Annapolis the year before when the Navy team had a man who could kick such wonderful spirals. They were terribly hard to handle and I was determined to profit by his example. So I just hung on for dear life, punting spirals all summer. Later, I used to watch George Brooke punt a good deal when he was coaching. At that time, drop kickers were not so numerous. I had summer collection of a fellow named O'Day who had a great reputation as a drop kicker, as did Hudson of Carlisle. In 1898, we were to play Pennsylvania. Our team served as a preliminary game for Pennsylvania. They often beat us by large scores. Since then, we have had teams which made a six to five score. But they had good teams in my time. We never scored on pen, as I recall. Our coach said one day at the training table, I'll give a raincoat to the fellow who scores on pen today. The manager walked in and overheard his remark and added, Yes, and I'll give a pair of shoes to the man who makes the second score against pen. That put some pep into us. Anyway, we were on pens 35 yard line and I kicked a field goal. After this, we rushed the ball and got up to pens 40 yard line. And from there, I scored again, thereby winning the shoes and the raincoat. I went up to Columbia one day to see them practice. It was in the days when Foster Sanford was their coach. He saw me standing on the sidelines, came over to where I was, looked me over once or twice, and finally said, Why aren't you trying out for the team? I think you'd make a football player if you came out. I said, I guess I would not be eligible. Why, asked Sandy. Well, I said, because I'm a professional. Then some fellows around me grinned and told Sanford who I was. I love to think of the good old football days and some of the spirit that entered collegiate contests. Once in a while in baseball, I feel the thrill of that spirit. It was only recently that I experienced that get together spirit, where a team full of life with everybody working together, wrought great results. That same old thrill came to me during one of the Giants trips in the West, in which they won 17 straight victories. There's much good fellowship in football. I played against teams whose cheerleaders would give you a rousing cheer as you made a good play. Then again, you would meet the fellow who, when you were down in the scrimmage, or after you had kicked the ball, would try to put you down and out. One of the pleasantest recollections I have of playing was my experience against the two great academy teams, West Point and Annapolis. Never shall I forget one year when Bucknell played West Point. At an exciting moment in the game, Bucknell players made it possible for me to be in a position to kick the goal from the field from a difficult angle. After the score had been made, the West Point teams stood there stupefied, and when the crowd got the idea that a goal had been kicked from a peculiar angle, they gave us a rousing cheer, such as the proper spirit of American football, to see some sunshine in your opponent's play. Cheering helps so much to build up one's enthusiasm. Al Sharp was one of the greatest all-round athletes that ever wore the blue of Yale. He, too, recalls the Yale Princeton game of 1899 at New Haven, but the memory comes to him as a nightmare. When I think about the eleven to ten game at New Haven, which Princeton won, said Sharp the last time I saw him, I remember that after I had kicked a goal from the field, and the score was ten to six, skim brown and rushed up to me, and nearly took me off my feet with one of his friendly slaps across my back. Well, I do remember the joy of the great Yale player at this stage of the game. Later, when Poe made his kick, and I saw that the ball was going over the bar, I remember that the thing I wished most was that I could have been back up in the line where I might have had a chance to block the kick. My recollections of making the Yale team centered chiefly around three facts, none of which I was allowed to forget. First, that I was not any good. Second, that I couldn't tackle. And third, that I ran like an ice-wagon. Since then, I have seen so many really good players upon my different squads that I must admit the truth of the above statement, although at the time I am frank to say I took exception to it, such is the optimism of youth. Jack Munn, a former Princeton half-back, tells the following story. My brother, Edward Munn, was the manager of the Princeton team in 1893. In the spring of that year there was a conference with Yale representatives to decide where the game was to be played the following fall. Berkeley Oval, Brooklyn, Manhattan Field, and the respective fields of the two colleges all came under discussion, and I believe that some of the newspapers must have taken it up. One afternoon in the Murray Hill Hotel, when representatives of Yale and Princeton were discussing the various possibilities, a bellboy knocked at the door and handed my brother an elaborately engraved card on which, among various decorations, the name of Colonel Cody was to be distinguished. Buffalo Bill was invited to come up, and it seems that, reading or hearing of the discussion about the field for the game, he came to make a formal offer of the use of his tent. After setting forth the desirability of staging the game under the auspices of his Wild West show, he brought his offer to a close with his trump card. For, gentlemen, he said, besides all the other advantages which I have mentioned, there is this further attraction. My tent is well and sufficiently lighted so that you can not only hold a matinee, but you can give an evening performance as well. And those were the days of the flying wedge and two 45-minute halves with only 10-minute intermission. Walter C. Booth. Walter C. Booth, a former Princeton Center Rush, was one of the select coterie of Eastern football men that wended its way westward to carry the Eastern system into institutions that had had no opportunity to build up the game, yet were hungry for real football. Booth's trip was a successful one. In the autumn of 1900, after graduating from college, I arrived at Lincoln, Nebraska in the dual role of law student and football coach of the State University, says Booth. This was my first trip west of Pittsburgh and I viewed my new duties with some apprehension. All doubts and fears were soon put at rest by the hardy encouragement and support that I received and retained in my Nebraska football relations. Most of the faculty were behind football and H. Benjamin Andrews, at that time the head of the university, was a staunch supporter of the game. Dr. Roscoe Pound, later dean of Harvard Law School, was the father of Nebraska football. He had as intimate and acquaintance with the rule book as any official I have ever known. His advice on naughty problems was always valuable. James I. Wire, afterward state librarian of New York, was our first financial director and it was largely by reason of his unflagging zeal that football survived. Football spirit ran high in the Missouri Valley and there were many hard fought contests among the teams of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. Those who saw these games or played in them will never forget them. Many amusing things happened in that section as well as in the East. The Haskell Indians were a picturesque team. They represented the government school at Lawrence, Kansas, an institution similar to that of Carlisle. In fact, many of the same players played on both teams at different times. We always found them a hard nut to crack and Redwater, Archaquette, Hauser, and other Indian stars made their names well known on our field. John Outland, the noted Pennsylvania player, had charge of the Indians when I knew them. He was a great player and a fine type of man who succeeded in imparting some of his own personality to his pupils. He once showed me a dark-faced Indian in Lawrence who must have been at least six feet four inches tall and of superb physique. He was a full-blooded Cheyenne and went by the name of Bobtail Billy. Outland tried hard to break him in at guard, but as no one understood Bobtail's dialect and he understood no one else, he never learned the signals and proved unavailable. We traveled far to play in those days, west to Boulder, Colorado, handicapped by an altitude of 5,000 feet, south to Kansas City, and north as far as St. Paul and Minneapolis. We were generally about 500 miles from our base. We were not able to take many deadheads. Harry Kurzberg is one of the most enthusiastic Harvard football players I have ever met. He played guard on Harvard in 1904, 2005, and 2006, and is often asked back to Cambridge to coach the centermen. From his playing days, let us read what he prizes in his recollections. My college career began at Lehigh with the idea of eventually going to Harvard. As a football enthusiast, I came under the observation of Dr. Newton, who was coaching Lehigh at that time. Doc taught me the first football I ever knew. In one of the games against Union College, Doc asked me before the game whether, if he put me in, I would deliver the goods. I said I would try and do my best. He said, that won't do. I don't want any men on my team who says I'll try. A man has got to say I'll do it. From that time on, I never said I'll try, but always said I'll do it. I shall never forget the day I played against John DeWitt. I did not know much about the finer points of football then. I weighed about 165 pounds with my football clothes on, was 5 feet, 9 inches tall, and 16 years old. I shall always remember seeing that great big hawk of a man opposite me. I did not have cold feet. I knew I had to go in and give the best account of myself I could. It was like going up against a stone wall. John DeWitt certainly could use his hands, with the result that I resembled paper pulp when I came out of that game.  After I got my growth, weight, and strength, plus my experience, I always had a desire to play against DeWitt to see if he could do the same thing again. In a Harvard Yale game one year, I remember an incident that took place between Carr, Shevlin, and myself, says Harry. Tom Shevlin usually stood near the goal line when Yale received the kickoff. As a matter of fact, he caught the ball most of the time. The night before the Yale game in 1905, Bill Carr and myself were discussing what might come up the following day. In as much as we always lined up side by side on the kickoff, we made a wager that if Harvard kicked off, we would each be the first to tackle Shevlin. The next day, Harvard won the toss and chose to kick off, and as we had hoped, Shevlin caught the ball. Carr and I raced down the field, each intent on being the first to tackle him. I crashed into Shevlin and spilled him, upsetting myself at the same time. When I picked myself up and looked around, Carr had Shevlin peeled securely to the ground. After the game, we told Shevlin of our wager, and he said that under the circumstances, all bets were off, as both had won. Former U.S. Attorney General William H. Lewis, who was one of the leading representatives of the colored race, needs no introduction to the football world, says Kurzberg. Bill, or Lou, as he is familiarly known to all Harvard men, laid the foundation for the present system of line play at Cambridge. He was actively engaged in coaching until 1907, when he was obliged to give it up due to pressure of business. In 1905, Hooks, Burr, and I played the guard positions. Lou seemed to center his attention on us, and we always received more calls after each game than the other linemen for doing this, that, or the other thing wrong. In the Brown game of this year, Hooks played against a colored man who was exceptionally good, and who, Hooks admits afterward, put it all over him. The Monday following this game, we received our usual call.  That guard on the Brown team smeared you. Burr replied, I don't know what was the matter with me. I used my hands on that nicker's head and body all through the game, but it didn't seem to do any good. Several of us who are listening felt a bit embarrassed that Hooks had unwittingly made this remark. The tension was relieved, however, when Lou drawled out, Why the devil didn't you kick him in the shins? A burst of laughter greeted this sally. Donald Grant Herring, better known to football men in and out of Princeton as Heff, is one of the few American players of international experience. After a period of splendid play for the Tigers, he went to England with a Rhodes scholarship. At Merton College, he continued his athletic career, and it was not long before he became a member of one of the most famous Rugby 15s ever turned out by Oxford. Heff has always said that he enjoyed the English game, but whether the brand he played was American or English, his opponent usually got little enjoyment out of a hard afternoon with this fine Princeton athlete. In the late summer of 1903, I was on a train coming east from Montana, Heff tells me, after a summer spent in the Rockies. A companion recognized among the passengers, Doc Hillibrand, who was coming east from his ranch to coach the Princeton team.  You can imagine what Doc thought and how I felt. However, Doc was kind enough to tell me to report for practice and to recognize me when I appeared on the field several weeks later. I soon drifted over to the freshman field, and I want to admit here what caused me to do so. It was nothing more nor less than the size of Jim Cooney's legs. Jim was a classmate of mine whom I first saw on the football field when he and another tackle candidate were engaged in that delicate past time known to linemen as breaking through. I realized at once that if Jim and I were ever put up against one another, I would stand about as much chance of shoving him back as I would if I tried to push a steamroller. So I went over to the freshman field where Howard Henry was coaching at the time. He was sending ends down the field, and I remember being thrilled after beating a certain bunch of them at hearing him say, you and the Brown Jersey come over here in the first squad. Dewitt's team beat Cornell 44-0. For years, they're hung on the walls of the Osborn Club at Princeton, a splendid action picture of Dana Kafer making one of the touchdowns in that game. It was a mass-on tackle play, and Jim Cooney was getting his Cornell opponent out of the way for Kafer to go over the line. The picture gave Jim dead away. He had a firm grip of the Cornell man's jersey and arm. Ten years or more afterward, a group, including Cooney, was sitting in the Osborn Club. In a spirit of fun, one man said, Jim, we know now how you got your reputation as a tackle. We can see it right up there on the wall. The next day, the picture was gone. After I was graduated from Princeton in 1907, I went to Merton College, Oxford. There are 22 different colleges in Oxford and 18 in Cambridge. Each one has its own teams and crews and plays a regular schedule. From the best of these college teams, the university teams are drawn. Each college team has a captain and a secretary who acts as manager. At the beginning of the college year, early October, the captain and secretary of each team go around among the freshmen of the college and try to get as many of them as possible to play their particular sport, mine rugby football. After a few days, the captain posts on the college bulletin board, which is always placed at the Porter's Lodge, a notice that a squash will be held on the college field. A squash is what we would call practice. Sometimes, for a few days before the game, an old blue may come down to Oxford and give a little coaching to the team. Here, often the captain does all the coaching. The Cambridge match is for blood, and, while friendly enough, is likely to be much more savage than any other. In the match I played in, which Oxford won 35-3, the record score in the whole series, which started in 1872, we had three men severely injured. In the first three minutes of the game, one of our star backs was carried off the field with a broken shoulder, while our captain was kicked in the head and did not come out of his days until about seven o'clock that evening. He played throughout the game, however. Our secretary was off the field with the kneecap out of place for more than half the game. A game of rugby, by the way, consists of two 45-minute halves with a three-minute intermission. There are no substitutes, and if a man is injured, his team plays one man short. We beat Cambridge that year with 13 men the greater part of the game, 12 for some time against their full team of 15. Their only try, touchdown and plain American, was scored when we had 12 men on the field. We were champions of England that year and did not lose a match through the fall season, though we tied one game with the Great Harlequin's Club of London, whom we afterward beat in the return game. Of the fine fellows who made up that great Oxford team, six are dead, five of them are somewhere in France. Karl Flanders was a big factor in the Yale rush line. Foster Sanford considers him one of the greatest defensive centres that ever played. He was six feet three and one-fourth inches tall and weighed 202 pounds. In 1906, Flanders coached the Indian team at Carlisle. Let us see some of the interesting things that characterised the Indian players through Flanders' experience. The nicknames, with which the Indians labelled one another, were mostly those of animals or a weapon of defence. Mount Pleasant and Libby always called each other knife. Bill Gardner was crowned chicken legs. Charles, one of the halfbacks, and a regular little tiger, was called bird legs. Other names fastened to the different players were whalebone, shoestring, tommyhawk, and wolf. The Indians always played cleanly as long as their opponents played that way. Dylan, an old Sue Indian, and one of the fastest guards I ever saw, was a good example of this. If anybody started rough play, Dylan would say, stop that boys, and the chap who was guilty always stopped. But if an opponent continually played dirty football, Dylan would say grimly, I'll get you. On the next player, too, you'd never know how. The rough player would be taken out. Dylan had got his man. Wallace Denney and Bemis Pierce got up a code of signals, using an Indian word which designated a single play. Among the Indian words which designated these signals were water bucket, watani, kukuhi. I never could find out what it all meant, and following the Indian team by this code of signals was a task which was too much for me. Bill Hor, renowned in Colgate and Syracuse, writes, Colgate University and Colgate Academy are under the same administration, and the football teams were practicing when I entered school. I went out for the team, and after the second practice I was put into the scrimmage. I was greatly impressed with the game, and continued for the afternoon practice, and played at tackle in the first game of the season. In four years of winning football, I became acquainted with such wonderful athletes as Riley Castleman and Walter Runge of the Colgate varsity team. In the fall of 1905, I entered Syracuse University and played right tackle on the varsity team for four years, and was captain of the victorious 1908 team. In the four years, I never missed a scrimmage or a game. I think that one of the hardest games I ever played was in the game against Princeton in 1908, when they had such stars as Siegling, McFadden, Eddie Dillon, and Tibbet. The game ended in a scoreless tie with the ball seesawing back and forth on the 40-yard line. I had been accustomed to carry the ball, and had been successful in executing a forward pass of 55 yards in the Yale game the week before, placing the ball on the one-yard line, only to lose it on a fumble. I had the reputation of being a good natured player, and indirectly heard it rumored many times by coaches and football players that they would like to see me fighting mad on the football field. The few Syracuse routers who journeyed to Easton the day we played Lafayette had that opportunity. Dowd was the captain of the Lafayette team. Next to me was Barry, a first-class football player who stripped in the neighborhood of 200 pounds. Just before the beginning of the second half, I was in a crouching position ready to start when someone dealt me a stinging blow on the ear. I was dazed for the time being. I turned to Barry and asked him who did it. He pointed to Dowd. From that instant I was determined to seek revenge. I was ignorant of the true culprit until about a year afterward, when Anderson, who played center and was a good friend of mine, told me about it. It seemed that just before we went on the field for the second half, Buck O'Neill, who was coaching the Syracuse team, told Barry to hit me and make me mad. College Traditions and Spirit College life in America is rich in traditions. Customs are handed down class by class and year by year until finally they acquire the force of law. Each college and university has a community life and a character of its own. The spirit of each institution abides within its walls. It cannot be invaded by an outsider or ever completely understood by one who has not grown up in it. The atmosphere of a college community is conservative. It is the outcome of generations of student custom and thought, which have resolved themselves into distinct grooves. It requires a thorough understanding of the customs of college men, their antics and pranks, to appreciate the fact that the performers are simply boys carrying on the traditions of those gone before. Gray-haired graduates, who know by experience what is embodied in college spirit, join feelingly in the old customs of their college days and in observing the new customs which have grown out of the old. These traditional customs, some of them humorous and others deeply moving in their sentiment, are among the first things that impress the freshmen. He does not comprehend the meaning of them at once, nor does he realize that they are the product of generations of students, but he soon learns that there is something more powerful in college life than the brick and mortar of beautiful buildings or high passing marks in the classroom. When he comes to know the value and the underlying spirit of the traditions of his college, he treasures them among the enduring memories of his life. The businessman who never enjoyed the advantage of going to college is puzzled as he witnesses the demonstration of undergraduate life, and he fails to catch the meaning. He does not understand. It has played no part in his own experience. College customs seem absurd to him, and he fails to appreciate that in these traditions our American college spirit finds expression. As an outsider views the result of a football victory, he sees perhaps only the bitter look of defeat on the loser's faces and is at a loss to understand the loyal spirit of thousands of graduates and undergraduates who stand and cheer their team after defeat. Such a sight, undoubtedly, impresses him, but he turns his attention to the triumphant march of the victorious sympathizers around the field and watches the winners being born aloft by hero worshipers. While hats by the thousands are being tossed over the crossbar of the goalpost that carried the winning play, the snake dance of thousands of exalting students enlivens the scene, the spirit of glorious victory breaks loose. After the Harvard victory in 1908, in the midst of the excitement, a Harvard graduate got up from his seat, climbed over the fence, put his derby hat and bulldog pipe on the grass, walked solemnly out a few paces, turned two complete handsprings, walked back, put on his hat, picked up his pipe, climbed solemnly over the fence again and took his place in the crowd. He was very business-like about it and didn't say a word. He had to get it out of his system. That was all. Nobody laughed at him. One sees gray-haired men stand and cheer, sing and enthuse over their alma mater's team. For the moment, the rest of the world is forgotten. Tears come with defeat to those on the grandstand as well as to the players and likewise happy smiles and joyous greetings come when victory crowns the day. In the midst of a crisis in the game, men and women, old and young, break over the bounds of conventionality, get acquainted with their seatmates and share the general excitement. The thrill of victory possesses them and the old grads embrace each other after a winning touchdown. There may be certain streets in a college town upon which a freshman is never seen. It may be that a freshman has to wear a certain kind of cap. His trousers must not be rolled up at the bottom.  And if you see a young man dressed in an absurd, fantastic costume, going about the streets of a city or a quiet college town, it may mean an initiation into a certain society or club. And you will note that he does his part with a quiet, earnest look upon his face, realizing that he is carrying on a tradition which has endured for years. You hear the seniors singing on the campus while the whole college listens. It is their hour. At games you see the cheerleaders take their places in front of the grandstand as they bend and double themselves into all sorts of shapes. They bring out the cheers which go to make college spirit strong. If you were at Yale on what is known as Tap Day, you would view in wondermen the solemnity and seriousness of the occasion. An election to a senior society is Yale's highest honor. As you sit on the old Yale fence, you realize what it means to Yale men. In the secret life of the campus men, yearn most for this honor and the traditional gathering of seniors under the oak tree for receiving elections as a college custom that has all the binding force of a most rigid law. Alumni parades. Then come the alumni parades at commencement. The old timers had the procession. Those who came first are first in line and so on down to the youngest and most recent graduate. There are many interesting things in the parade which bring out specific class peculiarities. In one college you may see gray-haired men walking behind an immense sacred bird as it is called. This bird, the creation of an ingenious mind, is the size of an ostrich and has all the semblance of life with many lifelike tricks and habits. Men dress in all sorts of costumes.  You may see some man with the letter of his college on his sweater. Another may have his class numerals. Another may wear a gold football. These are not ordinary things to be purchased at sporting goods stores. They are a reward of merit. The college custom has made it so and if in some college town the traditions of the university are such that a man as he passes the manual gateway at Cambridge raises his hat in honor of his great Harvard hero. It is a tradition backed up by a wonderful spirit of love towards one who has gone. And then on commencement day when the seniors plant their class ivy that is a token to remain behind them and flourish long after they are out in the wide, wide world. College tradition makes it possible for a poor boy to get an education. The poor fellow may wait on the table where sit many rich men's sons but they may be all chums with him. They are on the same footing. The campus of one is the campus of the other and all you can say is it is just the way of things just the way it must be. More power to the man who works his way through college. It may be as fellow college man you are now recalling some custom that is carried out on a college street in a dormitory in a fraternity house perhaps or a club perhaps in some boarding house where you had your first introduction to a college custom. Maybe in the cheapest rooming house in town you got your first impression of a bold bad sophomore. You probably could have given a good trouncing had he been alone and yet you were prepared to take smilingly the hazing imposed upon you. Maybe some of you fondly recall a cannon struck in the ground behind a historical building where once George Washington had his headquarters. A round about this traditional monument cluster rich memories as you review the many college ceremonies enacted there. Some of you owing allegiance to a New England Alma Mater may recall with smiles and perhaps mischievous satisfaction the checkered career of the sculptured Sabrina in her various appearances and disappearances since the day now long gone by when in pedestal repose she graced the college flower gardens. The Sabrina tradition is one of the golden legacies of Amherst life. In the formation of college spirit and traditions I am not unmindful of the tremendous molding power of the college president or the popular college professors. This is strikingly illustrated in the expression of an old college man who said in his connection I don't remember a thing professor Blank said but I remember him. When the graduate of a college has sons of his own he realizes more fully than at any other time the great influence of personality upon youth. He understands better the problems that are faced by boys and the great task and responsibility of the faculty. I know that there are many football men who at different times in their career have not always praised the work of the college professors but now that the games are over they probably look back affectionately to the men who made them toe the mark and by such earnestness help them through their college career. It is undoubtedly true that the headmasters and teachers in our preparatory schools and colleges generally appreciate the importance of developing the whole man mental, moral and physical. School Master and Boy Indeed it is a wonderful privilege to work shoulder to shoulder with the boys in our preparatory schools as well as in our colleges. At a recent dinner I heard Dr. S. J. McPherson of the Lawrenceville School placed before an alumni gathering a sentiment which I believe is the sentiment of every worthy school master in our land. School masters have attractive work and they can find no end of fun in it. I admit that in a boarding school they should be willing to spend themselves eight days in the week and twenty-five hours a day. But no man goes far that keeps watching the clock. There may be good reasons for long vacations but I regard the summer vacation as usually a bore for at least half the length of it. To be worth his salt a school master must of course have scholarship the more the better. But that alone will never make him a quickening teacher. He must be apt to teach and must lose himself in his task if he is to transfuse his blood into the veins of boys. Above all he must be a real man and not a mannequin and he must enjoy his boys love them without being quite conscious of the love or at least without harping on it. The ideal school master needs five special and spiritual senses common sense the sense of justice the sense of honor the sense of youth and the sense of humor. These five gifts are very useful in every worthy occupation. Gentlemen none of us school masters has reached the ideal however we reach after it. Nevertheless we neither need nor desire your pity. We do not feel unimportant. Personally I would not exchange jobs with the richest or greatest among you. I like my own job. It really looks to me bigger and finer. I should rather have the right mold and put the right stamp on a wholesome boy than to do any other thing. It counts more for the world and is more nearly immortal. It is worth any man's life. Another factor in the formation and development of college traditions and college spirit is the influence of the men who shape the athletic policy. When one of the graduates returns to direct the athletic affairs of his alma mater or those of another college he naturally becomes a potent influence in the life of the students. Great is his opportunity for character making. The men all look up to him and the spirit of hero worship is present everywhere. Such athletic directors are chosen largely because of their success on the athletic field and when one can combine athletic directorship with scholastic knowledge the combination is doubly effective. By association they know the real spirit and patriotic sentiment of the college men. They appreciate the fact that success in athletics like success in life depends not merely upon training the head but upon training the will. Huxley said that the true object of all education was to develop ability to do the thing that ought to be done when it ought to be done whether one felt like doing it or not. Prompt obedience to rules and regulations develop character and the athletic director becomes therefore one of the most important of college instructors. A boy may be a welcher in his classroom work but when he gets out on the athletic field and meets the eye of a man who is bound to get the most out of every player for the sake of his own reputation as well as the reputation of the school or college that boy finds himself in a new school. It is the school of discipline that resembles more nearly than anything else the competitive struggle in the business life of the outside world that he is soon to enter. Another exceedingly valuable trait that athletic life develops in a student is the spirit of honorable victory. The player is taught to win to be sure but he is also taught that victory must never overshadow honor. Who misses or wins the prize go lose or conquer as you can but if you fail or if you rise be each pray God a gentleman. This tradition and atmosphere cannot be retained in institutions merely by the efforts of the students. The cooperation of the alumni is necessary. Upon this account is unfortunate that the point of view of too many college men regarding their alma mater is limited to the years of their own school and college days. Our universities especially are beginning to learn that this has been a great mistake and that the continued interest and loyalty of the alumni are absolutely essential to ensure progress and maintain the high standard of an institution. There is in other words a real sense in which the college belongs to the alumni. The faculty is engaged for a specific purpose and their great work is made much more profitable by the hearty cooperation of the old and young graduates who keep in close touch with the happenings and the spirit of their different alma maters. One of the best assets in any seat of learning is the constructive criticism of the alumni. Broad-minded faculties invite intelligent criticism from the graduate body and they usually get it. But after all the real power of enthusiasm behind college traditions abides in the student body itself. How is this college patriotism aroused? What are its manifestations? What is it that awakens the desire for victory with honor? Which is the real background of the great football demonstration that tens of thousands of Americans witness each year? As I think back in this connection upon my own college experiences the athletic mass meeting stands out in my memory and records the moment when all that was best and strongest in my fighting spirit in manhood came out to meet the demand of the athletic leaders. It was at that time that the thrill and power of college spirit took mighty possession of me. It might have been the inspiring words of an old college leader addressing us or perhaps it was the story of some incident that brought out the deep significance of the coming game. Indeed, I have often thought that the spirit of loyalty and sacrifice aroused in the breast of the young man in a college mass meeting springs from the same noble source as the highest patriotism. Mass meeting enthusiasm How well do I recall the mass meeting held by the undergraduates in Alexander Hall Thursday night before the Yale game in 1898? The team and substitutes sat in the front row of seats. There was singing and cheering that aroused every man in the room to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. All eyes were focused on the cheerleader as he rehearsed the cheers and songs for the game and as the speakers entered behind him on the platform they received a royal welcome. There was Johnny Poe, Alex Moffat, some of the professors including Jack Hibbin since professor of Princeton in addition to the coaches. I can almost hear again their words as they address the gathering. Fellows, we are here tonight to get ready to defeat Yale on Saturday. You men all know how hard the coaches have worked this year to get the team ready for the last big game. Captain Hillebrand and his men know that the college is with the team to a man. We are not here tonight to make college spirit but we are here to demonstrate it. Those of you who saw last year's team go down to defeat at New Haven, realize the Princeton team this year has got to square that defeat. Gary Cochran and the other men who graduated are not here to play. The burden rests on the shoulders of the men in front of me this year's team and we know what they're going to do. It is going to take the hardest kind of work to beat Yale on our own grounds. We must play them off their feet the first five minutes. I wonder if you men who are in Princeton today truly realize the great tradition of this dear college. Thousands and thousands of young men have walked across the same campus you travel. The Princeton of years gone by is your Princeton today. So let us ever hold a high regard for those whose places we now occupy. Already from far off points Princeton men are starting back to see the Yale game back to their alma mater. They're coming back to see the old rooms they used to live in and it is up to us to make their visit a memorable one. You can do that by beating Yale. George K. Edwards Many of you men have perhaps heard of the great love for Princeton shown in the story of the last days of Horace Edwards, Princeton 89. He will never return to Princeton again. He used to live in East College long since torn down. Some years after he left college he was told that he had but a few short months to live. He decided to live them out at Princeton. One Friday afternoon in the summer of 1897 Horace Edwards arrived in Princeton from Colorado. He was very weak from his illness. He could barely raise his hand to wave to the host of old friends who greeted him as he drove from the station to East College where his old room had been arranged as in his college days for his return. There he was visited by many friends of the old days who had come back for commencement. Old memories were revived. That night he attended his club dinner and the following day was wheeled out to the field to see the baseball game. Princeton beat Yale 16 to 8 and his cup of happiness was overflowing. On the following Monday Horace Edwards died. He told his close friends that as long as he had to go he was happy that he had been granted his last wish to die there at Princeton and his memory is a treasured college tradition. Job E. Hedges Among the men who are always welcome at Princeton mass meetings and dinners is Job E. Hedges. I remember what he said at a mass meeting at Princeton in 1896. He was then secretary to Mayor Strong in New York in which city the game with Yale took place that year. The scene was in the old gymnasium. Every inch of space was occupied. On the front seats sat the team and substitutes. Around them and in the small gallery were the students in mass. Before the team were prominent alumni, trustees and some members of the faculty. Ernest appeal had been made by the various speakers to a high point of enthusiasm and courage and the interest of their alma mater and of the alumni had been earnestly pictured. Mr. Hedges was called on as he frequently is at Princeton gatherings and as the usual field had been fairly covered his opportunities were limited without repetition of what had been said. He addressed the team and substitutes in typical Princeton fashion and concluded so far as a record is made of it somewhat as follows. There is a feeling in the public mind that football games breed dissipation and are naturally followed by unseemingly conduct. We all know that much of the excitement following football games in New York is due largely not to college men but others who take the game as an excuse and at the time as an opportunity to indulge in more or less boisterous conduct than freedom from interference usually accorded at that time. I wish it thoroughly understood that in no way as a Princeton man do I countenance dissipation in temperance boisterous or unseemingly conduct. It may be a comfort for you men to know however that I am personally acquainted with every police magistrate in the city of New York. While I do not claim to have any influence with them nor would I try to exercise it improperly nevertheless if the team wins and any man should unintentionally and weakly yield to the strain consequent upon such a victory I can be found that night at my residence. Any delinquent will have my sympathetic in his behalf. If however the team loses and anyone goes over the line of propriety he will have from me neither sympathy nor assistance and I shall be absent from the city. It is related that on that night following the victory several daring spirits decorated themselves with cards hung from their necks bearing this legend. Don't arrest me I am a friend of Job hedges. With these they marched up and down Broadway and though laboring under somewhat strange conditions were not molested. A full account of this expeditionary force appeared in the daily papers the next morning and it is related that there was a brisk conversation between Mr. hedges and the mayor when the former arrived at the city hall which took on not an orange and black hue but rather a lurid flame of which Mayor Strong was supposed to be but was not the victim. The net result of the scene however was that the team won. There was a moderate celebration and no Princeton man was arrested. End of chapter 10 Recording by Pam Muscato The Sun Never Sets Johnny Poe's death came on September 25th 1915 in the Battle of Loose Nelson Poe has given me the following information regarding Johnny's death it comes direct from Private W. Faulkner a comrade who was in the charge when Johnny fell In the morning during the attack we went out on a party carrying bombs. Poe and myself were in this party we had gone about half way across an open field when Poe was hitting the stomach he was then five yards in front of me and I saw him fall. As he fell he said never mind me go ahead with our boxes on our return for more bombs we found him lying dead. Shortly after he was buried at a place between the British and German lines. I have seen his grave which is about a hundred yards to the left of Lone Tree on the left of Loose. Lone Tree is the only landmark near. The grave is marked with his name and regiment. Just what Johnny Poe's heroic finished on the battlefield meant to us here at home is the common knowledge of all football men and indeed of all sportsmen. There is ample evidence moreover that it attracted the attention of the four corners of the earth. Life in London or Paris was not all roses to the Americans compelled to remain there at the height of the war. Paul McWheelen a Yaleman and a football writer had occasion to be in London shortly after the news of Poe's death in battle was received there. Talking with Whelen after his return he impressed upon me the place that Poe had made for himself in the hearts of at least one of the fighting countries. You know, said he, that about that time Americans were not very popular. There seemed to be a feeling everywhere that we should have been on the firing line. This feeling developed the fashion of polite jeering to a point that made life abroad uncomfortable until Johnny Poe fell fighting in the ranks of the Black Watch on the plains of Flanders. In the dull monotony of the casualty list his name at first slipped by with scant mention. It was the publication in the United States of the story of his fighting career which stimulated newspaper interest not merely in England but throughout the British Empire. To Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa to the farthest corners of the earth went the tale of the death of a great American fighter. I met one man, a lawyer, on his way to do some piecework and he told me that he thought Poe had no right to be in the ranks of a foreign army. Probably most of the pacifists would have returned the same verdict regardless of Poe's love for the cause of the Allies. Yet among the thousands of Americans in Europe in the month following Poe's death there was complete unity of opinion that the old Princeton football star had done more for his country than all the pacifists put together. A toast to the memory of Poe, said one of the group of Americans in the Savoy, that famous gathering place of Yankees in London. His death has made living a lot easier for his countrymen who have to be in France and England during the war. There is not an army on the continent in which Americans have not died but no death in action not even that of Victor Chapman the famous American aviator in France gave such timely proof of American valor as that of Poe. In London for a month after his death there was talk among the Americans and in the university clubs about raising funds for some permanent memorial in London to Poe. There are many memorials to Englishmen in America and it would seem that there is a place and a real reason for erecting a memorial in London to a fighting American who gave his life for a cause to England. I have always treasured in my football collection some anecdotes which Johnny Poe wrote several years ago while in Nevada. In fact, from reading his stories after his death I got the inspiration that prompted me to write this book. The following stories were picked up by me, says Johnny, through the course of college years and after. Some of the incidents I have actually witnessed of others my brothers have told me when we talked over Princeton victories and defeats with the reasons for both and still others I have heard from the lips of Princeton men as they grew reminiscent sitting around the cozy fireplace in the trophy room at the Varsity Clubhouse with the old footballs the scores of many a hard fought Princeton victory emblazoned upon them and the banners with the names of the members of the winning teams there on inscribed looking down from their places on the walls and ceilings. How the undergrads longed to have their names enrolled on the victorious banner knowing that they will be looked up to by future college generations of the sons of old Nassau. These banners have much the same effect upon Princeton teams as did the name of Horatius upon the young Romans and still his name sounds strong unto the men of Rome as a trumpet blast which calls them to charge the Volscian home and waves still pray to Juno for boys with hearts as bold as his who kept the bridge so well in the brave days of old. Well do they know that mother Princeton is not charry of her praise when she knows that they have planted her banner on the loftiest tower of her enemy's stronghold. The evenings spent in the trophy room the grill room of the Princeton Inn and in the hallways around a cheerful fire of the numerous Princeton clubs make me think of nights in the mess room of crack British regiments so graphically described by Kipling. The general public cannot understand the seriousness with which college athletes take the loss of an important game. There is a Princeton football captain who was so broken up over defeat by Yale that months after on the cattle range of New Mexico as he lay out at night on his cowboy bed and thought himself unobserved he fell to sobbing as if his heart would break. A football victory to many men is as dearly longed for as any goal of ambition in life. How else would they strive so fiercely one side to take the ball over the other to prevent them doing so. Very few of the public hear the exhortation and cursing as the ball slowly but irresistibly is rushed to the goal of the opponent. Billy, if you do that again I'll cut your heart out. Yale, if you ever held hold now. How the calls to victory come back. As Hughes says in Tom Brown's school days a scrimmage in front of the goalposts or the consulship of Plancus is no child's play. My earliest Princeton football hero was Alex Moffat 84. My brother Johnson was in his class and played on the same team and would often talk of him to my brothers and me. He used to give us a sort of listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, et cetera. Though my brother is a small man I thought all other Princeton players must be nine cubits and a half or as a reporter once said of Sims 92 sent to Russian Princeton team of 90 and 91 an animated whale broad as the moral law and heavy as the hand of fate. I consider Alan Moffat the greatest goal kicker college football has produced. One football in the Princeton trophy room has on it Princeton 26 Harvard 7. In that game Moffat kicked five goals from the field three with his right and two with his left foot besides the goals from the touchdowns. A Harvard guard made the remark after the third goal we came here to play football not to play against phenomenal kicking. Princeton men cannot help feeling that Moffat should have been allowed a goal against Yale in his post graduate year of 84. Which was called before the full haves had been played and decided to draw. Yale being ahead six to four. Princeton claimed it but the referee said he didn't see it which caused Moffat to exclaim something. And amusing stories told in connection with this decision. Quite a number of years after Jim Robinson who was trainer of the Princeton team in 84 went down to the dock to see his brother off for Europe. Looking up he beheld on the deck above the man who had refereed the 84 game and whom he had not seen since. Smith, he said, I have a brother on this boat but I hope she sinks. Tilly Lamar's name is highly honored at Princeton not only because he won the 85 game against Yale by a run of about 90 yards but because he died trying to save a girl from drowning. Only a few months later in the summer of 91 Fred Brokaw 92 was drowned at Elberon while trying to save two girls from the ocean. Both Lamar and Brokaw's pictures adorned the walls of the Varsity Clubhouse. The first game I ever saw the Princeton team play was with Harvard in 88 which the former won 18-6. I was in my brother's 91 room about three hours and a half before the game and Jer Black and Channing the halfbacks were there. As Channing left he remarked something will have to happen before I get back to this room again referring to the game which doubtless made him a bit nervous. I believe he was no more nervous ten years after when in the Rough Riders he waited for word to advance up the bullet swept hill before Santiago. 81 was the year so many divinity students played on the Varsity Hector Cowan The Great Tackle Dick Hodge The Strategist Sam Hodge Bob Spear and I think Irvin men all who as McCready Sykes said feared God and no one else. Hector Cowan is considered one of the best tackles that ever wore the Orange and Black Jersey.   One day in a game against the scrub Cowan had passed everyone except the fullback and was bearing down on him like a tornado when within a few feet of the fullback the latter jumped aside and said politely pass on sir pass on. Cowan played on two winning teams 85 and 89. In 89 the eligibility rules at the college were not as strict as now. So as Princeton needed a tackle Walter Cash who had played on Pennsylvania the year before was sent for and came all the way from Wyoming. He came so hurriedly that his wardrobe consisted of two six shooters and a Monte Deck of cards on account of which he was dubbed Monte Cash. Cash was not fond of attending lectures and once the faculty had him up before them and told him what a disgrace it would be if he were dropped out of college. It may be in the East but we don't think much of a little thing like that out West was his reply. Cash was in the Rough Riders and was wounded at San Juan. Sport Donnelly was a great end that year. Hufflefinger the great Yale guard who was probably the best that ever played said of Donnelly that he was the only player he had ever seen who could slug and keep his eye on the ball at the same time. The following stories often told of how Donnelly got Rhodes of Yale ruled off in 89. Rhodes had hit Channing of Princeton in the eye so that Donnelly was laying for him and when Rhodes came through the line Donnelly grabbed up two hands full of mud it was a very muddy field and rubbed them in his face and hollered Mr. umpire so that when Rhodes in a burst of righteous indignation hit him the umpire saw it and promptly ruled Rhodes from the field. Snake Ames and House Janeway played that year and as the ladder was big two hundred and ten pounds stripped and good natured Ames thought if they could only get Janeway angry he would play even better than usual.  All right said House ominously and as Princeton won 41 to 15 Janeway must certainly have helped a heap. George played center for Princeton four years and for three years Paul Corbyn and George played against each other and as Cowboys would say sure did chew each other's mane I don't mean slugged. My brother Edgar 91 was a great admirer of George in 88 Edgar was playing in the scrub and George broke through and was about to make a tackle when the former knocked one of his arms down as it was out stretched to catch it George missed the tackle but said nothing a second time almost identically the same thing occurred this time he remarked grimly good trip that Poe but when the same thing happened a third time on the same afternoon he exclaimed Poe if you weren't so small I'd hit you in 89 Thomas 90 substitute guard was highly indignant at the way some Boston newspaper described him the Princeton men were giants one in particular was picturesque in his protestness he was six feet five and when he ran his arms and legs moved up and down like the piston rods of an engine in 90 Buck Irvin 88 brought an unknown team to Princeton Franklin and Marshall which he coached and they scored 16 points against the Tigers and though the latter won 13 to 16 still that was the largest score ever made against Princeton up to that time they did it too by rushing which was all the more to their credit Victor Harding Harvard and Yup Cook Princeton 89 had played on Andover and exited her respectively and had trouble then so four years later when they met one on Princeton and the other on Harvard they had more trouble both were ruled off for rough work Cook picked Harding up off the ground and slammed him down and then walked off the field in a few minutes Harding after trying to trip Ames was also ruled off that was the net result of the old Andover Exeter feud in 91 Princeton was playing Rutgers those were the days of the old V trick and starting a game when the orange and black guards and centers tore up the Rutgers V it was found that the captain of the latter team had broken his leg in the crush he showed great nerve for while sitting on the ground waiting for a stretcher he remarked in a nonchalant way give me a cigarette I could die for old Rutgers his tone being me first and then Nathan Hale one version quite prevalent around Princeton has it that a tiger player rushed up and explained die then this is not true as I played in that game and I know where have I speak 15 years after that had happened I met Phil Brett who had captained the Rutgers team that day and he told me that his life had been a burden to him at times and like Job he felt like cursing God and dying because often upon coming into a cafe or even a hotel dining room some half drunk an acquaintance would yell out hello Phil old man could you die for dear old Rutgers several years ago while in the Kentucky militia in connection with one of those feud cases I was asked by a private if I were related to Edgar Allen Poe demug what used to write poetry and when I replied yes he was my grandmother's first cousin he evidently thinking I was too boastful remarked well man you've got a swell chance so knowing that the football season is near I think I have a swell chance to tell some of the old football stories handed down at Princeton from college generation to generation if I have hurt any old Princeton players feelings I do humbly ask pardon and assure them that it is unintentional for as the Indians would put it my heart is warm toward them and when I die place my hands upon my chest and put their hands between my hands with apologies to Kipling in his poem when he speaks of the parting of the colonial troops with the regulars there isn't much we haven't shared for to make the Ellis run the same old hurts the same old breaks the same old rain and sun the same old chance which knocked us out or winked and led us through the same old joy the same old sorrow good bye good luck to you end of chapter 11 chapter 12 of football days this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org when the navy meets the army when the friend becomes the foe when the sailor and the soldier seek each other to overthrow when old veterans gray and grizzled elbow struggle push and shove that they may cheer on to victory each the service of his love when the maiden fair and dainty lets her dignity depart and all breathless does her utmost for the team that's next to her heart when you see these strange things happen then we pray you to recall that the army and navy stand firm friends beneath it all there's a distinctive flavor about an army navy football game which irrespective of the quality of the contending 11s and of their relative standing among the high class teams in any given season rates these contests annually as among the big games of the year tactically and strategically football bears a close relation to war that's a vital reason why it should be studied and applied in our two government schools on the part of the public there is general appreciation of the spirit which these two academies have brought into the great autumn sport a spirit which combines with football per se the color the martial pomp the alon of the military the merger is a happy one because football in its essence is a stern grim game a game that calls for self-sacrifice for mental alertness and for endurance all these are elements among others which we commonly associate with the soldiers calling if west point and anapolis players are not young men who after graduation will go out into the world in various civil professions or other pursuits relating to commerce and industry they are men on the contrary who are being trained to uphold the honor of our flag at home or abroad as fate may decree fighting men whose lives are to be devoted to the national wheel it would be strange therefore if games in which those thus set apart participate were not marked by equality peculiarly their own to far flung warships the scores are sent on the wings of the wireless and there is elation or depression in many a remote ward room in accordance with the aspect of the news in lonely army posts wherever the flag flies word of the annual struggle is flashed alike to colonel and the budding second lieutenant still with down on lip by them pass to the top sergeant and so on to the bottom of the line every football player who has had the good fortune to visit west point or anapolis there to engage in a gridiron contest has had an experience that he will always cherish every team as a role looks forward to out of town trips but when an 11 is to play the army or the navy not a little of the pleasure lies in anticipation may have the visitor even now is recalling the officer who met him at the station and his suspittable welcome the thrill that resulted from a tour under such pleasant auspices of the buildings in the natural surroundings of the two great academies there was the historic campus where so many great army and navy men spent their preparatory days an inspiration unique in the experience of the visitor was to be found in the drill of the battalion as they marched past led by the famous academy bands there arose in the heart of the stranger perhaps the thought that he was not giving to his country as much as these young men such as the contagion of the spirit of the two institutions there is always the thrill of the military whether the cadets and mid shipment passed to the urge of the marshal music in their purely military duties or an equally perfect order to the ordinary functions of life such as the daily meals which in the colleges are so informal and in the mess hall are so precise joining their orderly ranks in this big dining room one comes upon a scene never to be forgotten in the process of developing college teams an 11 gets a real test at either of these academies you get what you go after they are out to beat you their spirit is an indomitable one your cherished idea that you cannot be beaten never occurs to them until the final whistle is blown your men will realize after the game that a bruised leg or a lame joint will recall hard tackling of a player like Muston of the Navy or Arnold of West Point souvenirs of the dash they put into their play maybe there comes to your mind a recollection of the Navy's fast offense their snappy play the military precision with which their work is done possibly you dream of the wriggling open field running of snake lizard or the bulwark defense of nickels or in your West Point experiences you are reminded of the tussle you had in suppressing the brilliant Cromer that clever little quarterback and field general or the task of stopping the Forging King the Army's old captain and fullback Mountlose Vivid are the memories of the spontaneous if measured cheering behind these men a whole hearted support that was at once the background and the incentive to their work the siren cheer of the Navy and the long-core yell of the Army still ringing in the ears of the college invader were proof of the drive behind the team I have always counted at a privilege that I was invited to coach at Annapolis through several football seasons it was an unrivaled opportunity to catch the spirit that permeates the atmosphere of this great service school and to realize how eagerly the progress of football is watched by the heroes of the past who are serving wherever duty calls it was there that I met Superintendent Wainwright his interest in Annapolis football was keen another officer whose friendship I made at the academy was Commander Grant who later was Rear Admiral Commander of the submarine flotilla his spirit was truly remarkable the way he could talk to a team was an inspiration it was during the intermission of a Navy Carlyle game when the score was 11 to 6 in Carlyle's favor that this exponent of fighting spirit came into the dressing room and in a talk to the team spared nothing and nobody what he said about the white man not being able to defeat the Indian was typical as a result of this unique dressing room scene when he commanded the Navy to win out over the Indians his charges came through to victory by the score of 17 to 11 there is no one man in Annapolis who sticks closer to the ship and around whom more football traditions have grown than Paul DeChile a professor in the academy he bore for many years the burden of responsibility of Annapolis football his earnest desire has been to see the Navy succeed he has worked arduously and whenever Navy men get together they speak enthusiastically of the devotion of this former Lehigh hero official and role maker players have come and gone the call in recent years has been elsewhere but Paul DeChile has remained and his interest in the game has been manifested by self-denial and hard work defeat has come to him with great sadness and there are many games of which he still feels the sting these come to him as nightmares in his recollections of Annapolis football history great has been his joy in the Navy's hour of victory it was here at Annapolis that I learned something of the old Navy football heroes most brilliant of all perhaps was worth bagly a marvelous punter and a great fighter he lost his life later in the war with Spain standing to his duty under open fire on the deck of the Winslow at Cardenas with the utter fearlessness that was characteristic of him I heard of the deeds on the football field of Mike Johnson Trench Pearson McCormick Kavanaugh Reeves Macaulay Craven Kimball and Bookwalter I have played against the great Navy Guard Halligan I saw it develop the Navy players Long Chambers Reed Nichols and Chip Smith who later was in charge of the Navy athletics he was one of the best quarterbacks the Navy ever had I saw Doug Howard grow up from boyhood in Annapolis and develop into a Navy star saw him later coach their teams to victory witnessed the great playing of Daugherty Peersall Grady and Bill Carpenter who is no longer on the Navy list all these players together with Norton Northcroft Dague Halsey Ingram Douglas Jerry Land Babe Brown and Dalton stand out among those who have given their best in Army and Navy games Young Nichols who was quarterback in 1912 was the most brilliant ground gainer he resigned from the service early in 1913 receiving a commission in the British Army he was wounded but later returned to duty only to be killed shortly afterward another splendid man In speaking of Navy football I cannot pass over the name of W. H. Staten a man whose whole soul seemed to be permeated with Navy atmosphere and who was always to be depended upon in Navy Matters the association that I formed later in life with McDonough Craven and other loyal Navy football men gave me an opportunity to learn of Annapolis football in their day the list of men who have been invited to coach the Navy from year to year is a long one the ideal method of development of an undergraduate team is by a system of coaching conducted by graduates of that institution such alumni can best preserve the traditions correct blunder of other years and carry through a continuous policy along lines most acceptable graduate coaching exclusively is nearly impossible for Navy teams for the graduates as officers are stationed at far distant points mostly on board ship their duties do not permit of interruption for two months they cannot be spared from turret and bridge from the teamwork so highly developed at present on shipboard furthermore their absence from our country sometimes for years keeps them out of touch with football generally and it is impossible for them to keep up to date hence the coaching from other institutions Lieutenant Frank B. Barion was one of the early coaches and enable one immediately after Doug Howard for three years coached the team to victory the Navy's football future was then turned over to Jonas Ingram with the idea of working out a purely graduate system in the face of such serious obstacles as have already been pointed out one of the nightmares of my coaching experiences was the day that the Army beat the Navy through the combined effort of the whole Army team plus the individual running of Charlie Daley this run occurred at the very start of the second half Doc Hillibrand and I were talking on the sidelines to Everett's Wren the umpire none of us heard the whistle blow for the starting of the second half before we knew it the Army sympathizers were on their feet cheering and we saw Daley hitting it up the field weaving through the Navy defense Harman Graves who was coaching West Point that year has since told me that the Army coaches had drilled the team carefully in receiving the ball on a kickoff with Daley clear back under the goalposts on the kickoff the Navy did just what West Point had been trained to expect Belknap kicked a long high one direct to Daley and then and there began the carefully prepared advance of the Army team mowing down the oncoming Navy players the West Point forwards made it possible for Clever Daley to get loose and score a touchdown after a run of nearly the entire length of the field this game stands out in my recollection as one of the most sensational on record the Navy like West Point had had many victories but the purpose of this book is not to record year by year the achievements of these two institutions but rather catch their spirit as one from without looks in upon a small portion of the busy life that is typical of these service schools Scattered over the Seven Seas are those who heard the revelry of football at Annapolis from a few old timers let us garner their experiences and the effects of football in the service C.L. Poor one of the veterans of the Annapolis squad varsity and hustlers has something to say concerning the effect of football upon the relationship between officers and men generally speaking he says it is considered that the relationship is beneficial the young officer assumes qualities of leadership and shows himself in a favorable light to the men who appreciate his ability to show them something and do it well the average young American whether himself athletic or not is a bit of a hero worshipper towards a prominent athlete and so the young officer who has good football ability gets the respect and appreciation of the crew to start with J.B. Patton who played three years at Annapolis says of the early days I entered the academy in 1895 in those days athletics were not encouraged the average number of cadets was less than 200 and the entrance age was from 14 to 18 really a boy school so when an occasional college team appeared they looked like old Mentos match games were usually on Saturday afternoon and all the cadets spent the afternoon at sail drill on board the Wyoming in Chesapeake Bay I can remember spending four hours racing up and down the top gallant yard with Stone and Hayward losing and furling sail and then returning to a roast beef dinner followed by two 45 minute halves of football one of our best games as a role was with Johns Hopkins University Paul Dashiel then a Hopkins man usually managed to smuggle one or more posed to Annapolis with his team we knew it but at that time we did not object because we usually beat the Hopkins team another interesting match was with the deaf mutes from Kendall College it was a standing joke with us that they too frequently smuggled good football players who were not mutes these kept silent during the game and talked with their hands but frequently when I tackled one hard and fell on him I could hear him cuss under his breath M.M. Taylor brings us down to Navy football of the early 90s in my day the principal quality sought was beef being embryo sailors we had to have nautical terms for our signals and they made our opponent sit up and take notice when I played half back I remember my signals were my order relating to the formast for instance four top gallon clue lines and hands by the Halliards meant that I was the victim on the conclusion of the order if the captain could not launch a play made at once he had to lengthen his signal and sometimes there would be a string of jargon intelligible only to a sailor which would take the light yard mental loft furl the sail and probably cast reflections on the stowage of the bunt anything connected with the anchor was a kick the main mast was consecrated to the left half and the mizzen to the full back in one game our lack of proper uniform worked to our advantage I was on the sick list and had turned my suit over to a substitute I brave the doctor's disapproval and went into the game and a pair of long working trousers and a blue flannel shirt the opposing team Pennsylvania held me as little boy blue and paid no further attention to me so that by good fortune I made a couple of scores then they fell upon me and at the close all I had left was the pants J.W. Powell captain of the 97 team tells of the interim between Army Navy games our head coach was Johnny Poe he says and he and Paul Dashel took charge of the squad some of our good men were Russ White Bill Tardy Heligan and Fisher holding over from the year before A.T. Graham and Jerry Landis in the line a wild Irishman in the plebe class Patty Shea earned one head position in short order while A.H. McCarthy went in at the other wing Jack Asterson Bobby Henderson Lewis Richardson and I made up the backfield in 95 Princeton had developed their famous ends back system which was adopted by Johnny Poe and the game we played that year was built around this system Johnny was a deadly tackler and nearly killed half the team with his system of live tackling practice this was one of the years in which there was no Army Navy game and our big game was the Thanksgiving Day contest with Lafayette Barkley, Bray and Reinhardt made Lafayette's name a terror in the football world the game resulted in an 18-6 victory for Lafayette My most vivid recollections of that game are McCarthy's plucky playing with his hand in a plaster cast due to a broken bone stopping Barkley and Bray repeatedly in spite of this handicap and my own touchdown after a 12-yard run with Reinhardt's 250 pounds hanging to me most of the way I recall a trip that the Princeton team of 1898 made to West Point it was truly an attack upon the historical old school in a fashion deluxe Alex Van Rensselier an old Princeton football captain invited Doc Hillibrand to have the Tiger 11 meet him that Saturday morning at the Pennsylvania Ferry Slip in Jersey City en route to West Point that morning this old Princeton leader met us with his steamyot the May boyhood enthusiasm ran high as we jumped aboard good fellowship prevailed we lunched on board dressed on board upon our arrival at West Point we were met by the academy representative and were driven to the football field the snappy work of the Princeton team that day brought victory and we attributed our success to the Van Rensselier transport returning that night on the boat Doc Hillibrand and Arthur Poe bribed the captain of the May to just misconnecting with the last train to Princeton and as a worried manager sat alongside of Van Rensselier wondering whether it were not possible to hurry the boat along a little faster Van Rensselier himself knew what was in Doc's mind and so helped make it possible for us to rest at the Murray Hill Hotel overnight and not allow a railroad trip to Princeton more the luxury of the day I have a lot of respect for the football brains of West Point my lot has been very happily cast with the Navy I have generally been on the opposite side of the field I knew the strength of their team I have learned much of their spirit of the academy from their cheering at Army and Navy Games playing against West Point our Princeton teams have always realized the hard, difficult task which confronted them and victory was not always the reward football plays a valued part in the athletic life of West Point from the very first game between the Army and the Navy on the planes when the Mitties were victorious West Point set out in a thoroughly business-like way to see that the Navy did not get the lion's share of the victories if one studies the business-like methods of the Army Athletic Association and reads carefully the bulletins which are printed after each game one is impressed by the attention given to details I have always appreciated what King 96 meant to West Point football let me quote from the publication of the Howitzer in 1896 the estimated value of this player at that time King, of course, stands first captain for two years he brought West Point from second class directly into first as fullback he outplayed every fullback opposed to him and stands in the judgment of all observers second only to Brooke of Pennsylvania let us read what King has to say of a period of West Point football not widely known I first played on the 92 team he says we had two Navy games before this but they were not much as I look back upon them at this time we had for practice that period of Saturday afternoon after inspection that gave us from about 3 p.m. on we also had about 15 minutes between dinner and the afternoon recitations and such days as were too rainy to drill and from 5 45 a.m. to 6 0 5 a.m. later in the year when it grew too cold to drill we had the time after about 4 15 p.m. but it became dark so early that we didn't get much practice we practiced signals even by moonlight visiting teams used to watch us at inspection two o'clock we were in tight full dress clothes standing at attention for 30 to 45 minutes just before the game a fine preparation for a stiff contest we had quite a character by the name of Stacey a main boy he was a thick set chap husky and fast he never knew what it was to be stopped he would fight it out to the end for every inch early in one of the Yale games he broke a rib and started another but the more it hurt the harder he played in a contest with an athletic club in the last non-collegiate game we ever played the opposing right tackle was bothering us in a scrimmage Stacey twisted the gentleman's nose very severely and then backed away as the man followed him calling out to the empire Stacey held his face up and took two of the nicest punches in the eyes that I ever saw of course the empire saw it and promptly ruled the puncher out just as Stacey had planned just before the Spanish war Stacey became ill orders were issued that regiments should send officers to the different cities for the purpose of recruiting he was at this time not fit for field service so was assigned to this duty he protested so strongly that in some way he was able to join his regiment in time to go to Cuba with his men he participated in all the work down there and when it was over even he had to give in he was sent to Montauk Point in very bad shape he rallied for a time and obtained sick leave he went to his old home in Maine where he died it was his old football grit that kept him going in Cuba until the fighting was over no mention of West Point's football would be complete without the name of Dennis Mischi he's usually referred to as the father of football at the academy he was captain of the first two teams we ever had he played throughout the navy game in 91 with 10 boils on his back and neck he was a backfield man and one of West Point's main linebackers he was most popular as a cadet and officer and was killed in action at San Juan Cuba one of the longest runs when both yards and timer considered ever pulled off on a football field was made by Duncan 95 in our Princeton game of 93 Duncan got the ball on his five-yard line on a fumble and was well underway before he was discovered Lott, 96, later a captain of Cavalry followed Duncan to interfere from behind the only Princeton man who sensed trouble was Doggy Trenchard he set sail in pursuit he soon caught up with Lott and would have caught Duncan but for the latter's interference Duncan finally scored the touchdown having made the 105 yards in what would have been fast time for a Wefers We at West Point often speak of balliots being obliged to call on Phil King to back him up that day as Ames, one of our greatest centers was out playing him and of the rage of Phil King because on every point Nola, 96, tackled him at once and prevented King from making those phenomenal runs which characterized his playing Harmon Graves of Yale is a coach who has contributed much to West Point's football Harmon Graves is too well known as coach to need our praise, says a West Pointer but it is not only as a successful coach but as a personal friend that he lives in the heart of every member of the team and indeed the entire core there will always be a sunny spot at West Point for Graves In a recent talk with Harmon Graves he showed me a beautifully engraved watch presented to him by the Cadet Corps of West Point a treasure prized of the privilege days spent at West Point Graves writes as follows Every civilian who has the privilege of working with the officers and cadets at West Point to accomplish some worthy object comes away a far better man than when he went there I was fortunate enough to be asked by them to help in the establishment of football at the academy and for many years I gave the best I had and still feel greatly their debtor At West Point, Ames' Board flourishes in its perfection and a very high standard of accomplishment has been attained in football There are no cross cuts to the kind of football success West Point has worked for It is all a question of merit based on competency accuracy and fearless execution Those of us who have had the privilege of assisting in the development of West Point football have learned much of real value from the officers and cadets about the game and what really counts in the makeup of a successful team It is fair to say that West Point has contributed a great deal to football generally and has in spite of many necessary time restrictions turned out some of the best teams and players in the last 15 years The greatest credit is due to the Army Officers Athletic Association which, through its football representatives, started right and then pursued a sound policy which has placed football at West Point on a firm basis becoming the standing and dignity of the institution There have been many interesting and amusing incidents in connection with football at West Point which helped make up the tradition of the game there and are many times repeated at any gathering of officers and cadets I well remember when Daley, the former Harvard captain, modestly took his place as a plea candidate for the team and sat in the front row on the floor of the gymnasium when I explained to the squad and illustrated by the use of a blackboard what he and everyone else there knew was the then Yale defense There was perhaps the suggestion of a smile all around when I began by saying that from then on we were gathered there for West Point and to make its team a success that season and not for the benefit of Harvard or Yale He told me afterwards that he had never understood the defense as I had explained it He mastered it and believed in it as he won and kept his place on the team and learned some things from West Point football as we all did The rivalry with the Navy is wholesome and intense as it should be My friend Paul Dashel who fully shares that feeling has much to do with the success of the Navy team and the development of football at the Naval Academy After a West Point victory at Philadelphia he came to the West Point dressing room and offered his congratulations As I took his hand I noted that tears were in his eyes and that his voice shook The next year the Navy won and I returned the call I was feeling rather grim but when I found him surrounded by the happy Navy team he was crying again and hardly smiled when I offered my congratulations and told him that it really made no difference which team won for he cried anyway The sportsmanship and friendly rivalry which the Army and Navy game brings out in both branches of the service is admirable and unique and reaches all officers on the day of the game wherever in the world they are Real preparedness is an old axiom at West Point and has been applied to football There I learned to love my country and respect the manhood and efficiency of the Army officers in a better way than I did before I recall the seasons I have spent there with gratitude and affection both for the friends I have made and for the Army spirit Siding with the Navy has enabled me to know West Point's strength Any mention of West Point's football would be incomplete without the names of some officers who have not only safeguarded the game at West Point but have been the able representatives of the Army's football during their service there Such men are Richmond P. Davis Palmer E. Pierce and W. R. Richardson This is the end of Chapter 13 recorded by Lynn Handler Chapter 12b of Football Days This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Patty Cunningham Football Days by William Edwards Chapter 12 Army and Navy Part B The Way They Have in the Army If there is any one man who has permanently influenced football at West Point that man is H. J. Kohler for years master of the sword at the academy Under his active coaching some of the Army's finest players were developed In recent years he has not been a member of the coaching staff but he nonetheless never loses touch with the team and his advice concerning men and methods is always eagerly sought By virtue of long experience at the academy and because of an aptitude for analysis of the game itself he has been invaluable in harmonizing practice and play with peculiar local conditions Any time the stranger seeks to delve either into the history or the constructive coaching of the game at the academy the younger men as well as the older will always answer your questions by saying go ask Kohler Always a hard worker and serious thinker he is apt to give an almost nightly demonstration during the season of the foundation principles of the game Not only West Pointers but also Yale and Princeton men who had to face the elevens under Kohler's coaching will remember Roman who, had he been kicking in the days of Felton Mayhan and the other long distance artillerists might well have held his own in the opinion of Army men Nesbitt Waldron and Scales were among the other really brilliant players whom Kohler developed He was in charge of some of the teams that played the hardest schedules in the history of West Point football One year the cadets met Harvard, Yale, Princeton Columbia, Syracuse, and Penn State Surely this was a season's work calculated to develop remarkable men or break them in the making Bettison, Center, King Boyers at Guard and Bunker at Tackle and Half were among the splendid players who survived this trial by fire Cassaud, Clark, and Phillips made up a backfield that would have been a credit to any of the colleges Soon, however, the Army strength was greatly to be augmented by the acquisition of Charles Dudley Dailey fresh from four years of football at Harvard Reputations made elsewhere do not count for much at West Point The coaches were glad to have Plebe Dailey come out for the squad but they knew, and he knew quite as well as they that there are no shortcuts to the Big A Now it began a remarkable demonstration of football genius Not only did the former Harvard captain make the team, but his aid in coaching was also eagerly sought An unusual move this, but a tribute to the new man Dailey was modesty itself in those days as he has been ever since even when equipped with the yellow jacket and peacock feather of the head coach As player and as coach, and often as the two combined Dailey's connection with West Point football covered eight years in the course of which he never played on or coached a losing team His record against the Navy alone is seven victories and one tie 146 points to 33 His final year's coaching was done in 1915 From West Point, he was sent to Hawaii once he writes me as follows There are certain episodes in the game that have always been of particular interest to me such as Eli's game playing with broken ribs in the Harvard Yale game of 1898 Charlie DeSault's great playing with a sprained ankle in the Yale Princeton game of the same year The tackling of Bunker by Long of the Navy in the Army Navy game of 1902 the hardest tackle I have ever seen and the daring quarterback work of Johnny Cutler in the Harvard Dartmouth 1908 game when he snatched victory from defeat in the last few minutes of play Undoubtedly, Dailey's deep study of strategy and tactics as used in warfare had a great deal to do with his continued ascendancy as a coach Writing to Herbert Reed, one of the pencil and paper football men with whom he had many a long argument over the general ship of the game he said in part, football within the limitations of the rules and sportsmanship is a war game. Either by force or by deception it advances through the opposition to the goal line which might be considered the capital of the enemy it was in Dailey's first year that a huge southerner with a pleasant draw turned up in the plebe class it was a foregone conclusion almost on site that Ernest better known to football men throughout the country as pot graves would make the eleven he not only played the game almost flawlessly from the start but he made so thorough a study of line play in general that his system even down to the most intimate details of face-to-face coaching filed away for all time in that secret library of football methods at West Point has come to be known as Graves Bible Dailey still with that inextricable love for his own alma mater lent a page or two from this tome to Harvard and even the author appeared in person on soldiers field the manner in which Graves made personal demonstration of his teachings will not soon be forgotten by the Harvard men who had to face pot graves Graves has always believed in the force mentioned in Dailey's few lines quoted above on the subject of military methods as applied to football while always declaring that the gridiron was no place for a fist fight he always maintained that stalwarts should be allowed to fight it out with as little interference by rule as possible as a matter of fact Graves was badly injured in a game with Yale and for a long time afterwards hobbled around with a troublesome knee he knew the man who did it but would never tell his name and he contends himself with saying I have no ill will he got me first if he hadn't I would have got him a story is told of Graves in patience with the members of a little luncheon party who in the course of an argument on the new football were getting away from the fundamentals rising and stepping over the window of the officer's club he said with a sleepy smile come here a minute you fellows and pointing down to the roadway added there's my team looking out of the window the other members of the party saw a huge steamroller snorting and puffing up the hill among the men who played football with Graves and were indeed of his type were Doe and Bunker like Graves Bunker in spite of his great weight was fast enough to play in the backfield in those years when the army elevens were relying so much upon terrific power those were the days when substitutes had very little opportunity in the final navy game of 1902 the same 11 men played for the army from start to finish in this period of army football other first-class men were developed notably Torney a remarkable back Thompson a guard and Tom Hammond who was later to make a reputation as an end coach Bunker was still with this aggregation an 11 that marched 50 yards for a touchdown in 15 plays against the midshipman the army was among the early eastern teams to test eastern football methods against those of the west the cadets defeating a team from the University of Chicago on the planes the West pointers had only one criticism to make of their visitors and it was leconically put by one of the backs who said they're all fired fast but it's funny how they stop when you tackle them in this lineup was AC Tipton at center to whom belongs the honor of forcing the rules committee to change the code in one particular in order to stop a maneuver which he invented while in mid-career in a big game no one will ever forget how when chasing a loose ball and realizing that he had no chance to pick it up he kicked it again and again until it crossed the final chalk mark where he fell on it for a touchdown Tipton was something of a wrestler too as a certain Japanese expert in the art of jujitsu can testify and indeed did testify on the spot after the doctors had brought him to there was no lowering of the standards in the succeeding years which saw the development of players like Hackett Prince Farnsworth and Davis those years too saw the rise of such wonderful forwards as W. W. Red Irwin and that huge man from Alaska D. D. Pullin coming now to more recent times the coaching was turned over to H. M. Nelly assisted by Joseph W. Beacham fresh from chasing the little brown brother in the Philippines Beacham had made a great reputation at Cornell and there was evidence that he had kept up with the game at least in the matter of strategic possibilities even while in the tangled jungle of Luzon he brought with him even more than that an uncanny ability to see through the machinery of the team and pick out its human qualities upon which he never neglected to play there have been few coaches closer to his men than Joe whenever I talked football with Joe Beacham he never forgets to mention Vaughn Cooper to whom he gives a large share of the credit for the good work of his 11s Cooper was of the quiet type whose specialty was defense these two made a great team it was in this period that West Point saw the development of one of its greatest field generals there was nothing impressive in the physical appearance of little H. L. Hyatt a reasonably good man ball in hand his greatest value lay in his headwork as the West Point trainer said one day I've got him all bandaged up like a leg in a potty but from the neck up he's a piece of ice the charts of games in which Hyatt ran the team are set before the squad each year as examples not merely of perfect general ship but of the proper time to violate that general ship and make it go a distinction shared by Pritchard who followed in his footsteps with added touches of his own one cannot mention Pritchard's name without thinking at once of Merlatt who with Pritchard formed one of the finest forward passing combinations the game has seen both at Franklin Field and at the polo grounds this pair brought woe to the navy these stars had able assistance in the persons of McEwen one of the greatest centers the game has seen and who was chosen to lead the team in 1916 Wayand, Nyland, and O'Hare among the forwards and the brilliant and sturdy Olyphant in the backfield the man whose slashing play against the navy in 1915 will never be forgotten Olyphant was of a most unusual type even when he was doing the heaviest damage to the navy corps the midshipman could not but admire his wonderful work what the hustlers are to Annapolis the Cullum Hall team is to Westpoint it is made up of the leftovers from the first squad and substitutes one would travel far afield in search of a team with more spirit and greater pep in action whether playing an outside games or as their coach would put it showing up the first 11 not infrequently a player of the highest caliber is developed in this squad and taken to the first 11 the Cullum Hall squad whose 11 generally manages to clean up some of the strongest school teams of the Hudson Valley draws not a little of its spirit I think from the late Lieutenant E.M. Zell better known at the academy as Joby it was a treat to see the Cullum Hall team marching down the field against the first 11 with the roly-poly figure of Joby in the thick of every scrimmage coaching at the top of his lungs even when bowled over by the interference of his own pupils since his time the squad has been turned over to lieutenants Selick and Crawford who have kept alive the traditions and the playing spirit of this unique organization their reward for the bruising hard work with hardly a shadow of the hope of getting their letter comes in seeing the great game itself like the college scrub teams the hardest routers for the varsity are to be found in their ranks now for the game itself always hard fought always well fought there is perhaps no clash of all the years that so wakes the interest of the general public that vast throng which without college affiliations is nevertheless hungry for the right of allegiance somewhere somehow while the service 11s are superbly supported by the men who have been through the exacting mill at West Point and Annapolis their sweethearts and wives not to mention sisters cousins uncles and aunts they're urged on to battle by that great impartial public which believes that in a sense these two teams belong to it it is not uncommon to find men who have had no connection with either academy in hot argument as to the relative merits of the teams once in the stands some apparently trifling thing begets a partnership that this class of spectator is want to wonder at after it is all over whether in philadelphia in the earlier history of these contests on neutral ground or in new york army and navy day has become by tacit consent the nearest thing to a real gridiron holiday for the civilian who has been starved for thrilling action in the chance to cheer through the autumn days the jam at the hotels used as headquarters by the followers of the two 11s satisfies a yearning that he has hitherto been unable to define there too is found a host of old-time college football men and coaches who hold reunion and sometimes even bury hatchets making his way through the crowds and jogging elbows with the heroes of a sport that he understands only as organized combat he becomes obsessed with the spirit of the two fighting institutions once in possession of the coveted ticket he hides himself to the field as early as possible if he is wise in order to enjoy the preliminaries which are unlike those at any other game soon his heart beats faster attuned to the sound of tramping feet without the gates the measured cadence swells draws nearer and the thousands rise as one when first the long gray column and then the solid ranks of blue swing out upon the field the precision of the thing the realization that order in system can go so far as to hold in check to the last moment the enthusiasm of these youngsters thrills him to the core then suddenly gray ranks and blue alike break for the stands there to cut loose such a volume of now orderly now merely frenzied noise as never before smote his ears it is inspiration and it is novelty the time the place and the men that wake the loyalty dormant in every man which said to say so seldom has a chance of expression around the field are ranged diplomat dignitary of whatsoever rank both native and foreign in common with those who came to see as well as to be seen and who does not boast of having been to the army navy game they rise uncovered as the only official non-partisan of football history enters the gates the president of the united states throughout one half of the game he lends his support to one academy and in the intermission makes triumphal progress across the field welcomed on his arrival by a din of shouting surpassing all previous effort there to support their side it is perhaps one of those blessed hours in the life of a man upon whom the white light so piteously beats when he can indulge in the popular sport to him so long denied of being merely human men methods moods pass on the years roll by taking toll of every one of us from highest to lowest yet whether we are absorbed in the game of games or whether we look upon it as so many needs must merely as a spectacle the army navy game will remain a milestone never to be uprooted i have spoken elsewhere and at length of football traditions the army navy game is not merely a football tradition but an american institution it is for all the people every time may this great game go on forever serene in its power to bring out the best that is in us and when the great bugler sounds the silver sweet call of taps for all too many there will still be those who in their turn will answer the call of revelry to carry on the traditions of the great day that was ours end of chapter 12 part b recording by patty cunningham