Football Days quotes

Hail and Farewell—The Old Game and the New Compared—Exclusively Collegiate Sport—Isaac H. Bromley, Yale '53, Sums up the Spirit of College Life and Sport!

To every man there comes a moment that marks the turning point of his career.

For me it was a certain Saturday morning in the autumn of 1891.

It was on the trip from Trenton to Lawrenceville, in the big stage coach loaded with boys, I got my first dose of homesickness. The prospect of new surroundings made me yearn for St. John's.

The "blue hour" of boyhood, however, is a brief one.

I was soon engaged in conversation with a little fellow who was sitting beside me and who began discussing the ever-popular subject of football.

Neither side scored and it was a hard-fought struggle.

One day, one play, often ruins a man's chances.

I had played as a regular in the first three games of the season. I was being tried out and had been found wanting.

His day had come, his was the reward, and Joe Beacham had been laid low. As for the girl, she subsided abruptly, and is said to have remarked, as Crowdis smashed the Cornell machine: "

Well, I never did like a fat man anyway!

"

Some of the men weighed a hundred pounds more than he did, but he would get up and, with a smile, say:

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

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

If, as you gaze at this picture of the scrub team, it stirs your memory of the fellows who used to play against you, and, if, in your heart you pay them a silent tribute, you will be giving them only their just due.

To the uncrowned heroes, who found no fame, the men whose hearts were strong, but whose ambitions for a place on the Varsity were never realized, we take off our hats.

The fiercest knocks that John DeWitt's team ever had at Princeton were in practice against the scrub.

Through our recollection of the things we should have done but failed to do for one reason or another, our defeats rise before us more vividly now than our victories.

There is only one day to make good and that is the day of the game. The next day is too late.

Then there is the ever-present recollection of the fellow who let athletics be the big thing in his college life. He did not make good in the classroom. He was unfair to himself.

When the teams lined up for combat there were no greetings of one old schoolmate to another. It was not the time nor place for exchange of amenities.

As some one has since remarked, "The town was full of strangers."

The fact that Dudley was wearing one Lawrenceville stocking only urged us on to play harder.

Crowds had left the field before Poe made his great goal kick. They had accepted a Yale victory as inevitable. Some say that bets were paid on the strength of this conviction.

The Yale News, which went to press five minutes before the game ended, got out an edition stating that Yale had won. They had to change that story.

During the seconds preceding Poe's kick for a goal I had a queer obsession. It was a serious matter to me then. I can recall it now with amusement. "Big" was a prefix not of my own selection.

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.

"

In the formation of college spirit and traditions I am not unmindful of the tremendous moulding 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 this connection:

"I don't remember a thing Professor —— 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.

It is related that on the 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.

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 a game with Wesleyan, his opponent cried out angrily,

"Keep your hands for pounding on your Bible, don't be sticking them in my face."

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."

… one of those feud cases, I was asked by a private if I were related to Edgar Allan Poe, "De mug 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.

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 contents 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' impatience 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.

The West Pointers had only one criticism to make of their visitors, and it was laconically 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 A. C. 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 midcareer in a big game.

Crowther, however, was like an India-rubber ball and not once during the season had he received any sort of injury. Robby told Crowther what Haughton had suggested, and smiling, the latter said:

"Tell him not to worry about me; better look out for himself."

On the next play Crowther took the ball and went around Harvard's end for forty yards, scoring a touchdown. After he had kicked the goal, the little fellow came over to the side line, and said to Robby:

Finally the big fellow was obliged to quit, and as he was led off the field, Crowther hurried over to him, reaching up, placed his hands on his shoulder and said:

"Sorry, old man! I didn't mean to hurt you."

Pendleton, who weighed well over 200 pounds, looked down upon the little fellow, but said never a word.

With a sad expression on his face, and tears almost in his eyes, the boy turned to Mike and said:

"Coach, that damn thing won't bend. It's wood."

Vonalbalde Gammon, one of the few players who met his death in an intercollegiate game, lived at Rome, Georgia, and entered the University of Georgia in 1896.

The picture on the opposite page illustrates wonderfully well how he exerted and extended himself. This man put his whole soul into his work and was never found wanting. His achievements will hold a conspicuous place in football history.

Nothing got by John DeWitt.

DeWitt's team in 1903 was the first to bring victory over Yale to Princeton since 1899. On that day John DeWitt scored a touchdown and kicked a placement goal, which will long be remembered.

He could do anything on the football field. He was so versatile, that no real defense could be built against him. He had a wonderful intuitive sense and always did just the right thing at the right time."

Football in its very nature is a rough game.

It calls for the contact of bodies under high momentum and this means strains and bruises! Thanks to the superb physical condition of players, it usually means nothing more serious.

Ross McClave tells of fun at the training table one day when he asked Jim how to spell "saloon." Jim, smiling broadly and knowing he was to amuse these fellows as he had the men in days gone by, said:

"Hess—Hay—Hell—two Hoes—and—a Hen."

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

Harry shifted his feet and gathering courage blurted out:

"Run those boys around again and then ask them to whistle."

There are many other trainers who deserve mention in this chapter, men who are earnestly and loyally giving up their lives to the training of the young men in our different colleges, but space will not permit to take up any more of these interesting …

Shevlin nodded and was about to pass on without speaking, when Rafferty placed his hand upon his shoulder.

"Well, Shevlin," he said solemnly, "I see we are still old man Shevlin and old man Rafferty."

One has only to hear Jim Rodgers tell the story of Billy Rhodes to realize how deeply the iron of football disaster sinks into the soul.

"

You fellows are made of crockery from the neck down and ivory from the neck up.

"

"You fellows are made of crockery from the neck down and ivory from the neck up."

Football is fickle. To-day you may be a hero.

After the last game you may be carried off on the shoulders of enthusiastic admirers and dined and wined by hosts of friends;

"

White man play for wind. Indian play football.

"

"I am perhaps more of a boy's man to-day than I ever was. There is a great satisfaction in feeling that you have an influence in the lives of the men under you.

Coaching is a sacred job. There's no question about it.

"There is a wonderful athletic spirit at Michigan, and when we have mass meetings in the Hill Auditorium 6000 men turn out. At such a time one feels the great power behind an athletic team.

"He came back with: 'Sparring! It doesn't compare in roughness, or danger, with football.

In sparring you know what you are doing. You know what your opponent is trying to do, and he's right there in front of you, and, there's only one! But in football! Say, there's twenty-two people trying to do you!

'

"

Well! Well! Why don't you penalize yourself?

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Mike, this isn't football. It's war.

"

"'

How do you expect me to keep track of signals, when I can hardly keep track of the touchdowns.

'"

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What are you sticking it in my mouth for?

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You all lose. I'll take it myself,

" and over the line he went with the ball tucked away under his arm.

"

Johnny Poe was behind the door when fear went by,

" says Garry Cochran. "Every one knows of his wonderful courage. I remember that in the Harvard '96 game, at Cambridge, near the end of the first half, two of our best men (Ad Kelly and Sport Armstrong) were seriously hurt, which disorganized the team.

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If you won't be beat, you can't be beat.

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

'"