CHAPTER XIV
BRINGING HOME THE BACON
Happy is the thought of victory, and while we realize that there should always be eleven men in every play, each man doing his duty, there frequently comes a time in a game, when some one man earns the credit for winning the game, and brings home the bacon. Maybe he has been the captain of the team, with a wonderful power of leadership which had held the Eleven together all season and made his team a winning one. From the recollections of some of the victories, from the experiences of the men who participated in them and made victory possible, let us play some of those games over with some of the heroes of past years.
Billy Bull
One of the truly great bacon-getters of the past is Yale's Billy Bull. Football history is full of his exploits when he played on the Yale team in '85, '86, '87 and '88. Old-time players can sit up all night telling stories of the games in which he scored for Yale. His kicking proved a winning card and in happy recollection the old-timers tell of Bull, the hero of many a game, being carried off the field on the shoulders of an admiring crowd of Yale men after a big victory.
"In the course of my years at Yale, six big games were played," says Bull, "four with Princeton and two with Harvard. I was fortunate in being able to go through all of them, sustaining no injury whatsoever, except in the last game with Princeton. In this game, Channing came through to me in the fullback position and in tackling him I received a scalp wound which did not, however, necessitate my removal from the game.
"Of the six games played, only one was lost, and that was the Lamar game in the fall of '85. In the five games won I was the regular kicker in the last three, and, in two of these, kicking proved to be the deciding factor. Thus in '87--Yale 17, Harvard 8--two place kicks and one drop kick were scored in the three attempts, totaling nine points. Considering the punting I did that day, and the fact that both place-kicks were scored from close to the side lines, I feel that that game represents my best work.
"The third year of my play was undoubtedly my best year; in fact the only year in which I might lay claim to being anything of a kicker. Thus in the Rutgers game of '87 I kicked twelve straight goals from placement. Counting the two goals from touchdowns against Princeton I had a batting average of 1000 in three games.
"Through the last year I was handicapped with a lame kicking leg and was out of form, for in the final game with Princeton that year, '88, I tried at least four times before scoring the first field goal of the game. In the second half I had but one chance and that was successful. This was the 10-0 game, in which all the points were scored by kicking, although the ground was wet and slippery.
"It is of interest to note, in connection with drop-kicking in the old days, that the proposition was not the simple matter it is to-day. Then, the ball had to go through the quarter's hands, and the kicker in consequence had so little time in which to get the ball away that he was really forced to kick in his tracks and immediately on receipt of the ball. Fortunately I was able to do both, and I never had a try for a drop blocked, and only one punt, the latter due to the fact that the ball was down by the side line, and I could not run to the left (which would have taken me out of bounds) before kicking.
"Perhaps one of the greatest sources of satisfaction to me, speaking of punting in particular, was the fact that I was never blocked by Princeton. And yet it was extremely fortunate for me that I was a left-footed kicker and thus could run away from Cowan, who played a left tackle before kicking. If I had had to use my right foot I doubt if I could have got away with anything, for Cowan was certainly a wonderful player and could get through the Yale line as though it were paper. He always brought me down, but always after the ball had left my foot. I know that it has been thought at Princeton that I stood twelve yards back from the line when kicking. This was not so. Ten yards was the regular distance, always. But, I either kicked in my tracks or directly after running to the left."
THE DAY COLUMBIA BEAT YALE
Columbia men enthusiastically recall the day Columbia beat Yale. A Columbia man who is always on hand for the big games of the year is Charles Halstead Mapes, the ever reliable, loyal rooter for the game. He has told the tale of this victory so wonderfully well that football enthusiasts cannot but enjoy this enthusiastic Columbia version.
"Fifteen years ago Yale was supreme in football," runs Mapes' story. "Occasionally, but only very occasionally, one of their great rivals, Princeton or Harvard, would win a game from them, but for any outsider, anybody except one of the 'Eternal Triangle,' to beat Yale was out of the question--an utter impossibility. And, by the way, that Triangle at times got almost as much on the nerves of the outside public as the Frenchmen's celebrated three--wife, husband, lover--the foundation of their plays.
"The psychological effect of Yale's past prestige was all-powerful in every game. The blue-jerseyed figures with the white Y would tumble through the gate and spread out on the field; the stands would rise to them with a roar of joyous welcome that would raise the very skies--Y-a-l-e! Y-a-l-e! Y--A--L--E!
[Illustration: TWO ACES--BILL MORLEY AND HAROLD WEEKS]
"'Small wonder that each man was right on his toes, felt as though he were made of steel springs. All other Yale teams had won, 'We will win, of course.'
"But the poor other side--they might just as well throw their canvas jackets and mole-skin trousers in the old suit-case at once and go home. 'Beat Yale! boys, we're crazy, but every man must try his damnedest to keep the score low,' and so the game was won and lost before the referee even blew his starting whistle.
"This was the general rule, but every rule needs an exception to prove it, and on a certain November afternoon in 1899 we gave them their belly-full of exception. We had a very strong team that year, with some truly great players, Harold Weekes and Bill Morley (there never were two better men behind the line), and Jack Wright, old Jack Wright, playing equally well guard or center, as fine a linesman as I have ever seen. Weekes, Morley, and Wright were on the All-American team of that year, and Walter Camp in selecting his All-American team for All Time several years ago picked Harold Weekes as his first halfback.
"I can see the game now; there was no scoring in the first half. To the outsider the teams seemed evenly matched, but we, who knew our men, thought we saw that the power was there; and if they could but realize their strength and that they had it in them to lay low at last that armor-plated old rhinoceros, the terror of the college jungle--Yale,--with an even break of luck, the game must be ours.
"In the second half our opportunity came. By one of the shifting chances of the game we got the ball on about their 25-yard line; one yard, three yards, two yards, four yards, we went through them; there was no stopping us, and at last--over, well over, for a touchdown.
"Through some technicality in the last rush the officials, instead of allowing the touchdown, took the ball away from us and gave it to Yale. They were right, probably quite right, but how could we think so? Yale at once kicked the ball to the middle of the field well out of danger. The teams lined up.
"On the very next play, with every man of that splendidly trained Eleven doing his allotted work, Harold Weekes swept around the end, aided by the magnificent interference of Jack Wright, which gave him his start. He ran half the length of the field, through the entire Yale team, and planted the ball squarely behind the goal posts for the touchdown which won the game. If we had ever had any doubt that cruel wrong is righted, that truth and justice must prevail, it was swept away that moment in a great wave of thanksgiving.
"I shall never forget it--Columbia had beaten Yale! Tears running down my cheeks, shaken by emotion, I couldn't speak, let alone cheer. My best girl was with me. She gave one quick half-frightened glance and I believe almost realized all I felt. She was all gold. I feel now the timid little pressure on my arm as she tried to help me regain control of myself. God! why has life so few such moments!"
BEHIND THE SCENES
Let us go into the dressing room of a victorious team, which defeated Yale at Manhattan Field a good many years ago and let us read with that great lover of football, the late Richard Harding Davis, as he describes so wonderfully well some of the unique things that happened in the celebration of victory.
"People who live far away from New York and who cannot understand from the faint echoes they receive how great is the enthusiasm that this contest arouses, may possibly get some idea of what it means to the contestants themselves through the story of a remarkable incident, that occurred after the game in the Princeton dressing room. The team were being rubbed down for the last time and after their three months of self-denial and anxiety and the hardest and roughest sort of work that young men are called upon to do, and outside in the semi-darkness thousands of Princeton followers were jumping up and down and hugging each other and shrieking themselves hoarse. One of the Princeton coaches came into the room out of this mob, and holding up his arm for silence said,
"'Boys, I want you to sing the doxology.'"
"Standing as they were, naked and covered with mud, blood and perspiration, the eleven men that had won the championship sang the Doxology from the beginning to the end as solemnly and as seriously, and I am sure, as sincerely, as they ever did in their lives, while outside the no less thankful fellow-students yelled and cheered and beat at the doors and windows and howled for them to come out and show themselves. This may strike some people as a very sacrilegious performance and as a most improper one, but the spirit in which it was done has a great deal to do with the question, and any one who has seen a defeated team lying on the benches of their dressing room, sobbing like hysterical school girls, can understand how great and how serious is the joy of victory to the men that conquer."
Introducing Vic Kennard, opportunist extraordinary. Where is the Harvard man, Yale man, or indeed any football man who will not be stirred by the recollection of his remarkable goal from the field at New Haven that provided the winning points for the eleven Percy Haughton turned out in the first year of his régime. To Kennard himself the memory is still vivid, and there are side lights on that performance and indeed on all his football days at Cambridge, of which he alone can tell. I'll not make a conversation of this, but simply say as one does over the 'phone, "Kennard talking":--
[Illustration: VIC KENNARD'S KICK]
"Many of us are under the impression that the only real football fan is molded from the male sex and that the female of the species attends the game for decorative purposes only. I protest. Listen. In 1908 I had the good fortune to be selected to enter the Harvard-Yale Game at New Haven, for the purpose of scoring on Yale in a most undignified way, through the medium of a drop-kick, Haughton realizing that while a touchdown was distinctly preferable, he was not afraid to fight it out in the next best way.
"My prayers were answered, for the ball somehow or other made its way over the crossbar and between the uprights, making the score, Harvard 4, Yale 0. My mother, who had made her way to New Haven by a forced march, was sitting in the middle of the stand on the Yale (no, I'm wrong, it was, on second thought, on the Harvard side) accompanied by my two brothers, one of whom forgot himself far enough to go to Yale, and will not even to this day acknowledge his hideous mistake.
"Five or six minutes before the end of the game, one E. H. Coy decided that the time was getting short and Yale needed a touchdown. So he grabbed a Harvard punt on the run and started. Yes, he did more than start, he got well under way, circled the Harvard end and after galloping fifteen yards, apparently concluded that I would look well as minced meat, and headed straight for me, stationed well back on the secondary defense. He had received no invitation whatsoever, but owing to the fact that I believe every Harvard man should be at least cordial to every Yale man, I decided to go 50-50 and meet him half way.
"We met informally. That I know. I will never forget that. He weighed only 195 pounds, but I am sure he had another couple of hundred tucked away somewhere. When I had finished counting a great variety and number of stars, it occurred to me that I had been in a ghastly railroad wreck, and that the engine and cars following had picked out my right knee as a nice soft place to pile up on. There was a feeling of great relief when I looked around and saw that the engineer of that train, Mr. E. H. Coy, had stopped with the train, and I held the greatest hopes that neither the engine nor any one of the ten cars following would ever reach the terminal.
"Mother, who had seen the whole performance, was little concerned with other than the fact that E. H. had been delayed. His mission had been more than delayed--as it turned out, it had been postponed. In the meantime Dr. Nichols of the Harvard staff of first aid was working with my knee, and from the stands it looked as though I might have broken my leg.
"At this point some one who sat almost directly back of my mother called out loud, 'That's young Kennard. It looks as though he'd broken his leg.' My brother, feeling that mother had not heard the remark, and not knowing what he might say, turned and informed him that Mrs. Kennard was sitting almost directly in front of him, requesting that he be careful what he said. Mother, however, heard the whole thing, and turning in her seat said, 'That's all right, I don't care if his leg is broken, if we only win this game.'
"My mother, who is a great football fan, after following the game for three or four years, learned all the slang expressions typical of football. She tried to work out new plays, criticised the generalship occasionally, and fairly 'ate and slept' football during the months of October and November. While the season was in progress I usually slept at home in Boston where I could rest more comfortably. I occupied the adjoining room to my mother's, and when I was ready for bed always opened the door between the rooms.
"One night I woke up suddenly and heard my mother talking. Wondering whether something was the matter, I got out of bed and went into her room, appearing just in time to see my mothers arms outstretched. She was calling 'Fair catch.' I spoke to her to see just what the trouble was, and she, in a sleepy way, mumbled, 'We won.' She had been dreaming of the Harvard-Dartmouth game.
"Early in the fall of 1908 Haughton heard rumors that the Indians were equipping their backfield in a very peculiar fashion. Warner had had a piece of leather the color and shape of a football sewed on the jerseys of his backfield men, in such a position that when the arm was folded as if carrying the ball, it would appear as if each of the backfield players might have possession of the ball, and therefore disorganize somewhat the defense against the man who was actually carrying the ball. Instead of one runner each time, there appeared to be four.
"Haughton studied the rules and found nothing to prevent Warner's scheme. He wrote a friendly letter to Warner, stating that he did not think it for the best interest of the game to permit his players to appear in the Stadium equipped in this way, at the same time admitting that there was nothing in the rules against it. Taking no chances, however, Haughton worked out a scheme of his own. He discovered that there was no rule which prevented painting the ball red, so he had a ball painted the same color as the crimson jerseys. Had the Indians come on the field with the leather ruse sewed on their jerseys, Haughton would have insisted that the game be played with the crimson ball.
"What did I learn in my football course? I learned to control my temper, to exercise judgment, to think quickly and act decisively. I learned the meaning of discipline, to take orders and carry them out to the best of my ability without asking why. I had through the training regular habits knocked into me. I learned to meet, know and size up men. I learned to smile when I was the most discouraged fellow in this great wide world, the importance of being on time, a better control of my nerves, and to demand the respect of fellow players. I learned to work out problems for myself and to apply my energy more intelligently,--to stick by the ship. I secured a wide friendship which money can't buy."
What Eddie Mahan was to Harvard, Charlie Barrett, Captain of the victorious 1915 Eleven, was to Cornell. The Ithaca Captain was one of those powerful runners whose remarkable physique did not interfere with his shiftiness. Like his Harvard contemporary, he was a fine leader, but unlike Mahan, with whom he clashed in the game with the Crimson in his final year, he was not able to play the play through what was to him probably the most important gridiron battle of his career. Nevertheless, it was his touchdown in the first quarter that sounded the knell of the Crimson hopes that day, and Cornell men will always believe that his presence on the side line wrapped in a blanket, after his recovery from the shock that put him out of the game, had much to do with inspiring his Eleven.
Barrett was one of the products of the Cleveland University School, whence so many star players have been sent up to the leading universities. On the occasion of his first appearance at Ithaca it became a practical certainty that he would not only make the Varsity Eleven, but would some day be its captain. In course of time it became a habit for the followers of the Carnelian and White to look to Barrett for rescue in games that seemed to be hopelessly in the fire.
In his senior year the team was noted for its ability to come from behind, and this team spirit was generally understood as being the reflection of that of their leader. The Cornell Captain played the second and third periods of his final game against Pennsylvania in a dazed condition, and it is a tribute to his mental and physical resources that in the last period of that game he played perhaps as fine football as he had ever shown.
It was from no weakened Pennsylvania Eleven that Barrett snatched the victory in this his crowded moment. The Quakers had had a disastrous season up to Thanksgiving Day, but their pluck and rallying power, which has become a tradition on Franklin Field, was never more in evidence. The Quakers played with fire, with power and aggressiveness that none save those who know the Quaker spirit had been led to expect. There were heroes on the Red and Blue team that day, and without a Barrett at his best against them, they would have won.
[Illustration: SAM WHITE'S RUN]
It was up to Eddie Hart with his supreme personality and indomitable spirit, which has always characterized him from the day he entered Exeter until he forged his way to the leadership of one of Princeton's finest elevens to bring home the long deferred championship. When the final whistle rang down the football curtain for the season of 1911 it found Hart in the ascendancy having fulfilled the wonderful promise of his old Exeter days. For he had made good indeed.
Yale and Harvard had been beaten through a remarkable combination of team and individual effort in which Sam White's alertness and DeWitt's kicking stood out; a combination which was made possible only through Hart's splendid leadership.
At a banquet for this championship team given by the Princeton Club of Philadelphia, Lou Reichner, the toastmaster, in introducing Sam White, the hero of the evening, quoted from First Samuel III,