William H. Edwards

“ As schoolboys, our imaginations were fired by the records of the brilliant achievements of a Perry, a Decatur or a Paul Jones; and, as we grow older, we look back to those heroes of our boyhood days, and our hearts beat fast again as we recall their daring deeds and pay them tribute anew for the stout hearts, the splendid fighting stamina, and the unswerving integrity that made them great men in history.
In every college and university there is a hall of fame, where the heroes of the past are idolized by the younger generations. ”

“ What better training for the game of life than the acid test of a championship game. Such a test comes not alone to the player but to the coach as well.
"What truer and finer friends can one have than those whom we have met through the medium of football! And finally as the years tend to narrow this precious list, through death, what greater privilege than to associate with the fellow whose muscles are lithe and whose mind is clean. Such a man was Francis H. Burr, captain of the Harvard team in 1908. ”

“ No Williams contemporary of Walter Bullard Street can forget two outstanding facts of his college career: his immaculate personal character and his undisputed title to first rank among the football men whom Williams has developed. He was idolized because of his athletic prowess; he was loved because he was every inch a man. His personality lifted his game from the level of an intercollegiate contest to the plane of a man's expression of loyalty to his college, and his supremacy on the football field gave a new dignity to the undergraduate's ideals of true manhood. ”

“ 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 a defeat by Yale that, months after on the cattle range of New Mexico, as he lay out at night on his cow-boy 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. ”

“ One does not always enthuse over the hard drudgery of practice. Those that witness only the final games of the year, little realize the gruesome task of preparedness. Every football player will acknowledge that some day he has had these thoughts himself.
But suddenly the day comes when this discouraged player sees a light. Perhaps he has developed a hidden power, or it may be that he has broken through and made a clean tackle behind the line; perhaps he has made a good run and received a compliment from the coach. ”

“ The last half of this game is everlastingly impressed upon my memory. Every man that played for Princeton, although eight of them were substitutes, played like a veteran. I shall ever treasure the memory of the loyal support that those men gave me as captain, and their response to my appeal to stand together and play not only for Princeton but for the injured men on the side-lines whose places they had taken.
The Yale team had also heard some words of football wisdom in their dressing room. Previous encounters with Princeton had taught them that the Tiger could also rally. ”

“ The start of a football game is most exciting; not alone for the players, but for the spectators as well. Every one is keyed up in anticipation of the contest. The referee's whistle blows; the ball is kicked off—the game has begun.
Opponents now meet face to face on the field of battle. What happens on the gridiron is plainly seen by the spectators, but it is not possible for them to hear the conversations which take place. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The University of Michigan never graduated a man who was more universally loved than Neil Snow. What he did and the way he did it has become a tradition at Michigan. He was idolized by every one who knew him. As a player and captain he set a wonderful example for his men to pattern after. He was a powerful player; possessing such determination and fortitude that he would go through a stone wall if he had to. He was their great all-around athlete; good in football, baseball and track. ”

“ There is no sport in the world that brings out unselfishness as does this great gridiron game of ours. Every fall, second and scrub teams throughout the country sacrifice themselves only to let others enter the promised land of victory. It is a strange thing but one almost never hears any real football player criticise another's making the team, either his own or an All America. ”

“ If this be true, and time and again has it been proved, then there is no more fitting dedication to a book dealing with the gridiron heroes of the past than to a man like Johnny Poe. For football is the abandon of body and mind to the obsession of the spirit that knows no obstacle, counts no danger and for the time being is dull and callous to physical pain or exhaustion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All is not clear sailing in football. The breaks must come some time. They may come singly or in a bunch, but whenever they do come, it takes courage to buck the hard luck in the game. Just when things get nicely under way one of the star players is injured, which means the systematic team work is handicapped. It is not the team, as a whole that I am thinking of, but the pangs of sorrow which go down deep into a fellow's soul, when he finds that he is injured ”

“ Their achievements are a distinguished part of the university's history—a part of our lives as university men—and we are ever ready now to burn incense in their honor, as we were in the old days to burn bonfires, in celebration of their deeds.
It is well now that we recall some of the men who have stood in the front line of football; in the making and preservation of the great game. Many of them have not lived to see the results of their service to the sport which they deemed to be manly and worth while. ”

“ It is an unwritten law in football that a fresh substitute is far superior to a crippled star. The keen desire to remain in the game is so firmly fixed in his mind that he is willing to sacrifice himself, and at the same time by concealing his injury from the trainer and coaches he, unconsciously, is sacrificing his team; his power is gone.
One of the greatest exhibitions of grit ever seen in a football game was given by Harry Watson of Williams in a game at Newton Center between Williams and Dartmouth. ”

“ 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 team 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 is 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 Sharpe was one of the greatest all-around athletes that ever wore the blue of Yale. ”

“ Men who were tackles, are still meeting their opponents with the same [Pg 70] intrepid zeal. The men who played at end in those days, are to-day seeing that nothing gets around them in the business world. The public is the referee and umpire. It knows their achievements in the greater game of life.
It is not my purpose to select an all-star football team from the long list of heroes past and present. It is not possible to select any one man whom we can all crown as king. We all have our football idols, our own heroes, men after whom we have patterned, who were our inspiration. ”

“ 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 to-night 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 that the Princeton team this year has got to square that defeat. Garry 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. ”

“ Those who to-day are prone to decry football as a rough and brutal sport—which it no longer is—might at least reverse their opinions of the present game, could they have spent a certain lurid afternoon in the fall of '87 at Jarvis Field where the elevens of Harvard and Princeton fought a battle so sanguinary as to come down to us through the years legended as a real crimson affair. ”

“ He was thoroughly reliable, and the spirit he instilled into his team mates helped to make our year a successful one. This picture will recall the long roll of silent heroes in the game, whose joy seemed to be in giving; men who worked their hearts out to see the Varsity improve; men who never got the great rewards that come to the Varsity players, but received only the thrill of doing something constructive. Their reward is in the victories of others, for every man knows that it is a great scrub that makes a great varsity. ”

“ I knew the strength of their team. I have learned much of the 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 plains when the Middies were victorious, West Point set out in a thoroughly businesslike way to see that the Navy did not get the lion's share of victories. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Go and talk to the trainer of the football team if you want to get an unbiased opinion of the team's work or of the value of the individual coaches. Some of our trainers know much about the game of football—the technical side—and their advice is valuable.
Every trainer longs to handle good material, but more power to the trainer who goes ahead with what he's got and makes the best out of it without a murmur. In our recollections we know of teams that were reported to be going stale—"over-trained"—"a team of cripples"—who slumped—could not stand the test—were easily winded—could not endure. ”

“ It was my pleasure to have played against him in two Yale-Princeton games, '98 and '99. I have never known a finer sportsman than he. He played the game hard, and he played it fair. He had nothing to say to his opponents in the game. He was there for business. Always urging his fellow players on to better work. Every one who knew this gallant leader had absolute confidence in him. All admired and loved him. There was no one at Yale who was more universally liked and acknowledged as a leader in all the relations of the University than was Gordon Brown. ”

“ 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. The men were desperate and near the breaking point. Johnny, with his true Princeton spirit, sent this message to each man on the team:
"'If you won't be beat, you can't be beat.'"
"This message brought about a miracle. It put iron in each man's soul, and never from that moment did Harvard gain a yard, and for four succeeding years—'If you won't be beat, you can't be beat,' was Princeton's battle-cry. ”

“ What is there in a man's make-up that leads him to conceal from the trainer an injury that he receives in a game; that makes him stay in the [Pg 235] field of play? Why is it that he disregards himself, and goes on in the game, suffering physical as well as mental tortures, plucky though handicapped? The playing of such men is extended far beyond the point of their usefulness. Yes, even into the danger zone. Such men give everything they have in them while it lasts. It is not intelligent football, however, and what might be called bravery is foolishness after all. ”

“ You hear the seniors singing on the campus, while the whole college listens. It is their hour. At games you see the cheer leaders take their places in front of the grandstand, and as they bend and double themselves into all sorts of shapes, they bring out the cheers which go to make college spirit strong. ”

“ There never was as much real football ability concealed in a small package as there was in that great player, Arthur Poe. He was always using his head, following the ball, strong in emergency. He was endowed with a wonderful personality, and a man who always got a lot of fun out of the game and made fun for others, but yet was on the job every minute. He always inspired his team mates to play a little harder. Rather than write anything more about this great player, let us read with him the part he so ably played in some of Princeton's football games. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a strange thing that the Cadets always seem to give Yale a close game, as in that year even though beaten by both Harvard and Princeton by safe scores, and even though Yale beat Harvard and Princeton handily, the Army played us to a standstill.
"After the game, as is so often the case when men have played themselves out, there was a good deal of sobbing and a good many real tears were shed. Every man who has played football will appreciate that there are times when it is a very common matter for even a big husky man to weep. ”