First team

“ The first requisite to the development of a football team is a study of the entire season's campaign. The successful working plan of former elevens is not a safe rule in the preparation of a new team. Although the games may be played against the same old opponents, an entirely new set of problems will be presented for the coach to solve. These problems may spring up in the gradation of games on the schedule or in changes in the class or coaches of the rival elevens, but the main problem is one of men. ”

“ The players with the objecting parents have retired, and the first team has fallen to pieces, but the fragments have been collected by an energetic captain, and new men have been found who practise on the gridiron daily; not with the view of getting into shape for this season, but to train players for next year. This is true sportsmanship. These boys are going into sport for sport's sake, and should be encouraged. They are of the stuff that winning teams are made of. ”

“ Our hero wasted no time on preliminaries.
"Boys," he began, "you know as well as I do, that we have received an insulting letter from the Blue Hill academy. Our football team, of which I have the honor to be a member——"
"Hurray for the team!" cried Paul Drew. "Long may she wave, o'er the land——"
"Order in the ranks!" cried Innis Beeby, who was presiding.
"Our team needs strengthening," went on Dick. "There is no use ignoring the facts before us. We never have had a first class team—that is, to judge by the records of the past. ”

“ Since the reconstructed National League began its new life, blundering management of teams has characterized the running of a majority of its twelve clubs, and it will continue to do so while the system of engaging players for their records merely and not for their ability in doing team work and in playing harmoniously together, is continued. Especially, too, is the plan of engaging players whose daily habits of life are at war with their ability to do first-class work in the field. ”

“ We want the other defenders to “tackle the ball,” and make the ball carrier fumble it so we can get possession of the football. We are trying to get possession of the football any way we can. Frankly we want the first man to the ball carrier merely to hold him up, and not let him get away, so we can unload on him. You can punish a ball carrier when one man has him “dangling,” and the others gang tackle him hard. I am not implying we want our boys to pile on and play dirty football merely to get a ball carrier out of the game. ”

“ First, the boys are tired and in order to get proper execution and coverage we insist they give that “little extra,” which I feel is so important in order to build a winner. Secondly, the boys know there is no time limit and we are going to work on this phase of our football program until we do it to my satisfaction. Therefore, they strive extra hard to get perfect execution and coverage so we can end practice. We feel if the boys can learn to execute the kicking game perfectly while they are tired, they will do it perfectly during the actual game. ”

“ Superb physical condition was the first essential of a winning team. His problem, however, was far from solved. It was only changed. He had made them athletes. Now he must make them ball players.
Individually they were that already, in the purely mechanical features of the game. They were quick fielders, speedy runners and heavy batters. But they might be all these, and yet not be a winning team. They needed team work, the deft fitting in of each part with every other, the quick thinking that, in a fraction of a second, might change defeat to victory. ”

“ Each team is assigned to a different corner. A leader stands in front of each team with a bean bag, cap, or ball. At the signal to start the leader tosses to and receives from each member of his team in turn the bean bag. Having received the bag from the last one in his line, he takes his place at the foot of the line, and the one at the head of the line becomes leader and proceeds to toss the ball to each member as did the preceding leader. The group, in which all have served as leaders and which successfully completes the game first, wins. ”

“ During the period that should be given to the team the graduates come around, and the tendency is to neglect the team for the individual. The bulk of individual coaching should be done in that part of the season in which it should naturally come. So much in general. Now a few suggestions to the captain, in settling his work for the season, may not be altogether out of place.
First day out, the squad upon going upon the field should form a circle, and pass the ball around. ”

“ In order to have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity; every player must put the team first ahead of personal glory. The boy who plays for us must be willing to make sacrifices. Victory means team glory for everyone. Individual personal glory means little if the team loses. ”

“ Each man on the kicking team is numbered from one through seven from the outside-in, except the last four men on the opposite side of the kicking line, i.e., the men on our extreme left in Figure 93. If we know from scouting reports who the safety man will be, we do not give him a number. If we don’t know who the safety man is, we instruct our players—if your man turns out to be a safety, regardless of where you line up, then you will block the first man to your inside. The deep back who does not receive the ball will head upfield and block the most dangerous man threatening the ball carrier. ”

“ Having dealt with the most important member of a football team, it will be necessary to consider, in the first place, the best measures for filling to the best advantage the various positions the players under his command will have to occupy, and secondly, the duties each will have to carry out to make the combination effective. ”

“ The time for the preparation of the individual parts of the team is the first week or ten days of training. Persistence and patience ought to show the general abilities of the men in this period and enable the coach to select very nearly the places they can play on the team. The earlier the choice of a team can be made, the greater will be its perfection in the season's height. This preparation period ought to be free from any work such as regular scrimmage, in which the men may be injured. To get into fair condition should be the first general aim. ”

“ Arrange your eleven in such a fashion that you come out as captain in the most picturesque costume.
Be careful to "kill" your colleagues' appearance by an artful combination of discordant hues.
Carry out the above scheme with the assistance of a joint committee consisting of two, yourself and the local subaltern.
Arrange, at the last moment, that the men shall only send out six of their team to field.
Manage to put yourself in first, and play with confidence the initial ball. ”

“ Five fellows who are on the two first elevens—five fellows who are candidates for the school team! And right in the middle of the football season to sneak off and break training, and run the risk of being fired from the school, when you know how you're needed to help build up the school team! ”

“ The kind of teams taken upon this road, is also a matter to which the emigrant should pay very great attention. In an outfit, it is one of the things second in importance: after the provisions, probably the first: for if a team fails, it will be very difficult to replace it. The emigrant is entirely dependant on his team; because if it be not sound, healthy and strong, it will not be able to keep pace with those that are, and he will, in consequence, be forced to some disadvantageous extremity, to avoid falling behind. ”

“ The mere fact that they had won, satisfying as it was, counted for little compared with the enormous benefit of the game in welding the team together. It had taken eleven stars and molded them into a team. No individual brilliancy, however great, can atone for the lack of team work. To-day they had tested each other, supported each other, played into each other's hands, forgotten [73] that they were anything but parts of one great, smoothly moving, swiftly running machine. ”

“ The students always play the association game, and it used to be the ambition of every youth to get the ball, and carry it down the field all by himself, while the audience cheered, "Bravo, bravo!" So the faculty arranged matches with the crews of visiting British warships, and from sad experience the college learned the value of side plays and frequent passes, and began to see dimly that good football is played, not with the legs and mouth alone, but with the head, and that hard team-work is better than grand stand exploits. ”

“ If the practice is not interesting enough to burn an indelible impression of every rudiment of football into the player's working knowledge, it is wasted. The coach can best instruct his men by putting on his football suit and illustrating exactly what he wants done, not only in fundamentals, but in team play. Confidence of the members of the team, one in the other, and constant interest in how each comrade is developing will in time form a team spirit, a factor quite as potent in carrying a pig-skin as an extra hundred pounds of muscle. ”

“ In the mass-meeting of the school the night before the games, when the boys gathered in loyal force to give their team a “send-off” for the morrow, nothing that was said by student or graduate or friend stirred such response in the hearts of the school as the short, plain, virile exhortation of the captain.
And no athletes need personal inspiration as do the members of a track team. The football player stands shoulder to shoulder with his fellows, the strong helps the weak and shares with him the glory of victory. ”

“ The defection of Tener, Williamson, Ryan, Pfeffer and others left me with a comparatively green team on my hands, when the season of 1890 opened, but long before the season came to a close constant practice had made it one of the best teams in the League, as it proved by finishing in the second place. Few people, however, appreciate the amount of work that was necessary to attain that result. ”

“ And so there came a day in the fall of 1875 when certain men—to be spoken of more personally later on—desirous of the success of the national game, determined upon a reorganization on lines differing entirely from those that had previously obtained. They proposed an organization that should draw a sharp line of distinction between the terms "Club" and "Team." Heretofore Base Ball Clubs had won and lost games, matches, tournaments, trophies. Henceforth this would be changed. The function of Base Ball Clubs in the future would be to manage Base Ball Teams. ”

“ I mean, Captain Harven, that it is the coach’s place to select the players. That I take to be one of his duties. If he is to instruct a team in football he certainly has the privilege of deciding who shall belong to that team ”

“ The men must chum together on and off the field. Team work on the field is made much easier if there is team work off the field.
I never hear the expression "team mates" used but I recall a certain Princeton team, the captain of which was endowed with a wonderful power of leadership. There was nothing the men would not do for him. Every man on the team regarded him as a big brother. ”

“ There is not much territory remaining, and the big questions are, “Who is going to come out on top?” and “Who will end up with the ball when the dust settles?” If we give our team a sound plan and teach it to them well, and they believe in it and in us, we will do all right. ”

“ My idea of perfect play Is when a team performs strictly as it has been coached to perform ... following a system through to the very last regardless of the breaks of the game or the preconceived notions of the individual players. That is team-work in the fullest—that is genuine football. That you failed to win does not alter the fact that you gave a faultless exhibition insofar as your experience and training permitted. ”

“ The whole secret of success in football lies, it is almost superfluous to add, in the measure of a team's combination. A club eleven composed of entirely mediocre players will generally make a good show against, if it does not actually beat, a coalition of members of different bodies of vastly superior capacity individually. ”

“ And in his Senior year he was on the team, the champion football team of America. The fearless way he used to charge down the field like a fighting elephant and smash those old-fashioned flying wedges—by flopping down in front of them—is now a matter of football history. ”

“ Football is a contact sport, and we must make the initial contact. In order to be a winner a boy must whip his man individually, and the team must beat the opponent physically.
Genuine All-Out Desire for Team Victory
Unity is the sound basis for any successful organization, and [14] a football team is no exception. Without team unity you cannot have winners. We believe and coach team victory. Our goal is to win every game we play. We go into every game believing we will win it. Obviously we don’t win all of them, but we never go into a game believing we cannot come out of it the winner. ”

“ I have endeavoured to represent, as concisely as possible, the essentials for the acquirement of any great degree of excellence in any of the positions which constitute the formation of a football team. ”

“ A gate opens at the farther end of the grounds, there is a vociferous cheer from the nearest section and the team in whose success our hopes are centered, trots out on the field, to be met by a tumult of welcome. Big fellows they are, stout of limb and victors through the season over every team they have met. ”