Football game

“ Such crowds, while largely composed of college people, could not be gathered from these alone. The spectators at a football match come from all walks of life and include thousands who love the game solely as a spectacle and an exhibition of concerted pluck and action. There is no crowd so cosmopolitan as that at a football game and this is, after all the most effective testimonial to the hold the game has, east, west, north and south, on the hearts of the American public. ”

“ If by the passing down from father to son and from brother to brother of a spirit of cheerful self-denial throughout the hard fall months—of grim doggedness under imminent defeat and of fair play at all times, whether victor or vanquished—a finer, truer sense of what a man may be and do is forged out of the raw material, then football may feel that it has served a purpose even nobler than that of being simply America's greatest college game. ”

“ The game is no more violent than is required by the physical demands of the men who play it.
There are no memories which cling so persistently to the mind of the alumnus, always capable of awakening a glow of enthusiasm and always recalled with pleasure, as those interwoven in the football games of his undergraduate days. There are no ties so potent to bind him to the college through the business of after years. The conversations at class reunions invariably drift to football in general and certain games in particular. ”

“ All outstanding football teams have two distinct characteristics in common—a great fighting spirit and a great quarterback. A smart, capable quarterback is the greatest single asset a football team can possess. Success in a football game is determined mainly by the selection of plays. Poor selection of plays will destroy team morale and nullify the finest of teamwork. ”

“ My dear sir, a battle would look much the same to you, except that the boys would be men, and the balls iron; but a battle would be worth your looking at for all that, and so is a football match. You can't be expected to appreciate the delicate strokes of play, the turns by which a game is lost and won—it takes an old player to do that; but the broad philosophy of football you can understand if you will. Come along with me a little nearer, and let us consider it together.
The ball has just fallen again where the two sides are thickest, and they close rapidly around it in a scrummage. ”

“ What did they care about the ball being fifty yards off? Not a straw, so long as they tackled and kept each other away from it. "That's not football," says one, "it is horse play." "Never mind about football in a Cup Tie," says another, "let the heaviest team win; go into the fellow." "Oh! gentlemen, gentlemen, fie, fie, Association Football is an amateur game, and as long as I play it," said the captain, "there shall be no cruelty done on either side."
Little did the spectators know the real cause of the inordinate tackling done by Bob and Charlie, but the secret soon came out. ”

“ It is a great game, but watching it is a mysterious and peculiar amusement, full of contradictions. The physical conditions of getting into a football ground, of keeping life in one’s veins while there, and of getting away from it, appear at first sight to preclude the possibility of amusement. They remind one of the Crimean War or the passage of the Beresina. A man will freeze to within half a degree of death on a football ground, and the same man will haughtily refuse to sit on anything less soft than plush at a music-hall. Such is the inexplicable virtue of football. ”

“ A crowd of young men pursuing a round object, called a ball, with great earnestness of purpose. To the young cad, who can think of nothing but the colour of his latest pair of kid gloves, or the check of his newest acquisition in the shape of fashionable trousers, all out-door amusement is considered an interminable bore, the game of Football has, of course, no charm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the other entrance to the gridiron the visitors enter and they seem every bit as strong and fit to maintain the undefeated record which they also boast this year. Footballs are produced, the two teams form in large circles in different parts of the field and begin to toss the ovals about in rapid succession, while the enthusiasts in stands and bleachers cheer their heroes till it seems as if their throats would be insufficient for the strain which one or the other side, if not both, will have to bear through the game that is not yet begun. ”

“ All football players do not come out of the great game unscathed physically or morally, yet the great majority who do achieve benefit from it, and marked benefit too, amply demonstrate the value of the game as a source of all-round development.
Football is undoubtedly the best American game, not only from the average spectator's point of view, but from that of the player as well. ”

“ A football game, which resembles the rough and tumble physical contests of former days, brings together fifty thousand wildly enthusiastic spectators, while an intercollegiate debate commands at most only a handful of hearers with mild enthusiasm, so great is the need of some form of relaxation that shall completely relieve the tension of modern life. ”

“ The evolution of football from the crude form in which the game began to the present stage of perfection it has attained rests almost entirely on the development of team play. Where originally one man, relying almost entirely on his own efforts, bore the brunt of his own particular play, whether offensive or defensive, now the efforts of ten others are also exerted to the same end for which he is working. ”

“ We feel that a word about football is necessary, not only because it is one of the most popular American sports, but because men and women alike enjoy watching the game. At the Yale Bowl, where some of the most spectacular football games are played—and won—thousands of men and women from all over the United States gather every year. ”

“ Writing to Herbert Reed, one of the pencil and paper football men, with whom he had had many a long argument over the generalship 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." ”

“ 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 elan 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 ”

“ It’s a game of young men with big shoulders and hard muscles. It’s also a game of old pros, such as, 38-year-old Charlie Conerly quarterbacking the New York Giants to a football championship.
Football is popcorn, cokes, banners and cigaret smoke. It’s people standing for the kick-off, lap blankets, pacing coaches, penalties and melodious alma maters.
Football is a game of surprises. The big guy everybody picks in pre-season as All-American fizzles out. But a kid nobody ever heard of scores the winning touchdown and a star is born. ”

“ But as long as guards-back and tackle-back formations are allowed it's got to be played. It was a mistake in ever allowing more than four men behind the line. The natural formation of a football team consists of seven players in the line, and when you begin to take one or two of those players back you're increasing the element of physical force and lessening the element of science. More than that, you're playing into the hands of the anti-football people, and giving them further grounds for their charge of brutality.
"Football's the noblest game that's played, but it's got to be played 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. ”

“ A player must be dedicated to the game to the extent he is willing to work, sacrifice, cooperate and do what he possibly can to aid the team in victory. It is our duty as coaches to explain and show our boys the advantages of being winners, and to impress upon them the absolute necessity of it so they will put forth the much needed effort to accomplish the objective. It is important for the players to understand that football is not an easy game; nor is achieving fame an easy task. ”

“ From the side lines we see the men put their shoulders to their work, charging and pushing [Pg 408] their opponents aside to make a hole in the line, through which the man with the ball may gain his distance; or we may see a man on the defensive, full of grim determination to meet the oncoming charges of his opponent. As we glance at the accompanying picture of a Yale-West Point game, we will observe the earnest effort that is being made in the great game of football—the crash of conflict. ”

“ 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 unseemly 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 the time as an opportunity to indulge in more or less boisterous conduct, with freedom from interference usually accorded at that time. ”

“ A thorough canvass was made of the veteran football players of Harvard, Yale and Princeton and a mass of testimony was secured from team captains, college authorities, preparatory school masters, and the result was a most complete array of data, proving beyond a doubt that football is a game in which the beneficent effects far outnumber the possible drawbacks. ”

“ No American game has won so much praise and, at the same time, so much censure, as has football. The game has been lauded for the scientific play it develops and for the training of mind and body it affords the players. It has been adversely criticised for its roughness and the consequent injuries which the players are likely to receive. From the point of view of some spectators the game seems so dangerous to the players that to allow the game to be played in our colleges seems half-civilized. ”

“ Again we start our march toward their goal, far up the field. It is still a fight, every inch of it, but the visitors are playing now solely to save the name of their Alma Mater from disgrace. Defeat is certain, but the spirit of the team inspires its men to keep playing the game with a zeal that cannot but rouse our admiration. Occasionally their brace gives them possession of the ball and once their feared, fleet runner brings back a punt for a thrilling dash of 30 yards, but he cannot play the whole game alone to a successful conclusion. ”

“ Assuming that a team had the lead in the game, if on the third down that team was forced to kick from behind its own goal line, should the punter receive a poor snap from his center and be unable to kick, he should pick up the football and either run with it or throw an incomplete forward pass. ”

“ Our records will remain as we left them on the gridiron. Many a man is recalled in football circles as the one who lost his temper in the big games and caused his team to suffer by his being ruled out of the game. Men say, "Why, that is the fellow who muffed a punt at a critical moment," or recall him as the one who "fumbled the ball," when, if he had held it, the team would have been saved from defeat.
You recall the man who gave the signals with poor judgment. Maybe you are thinking of the man who missed a great tackle or allowed a man to get through the line and block a kick. ”

“ A team must pass sufficiently in order to keep the opposition from putting all of its strength on or relatively close to the line of scrimmage. A team also must be able to advance the football with its ground game so the opposition does not have to defend against only one phase of the game, the passing attack. ”

“ I think the kicking game is very important as it is tied in closely with our defensive football. You must be sound in all phases of the kicking game, as neglecting any one phase can cost you a football game. In order to have a winner, our kicking game must be sound. ”

“ Leaping cheerleaders, a brassy band, and the Dixie Darlings are a part of the wonderful game of football. It’s a rich guy being chauffeured to the stadium gate, and a frightened boy shinnying the fence and darting for the end zone seats. ”

“ If there is really any inactivity in football while being played, that inaction is clearly shown in a Rugby maul, where the one half of the side are merely spectators. Besides, your game is only half football; in fact, a combination of football and handball knocked into one. Your run with the ball under the arm is only a display of speed; it has nothing whatever to do with football. We want the grand dribbling run with the ball at the toe, the smart passing and middling of the Association, and we will enjoy it. ”

“ A team must be sound in its defensive secondary in order to be a good football team. All of us use certain basic principles, but we must be careful we do not “type” ourselves as this could be very costly if the opponents pick up our maneuvers while scouting our team.
One of the basic principles we try to teach our quarterback when we are discussing different phases of the passing game is where not to throw the football. While we might not complete the pass, as long as the opposition does not intercept it, we are not in too bad a position. ”