Football team

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every football team has a slogan, and each coach has his own theory as to what makes a winning team. We are no exception. Our slogan is, “Winning is not everything, but it sure beats anything that comes in second.” Our theory on how to develop a winning team is very simple—WORK! If the coaches and players will work hard, then winning will be the result. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It's just that eagerness to aid the next man, that stand-and-fall-together spirit, that makes the ideal team. I don't want to see any man on Saturday standing around with his hands at his sides; as long as the ball's in play there's work for every one. Don't cry 'Down' until you can't run, crawl, wriggle, roll, or be pulled another inch. And if you're helping the runner don't stop pulling or shoving until there isn't another notch to be gained. Never mind how many tacklers there are; the ball's in play until the whistle sounds. ”

“ Eleven men make up a football team now, as in the early days of the game, but modern requirements make it necessary that these eleven men play constantly to one end. If one of them lags, errs or is inefficient, it is almost impossible for the others to get results, no matter how well directed may be their efforts. ”

“ Showing fine interference - team play. To strengthen the impression in the mind of each of his ten comrades that he himself may be relied on to do his part should form the foremost endeavor of every member of the team. He must show the others that, when the emergency comes, as it does come in every play, he is doing his duty. With such zeal firmly instilled in the mind of each man, football reaches its highest state of perfection. ”

“ A football team desire to get a ball to a certain spot, but that is not all they desire; they wish to do it under certain conditions and overcome inherent difficulties—else might they get up in the night and put it there. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every football player who has had the good fortune to visit West Point or Annapolis, there to engage in a gridiron contest, has had an experience that he will always cherish. Every team, as a rule, looks forward to out of town trips, but when an eleven is to play the Army or the Navy, not a little of the pleasure lies in anticipation. ”

“ The scrub, against whom the Varsity matched forces that afternoon, had been having some secret practice of their own, and they worked a couple of tricks on the rather surprised first team that netted a good gain, and eventually a touchdown.
"That's something you must be on the lookout for," said Mr. Martin, who was a bit chagrined over what had happened. "It isn't enough to play well on your own team, you must watch what the other fellow is doing. Now try again, and put some ginger into your work." ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is virtually impossible for a quarterback to know and do everything correctly. However, a coach must work with his quarterback, and the individual must spend many additional hours studying and preparing himself so he will be able to handle any situation that arises. It is an absolute must for your quarterback to be well prepared if you expect to have a successful football team. If you are rebuilding a football team, it is very important for you to pick your quarterback first, find out what he can do well, and then build your offense around him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ PORTLAND ACADEMY FOOTBALL TEAM A word of advice to football players may not be out of place here. Football games are played and championships are won, not in the columns of the newspapers, but on the gridiron. The players and managers of the Northwest teams may learn this as well now as any time; and the sooner they learn it the better. It is a pitiful, not to say disgraceful, spectacle, to see managers and captains of teams appearing in print and laying claim to what they have not won. ”

“ Just as a great army depends upon those left behind to properly feed and clothe it, so does a varsity football team depend upon its second team to keep it at its playing strength and build it up through scrimmage. A good first team can hardly ever be attained without a good second team. ”

“ Second only to the judicious selection and thorough training of a football team is the acquisition of a capable captain, for no matter how well the eleven may be qualified for its work, individually and as a team, its efforts will be barren of success unless the men are ably led on the field. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The football team, accompanied by the coaches, the Headmaster Brewster and his wife, a half-dozen masters, and the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Forms almost in a body, in auto-hacks and horse-hacks, on foot and by trolley, departed for the railroad station and Chancellor's Hill next morning at eight, to the sound of cheers. ”

“ It is unimportant whether any such thing as a team appears on the football field during the early practice. In fact, too much attention to team work too early in the season may ruin the opportunities to develop a good team later. If the coach or trainer will spend his entire time preparing each man, as a mechanic finishes up the separate parts of his creation before putting it together, the various positions can be fitted into each other in a short time, to make a smoothly running, accurate and strong football machine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He comes to college fresh from his school day experiences ready to conform himself to the traditions and customs of the new school, his college choice.
The world will never again look quite so big to a boy as it did then. Entering as boys do, in the fall of the year, the uppermost thing in mind, outside of the classroom, is football. Sometimes it is the uppermost thought in the classroom. What kind of a Varsity football team are we going to have? ”

“ From the opening of college in September, in all sections of the country, to its close in June, football is the most potent factor in the moulding of spirit, in the making of men, and in the bringing them together in the democracy of a common cause in the collegiate life. In the autumn, when the candidates for the team are being tried out and selected according to their worth, thousands of healthy young men take their places on the athletic field every afternoon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The #4 man is not blocked, and the passer is going to option from him. As soon as the passer has possession of the ball, he watches the #4 man. If he comes up to tackle the passer, the latter throws to the open receiver. If the #4 man drops back to play pass defense, the passer is instructed to turn upfield and run with the football. If our passer feels he can gain at least four yards on the play, we want him to run with it most of the time. The play is much better against a team that uses a 9-man front than against an 8-man front alignment. ”

“ 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. ”