Varsity team

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ The tendency toward division in the dining-halls and the dormitories is evident also in athletics; but here it is very far from unconscious. The division by classes long ago ceased to be an adequate means of developing material for the 'varsity teams, and when the English rowing coach, Mr. R. C. Lehmann, was in charge of the Harvard oarsmen, he outlined a plan for developing separate crews not unlike the college crews of England. ”

“ Give us the best team you can under the circumstances. There has been much dissension among the directors and faculty because of our new eligibility rules. It has stirred everybody up, and the students are sore. Then there has been talk of not having a professional coach this year, but we overruled that in last night's meeting. We're going to see what you can do. I may add, Arthurs, if you shape up a varsity this year that makes any kind of a showing against Place and Herne you will win the eternal gratitude of the directors who have fostered this change in athletics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Say you are mostly freshmen, and you make yourselves candidates for the team because you love the game, and because you would love to bring honor to your college. You go out and try. You meet, the first day, an implacable team of skilled veterans who show their scorn of your poor ability, their hatred of your opportunity, and ride roughshod—I should say, run with spiked shoes—over you. You hear the roar of four thousand students applauding these hero veterans. ”

“ There is a frontier for every worker to clear—no matter how narrow or how wide his horizon may be. In a university there is no proper place, among faculty or students, for the disillusioned, the cynical, the defeatist.
Now we come to the application of the second lesson, the lesson of mobilization, of team play. In the first place, no university is alive where mobilization is limited to the Recorder's office. In a live institution, regent, professor, student, janitor, each is a part of the game and must feel that he is. ”

“ 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 ”

“ For instance, the negotiations for a resumption of athletic relations with Yale University were on the Harvard side managed by and through the Athletic Committee. Moreover, the Athletic Committee has in its hands the appointment of coaches for the crew, and for the football, baseball, and athletic teams. The captain of a crew or a team is, to be sure, elected by the undergraduates themselves, the established system being that the crew should, before disbanding itself, elect the captain for the ensuing year. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And if you're on a winning crew, or a winning nine, you can rip off the 'A. A.' from your sweater, and that leaves just the big 'F', and shows you're a point winner for the school. With the track team, it's a little different, because there it's more a case of every fellow for himself. You can't have the same kind of team work that you can with the nine and the crew. So when the big meet comes for the cup, no matter whether the school wins or not, if you get first, second or third in your event, then you're a point winner, and you've got a right to your 'F'. ”

“ He goes on, determined to play a better game, and realizes he must hold his place at the training table by hard, conscientious work.
One is not unmindful of the traditions that are centered about the board where so many heroes of the past have sat. You have a keen realization of the fact that you are filling the seat of men who have gone before you, and that you must make good, as they made good. Their spirit lives.
The training table is a great school for team spirit. To have a successful team, any coach will tell you, there must be a brotherly feeling among the members of the team. ”

“ If you don’t eat wisely you don’t keep in condition, and if you aren’t in condition you don’t play on the team. Just as soon as the fellows get that into their heads there’s no trouble. The fare here is good enough and sufficient enough and varied enough for any fellow to train on, Harven, and I’ll guarantee to show you a better-conditioned squad by the first of November than Manning ever saw here when training tables were used. ”

“ For example, soldiers are grouped or formed in line, in column of squads, column of files, etc.
In close order drill soldiers are taught to move in an orderly [Pg 15] manner from one group or formation to another; how to stand, step off, march, halt and handle their rifles all together.
This practice makes the soldier feel perfectly at home and at ease in the squad and company. He becomes accustomed to working side by side with the man next to him, and, unconsciously, both get into the habit of working together, thus learning the first principles of team-work. ”

“ 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! ”

“ I’m only one of eleven players, and my place could be filled. Still, I do flatter myself that I’ve got the team into some kind of machine-like precision, which is very needful in a game. I don’t mean that I’ve done it all alone, for I haven’t. Every man has done more than his share, and with a coach like Mr. Lighton, and a captain like Holly Cross, a fellow can do a lot. ”

“ There is never anything like a team event to arouse the enthusiasm of students.
A tug of war team consists of but four men, to be sure, but at that they are supposed to be, and generally are, the strongest men in the college, and so students of all classes looked to them for holding up the glory of the college. ”

“ Just say to yourself that you're going to be one of the stars on the school team. If you have to fall into the second team—-don't be cast down over it—-but make every possible effort toward getting on the top team. That's the spirit that wins in athletics," finished Dick, sagely.
"I'm going to make the school team," announced Dave Darrin. ”

“ A company that cannot start firing or stop firing, that cannot fire faster or slower, that cannot distribute equally its fire over an opposing target, that cannot switch its fire from one place to another and make bull's-eyes, would be as unsuccessful in battle to-day as Harvard's football team would be, without practice, in its final game with Yale. The team work in no department of athletics is as necessary or vital as that of a military force, the teamwork of a military machine. ”

“ You’ve got to begin with the School, Myers, and work down to the team. If the School hasn’t got the right spirit, the team won’t have it. And that’s why I try to get as many fellows out for football at the beginning of the year as I can. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No team can get together and do anything unless it is a team, every one helping every one else, doing his own work and giving the other fellow a hand when he needs it. If you don't get this spirit, Warwick will show you up worse than they did a year ago. You know very well what the trouble is," (he referred to the Society domination of football interests) , "and you know the remedy. Captain Harding, you've got to play the best men on your squad. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It isn’t a great team to-day judged by Yardley standards, but it may be a great team on Saturday. It’s a well-rounded team, a team of hard-working, willing players, every one of whom is ready to do his utmost—and a little more—for the school the day after to-morrow. And now it’s up to the school to help the team, fellows. I want you all to believe in it, to stand back of it, to encourage it by thought and action every minute between now and the last whistle on Saturday. ”

“ I am paid a salary—two thousand dollars, to be exact—to come here and do my level best to turn out a winning football team. As I understand it, I am responsible only to the Committee on Athletics and, under them, am in full command. I couldn’t do the work justice if matters [74] were any different, Harven. You have been chosen the captain of the team, an intermediary between the players and the coach. Your authority does not extend beyond that of any other member of the team outside the team. To grant you the right to select and discharge players would be fatal to my authority. ”

“ We try, in the Doubleay, to reflect School opinion, Chick, and of course you fellows on the team have a far better notion of how things are going than the rest of us. We don’t mean to quote any one’s opinions personally, you understand. What we’re after is to find out how the players themselves size up the present situation, what their reaction is to this sudden and apparently high-handed displacing of so many veteran members of the Team. ”

“ One little group of seniors was especially busy, cooperatively busy one might say. This was one of the overflow divisions of eight students which made up a class in Virgil. In all of the athletics of their three years in school they had been taught the value of team work and coöperation. One bright student had conceived the idea of bringing this same team work into the Virgil class. It worked beautifully. Sixty lines of Virgil was their customary assignment. Sixty lines divided among eight students, as everybody could see, was about eight lines per student. ”

“ I’m not a player and don’t pretend to know a great deal about the game, but as far as I can learn the Independents are doing better playing than the other team. A week from to-day we meet Adams and, as you all know, Adams has been [285] beating us right along of late. So the suggestion has been made that it would be well for us to put against them the strongest team we have, whether that is the so-called School Team or the Independents. ”

“ 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 coaching staff will meet together early Sunday morning and go over the film of Saturday’s game. While the assistant coaches are studying and grading the film, I will meet with the assistant coach who scouted the team we will be playing this coming Saturday. In addition to receiving a thorough scouting report from him, I want his recommendations offensively and defensively of what we should do against the opponent. The scout will then complete his report as he will present it to the squad members on Monday night. ”