Football days : $b memories of the game and of the men behind the ballEdwards, William H. (William Hanford)
General
Football days : $b memories of the game and of the men behind the ball
Edwards, William H. (William Hanford)
Football
The first game I ever saw the Princeton Team play was with Harvard in
'88, which the former won 18 to 6. I was in my brother's ('91) room
about three hours and a half before the game, and Jere Black and
Channing, the halfbacks, were there. As Channing left he remarked,
"Something will have happened before I get back to this room again,"
referring to the game, which doubtless made him a bit nervous.
I believe he was no more nervous ten years after, when in the Rough
Riders he waited for word to advance up that bullet swept hill before
Santiago.
'81 was the year so many Divinity students played on the Varsity: Hector
Cowan the great tackle, Dick Hodge the strategist, Sam Hodge, Bob Speer,
and I think Irvine; men all, who as McCready Sykes said, "Feared God and
no one else." Hector Cowan is considered one of the best tackles that
ever wore the Orange and Black jersey. While rough, he was never a dirty
player.
In a game with Wesleyan, his opponent cried out angrily, "Keep your
hands for pounding on your Bible, don't be sticking them in my face."
One day in a game against the Scrub, Cowan had passed everyone except
the fullback and was bearing down on him like a tornado, when within a
few feet of the fullback the latter jumped aside and said politely,
"Pass on, sir, pass on." Cowan played on two winning teams, '85 and '89.
In '89 the eligibility rules at the college were not as strict as now,
so as Princeton needed a tackle, Walter Cash who had played on
Pennsylvania the year before, was sent for and came all the way from
Wyoming. He came so hurriedly that his wardrobe consisted of two
6-shooters and a monte deck of cards, on account of which he was dubbed
"Monte" Cash. Cash was not fond of attending lectures, and once the
faculty had him up before them and told him what a disgrace it would be
if he were dropped out of College. "It may be in the East, but we don't
think much of a little thing like that out West," was his reply. Cash
was in the Rough Riders and was wounded at San Juan.
Sport Donnelly was a great end that year. Heffelfinger the great Yale
guard who is probably the best that ever played, said of Donnelly, that
he was the only player he had ever seen who could slug and keep his eye
on the ball at the same time. The following story is often told of how
Donnelly got Rhodes of Yale ruled off in '89. Rhodes had hit Channing of
Princeton in the eye, so that Donnelly was laying for him, and when
Rhodes came through the line, Donnelly grabbed up two handsful of
mud--it was a very muddy field--and rubbed them in his face and
hollered, "Mr. Umpire," so that when Rhodes, in a burst of righteous
indignation, hit him, the Umpire saw it and promptly ruled Rhodes from
the field.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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