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
Snake Ames and House Janeway played that year, and as the latter was
big--210 pounds stripped--and good natured, Ames thought that if he
could only get Janeway angry he would play even better than usual, so,
with Machiavellian craft, he said to him before the Harvard game,
"House, the man you are going to play against to-morrow insulted your
girl. I heard him do it, so you want to murder him." "All right," said
House, ominously, and as Princeton won, 41 to 15, Janeway must certainly
have helped a heap.
George played center for Princeton four years, and for three years "Pa"
Corbin and George played against each other, and, as cow-boys would say,
"sure did chew each other's mane." I don't mean slugged.
My brother Edgar '91 was a great admirer of George. In '88 Edgar was
playing in the scrub, and George broke through and was about to make a
tackle when the former knocked one of his arms down as it was
outstretched to catch it. George missed the tackle but said nothing. A
second time almost identically the same thing occurred. This time he
remarked grimly, "Good trick that, Poe." But when the same thing
happened a third time on the same afternoon, he exclaimed, "Poe, if you
weren't so small, I'd hit you."
In '89 Thomas '90, substitute guard, was highly indignant at the way
some Boston newspaper described him. "The Princeton men were giants, one
in particular was picturesque in his grotesqueness. He was 6 feet 5 and,
when he ran, his arms and legs moved up and down like the piston rods of
an engine."
In '90 Buck Irvine '88 brought an unknown team to Princeton, Franklin
and Marshall, which he coached, and they scored 16 points against the
Tigers. And though the latter won, 33 to 16, still that was the largest
score ever made against Princeton up to that time. They did it, too, by
rushing, which was all the more to their credit.
Victor Harding, Harvard, and Yup Cook, Princeton '89, had played on
Andover and Exeter, respectively, and had trouble then, so four years
later when they met, one on Princeton and the other on Harvard, they had
more trouble. Both were ruled off for rough work. Cook picked Harding up
off the ground and slammed him down and then walked off the field. In a
few minutes Harding, after trying to trip Ames, also was ruled off. That
was the net result of the old Andover-Exeter feud.
In '91 Princeton was playing Rutgers. Those were the days of the old "V"
trick in starting a game. When the Orange and Black guards and centers
tore up the Rutgers' V it was found that the Captain of the latter team
had broken his leg in the crush. He showed great nerve, for while
sitting on the ground waiting for a stretcher, he remarked in a
nonchalant way, "Give me a cigarette. I could die for Old Rutgers," his
tone being "Me first and then Nathan Hale." One version quite prevalent
around Princeton has it that a Tiger player rushed up and exclaimed,
"Die then." This is not true as I played in that game and know whereof I
speak.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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