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
This spurred us on to better team work and to victory. The attendants at
the hospital told us later that they never had had such a lively
patient. He kept things stirring from start to finish of the gridiron
battle. As the reports of the game were brought to him, he joined in
the thrill of the play.
"My injury proved a blessing," says Reiter, "as it gave me an extra
year, for in those days a year did not count in football, unless you
played against Yale, and when I made the touchdown against Yale the
following season, it was a happy moment for me."
All is not clear sailing in football. The breaks must come some time.
They may come singly or in a bunch, but whenever they do come, it takes
courage to buck the hard luck in the game. Just when things get nicely
under way one of the star players is injured, which means the systematic
team work is handicapped. It is not the team, as a whole that I am
thinking of, but the pangs of sorrow which go down deep into a fellow's
soul, when he finds that he is injured; that he is in the hands of the
doctor. It is then he realizes that he is only a spoke in the big wheel;
that the spirit of the game puts another man in his place. The game goes
on. Nature is left to do her best for him.
Let us for a while consider the player who does not realize, until after
the game is over, that he is hurt. It is after the contest, when the
excitement has ceased, when reaction sets in, that a doctor and trainer
can take stock of the number and extent of casualties.
When such injured men are discovered, at a time like that, we wonder how
they ever played the game out. In fact the man never knew he was
injured until the game was over. No more loyal supporter of football
follows the big games than Reggi Wentworth, Williams, '91.
He is most loyal to Bill Hotchkiss, Williams '91.
"At Williamstown, one year," Wentworth says, "Hotchkiss, who was a
wonderful all round guard, probably as great a football player as ever
lived (at least I think so) played with the Williams team on a field
covered with mud and snow three inches deep. The game was an unusually
severe one, and Hotchkiss did yeoman's work that day.
"As we ran off the field, after the game, I happened to stop, turned,
and discovered Hotchkiss standing on the side of the field, with his
feet planted well apart, like an old bull at bay. I went back where he
was and said:
"'Come on, Bill, what's the matter?'
"'I don't know,' said he. 'There's something the matter with my ankles.
I don't think I can walk.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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