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
When we come to enumerating the brothers who have played, it is the Poe
family which comes first to mind. Laying aside friendship or natural
bias, I feel that my readers will agree with me in the belief that it
would be hard to find six football players ranking higher than the six
Poe brothers. Altogether, Princeton has seen some twenty-two years of
Poes, during at least thirteen of which there was a Poe on the Varsity
team. Johnson Poe, '84, came first, to be followed by Edgar Allen, twice
captain, then by Johnny, now in his last resting place "somewhere in
France," then by Nelson, then Arthur, twice the fly in Yale's ointment,
and lastly by Gresham Poe. I haven't a doubt but that after due lapse of
time this wonderful family will produce other Poes, sons and cousins, to
carry on the precious tradition.
Next in point of numbers probably comes the Riggs family of five
brothers, of whom three, Lawrence, Jesse and Dudley, played on Princeton
teams, while Harry and Frank were substitutes. The Hodge family were
four who played at Princeton--Jack, Hugh, Dick and Sam.
After the Riggs family comes the Young family of Cornell--Ed., Charles,
George and Will--all of whom played tremendously for the Carnelian and
White in the nineties. Charles Young later studied at the Theological
Seminary at Princeton and played wonderful football on the scrub in my
time from sheer love of sport, since as he is, at this writing, physical
director at Cornell. Amherst boasts of the wonderful Pratt brothers, who
did much for Amherst football.
Of threes there are quite a number. Prominent among them have been the
Wilsons of both Yale and Princeton, Tom being a guard on the Princeton
teams of 1911 and 1912, while Alex captained Yale in 1915 and saw
another brother in orange and black waiting on the side lines across the
field. Situations like this are always productive of thrills. Let the
brother who has been waiting longingly throw off his blanket and rush
across the field into his position and instantly the news flashes
through the stands. "Brother against brother!" goes the thrilling
whisper--and every heart gives an extra throb as it hungers in an unholy
but perfectly human way for a clash between the two. There were three
Harlan brothers who played at Princeton in '81, '83, '84.
At Harvard Lothrope, Paul and Ted Withington; Percy, Jack and Sam
Wendell.
In Cornell a redoubtable trio were the Taussigs. Of these J. Hawley
Taussig played end for four years ending with the '96 team. Charles
followed in the same position in '99, '00 and '01 and Joseph K., later
Lieutenant Commander of the torpedoboat destroyer _Wadsworth_ played
quarter on the Naval Academy team in '97 and '98.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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