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
"Doubtless much of this was due to the strain and the high tension to
which the men were subjected, but much of it was mere lack of effort at
restraint.
"Johnny Poe, as stout-hearted a man as ever has, or ever will stand on a
football field, once said to me:
"'This sob stuff gives me a pain in the neck but, like sea-sickness,
when the rest of the crowd start business, it's hard to keep out of it.
Besides, I don't suppose there's any use getting the reputation of
being exclusive and too stuck up to do what the rest of the gang do.'
"Of the defeats in which I participated, probably none was more
disheartening than the one suffered at the hands of the University of
Pennsylvania in 1892 at the Manheim cricket grounds near Philadelphia. I
shall always believe that the better Princeton team would have won with
comparative ease had it not been for the wind. In no game in which I
ever played was the wind so largely the deciding factor in the result.
The flags on the poles along the stands stood out stiffly as they
snapped in the half gale.
"Pennsylvania won the toss and elected to have the wind at their backs.
For forty-five minutes every effort made against the Red and Blue was
more than nullified by the blustering god AEolus. When Pennsylvania
kicked, it was the rule and not the exception for the ball to go sailing
for from one-half to three quarters the length of the field. On the
other hand, I can see in my mind's eye to-day, as clearly as I did
during the game, a punt by Sheppard Homans, the Princeton fullback,
which started over the battling lines into Pennsylvania territory,
slowed up, hung for an instant in the air and then was swept back to a
point approximating the line from where it started.
"It was the most helpless and exasperating feeling that I ever
experienced. The football player who can conceive of a game in which
under no circumstances was it permissible to kick, but instead provided
a penalty, can perhaps appreciate the circumstances.
"In the second half, when we changed goals, the flags hung limply
against their staffs, but we had spent ourselves in the unequal contest
during the first half."
Nightmares, even those of football, do not always beget sympathy. Upon
occasion a deal of fun is poked at the victim, and this holds true even
in the family circle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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