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
Tom Shevlin was noted as the father of a great many good stories, but it
was proverbial that he refrained from telling one upon himself. However,
in at least one instance he deviated from habit to the extent of
relating an incident concerning his father and the father of Charlie
Rafferty, captain of the Yale 1903 eleven. Tom at the time was a
sophomore, and Shevlin, senior, who idolized his son, made it a practice
of attending all important contests in which he participated, came on
from Minneapolis in his private car to witness the spectacle of Tom's
single-handed defeat of "The Princetons." As it chanced the Shevlin car
was put upon a siding adjoining that on which the car of Gill Rafferty
lay. Rafferty, as a matter of fact, was making his laborious way down
the steps as Mr. Shevlin emerged from his car. Mr. Rafferty looked up,
blinked in the November sunlight and then nodded cheerfully. "Well,
Shevlin," he said, "I suppose by to-night we'll be known simply as the
fathers of two great Yale favorites." Shevlin nodded and said "he
fancied such would be the case." A few hours later, in the gloom of the
twilight, after Yale had been defeated, the elder Shevlin was finding
his somber way to the steps of his car and met Rafferty face to face.
Shevlin nodded and was about to pass on without speaking, when Rafferty
placed his hand upon his shoulder. "Well, Shevlin," he said solemnly, "I
see we are still old man Shevlin and old man Rafferty."
W. C. Rhodes
One has only to hear Jim Rodgers tell the story of Billy Rhodes to
realize how deeply the iron of football disaster sinks into the soul.
"Rhodes was captain of the losing team in the fall of '90, when Yale's
Eleven was beaten by Harvard's," Rodgers tells us. "Arthur Cumnock was
the Harvard captain, and the score was 12 to 6. Two remarkable runs for
touchdowns made by Dudley Dean and Jim Lee decided the contest.
"For twenty years afterwards, back to Springfield, New Haven or
Cambridge, wherever the Yale-Harvard games were played, came with the
regularity of their occurrence, Billy Rhodes.
"He was to be seen the night before, and the morning of the game. He
always had his tickets for the side line and wore the badge as an
ex-Yale captain. But the game itself Billy Rhodes never saw.
"If at Springfield, he was to be found in the Massasoit House, walking
the floor until the result of the game was known. If at New Haven, he
was not at the Yale Field. He walked around the field and out into the
woods. If the game was at Cambridge, he was not at Holmes Field, or
later, at Soldiers' Field.
"When the game was over he would join in the celebration of victory, or
sink into the misery of defeat, as the case might be. But he never could
witness a game. The sting of defeat had left its permanent wound."
A YALE NIGHTMARE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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