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
"The line was finally turned over to me and I had opportunity to slip
Chadwick in for two or three plays at left guard. He played like a
demon; he was literally a one man defense, but he received no credit. I
immediately removed him from the game and criticised him severely and
told him to follow up the play and in case I needed him he would be
handy. I realized what a great player he was proving to be, and my great
problem then was how I was to convince the coaches that Chadwick should
start the game. I tried it out a few times, but saw it was useless
trying to convince them, so I decided to concentrate on Jim Rodgers, the
Captain. Jim consented. My plan was to tell no one except Marshall, the
man whose place Chadwick was to take. The lineup was called out in the
dressing room before the game. Chadwick's name was not included. I had
arranged with Julian Curtis, who was in close touch with the cheer
leaders, that when I gave the signal, the Yale crowd would be instructed
to stand and yell nothing but 'Chadwick, Chadwick, Chadwick.' The Yale
team ran out upon the field. I stayed behind with Chadwick and came in
through the gate holding him by the arm. Before going on the side lines
I stopped him and said: 'Look here, Chadwick. It doesn't look as though
you're going to play, but if I put you in that lineup how will you
play?' Like a shot from a cannon he roared: 'I'll play like hell.'
"You could have heard him a mile. 'Well then, give me your sweater and
warm up,' I said, and as I gave the signal to Julian Curtis, he passed
the word on to the cheer leaders and the sight of Chadwick running up
and down those side lines will never be forgotten. It is estimated that
he leaped five yards at a stride, and with the students cheering,
'Chadwick, Chadwick, Chadwick,' he was sent out into the lineup--and the
rest, well, you'd better ask the men who played on the Harvard team that
day. It was a stream of men going on and off the field and they were
headed for right guard position on the Harvard side. Harvard could not
beat Chadwick, so the game ended in a tie."
Jim Rodgers, captain of that team, also has something to say of
Chadwick.
"In the Harvard-Yale game," Rodgers writes, "Charlie Chadwick played the
game of his life. He used up about six men who played against him that
day, but he never could put out Bill Edwards the day we played
Princeton. I played against Chadwick on the Scrub, and the first charge
he made against me I went clean back to fullback. It was just as though
an automobile had hit me. I played against Heffelfinger and a lot of
them. I could hold those fellows. Gee! but I was sore. I said to myself,
you won't do that again, and the next time I was set back just as far.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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