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
"In another game after the umpire had disqualified a player for kicking
an opponent, the offending player appealed to me, basing his claim on
the ground that he had not kicked the man until after the whistle had
been blown and the play was over. Another man on the same team claimed
exemption from a penalty on the ground that he had slugged his opponent
while out of bounds. He actually believed that we could not penalize for
fouls off the playing field.
"The funniest appeal I ever had made to me was made by a player years
ago who asked that time be taken out in order that he might change a
perfectly good jersey for one of a different color. It seems he had lost
his jersey and had borrowed one from a player on the home team. When I
asked him why he wanted to change his jersey he replied:
"'Because my own team are kicking the stuffing out of me and I must get
a different colored jersey. At times my team mates take me for an
opponent.'
"In a game where it was necessary to caution the players against talking
too much to their opponents one particularly curious incident occurred.
"One team, in order to give one of the larger college elevens a stiff
practice game, had put in the field two or three ringers. The big
college team men were rather suspicious that their opponents were not
entirely made up of bona fide students. A big tackle on the larger team
made the following remark to a supposed ringer:
"'I'll bet you five to one you cannot name the president of your
college.' The answer came back, 'Well, old boy, perhaps I can't, but
perhaps I can show you how to play tackle and that's all I'm here for.'"
The Princeton-Yale game of 1915 was one of the most bitterly contested
in the history of football. Princeton was a strong favorite, but Yale
forced the fighting and had their opponents on the defensive almost from
the beginning. Princeton's chances were materially hurt by a number of
severe penalties which cost her considerably in excess of one hundred
yards. Each of the officials had a hand in the infliction of the
penalties, but the Referee, who happened to be Nate Tufts of Brown, had,
of course, to enforce them all by marking off the distance given to Yale
and putting the ball in the proper place.
In the evening after the game, a number of football officials and others
were dining in New York; in the party was a Princeton graduate, who was
introduced to Mr. Tufts, the Referee of the game of the afternoon. At
the introduction the Princeton man remarked that when he was a boy he
had read of Jesse James, the McCoy brothers, and other noted bandits and
train robbers, but that he took off his hat to Mr. Tufts as the king of
them all.
Okeson, a star player of Lehigh and prominent official, recalls this
game:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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