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 Yale team had also heard some words of football wisdom in their
dressing room. Previous encounters with Princeton had taught them that
the Tiger could also rally. They came on the field prepared to fight
harder than ever. McBride and Brown were exhorting their men to do
their utmost.
Princeton was out-rushing Yale but not out-kicking them. Yale knew that
as well as we did.
It was a Yale fumble that gave us the chance we were waiting for. Bill
Roper, who had taken Lew Palmer's place at left end, had his eyes open.
He fell on the ball. Through his vigilance, Princeton got the chance to
score. Now was our chance.
Time was passing quickly. We all knew that something extraordinary would
have to be done to win the day. It remained for Arthur Poe to
crystallize this idea into action. It seemed an inspiration.
"We've got to kick," he said to me, "and I would like to try a goal from
the field. We haven't got much time."
Nobody appreciated the situation more than I did. I knew we would have
to take a chance and there was no one I would have selected for the job
quicker than Arthur Poe. How we needed a touchdown or a goal from the
field!
Poe, Pell and myself were the three members of the original team left.
How the substitutes rallied with us and gave the perfect defence that
made Poe's feat possible is a matter of history. As I looked around from
my position to see that the defensive formation was right, I recall how
small Arthur Poe looked there in the fullback position. Here was a man
doing something we had never rehearsed as a team. But safe and sure the
pass went from Horace Bannard and as Biffy Lea remarked after the game,
"when Arthur kicked the ball, it seemed to stay up in the air about
twenty minutes."
Some people have said that I turned a somersault and landed on my ear,
and collapsed. Anyhow, it all came our way at the end, the ball sailed
over the cross bar. The score then was 11 to 10, and the Princeton stand
let out a roar of triumph that could be heard way down in New Jersey.
There were but thirty-six seconds left for play. Yale made a splendid
supreme effort to score further. But it was futile.
Crowds had left the field before Poe made his great goal kick. They had
accepted a Yale victory as inevitable. Some say that bets were paid on
the strength of this conviction. The Yale _News_, which went to press
five minutes before the game ended, got out an edition stating that Yale
had won. They had to change that story.
During the seconds preceding Poe's kick for a goal I had a queer
obsession. It was a serious matter to me then. I can recall it now with
amusement. "Big" was a prefix not of my own selection. I had never
appreciated its justification, however, until that moment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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