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 Varsity team of Princeton in the fall of '79 was captained by Bland
Ballard of the class of '80. He had a bunch of giants back of him. There
were fifteen on the team in those days, and among them were such men as
Devereaux, Brotherlin, Bryan, Irv. Withington, and the mighty McNair.
The scrub team player at that time was pretty nearly any chap that was
willing to take his life in his hands by going down to the field and
letting those ruthless giants step on his face and generally muss up his
physical architecture.
When Alex announced one day that he was going to take a chance on the
scrub team, his friends were inclined to say tenderly and regretfully,
"Good night, sweet prince." But Alex knew he was there with the kick,
whether it came on the left or right, and he made up his mind to have a
go with the canvas-backed Titans of the Varsity team. One fond friend
watching Alex go out on the field drew a sort of consolation from the
observation that "perhaps Alex was so small the Varsity men wouldn't
notice him." But Alex soon showed them that he was there. He got in a
punt that made Bland Ballard gasp. The big captain looked first at the
ball, way up in the air, then looked at Alex and he seemed to say as the
Scotsman said when he compared the small hen and the huge egg, "I hae me
doots. It canna be."
After that the Varsity men took notice of Alex. When the ball was
passed back to him next the regulars got through the scrub line so fast
that Alex had to try for a run. Bland Ballard caught him up in his arms,
and finding him so light and small, spared himself the trouble of
throwing him down. Ballard simply sank down on the ground with Alex in
his arms and began rolling over and over with him towards the scrub
goal. Alex cried "Down! Down!" in a shrill, treble voice that brought an
exclamation from the side line. "It's a shame to do it. Bland Ballard is
robbing the cradle."
Such was Alex Moffat in the fall of '79, still something of the
"Teeny-bits" that he was in early boyhood. In two years Alex's name was
on the lips of every gridiron man in the country, and in his senior
year, as captain, he performed an exploit in goal kicking that has never
been equalled.
In the game with Harvard in the fall of '83, he kicked five goals, four
being drop kicks and one from a touchdown. His drop kicks were all of
them long and two of them were made with the left foot. Alex grew in
stature and in stamina and when he was captain he was regarded as one of
the most brilliant fullbacks that the game had ever known. He never was
a heavy man, but he was swift and slippery in running, a deadly tackler,
and a kicker that had not his equal in his time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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