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
Good-by Heff! the boys will miss you,
And the old men, too, and the girls;
You tossed the other side about as if they were ten-pins;
You took Little Bliss under your wing and he ran with
the ball like a pilot boat by the _Teutonic_.
You used eyes, ears, shoulders, legs, arms and head
and took it all in.
You're the best football rusher America, or the world,
has shown;
And best of all you never slugged, lost your temper or
did anything mean;
Oh come thou mighty one, go not away,
The team thou must not fail:
Stay where thou art, please, Heffelfinger, stay,
And still be true to Yale--
Linger, yet linger, Heffelfinger, a truly civil engineer.
His trust would ne'er surrender; unstrap thy trunks,
Excuse this scalding tear.
Still be Yale's best defender! Linger, oh, linger,
Heffelfinger.
Princeton and Harvard, there is cause to fear
Will dance joy's double shuffle when of thy Western
flight they come to hear. Stay and their tempers
ruffle. Linger, oh, linger, Heffelfinger.
John Cranston
"My inspiration for the game came when my country cousin returned from
Exeter and told me he believed I had the making of a football player,"
says John Cranston, who was Harvard's famous old center and former
coach. "At once I pestered him with all kinds of questions about the
requirements, and believed that some day I would do something. I shall
always remember my first day on the field at Exeter. Lacking the
wherewithal to buy the regulation suit, I appeared in the none too
strong blue shirt and overalls used on the farm. I remember too that it
was not long before Harding said: 'Take that young countryman to the
gymnasium before he is injured for life; he doesn't know which way to
run when he gets the ball; he doesn't know the game; and he looks too
thick headed to play the game anyway.'
"As boys on neighboring farms of Western New York, three of us, who
were later to play on different college teams, hunted skunks and rabbits
together. Had we been on the same team we would have been side by side.
Cook was a great tackle at Princeton; Reed one of the best guards
Cornell ever had; and I, owing to some good team mates, played as center
on the first Harvard eleven to defeat Yale. It is said that Cook in his
first game at Exeter grabbed the ball and started for his own goal for a
touchdown, and that Reed after playing the long afternoon in the game
which Cornell won, asked the Referee which side was victorious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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