"If it had not been for Garry Cochran, I might be rated as one of the big tackles of the football world to-day. I used to dream of him three weeks before the Princeton game; how I was going to stand him off, and let me tell you if you got in between Doc Hillebrand and Garry Cochran you were a sucker. Those games were a nightmare to me. Cochran used to fall on my foot, box me in and hold me there, and keep me out of the play." Jim Rodgers is very modest in this statement. The very reason that he is regarded as a truly wonderful tackle is on account of the great game he played against Cochran. How wonderfully reliable he was football history well records. He was always to be depended upon. "In the fall of 1897 when I was captain of the Yale team," Rodgers continues, "perhaps the most spectacular Yale victory was pulled off, when Princeton, with the exception of perhaps two men, and virtually the same team that had beaten Yale the year before, came on the field and through overconfidence or lack of training did not show up to their best form. We were out for blood that day. I said to Johnny Baird, Princeton quarterback: 'Princeton is great to-day. We have played ten minutes and you haven't scored.' Johnny, with a look of determination upon his face, said, 'You fellows can play ten times ten minutes and you'll never score,' but the Princeton football hangs in the Yale trophy room. "I have always claimed that Charlie de Saulles put the Yale '97 team on the map. Charlie de Saulles, with his three wonderful runs, which averaged not less than 60 yards each, really brought about the victory. "Frank Butterworth as head coach will always have my highest regard; he did more than any one alive could have done to pull off an apparently impossible victory." "One great feature of this game was Ad Kelly's series of individual gains, aided by Hillebrand and Edwards, through Rodgers and Chadwick. Kelly took the ball for 40 consecutive yards up the field in gains of from one to three yards each, when fortunately for Yale, a fumble gave them the ball. When the fumble occurred, I happened at the time to break through very fast. There lay the ball on the ground, and nobody but myself near it. The great chance was there to pick it up and perhaps, even with my slow speed, gain 20 to 30 yards for Yale. No such thought, however, entered my head. I wanted that ball and curled up around it and hugged it as a tortoise would close in its shell. My recollection is now that I sat there for about five minutes before anybody deigned to fall on me. At all events, I had the ball.