Image provided by the Yale Club & Scholarship Foundation of Hartford, Inc.
About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (Nov. 25, 1897)
Vou. VE. “No; Te. A GREAT YALE DRIVE. How the Season Ended with the Princeton Game at 6 to 0 for Yale. Yale drove it through. Eight weeks ago a plan of campaign was laid out. It was a very simple plan. It was to get the eleven best men in the Univer- sity together and teach them the game of football. By best men is: meant those who had the most football spirit and the physical constitution to play the game. The Captain of the eleven understood the spirit and the letter of the plan— indeed personified both. The leader of the coaches had person:fied himself in former days of Yale triumphs. He, on whose shoulders must rest the bur- den of holding to this plan, had im- plicit faith in it, and implicit faith in Yale’s ability to respond to it. He did not say to anybody that Yale would win on his plan this year. It is much to be doubted that he said it to himself. But both Mr. Butterworth and Mr. Rodgers determined that the should be fought out on that line wheth- er it took eight’ weeks or three years. It was a plan that recognized no short-cut to Vale's standard of football. When first applied it created no mar- vellous transformation in the Univer- sity, whose strain of football material seemed almost to have run out. It had been held to for weeks and still Yale was far in the rear. But it was held to. A little longer and the distance was closing up. A little longer and more and more of the College understood, in what a thoroughly simple football way Yale leaders were going at their problem. Yale’s football players were absorbing week by week more and more of that football spirit and learn- ing more and more of that simple, hard, football game. There had been mutterings that almost at times seemed rebellion. Little by little the voices of discord sank. More and more the voices of support and the tone of hope increased. Rank after rank of the Uni- versity fell into line. From every cor- ner of the land the old leaders were coming back, From Camp of Eighty to Murphy of Ninety-Seven, they gave every hour they could spare from work. Day by day that great line formation of all Yale grew more and more perfect, Butterworth and Rodgers and their sandy players leading. It was an all-Yale tandem. At 3.45 on the afternoon of November 2oth it was in perfect working order. Eight minutes later it had come within four feet of the uncrossed goal line of Nas- sau. Thirty seconds later it had sent Dudley over that line for the first score against Princeton; for the winning’ touchdown of the final game; for the greatest victory Yale has won since the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. “TI suppose the boat race in 64,” said Mr. Adee, who didn’t think he was be- ing interviewed, to the writer, “did in some ways approach this Fall’s - Younger men said it . achievement.” was Eighty-five come again without Lamar’s run. These were the only two incidents. offered in competition against the record of Yale football in 1897. It is hard to tell the story of how Yale won from Princeton November Yale campaign - showirg their trust.’ NEW HAVEN, CONN., THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1897. 2oth, six to nothing. It was a simple, but a grand accord of spirit, mind and muscle, working on sure principles. For the spirit, it is not possible to point to anything better in the way of illustration than the figure and face and accent of Yale’s Captain, when the Blue line stood within four feet of Prince- ton’s goal. One Yale man told the writer that he would rather carry away a picture of Rodgers as he braced his men for that last effort, than any other thing he had seen in the game. “Now we're here,” were the words he used, “we've got to go over.’ You know how they went over. It was in the twinkling of an eye. It was where his Captain had been standing that Dud- ley found his opportunity. He shot over as if driven from a bow. Signal, play and: touchdown seemed almost instantaneous. CAPT. J. :O.. RODGERS. And the mind was there. Did you ever see a team go on the field more clearly masters of themselves? Not be- fuddled by a thousand intricate plays; not asking themselves what to do next; knowing by instinct what to do in or- dinary cases with the mind quite clear to grasp the opportunity of cases ex- traordinary. “Keep your wits about you,’ were some of the last words in the dressing room. Hall seemed to have his wits about him when twice he re- covered for Yale. when someone else had made the slip. deSaulles was the personification of something at the other pole of mental experiences from the rattles. Line and backs every- where converging on the ball and player, whether the attack had been met according to plan or whether it had reached an unexpected point through and behind their own line—they were all examples of men with mind and eye clear. And as to muscle, by which is meant perfect condition of body, nothing can be added to the eloquent fact of eleven men passing through two of the fierc- est football battles of amateur athlet- ics and coming out with keener appe- tite even, for the plays, than when they went in. Captain Rodgers, the burden of whose few modest comments since the victory was won, has been the splendid spirit of his men and the great coaching of Mr. Butterworth, said that they all anticipated with the keenest pleasure these two last struggles. There was anything but over-confidence among them; but there was nothing like anxiety. They longed to meet Yale’s dearest foes. - THE MEN YALE WON FROM. And over what magnificent rivals was ~ this victory won. Next to the admira- tion for their own eleven and for the game of football which they played, | Yale men spoke on Saturday night and » are still speaking of the pluck and the loyalty of Nassau. When a team which seemed invincible began to give way yard by yard before the fierce onslaught of a foe whose strength had not been dreamed of, the thousands who had come to see them win only cheered them harder. And these players fought still harder. And when the score had been made and to all appearances the game had been lost, and more than a third of their eleven had given way, unable to stand the pace Yale had set, then those players gathered themselves for such an attack on the Blue line as they had not up to that time made. For five yards and again for five yards more and still again for even ten they crashed through their foe and began to threaten. : They could not keep it up and soon again they were rolled back, and as evening fell they were once more fighting under the shadow of their own goal posts and their foe seemed the more powerful than ever. own fight was never more stubborn than at just this moment. Within but a few feet of their line they held Yale until the whistle blew, and six to nothing seemed the less crushing a de- feat because it so easily might have been twelve to nothing and would almost surely have been, against any- thing but a Princeton eleven. And still Princeton, by which is meant the spirit of Princeton, was unconquered. Broken in heart and battered by the fearful fight, half of the players threw themselves on the ~ gsound and like honest. boys, when left to do, gave way But they nothing was to honest, bitter feeling. were still Princeton’s team and Prince-_ ton would not leave them vanquished. The thousands in Nassau’s cheering sections held their placés in the stand, waved their flags all the more wildly, rolled out their songs all the more loudly and cheered for each and every player as he was carried up before them, in such a way as they never could have cheered players on a team victorious. AN IDEAL REPORTER. If only Walter Scott could have seen the American football game! Detailed reports are interesting sometimes, ex- perts’ opinions are valuable sometimes, special writers’ stories are interesting and true to life, sometimes; but if only a page after Marmion could once ap- pear, what havoc it would make in the system of reporting football games. But Scott didn’t understand American football. He has a line or two bearing on some sport which was perhaps the beginning of the noble game, in “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” “And some with many a shout, In riot, revelry and rout, Pursued the football play.” This shows him far behind the concep- tion of the game of to-day. However, he understood tournaments and border wars, and so grasped some of the ele- ments of the sport. He understood the crowd and how they greeted their team as it appeared, saying: “And such a yell was there Of sudden and portentous birth As if men fought upon the earth And fiends in upper air.” And he had the idea of fooball men — in mind. Speaking of the effect upon the face of one of his heroes of maturer - years, or of nose guards, or something of that sort, he said that they “Vet had not quenched the open truth And fiery vehemence of youth, Forward and frolic glee was there The will to do; the soul to dare, : Bled tat glance soon blown to re.” : And in some ways he looked forward to this contest of Nevember 2oth, 1897. Back, beardless boy,”’ was Princeton’s But their — - Prick Tren Cents. thought concerning the Yale center be- fore they met him. . And speaking of a struggle that was quite as important in its time as the battle of the 2oth, and looking forward evidently to that in a prophetic sort of way, and particularly to the march towards the Nassau citadel at eleven minutes before four, he used the simple line— “King James did rushing come.” And. somewhere he certainly had Yale’s right-guard in mind, for he talks of . “foaming Brown with doubled _ speed.” But Sir Walter was-not there and if you were not there, you can’t know very much about it. It is safer to go a step further and say if you didn’t stand in the Princeton line, you can’t know very much about it. One of the Princeton backs, worn out by the fight, came slowly to the side lines, while a substitute took his place. “What in heaven’s name is the matter with the team?’ was the question that was put to him by the anxious Princeton men. His look meant even more than his words when he replied to them: “You don’t know what we have run up against.” THE GAME BEGUN. But let us try to tell something about it. At twelve minutes after two, 15,000 people saw Chamberlin of Yale draw back for the kick-off. There had been no Yale luck about the toss; Princeton had the north goal and the wind. When Chamberlin had done his work, Baird, at twenty yards from Princeton's goal, did his work, and the ball was back beyond the center of the field. Then came the first line-up. The nerv- ous tension of these two elevens as they first faced each other was felt in every man, woman and child who saw them meet and who had such a thing as nerves. There was too much nerve at one point and Edwards of Princeton for a moment lost control of himself. You could hear the blow on Chad- wick’s armor, anywhere on the Field, but it didn’t hurt the Yale guard. It is safe to say it hurt Princeton very much later. But what did Princeton do? The moment had come when her rushing game, which had run over and swept Yale from the field twelve months be- fore, was to be tried on a new set of Yale players, mostly young, untrained boys. When the first effort was over, and Reiter, trying Yale’s left-tackle, had only made an advance of two yards, the Yale bleachers sent forth such a yell as only a touchdown gen- erally brings. It certainly wasn't a “Prep. school” line that Reiter had struck. It was less an one that Ban- nard struck, for he hardly gained at all, and even the next fine advance of Reiter through nine yards at tackle didn’t trouble Yale much, for three more drives at the boys in blue had about as much effect upon them as a drive against one of Mr. Sargent’s permanent stands. They were like rock. And within five minutes of play, this young team of Yale had torn the ball from Princeton by old-fashioned Yale defense. Then it was Yale’s turn. It was one thing to stop Nassau. The coaches had made up their mind at least that Yale could do that, although Yale in general had not’ been ready t- believe it. Could they break through those superb giants from New Jersey? They did. Benjamin took only a few feet at first, but Dudley cut off nine yards through Princeton’s left, somewhere about the place where Holt, so Princeton thought, would make Yale’s offense a gain for Princeton. But it was not easy, though McBride, Benjamin and Rodgers all made ad- vances. When it wasn’t safe to rush
