Frank Armstrong at College

by Matthew M. Colton

"Dey won't look so nice as dat when de Harvards get through wit' dem," shouted his companion.

Occasionally the 'bus passed Yale sympathizers, and then it got a cheer or: "Go to it, Yale, you're the boys who can do it!"

From every direction throngs of people were heading toward the great concrete structure whose huge gray bulk seemed to fill the horizon. Already thousands swarmed in its arches, and even at this hour little black specks of human beings were seen outlined on its upper heights against the sky. Progress became slower as the 'bus neared the field, and it finally took the combined efforts of a squad of police to break the crowd sufficiently to let the Yale players through to the Locker Building within the shadow of the Stadium walls.

The game was to be started at two o'clock, and at a quarter of that hour it would have been difficult to find a vacant place in all those towering tiers. Yale occupied the south and Harvard the north side of the field. The cheer-leaders were tuning up, as it were. Back and forth across the field were flung songs and cheers, and in this lull before the battle each applauded the other's efforts.

Five minutes before the hour the Harvard captain, with his red-jerseyed and red-stockinged warriors at his heels, dashed through the gate at the northwest corner of the field. A great wave of crimson seemed to sweep the Harvard stand from end to end as the thirty thousand Harvard sympathizers rose to their feet, waving flags and red bandannas. A crackling cheer like musketry rolled across the field. While the Harvard cheer-leaders called for a cheer for the team, the Yale stand sat motionless. A minute later, however, it sprang into life as Captain Baldwin led his men onto the field through the same gate at a loping run. The Yale crowd was smaller, but what a noise it did make!

After a few minutes of signal practice, the two captains with the officials met at the center of the field and tossed for choice of sides. The coin which was flipped in the air by the referee fell heads, which was the side Captain Randall of Harvard, had called, and he indicated with a sweep of his hand that he would take the west end of the field. What little wind was then blowing at his back was the only advantage he had. Both elevens quickly dropped into their places, the whistle shrilled and the game was on.

That was a game which went down in history as one of the fiercest and hardest ever played between the two old rivals. It was clean and free from bad feeling which sometimes marks close games, but intense from the first line-up to the last. Harvard, after receiving the ball on the kick-off, cut loose a smashing attack through the line, reeling off the yards with terrible, tremendous force, a force that Yale did not seem to be able to meet successfully.

Down over the white lines went the Harvard machine, plays timed to perfection and gaining wherever they struck, not much, but enough in three tries to carry them the necessary yards for a first down. A perfect roar of cheers boiled up from the Harvard side of the field while Yale seemed paralyzed. Only after the ball had been pushed well into Yale territory did her cheer-leaders begin to get something like a cheer of volume.

But Yale was learning, and before Harvard had progressed to the danger zone the advance was stopped, and Yale took the ball, an act that was approved by a mighty cheer.

Turner bored through for eight yards on the first play, and followed it up with enough to make a first down, but there the advance stopped. Porter, the Yale fullback, who was doing the punting, was hurried by the rush of the Harvard forwards, and his kick almost blocked. It traveled diagonally across the field for a bare fifteen-yards gain, and was Harvard's ball.