"If any one thinks that my entire football experience was a bed of roses, I want to assure him that it was not. I experienced the sadness of injury and of not making the team. The first day I lined up I broke three bones in one hand. Three weeks later, after they had healed I broke the bones in my other hand and so patiently waited until the following year to make the team.
"The next year I went through the bitter experience of defeat, and we were beaten good and plenty by Yale. Defeat came again in 1902. It was in that year that I met, as my opponent, the hardest man I ever played against, Eddie Glass. The Yale team came at me pretty hard the first fifteen minutes. Glass especially crashed into me. He was warned three times by Dashiell in the opening part of the game for strenuous work. Glass was a rough, hard player, but he was not an unfair player at that. I always liked good, rough football. He played the game for all it was worth and was a Gibraltar to the Yale team.
"Now that my playing days are over, I think there is one thing that young fellows never realize until they are through playing; that they might have helped more; that they might have given a few extra minutes to perfect a play. The thing that has always appealed to me most in football is to think of what might have been done by a little extra effort. It is very seldom you see a man come off the field absolutely used up. I have never seen but one or two cases where a man had to be helped to the dressing room. I have always thought such a man did not give as much as he should,—we're all guilty of this offense. A little extra punch might have made a touchdown."
Tichenor, of the University of Georgia, tells the following:
"In a Tech-Georgia game a peculiar thing happened. One of the goal lines was about seven yards from the fence which was twelve feet high and perfectly smooth. Tech had worked the ball down to within about three yards of Georgia's goal near the fence. Here the defense of the Red and Black stiffened and, taking the ball on downs, Ted Sullivan immediately dropped back for a kick. The pass was none too good and he swung his foot into the ball, which struck the cross bar, bounded high up in the air, over the fence, behind the goal post.
"Then began the mighty wall-scaling struggle to get over the fence and secure the coveted ball. As fast as one team would try to boost each other over, their opponents would pull them down. This contest continued for fully five minutes while the crowd roared with delight. In the meantime George Butler, the Referee, took advantage of the situation and, with the assistance of several spectators, was boosted over the fence where he waited for some player to come and fall on the ball, which was fairly hidden in a ditch covered over with branches. Butler tells to this day of the amusing sight as he beheld first one pair of hands grasping the top of the fence; one hand would loosen, then the other; then another set of hands would appear. Heads were bobbing up and down and disappearing one after the other. The crowd now became interested and showed their partiality, and with the assistance of some of the spectators a Tech player made his way over the fence and began his search for the ball, closely followed by a Georgia player. They rushed around frantically looking for the ball. Then Red Wilson joined in the search and quickly located it in the ditch; soon had it safely in his arms and Tech scored a touchdown.
"This was probably the only touchdown play in the history of the game which none of the spectators saw and which only the Referee and two other players saw at the time the player touched the ball down."
That Charlie Brickley was in the way of bringing home the bacon to Harvard is well known to all. There have been very few players who were as reliable as this star. It was in his senior year that he was captain of the team and when the announcement came at the start of the football season that Brickley had been operated upon for appendicitis the football world extended to him its deepest sympathy. During his illness he yearned to get out in time to play against Yale. This all came true. The applause which greeted him when Haughton sent this great player into the game—with the Doctor's approval—must have impressed him that one and all were glad to see him get into the game.
Let us hear what Brickley has to say about playing the game.
"I have often been asked how I felt when attempting a drop kick in a close game before a large crowd. During my first year I was a little nervous, but after that it didn't bother me any more than as if I were eating lunch. Constant practice for years gave me the feeling that I could kick the ball over every time I tried. If I was successful, those who have seen me play are the best judges. Confidence is a necessity in drop kicking. The three hardest games I ever played in were the Dartmouth 3 to 0 game in 1912, and Princeton 3 to 0 in 1913, and the Yale 15 to 5 game of the same year. The hardest field goal I ever had to kick was against Princeton in the mud in 1913.