Jack Moakley takes his work very seriously and no man works any harder on the Cornell squad than does their trainer. Costello, a Cornell captain of years ago, relates the following incident:
"Jack Moakley had a man on his squad who had a great habit of digging up unusual fads, generally in the matter of diet. At this particular time he had decided to live solely on grape nuts. As he was one of the best men on the team, Jack did not burden himself with trouble over this fad, although at several times Moakley told him that he might improve if he would eat some real food. However, when this man started a grape nut campaign among the younger members of the squad he aroused Jack's ire and upon his arrival at the field house he wiped the black board clean of all instructions and in letters a foot high wrote:
"They who eat beef are beefy."
"They who eat nuts are nutty."
The resultant kidding finally made the old beefsteak popular with our friend.
Johnny Mack
It would not seem natural if one failed to see Johnny Mack on the side lines where Yale is playing. In eleven years at New Haven Yale teams were never criticised on account of their condition. The physical condition of the Yale team has always been left entirely in Johnny Mack's hands, and the hard contests that they went through in the season of 1915 were enough to worry any trainer. Johnny Mack was always optimistic.
There is much humor in Johnny Mack. It is amusing to hear Johnny tell of the experience that he and Pooch Donovan had in a Paris restaurant, and I'm sure you can all imagine the rest. Johnny said they got along pretty well with their French until they ordered potatoes and the waiters brought in a peck of peas.
It is a difficult task for a trainer to tell whether a player is fully conscious of all that is going on in a game. Sometimes a hard tackle or a blow on the head will upset a man. Johnny Mack tells a story that illustrates this fact:
"There was a quarterback working in the game one day. I thought he was going wrong. I said to the coach: 'I think something has happened to our quarterback.' He told me to go out and look him over. I went out and called the captain to one side after I had permission from the Referee. I asked him if he thought the quarterback was going right. He replied that he thought he was, but called out some signals to him to see if he knew them. The quarter answered the captain's questions after a fashion and the captain was satisfied, but, just the same, he didn't look good to me. I asked the captain to let me give him a signal; one we never used, and one the captain did not even know.
"Said I, 'What's this one—48-16-32-12?'