"Run those boys around again and then ask them to whistle."
There are many other trainers who deserve mention in this chapter, men who are earnestly and loyally giving up their lives to the training of the young men in our different colleges, but space will not permit to take up any more of these interesting characters. Their tribute must be a silent one, not only from myself but from the undergraduates and graduates of the colleges to which they belong and upon whose shoulders are heaped year after year honors which are due them.
FIRST DOCTOR IN CHARGE OF ANY TEAM
Doctor W. M. Conant, Harvard '79, says:
"I believe I was the first doctor associated with the Harvard team, and so far as I know, the first doctor who was in charge of any team at any college. At Harvard this custom has been kept up. I was requested by Arthur Cumnock, who had been beaten the previous year by Yale, to come out and help him win a game. This I consented to do provided I had absolute control of the medical end of the team, which consisted not only of taking care of the men who were injured, but also of their diet. This has since been taken up by the trainer.
"The late George Stewart and the late George Adams were the coaches in charge that year, and my recollections of some of the difficulties that arose because of new methods are very enjoyable—even at this late day. So far as I know this was the first season men were played in the same position opposite one another. In other words, there was an attempt to form a second eleven—which is now a well recognized condition.
"I had a house built under the grandstand where every man from our team was stripped, rubbed dry and put into a new suit of clothes, also given a certain amount of hot drink as seemed necessary. This was a thing which had never been done before, and in my opinion had a large influence in deciding the game in Harvard's favor; as the men went out upon the field in the second half almost as fresh as when they started the first half.
"I remember that I had not seen a victory over Yale since I was graduated from college in 1879. Some of the suggestions that I made about the time men should be played were laughed at. The standpoint I took was that a man should not be allowed by the coach to play until he was deemed fit. The physician in charge was also a matter of serious discussion. Many of these points are now so well established that to the present generation it is hardly possible to make them realize that from 1890 to 1895 it was necessary to make a fight to establish certain well-known methods.
"What would the present football man think of being played for one and one-half hours whether he was in shape or not? The present football man does not appreciate what some of the older college graduates went through in order to bring about the present reasonable methods adopted in handling the game."