Football Days / Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball

by William H. Edwards

I have always had great respect for Rinehart, and his great team mates. Walbridge and Barclay were a great team in themselves, backed up by Bray at fullback. It was this same team that, later in the fall, beat Pennsylvania, without the services of Captain Walbridge, who had been injured.

It was not long after this that Princeton played Cornell at Princeton. I recall the day I first saw Joe Beacham, that popular son of Cornell, who afterwards coached West Point. He is now in the regular army, stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was captain of the Cornell team in '96. He had on his team the famous players, Dan Reed, on whom Cornell counts much in these years to assist Al Sharpe in the coaching; Tom Fennel, Taussig and Freeborn. With these stars assisting, Cornell could do nothing with Princeton's great team and the score 37 to 0 tells the tale.

I was not playing in this game, but recall the following incident. Joe Beacham was making a flying run through the Princeton team. A very pretty girl covered with furs, wearing the red and white of Cornell, was enthusiastically yelling at the top of her voice "Go it, Joe! go it, Joe!" much to the delight and admiration of the Princeton undergraduates near her. Since then Joe has told me that it was his sister. Maybe it was, but as Joe was rushing onward, with Dan Reed and Tom Fennel interfering wonderfully for him, and urged on by his fond admirer in the grandstand, his progress was rudely halted by the huge form of Edwin Crowdis which appeared like a cloud on the horizon and projected itself before the oncoming scoring machine of Cornell. When they met, great was the crash, for Crowdis spilled the player, ball and all. This was the time, the place, and the girl; and it meant that Edwin Crowdis had made the Princeton Varsity team.

I realized it at the moment, and although I knew that it would probably put me in the substitute ranks for the rest of the season, I was wild with joy to see Edwin develop at this particular moment, and perform his great play. His day had come, his was the reward, and Joe Beacham had been laid low. As for the girl, she subsided abruptly, and is said to have remarked, as Crowdis smashed the Cornell machine: "Well, I never did like a fat man anyway!"

One day in a practice game, against the scrub, this year, Garry Cochran, who was standing on the side lines resting from the result of an injury, became so frantic over the poor showing of the varsity, pulled off his sweater and jumped into the game in spite of the trainers' earnest entreaty not to. He tried to instill a new spirit into the game. It was one of those terrible Monday practice games, of which every football player knows. The varsity could not make any substantial gains against the second team, which was unusually strong that year, as most of the varsity substitutes were playing. How frantic Bill Church was! He was playing tackle alongside of Edwin Crowdis, against whom I was playing. My chances of making the Varsity were getting slimmer. Very few practice days were left before the men would be selected for the final game. I was making the last earnest stand. The varsity line men were not opening up the scrub line as easily as they desired, and we were all stopping up the offensive play of the Varsity. I was going through very low and tackling Crowdis around the legs, trying to carry him back into the play. Church was very angry at my doing this, and told Crowdis to hit me, if I did it again, but Edwin was a good-natured, clean player; in fact, I doubt if he ever rough played any man. Finally, after several plays, Church said, "If you don't hit him, I will," and he sure made good his threat, for on the next play, when I was at the bottom of the heap in the scrimmage, Church handed me one of those stiff "Bill Church blows," emphasizing the tribute with his leather thumb protector. There was a lively mixup and the scrub and Varsity had an open fight. All was soon forgotten, but I still "wear an ear," the lobe of which is a constant reminder of Bill Church's spirited play. Nothing ever stood in Church's way; he was a hard player, and a powerful tackle.

Slowly but surely, Cochran's great team was perfecting itself into a machine. The victory against Harvard at Cambridge was the team's worthy reward for faithful service and attention given to the details of the game.

As a reward for service rendered, the second team with the Varsity substitutes were taken on the trip, and as we saw the great Princeton team winning, every man was happy and proud of the joy and knowledge of giving something material towards their winning. Sore legs, injuries and mistakes were at such a time forgotten. All that was felt was the keen sense of satisfaction that comes to men who have helped in the construction.

Billie Bannard, aided by superb interference of Fred Smith, was able to make himself the hero of that game by a forty-five yard run. Bill Church the great tackle broke through the Harvard line and blocked Brown's kick, and the ever-watchful end-rush, Howard Brokaw, fell on the ball for a touchdown. Cochran had been injured and removed from the game, but he was frantic with joy as he walked up and down the Princeton side lines, urging further touchdowns.

A happy crowd of Princetonians wended their way back to Princeton to put the finishing touches on the team before the Yale game. Those of you who recall that '96 game in New York will remember that 6 to 0 in favor of Yale was the score, at the end of the first five minutes. Jim Rodgers had blocked Johnnie Baird's punt and Bass, the alert end-rush, had pounced on the ball and was over for a touchdown in a moment. Great groans went up from the Princeton grandstand. Could it be that this great acknowledged champion team of Princeton was conceited, over-trained and about to be defeated? Certainly not, for there arose such a demonstration of team spirit and play as one seldom sees. On the next kick-off Johnnie Baird caught the ball, and when he was about to be tackled—in fact, was lying on the ground—he passed the ball to Fred Smith, that great all-round Princeton athlete, who made the most spectacular run of the day. Who will ever forget the wonderful line plunging of Ad Kelly, the brilliant end running of Bill Bannard and the great part all the other men of the team contributed towards Princeton's success, and the score grew and grew by touchdown after touchdown, until some one recalled that in this game, the team would say, "Well, we won't give any signals; we'll just try a play through Captain Murphy." Maybe this was the play that put Murphy out of the game. He played against Bill Church, and that was enough exercise for any one man to encounter in one afternoon. As Fred Murphy left the field everyone realized that it was only his poor physical condition that caused him to give up the game. Yale men recall, with great pride, how the year before Murphy had put it all over Bill Church. During that game, however, Church's physical condition was not what it should have been, and these two giant tackles never had a chance to play against each other when they were both in prime condition. Both these men were All American calibre.