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

by William H. Edwards

"In another game after the umpire had disqualified a player for kicking an opponent, the offending player appealed to me, basing his claim on the ground that he had not kicked the man until after the whistle had been blown and the play was over. Another man on the same team claimed exemption from a penalty on the ground that he had slugged his opponent while out of bounds. He actually believed that we could not penalize for fouls off the playing field.

"The funniest appeal I ever had made to me was made by a player years ago who asked that time be taken out in order that he might change a perfectly good jersey for one of a different color. It seems he had lost his jersey and had borrowed one from a player on the home team. When I asked him why he wanted to change his jersey he replied:

"'Because my own team are kicking the stuffing out of me and I must get a different colored jersey. At times my team mates take me for an opponent.'

"In a game where it was necessary to caution the players against talking too much to their opponents one particularly curious incident occurred.

"One team, in order to give one of the larger college elevens a stiff practice game, had put in the field two or three ringers. The big college team men were rather suspicious that their opponents were not entirely made up of bona fide students. A big tackle on the larger team made the following remark to a supposed ringer:

"'I'll bet you five to one you cannot name the president of your college.' The answer came back, 'Well, old boy, perhaps I can't, but perhaps I can show you how to play tackle and that's all I'm here for.'"

The Princeton-Yale game of 1915 was one of the most bitterly contested in the history of football. Princeton was a strong favorite, but Yale forced the fighting and had their opponents on the defensive almost from the beginning. Princeton's chances were materially hurt by a number of severe penalties which cost her considerably in excess of one hundred yards. Each of the officials had a hand in the infliction of the penalties, but the Referee, who happened to be Nate Tufts of Brown, had, of course, to enforce them all by marking off the distance given to Yale and putting the ball in the proper place.

In the evening after the game, a number of football officials and others were dining in New York; in the party was a Princeton graduate, who was introduced to Mr. Tufts, the Referee of the game of the afternoon. At the introduction the Princeton man remarked that when he was a boy he had read of Jesse James, the McCoy brothers, and other noted bandits and train robbers, but that he took off his hat to Mr. Tufts as the king of them all.

Okeson, a star player of Lehigh and prominent official, recalls this game:

"In 1908 I umpired in a memorable game which took place at New Haven between Yale and Princeton, which resulted in a victory for Yale, 12-10. This was before any rule was inserted calling for the Referee to notify the teams to appear on the field at the beginning of the second half. At that time a ten-minute intermission was allowed between the halves. The first half closed with the score 10-0 in favor of Princeton. At the end of about seven minutes Mike Thompson, who was Referee, following the custom that had grown up, although no rule required it, left the field to notify the teams to return. When he came back I asked him if he had found them, for on the old Yale Field it was something of a job to locate the teams once they had passed through the gates. Mike said that they were in the Field House on the other side of the baseball field and that he had called in to them. The Princeton players appeared in a minute or two, but no sign of Yale. Finally, getting suspicious, Mike asked Bill Roper, who was head coach at Princeton that year, if the Yale team had been in the Field House. The answer was 'No,' and we suddenly woke up to the fact that although time for the intermission had ended three or four minutes before, the Yale team was not notified, and furthermore, no one knew where they were except that they were somewhere under the stands. There were many gates and to leave by one to search meant running a chance that the Yale team might appear almost immediately through another and then the game be further delayed by the absence of the Referee. This being the case, Mike had no choice but to do as he did, namely, send messengers through all gates. One of these messengers met the Yale team coming along under the stands. The coaches had decided that time must be up, although none of them had kept a record of it, and had started back finally without any notice. Eight minutes over the legal ten had been taken before they appeared on the field and Bill Roper was raging. As Yale won in the second half it was only natural that we officials were greatly censored by Princeton, and Yale did not escape criticism. Yet the whole thing came from the fact that a custom had grown up of depending on the Referee to find and bring the teams back to the field instead of each team either staying on the field, or failing that, taking the responsibility on themselves of getting back in time. Yale simply followed the usual custom and 'Mike' was misled due to being told that both teams had gone to the Field House by one of those ready volunteers who furnish information whether they know anything about the subject in hand or not."