"I never really said any such thing. However, we did beat them 107 to 0, whereupon some fellow from Iowa sent me a telegram, after the game, which read: 'Ain't it awful. Box their remains and send them home.'"
In Tom Shevlin's year at Yale, 1902, Mike Sweeney, his old trainer and coach at Hill School, was in New Haven watching practice for about four days before the first game. Practice that day was a sort of survival of the fittest, for they were weeding out the backs, who were doing the catching. About five backs were knocked out. A couple had been carried off, with twisted knees, and still the coaches were trying for more speed and diving tackles.
Tom had just obliterated a 150-pound halfback, who had lost the ball, the use of his legs and his Varsity aspirations altogether. Stopped by Sweeney, on his way back up the field, Tom remarked:
"Mike, this isn't football. It's war."
A Brown man tells the following interesting story:
"In a game that we were playing with some small college back in 1906 out on Andrews Field, Brown had been continually hammering one tackle for big gains. The ball was in the middle of the field and time had been taken out for some reason or other. Huggins and Robby were standing on the side lines, and just as play was about to be resumed, Robby noticed that the end on the opposing team was playing out about fifteen feet from his tackle, and was standing near us, when Robby said to him:
"'What's the idea? Why don't you get in there where you belong?'
"The end's reply was:
"'I'm wise. Do you think I'm a fool? I don't want to be killed.'"