"To the vast crowds of lovers of football who journeyed to Springfield to see this superman of sport in action in defense of his Alma Mater he will always remain as the personification of sportsmanship combined with the hard, clean, honest effort that marks your true football player. To a great many others who enjoyed the privilege of adventuring afield with him, the memory will be that of a man strong enough to be gentle, of magnetic personality, and yet withal, with a certain reserve that is found only in men whose character is growing steadily under the urge of quiet introspection. Yet, for a man so self-contained, he had much to give to those about him, whether these were men already enjoying place and power or merely boys just on the horizon of a real man's life. It was not so much the mere joy and exuberance of living, as the wonder and appreciation of living that were the springs of Marshall Newell's being.
"It was this that made him the richest poor man it was ever my fortune to know.
"The world about him was to Newell rich in expression of things beautiful, things mysterious, things that struck in great measure awe and reverence into his soul. A man with so much light within could not fail to shine upon others. He had no heart for the city or the life of the city, and for him, too, the quest of money had no attraction. Even before he went to school at Phillips Exeter, the character of this sturdy boy had begun to develop in the surroundings he loved throughout his life. Is it any wonder, then, that from the moment he arrived at school he became a favorite with his associates, indeed, at a very early stage, something of an idol to the other boys? He expressed an ideal in his very presence—an ideal that was instantly recognizable as true and just—an ideal unspoken, but an ideal lived. Just what that ideal was may perhaps be best understood if I quote a word or two from that little diary of his, never intended for other eyes but privileged now, a quotation that has its own little, delicate touch of humor in conjunction with the finer phrases:
"'There is a fine selection from Carmen to whistle on a load of logs when driving over frozen ground; every jolt gives a delightful emphasis to the notes, and the musician is carried along by the dictatorial leader as it were. What a strength there is in the air! It may be rough at times, but it is true and does not lie. What would the world be if all were open and frank as the day or the sunshine?'
"I want to record certain impressions made upon a certain freshman at Cornell, whither Newell went to coach the football team after his graduation from Harvard. Those impressions are as fresh to-day as they were in that scarlet and gold autumn years ago.
"Here was a man built like the bole of a tree, alight with fire, determination, love of sport, and hunger for the task in hand. He was no easy taskmaster, but always a just one. Many a young man of that period will remember, as I do, the grinding day's work when everything seemed to go wrong, when mere discouragement was gradually giving way to actual despair, when, somewhat clogged with mud and dust and blood, he felt a sudden slap on the back, and heard a cheery voice saying, 'Good work to-day. Keep it up.' Playing hard football himself, Newell demanded hard football of his pupils. I wish, indeed, that some of the players of to-day who groan over a few minutes' session with the soft tackling dummy of these times could see that hard, sole leather tackling dummy swung from a joist that went clear through it and armed with a shield that hit one over the head when he did not get properly down to his work, that Newell used.
"It was grinding work this, but through it one learned.
"That ancient and battered dummy is stowed away, a forgotten relic of the old days, in the gymnasium at Cornell. There are not a few of us who, when returning to Ithaca, hunt it up to do it reverence.
"Let him for a moment transfer his allegiance to the scrub eleven, and in that moment the Varsity team knew that it was in a real football game. They were hard days indeed on Percy Field, but good days. I have seen Newell play single-handed against one side of the Varsity line, tear up the interference like a whirlwind, and bring down his man. Many of us have played in our small way on the scrub when for purposes of illustration Newell occupied some point in the Varsity line. We knew then what would be on top of us the instant the ball was snapped. Yet when the heap was at its thickest Newell would still be in the middle of it or at the bottom, as the case might be, still working, and still coaching. Both in his coaching at Harvard and at Cornell he developed men whose names will not be forgotten while the game endures, and some of these developments were in the nature of eleventh-hour triumphs for skill and forceful, yet none the less sympathetic, personality.
"After all, despite his remarkable work as a gridiron player and tutor, I like best to think of him as Newell, the man; I like best to recall those long Sunday afternoons when he walked through the woodland paths in the two big gorges, or over the fields at Ithaca in company much of the time with—not the captain of the team, not the star halfback, not the great forward, but some young fellow fresh from school who was still down in the ruck of the squad. More than once he called at now one, now another fraternity house and hailed us: 'Where is that young freshman that is out for my team? I would like to have him take a little walk with me.' And these walks, incidentally, had little or nothing to do with football. They were great opportunities for the little freshman who wanted to get closer to the character of the man himself. No flower, no bit of moss, no striking patch of foliage escaped his notice, for he loved them all, and loved to talk about them. One felt, returning from one of these impromptu rambles, that he had been spending valuable time in that most wonderful church of all, the great outdoors, and spending it with no casual interpreter. Memories of those days in the sharp practice on the field grow dim, but these others I know will always endure.