But suddenly the day comes when this discouraged player sees a light. Perhaps he has developed a hidden power, or it may be that he has broken through and made a clean tackle behind the line; perhaps he has made a good run and received a compliment from the coach. It may be that his side partner has given him a word of encouragement, which may have instilled into him a new spirit, and, as a result, he has turned out to be a real football player. He then forgets all the bruises and all the hard knocks.
How true it is that in one play, or in a practice game, or in a contest against an opposing college, a player has found himself. Do you players of football remember the day you made the team, the day your chance came and you took advantage of it? At such a time a player shows great possibilities. He is told by the captain to report at the training house for the Varsity signals. Who that has experienced the thrill of that moment can ever forget it?
He earns his seat at the Varsity table. He is now on the Varsity squad. He goes on, determined to play a better game, and realizes he must hold his place at the training table by hard, conscientious work.
One is not unmindful of the traditions that are centered about the board where so many heroes of the past have sat. You have a keen realization of the fact that you are filling the seat of men who have gone before you, and that you must make good, as they made good. Their spirit lives.
The training table is a great school for team spirit. To have a successful team, any coach will tell you, there must be a brotherly feeling among the members of the team. The men must chum together on and off the field. Team work on the field is made much easier if there is team work off the field.
I never hear the expression "team mates" used but I recall a certain Princeton team, the captain of which was endowed with a wonderful power of leadership. There was nothing the men would not do for him. Every man on the team regarded him as a big brother. Yet there was one man on the squad who seemed inclined to be alone. He had little to say, and when his work was over on the field he always went silently away to his room. He did not mingle with the other players in the club house after dinner, and there did not seem to be much warmth in him.
Garry Cochran, the captain, took some of us into his confidence, and we made it our business to draw this fellow out of his shell. It was not long before we found that he was an entirely different sort of a person from what he had seemed to be.
In a short time, the fellow who was unconsciously retarding good fellowship among the members of the team was no longer a silent negative individual, but was soon urging us on in a get-together spirit.
It will be impossible to relate all the good times had at a college training table. I think that every football man will agree with me that we now have a great deal of sympathy for the trainer, whereas in the old days we roasted him when it seemed that dinner would never be ready.
How the hungry mob awaited the signal!