"In my day on the Yale team with Camp," Vernon states, "Princeton was our dire opponent. For a week or so before a Princeton game, we all agreed to stay on the campus and to be in bed every night by eleven o'clock. Johnny Moorhead, who was one of our best runners, decided one night to go to the theatre, however, and was caught by Captain Camp, whereupon we were all summoned out of bed to Camp's room, shortly before midnight. After the roundup we learned the reason for our unexpected meeting. There was some discussion in which Camp took very little part. No one expected that Johnny would receive more than a severe reprimand and this feeling was due largely to the fact that we needed him in the game. Imagine our surprise, therefore, when Camp, who had left us for a moment, returned to the room and handed in his resignation as captain of the team. We revolted at this. Johnny, who sized up the situation, rather than have the team lose Camp, decided to quit the team himself. What occurred the next day between Camp and Johnny Moorhead we never knew, but Johnny played in the game and squared himself."
Walter Camp's name is coupled with that of Chummy Eaton in football history. "Eaton was on the left end rush line," says Vernon, "and played a great game with Camp down the side line. When one was nearly caught for a down, the other would receive the ball from him on an over-head throw and proceed with the run. Camp and Eaton would repeat this play, sending the ball back and forth down the side of the field for great gains.
"In one of the big games in the fall of 1879, Eaton had a large muscle in one of his legs torn and had to quit playing for that season." Vernon was put in Chummy's place. "But I couldn't fill Chummy's shoes," Vernon acknowledges, "for he and Camp had practiced their beautiful side line play all the fall.
"The next year Chummy's parents wouldn't let him play, but Chummy was game—he simply couldn't resist—it was a case of Love Before Duty with him. He played on the Yale team the next fall, however, but not as Eaton, and every one who followed football was wondering who that star player 'Adams' was and where he came from. But those on the inside knew it was Chummy.
"Frederic Remington," says Vernon, "was a member of our team. We were close friends and spent many Sunday afternoons on long walks. I can see him now with his India ink pencil sketching as we went along, and I must laugh now at the nerve I had to joke him about his efforts.
"Remy was a good football player and one of the best boxers in college. Dear Old Remy is gone, but he left his mark."
Other men, equally prominent old Yale men tell me, who were on the team that year were Hull, Jack Harding, Ben Lamb, Bob Watson, Pete Peters and many others.
Walter Camp, as Yale gridiron stories go, was not only captain of his team, but in reality also its coach. Perhaps he can be called the pioneer coach of Yale football. It is most interesting to listen to old time Yale players relate incidents of the days when they played under Walter Camp as their captain: how they came to his room by invitation at night, sat on the floor with their backs to the wall, with nothing in the center of the room but a regulation football. There they got together, talked things over, made suggestions and comparisons. And it is said of Camp that he would do more listening by far than talking. This was characteristic, for although he knew so much of the game he was willing to get every point of view and profit by every suggestion.
In 1880 Camp relinquished the captaincy to R. W. Watson. Yale again defeated Harvard, Camp kicking a goal from placement. Following this R. W. Watson ran through the entire Harvard team for a touchdown.
Harvard men were greatly pained when Walter Camp played again in 1881. He should have graduated in 1880. This game was also won by Yale, thus making the fourth victorious Yale team that Camp played on. This record has never been equalled. Camp played six years at Yale.