"My condition when in Princeton was the best. Having been raised in the country, I knew what hard work was and in the five years that I played football I never left the field on account of injury either in practice or in games with other teams.
"It is a great thing to play the game of football as hard as you can. I never deliberately went to do a man up. If he played a rough game, I simply played him the harder. I never struck a man with my fist in the game. I do not remember ever losing my temper. Perhaps I did not have temper enough.
"When we speak of a football man's nerve I would say that any man who stopped to think of himself is not worthy of the game, but there is one man who seemed to me had a little more nerve than the average. I think that he played for two years on our scrub, and the reason that he was kept there so long was on account of his size. He only weighed about 138 pounds, but for all the time he played on the scrub he played halfback and no one ever saw him hesitate to make every inch that he could, even though he knew he had to suffer for it.
"In the fall of '88, I think, Yup Cook played right tackle on the Varsity. He was very strong in his shoulders and arms and had the grip of a blacksmith. Channing, this nervy little 138-pounder, played left halfback on the scrub. When he went into the line, Cook would take him by the shoulders and slam him into the ground. Our playing field at the time was very dry and the ground was like a rock. I used to feel very sorry for the little fellow. On his elbows and hips and knees he had raw sores as big as silver dollars; yet he never hesitated to make the attempt, and he never called 'down' to save himself from punishment. The next year he made the team. Everybody admired him.
"Football men must never forget Tilly Lamar, who played halfback. I think he was one of the greatest halfbacks and one who would have made a record in any age of football. I have seen him go through a line with nearly every man on the opposing team holding him. He would break loose from one after the other.
"Lamar was a short, chunky fellow and ran close to the ground with his back level, and about the only place one could get hold of him was his shoulders. He would always turn toward the tackler instead of away, and it had the effect of throwing him over his head. The only way that the Yale men could stop him at all was to dive clear under and get him by the legs.
"You have always heard a lot about Snake Ames. Snake was a very spectacular player, but one very hard to stop, especially in an open field. He was very fast and during the last year of his playing he developed a duck and would go clear under the man trying to tackle him. This he did by putting one hand flat on the ground, so that his body would just miss the ground; even the good tacklers that Yale always had were not able to stop him.
"One of Princeton's old reliables was our center, George, '89. He may not have got much out of the plaudits from the grandstand, but those of us who knew what he was doing appreciated his work. We always felt safe as to our center. He was steady and brilliant.
"It was during this time that Yale developed a wedge play on center. There were no restrictions as to how the line would be formed, and Yale would put all their guards and tackles and ends back, forming a big V with the man with the ball in the center.
"Yale had been able to knock the opposing center out of the way till they struck George. How well I remember this giant, who was able to hold the whole wedge until he could knock the sides in and pile them up in a bunch. Yale soon gave him up and tried to gain elsewhere.