Dave Fultz is very modest and when he discusses his football experiences he sidetracks one and talks of his fellow college players. Now that I have pinned him down, he goes on to say:
"The day before we played the Indians one year my knee hurt me so much that I had to go to the doctor. He put some sort of ointment on it. Two days before this game I could hardly move my leg; the doctor threatened me with water on the knee; he told me to go to bed and stay there, but I told him we had a game in New York and I had to go. He said, 'All right, if you want water on the knee.' I said, 'I've got to go if I am at all able.' Anyway, I went on down to New York with the team and played in the game. All I needed was to get warmed up good and I went along in great shape."
Those who remember reading the accounts of that game will recall that Dave Fultz made some miraculous runs that day and was a team in himself.
Fred Murphy, who was captain of the '98 team at Brown and played end rush, says:
"I think Dave Fultz played under more difficulties than any man that ever played the game. I have seen him play with a heavy knee brace. He had his shoulder dislocated several times and I have seen him going into the game with his arm strapped down to his side, so he could just use his forearm. He played a number of games that way. That happened when he was captain. He was absolutely conscientious, fearless and a good leader."
In 1904, Fred Murphy coached at Exeter. Fred says:
"This was probably the best team that Exeter had had up to that time. The team was captained by Tommy Thompson, who afterwards played at Cornell. Eddie Hart at that time stripped at about 195 pounds. This was the famous team on which Donald MacKenzie MacFadyen played and later made the Princeton varsity. Tad Jones was quarterback the first year he came to school. In those days they took to football intuitively without much coaching. You never had to tell Tad Jones a thing more than once. He would think things out for himself. He showed great powers of leadership and good football sense. Howard Jones and Harry Vaughn played on this team."
"Charlie McCarthy of Brown will long be remembered for his great punting ability," says Fred Murphy. "He had a great many pet theories. McCarthy is one of the best football men in the Brown list." In a letter which I have received from Charlie McCarthy, as a result of a wonderful victory over Minnesota one year, McCarthy writes:
"The students of the University gave me a beautiful gold watch engraved on the inside—'To our Friend Mac from the students of the University of Wisconsin.'" This shows how highly McCarthy is held at this University.
McCarthy continues, "I go out every fall and kick around with the boys still and I hope to do so the rest of my life if I get a chance. I think the greatest football player I ever saw was Frank Hinkey. Speaking of my own ability as a player, I haven't much to say. I was not much of a football player but I got by some way. I neither had the physique, nor the ability, but tried to do my best. I am glad to say no one ever called me a quitter. I am proud to say that Brown University gave me a beautiful silver cup at the end of my four years for the best work in football, although the said cup belongs by rights to ten other men on the team."