Football Days / Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball

by William H. Edwards

Sport Donnelly was a great end that year. Heffelfinger the great Yale guard who is probably the best that ever played, said of Donnelly, that he was the only player he had ever seen who could slug and keep his eye on the ball at the same time. The following story is often told of how Donnelly got Rhodes of Yale ruled off in '89. Rhodes had hit Channing of Princeton in the eye, so that Donnelly was laying for him, and when Rhodes came through the line, Donnelly grabbed up two handsful of mud—it was a very muddy field—and rubbed them in his face and hollered, "Mr. Umpire," so that when Rhodes, in a burst of righteous indignation, hit him, the Umpire saw it and promptly ruled Rhodes from the field.

Snake Ames and House Janeway played that year, and as the latter was big—210 pounds stripped—and good natured, Ames thought that if he could only get Janeway angry he would play even better than usual, so, with Machiavellian craft, he said to him before the Harvard game, "House, the man you are going to play against to-morrow insulted your girl. I heard him do it, so you want to murder him." "All right," said House, ominously, and as Princeton won, 41 to 15, Janeway must certainly have helped a heap.

George played center for Princeton four years, and for three years "Pa" Corbin and George played against each other, and, as cow-boys would say, "sure did chew each other's mane." I don't mean slugged.

My brother Edgar '91 was a great admirer of George. In '88 Edgar was playing in the scrub, and George broke through and was about to make a tackle when the former knocked one of his arms down as it was outstretched to catch it. George missed the tackle but said nothing. A second time almost identically the same thing occurred. This time he remarked grimly, "Good trick that, Poe." But when the same thing happened a third time on the same afternoon, he exclaimed, "Poe, if you weren't so small, I'd hit you."

In '89 Thomas '90, substitute guard, was highly indignant at the way some Boston newspaper described him. "The Princeton men were giants, one in particular was picturesque in his grotesqueness. He was 6 feet 5 and, when he ran, his arms and legs moved up and down like the piston rods of an engine."

In '90 Buck Irvine '88 brought an unknown team to Princeton, Franklin and Marshall, which he coached, and they scored 16 points against the Tigers. And though the latter won, 33 to 16, still that was the largest score ever made against Princeton up to that time. They did it, too, by rushing, which was all the more to their credit.

Victor Harding, Harvard, and Yup Cook, Princeton '89, had played on Andover and Exeter, respectively, and had trouble then, so four years later when they met, one on Princeton and the other on Harvard, they had more trouble. Both were ruled off for rough work. Cook picked Harding up off the ground and slammed him down and then walked off the field. In a few minutes Harding, after trying to trip Ames, also was ruled off. That was the net result of the old Andover-Exeter feud.

In '91 Princeton was playing Rutgers. Those were the days of the old "V" trick in starting a game. When the Orange and Black guards and centers tore up the Rutgers' V it was found that the Captain of the latter team had broken his leg in the crush. He showed great nerve, for while sitting on the ground waiting for a stretcher, he remarked in a nonchalant way, "Give me a cigarette. I could die for Old Rutgers," his tone being "Me first and then Nathan Hale." One version quite prevalent around Princeton has it that a Tiger player rushed up and exclaimed, "Die then." This is not true as I played in that game and know whereof I speak.

Fifteen years after that had happened, I met Phil Brett who had captained the Rutgers Team that day, and he told me that his life had been a burden to him at times, and like Job, he felt like cursing God and dying, because often upon coming into a café or even a hotel dining-room some half drunken acquaintance would yell out, "Hello, Phil, old man, could you die for dear Old Rutgers?"

Several years ago while in the Kentucky Militia in connection with one of those feud cases, I was asked by a private if I were related to Edgar Allan Poe, "De mug what used to write poetry," and when I replied, "Yes, he was my grandmother's first cousin," he, evidently thinking I was too boastful, remarked, "Well, man, you've got a swell chance."