So, knowing that the football season is near I think I have a "swell chance" to tell some of the old football stories handed down at Princeton from college generation to generation. If I have hurt any old Princeton players' feelings, I do humbly ask pardon and assure them that it is unintentional; for as the Indians would put it, my heart is warm toward them, and, when I die, place my hands upon my chest and put their hands between my hands.
With apologies to Kipling in his poem when he speaks of the parting of the Colonial troops with the Regulars:
"There isn't much we haven't shared
For to make the Elis run.
The same old hurts, the same old breaks,
The same old rain and sun.
The same old chance which knocked us out
Or winked and let us through.
The same old joy, the same old sorrow,
Good-bye, good luck to you."
CHAPTER XII
ARMY AND NAVY
When the Navy meets the Army,
When the friend becomes the foe,
When the sailor and the soldier
Seek each other to o'erthrow;
When old vet'rans, gray and grizzled,
Elbow, struggle, push, and shove,
That they may cheer on to vict'ry
Each the service of his love;
When the maiden, fair and dainty,
Lets her dignity depart,
And, all breathless, does her utmost
For the team that's next her heart;
When you see these strange things happen,
Then we pray you to recall
That the Army and Navy
Stand firm friends beneath it all.
There is a distinctive flavor about an Army-Navy football game which, irrespective of the quality of the contending elevens and of their relative standing among the high-class teams in any given season, rates these contests annually as among the "big games" of the year. Tactically and strategically football bears a close relation to war. That is a vital reason why it should be studied and applied in our two government schools.
On the part of the public there is general appreciation of the spirit which these two academies have brought into the great autumn sport, a spirit which combines with football per se the color, the martial pomp, the elan of the military. The merger is a happy one, because football in its essence is a stern, grim game, a game that calls for self-sacrifice, for mental alertness and for endurance; all these are elements, among others, which we commonly associate with the soldier's calling.