"Football within the limitations of the rules and sportsmanship is a war game. Either by force or by deception it advances through the opposition to the goal line, which might be considered the capital of the enemy."
It was in Daly's first year that a huge Southerner, with a pleasant drawl, turned up in the plebe class. It was a foregone conclusion almost on sight that Ernest, better known to football men throughout the country as Pot Graves, would make the Eleven. He not only played the game almost flawlessly from the start, but he made so thorough a study of line play in general that his system, even down to the most intimate details of face to face coaching filed away for all time in that secret library of football methods at West Point, has come to be known as Graves' Bible.
Daly, still with that ineradicable love for his own Alma Mater, lent a page or two from this tome to Harvard, and even the author appeared in person on Soldiers' Field. The manner in which Graves made personal demonstration of his teachings will not soon be forgotten by the Harvard men who had to face Pot Graves.
Graves has always believed in the force mentioned in Daly's few lines quoted above on the subject of military methods as applied to football. While always declaring that the gridiron was no place for a fist fight, he always maintained that stalwarts should be allowed to fight it out with as little interference by rule as possible. As a matter of fact, Graves was badly injured in a game with Yale, and for a long time afterwards hobbled around with a troublesome knee. He knew the man who did it, but would never tell his name, and he contents himself with saying "I have no ill will—he got me first. If he hadn't I would have got him."
A story is told of Graves' impatience with the members of a little luncheon party, who in the course of an argument on the new football, were getting away from the fundamentals. Rising and stepping over to the window of the Officers' Club, he said, with a sleepy smile: "Come here a minute, you fellows," and, pointing down to the roadway, added, "there's my team." Looking out of the window the other members of the party saw a huge steam roller snorting and puffing up the hill.
Among the men who played football with Graves and were indeed of his type, were Doe and Bunker. Like Graves, Bunker in spite of his great weight, was fast enough to play in the backfield in those years when Army elevens were relying so much upon terrific power. Those were the days when substitutes had very little opportunity. In the final Navy game of 1902 the same eleven men played for the Army from start to finish.
In this period of Army football other first-class men were developed, notably Torney, a remarkable back, Thompson, a guard, and Tom Hammond, who was later to make a reputation as an end coach. Bunker was still with this aggregation, an eleven that marched fifty yards for a touchdown in fifteen plays against the midshipmen. The Army was among the early Eastern teams to test Eastern football methods against those of the West, the Cadets defeating a team from the University of Chicago on the plains.
The West Pointers had only one criticism to make of their visitors, and it was laconically put by one of the backs, who said:
"They're all-fired fast, but it's funny how they stop when you tackle them."
In this lineup was A. C. Tipton, at center, to whom belongs the honor of forcing the Rules Committee to change the code in one particular in order to stop a maneuver which he invented while in midcareer in a big game. No one will ever forget how, when chasing a loose ball and realizing that he had no chance to pick it up, he kicked it again and again until it crossed the final chalk mark where he fell on it for a touchdown. Tipton was something of a wrestler too, as a certain Japanese expert in the art of Jiu-jitsu can testify and indeed did testify on the spot after the doctors had brought him too.