Part 3 (1/2)
”What is your name?” Back came the reply, which almost broke up the football practice for the day: ”_Ketchum_ is my name.”
Falling on the ball is one of the fundamentals in football. It is the ground work that every player must learn. Frank Hinkey, that great Yale Captain and player, was an artist in performing this fundamental.
Playing so wonderfully well the end-rush position, his alertness in falling on the ball often meant much distance for Yale. He had wonderful judgment in deciding whether to fall on the ball or pick it up.
One of the most important things in football is knowing how to tackle properly. Some men take to it naturally and others only learn after hard, strenuous practice.
In the old days men were taught to tackle by what is known as ”live tackling.” I recall especially that earnest coach, Johnny Poe, whose main object in football coaching was to see that the men tackled hard and sure.
Poe, without any padding on at all, would let the men dive into him running at full speed, and the men would throw him in a way that seemed as though it would maim him for life. Some of the men weighed a hundred pounds more than he did, but he would get up and, with a smile, say:
”Come on men, hit me harder; knock me out next time.”
After the first two weeks of the season, Johnny Poe was a complete ma.s.s of black and blue marks; and yet how wonderful and how self sacrificing he was in his eagerness to make the Princeton players good tacklers.
But there are few men like Johnny Poe, who are willing to sacrifice their own bodies for the instruction of others; and the next best method, and one which does not injure the players so much, is tackling the ”dummy.”
As we look at this picture of Howard Henry of Princeton tackling the ”dummy,” we all remember when we were back in the game trying our very best to put our shoulder into our opponent's knees and ”hit him hard, throw him, and hold him.” Henry always got his man.
But the thrill of the game is not in tackling the dummy. The joy comes in a game, when a man is coming through the line, or making a long run, and you throw yourself at his knees, and get your tackle; then up and ready for another.
I recall an experience I had at Princeton one year. When I went to the Club House to get my uniform, which I wanted to wear in coaching, I asked Keene Fitzpatrick, the Trainer, where my suit was. He said:
[Ill.u.s.tration: HIT YOUR MAN LOW]
”It's hanging outside.”
I went outside of the dressing room but could see no suit anywhere. He came out wearing a broad smile.
”No,” he said, ”it isn't out here, it's out there hanging in the air. We made a dummy out of it.”
And there before me I saw my old uniform stuffed with sawdust. I looked at myself--in suspense.
After the men have been given the other preliminary work they are taken to the charging board. The one shown here is used at Yale. It teaches the men quick starting and the use of their hands. It trains them to keep their eyes on the ball and impresses them with the fact that if they start before the ball is put in play, a penalty will follow. A fast charging line has its great value, and every coach is keen to have the forwards move fast to clear the way.
Then after the individual coaching is over, the team runs through signals, and the practice is on. Before very long the head coach announces that practice is over, and the trainer yells:
”Everybody in on the jump,” and you soon find yourself back in the dressing room.
It does not take you long to get your clothes off and ready for the bath. How well some of you will recall that after a hard practice you were content to sit and rest awhile on the bench in the dressing-room.
It may be that, in removing your clothes, you favored an injured knee, looked at a sprained ankle, or helped some fellow off with his jersey.
What is finer, after a hard day's practice, than to stand beneath a warm shower and gradually let the water grow cold? Everything is lovely until some rascal in the bunch throws a cold sponge on you and slaps you across the back, or turns the cold water on, when you only want hot.
Then comes the dry-off and the rub-down, which seems to soothe all your bruises. This picture of Pete Balliet standing on the end of a bench, while Jack McMasters ma.s.sages an injured knee may recall to many a football player the day when the trainer was his best friend. From his wonderful physique it is easy to believe that Balliet must have been the great center-rush whom the heroes of years ago tell about.
Harry Brown, that great Princeton end-rush, is on the other end of the bench, being taken care of by Bill Buss, a jovial old colored attendant, who was for so many years a rubber at Princeton.
I know men who never enthuse over football, but just play from a sense of college loyalty, and a fear of censure should they not play; who are sorry that they were ever big or showed any football ability. College sentiment will not allow a football man to remain idle.
[Ill.u.s.tration: REPAIRS]