Percy Haughton introduced countless innovations into the game which he loved, played and coached so well. One of the first of them was the "specialist". Hardly had he begun the career that was to lead him to fame when he startled the football world with a dramatic inspiration that gave the University a victory over Yale. To have a specialist ready for the crucial moment in a game when he would be most needed was an unheard of innovation. But when Kennard was rushed into the Yale game in 1908 to kick the winning points through a goal from the field the football world sat up and took notice of the new strategy. A little later in the same game, when the Crimson was hard pressed, another specialist was sent to the rescue, and Henry Sprague literally kicked his team out of the impending shadow of defeat.

Now specialists are so common in football games that the spectators are merely interested in them because of the tense situations which make their entrance into the game necessary.

Began Harvard Quarterback System

Haughton's ideas of the duties of a quarterback were also novel. To him the quarterback was the "brain" of the team, and he did not propose to risk the quick, clear thinking of that brain by forcing the quarterback to carry the ball and get roughed up so badly in the scrimmages that he would be unable to direct his team successfully. Haughton's strategy, therefore, always aimed at the preservation of the quarterback's mental clarity. He preferred a lightweight whose brain was functioning every second to a big powerful man who was a good ball carrier, and so more easily tempted to run the risk of being badly shaken up.

Brusque Manner Inspired Team

"Haughton's brusque manner on and off the field during the football season was frequently misconstrued by those who were not intimate with him and his methods", says Mr. Hardwick. He gives another instance of the coach's seemingly hard-hearted manner when he was all absorbed in some problem or enterprise.

"I remember once, in my senior year, before a Princeton game, he had just finished talking to the team before going to the field. He had created an atmosphere of determination among the team he had molded us into a set fighting frame of mind, at which art he was a supreme master. We started out of the locker building, P. D. at the head. On the steps a freshman candidate for manager stepped up to Haughton with a message sent him from the field P D swung his arm, grabbed the astounded manager by the shoulder, roughly shoved him out of the path into a clump of shrubs. With a sharp 'Get out of the way, damn you,' he stopped, pointed at the Stadium 'Own it," he said.

"Out we dashed, with the one idea that that field belonged to us and no one else was going to boss it but ourselves, and that the President of the United States, the president of Harvard College, the members of the Princeton team or any other unfortunate individual that chanced to be about had better get out of the way if he valued his health. The freshman picked himself up dumb-founded, tears of humiliation in his eyes and hating Haughton. P. D. had had no intention of being mean or unkind, but nothing was to break into the background he had set for us, nothing detract from our line of thought. Later he looked up the boy, explained the situation, told him he was doing, his manager-ship job all right, and the boy was lett happy and holding P. D. in the same respect and admiration that we all felt for him willing to carry out unquestioning his slightest wish."

Mr. Hardwick summed up his feeling toward his old teacher in a significant fashion. "I came to Harvard placing Mr. Haughton on a pedestal. He was the idol of a boy's intense hero worship, I worked three years under that idol, and I left college even a greater disciple of, not 'Mr. Haughton', but my close friend 'P. D.'