FOOTBALL, 1860

In Memoriam

(Over a winged skull)

The game was revived in 1871, when students engaged in their contests outside the Yard, on the Cambridge Common. The resurrected football was for the first time governed by rules, tripping, striking, hacking, lurking or butting thereafter prohibited. The players were driven off the Common by an order of the City Fathers on petition of a few unsympathetic citizens of Cambridge, in May, 1873, at which time the game was transferred to Holmes Field, a rough, uneven place, at that time unused for anything. Goal posts were ereected at a cost of $2.50.

The season of 1874 was destined to leave a deep impression upon American football, for during this year occurred the first Harvard-McGill game, the first contest of intercollegiate Rugby played in this country and the contest which led directly to the present intercollegiate game. The teams met on Jarvis Field, May 14, eleven men participating on each side. Following this year, often termed the most "momentous" of football history, Harvard met on the playing field with McGill and other Canadian universities for a number of years, previous to the first engagement with Yale at the beginning of the last quarter of the century.

Football Togs of 1881

The accoutrement for the Crimson team of 1881 consisted of high baseball shoes with leather strips on the soles, crimson stockings and jerseys, with a white canvas jacket over the jersey, and knee breeches that once had been white. There were no pads or head gears or similar protection, for mass play had not been invented. A few of the Harvard men went bareheaded while others wore crimson football caps of soft wool without visors; the Yale team wore long blue caps knit like a stocking with a blue tassel.

Though a blasting wind swept across the field and the men were drenched to the skin after the first 45 minutes of play--there being two halfs of 45 minutes each--the men simply wandered about the field during intermission. There were no rubdowns, there was no hot broth: for no quarters or dressing rooms were then in use. Until 1881 there was no medical supervisor nor any physical trainer. That year also witnessed the coming to Harvard of its first football coach, yet systematic coaching was not instituted until Captain W.A. Brooks '87 appointed F.A. Mason '84 coach.

The '80's having brought in many features which contributed to the game as it is now played, it remained for the '90's not only to advance its organization still further, but to preserve football itself through a series of struggles for existence which had their inception about 1891 and ended just before the World War. It was in 1890 that Harvard had its first medical care of football players. Dr. W.M. Conant '79, a former player, was made by the captain, alsolute lord of the physical side of that year's eleven. In 1893 was begun the quarterback kick, the precursor of the onside kicking game. Likewise during this decade came the innovation of the first tackling dummy ever used at Cambridge. This was a crude and fearful engine, a cylinder of about five feet in height and 18 inches in diameter, covered with leather with very little padding under it, and weighing approximately 100 pounds. A shelf projecting some six or eight inches from the circumference encircled the dummy about three feet from the bottom and was for the purpose of compelling the men to get their heads down under it when tackling. This device was hung vertically by a rope in the gymnasium and while it undoubtedly taught the men to tackle low and was the embroyo of a contrivance since developed into universal usage, it was so heavy and so hard that a good many men came away from the dummy drills injured, some suffering even broken collar bones.

One of the high spots which led to football chaos and the crisis of its existence during the closing years of the century was the "Flying Wedge" of 1892, the harbinger of a long line of momentum-mass plays ultimately to be legislated illegal. Following this for a number of years, the coaching brains of the country were concentrated in conceiving momentum and mass plays in which bulk and power were to accomplish what skill and artistry were to do in years to come. In 1893 the Crimson cohorts surprised the football world by taking the field in leather breeches. In 1894 all home football activities were transferred from Jarvis to Soldiers Field. This decade also gave to Harvard the world's greatest punter and Harvard's great coach, Percy D. Haughton '99, the world's second best quarterback of all time according to Walter Camp, Charlie Daly '01, and Marshall Newell '94, one of the few starts of football history who have detested the game.

Harvard Snatches 22 to 0 Win

With the turn of the century came hope that the Yale series of victories was at an end, for a decisive 22 to 0 Harvard win in 1901 was made by an aggregation strong in every department of the game. Only once between then and 1913, however, were the Blue cohorts again halted, in 1908, when Harvard just succeeded in eking out a 4 to 0 victory. This win came at the beginning of Haughton's coaching regime, and by one move of his during the tilt, he stamped himself as a great coach. The game had been going in Harvard's favor until toward the end of the first half when E.F. Ver Wiebe '09, started a march for Harvard which seemed destined to go through for a touchdown. To the amazement of every one on the Harvard side Ver Wiebe was withdrawn when the ball reached Yale's 20 yard line and V.P. Kennard '09 was sent in to kick a goal from the field from a somewhat difficult angle.

Under the rules existant at that time players and coaches were permitted to walk along the side lines. Haughton had given Kennard a warning signal and Kennard moved along the side lines, always keeping the Harvard center in a direct line between him- self and the center of the Yale goal.

When Ver Wiebe was withdrawn, Kennard walked on the field along that line and, when at the right distance made the signal to the Harvard center to snap the ball, the ball was passed and the goal kicked before the Yale players, and almost before the Harvard men grasped the true significance of the situation. Kennard's success crowned perhaps the most persistent training on one feature of the game ever gone through by an individual, for he had practiced drop-kicking for months until he had the trick worked into a fine art.

The Tide Turns