One or two comparatively tricky plays helped whet the spectators' interest. One was for the left tackle to go into motion, run behind the quarterback, take the ball from him, and round right end hopefully. Penalties existed for tackling low, so if the man got started speedily, his chances of making a touchdown weren't too bad.

But the players were willing to try anything in a pinch. In the Harvard-Pennsylvania game of 1887, the men from Philadelphia could do nothing against a sturdy Crimson line. It was a stormy day with the rain coming down in torrents, and as the CRIMSON said, "rendering the ground and ball very slippery and making fine plays impossible."

Fat Guard Gets Chance

So the Penn captain looked about him, and his eye fixed on Bowser, a very fat guard. "Let's give Bowser a chance," he said, and Bowser was put in the backfield, while the team assured itself that his bountiful avoirdupois would cut through the Cantabs like a cleaver through soft butter.

But all did not go as planned. When the ball was hiked back to Bowser, it hit him in the stomach, and bounced off into the arms of Harding, the Crimson quarterback, who ran for a touchdown.

One of the more dramatic contests of the period was the '87 Princeton game, which Harvard won 12-0. For a while there was no score, while the Crimson players watched Nassau's full-back, "Snake' Ames, very closely. His nickname was well-earned; he was as slippery as an ecl. Near the end of the first half, Ames received the ball and began wending his sure way through the Harvard team,

Captain Holden of the Crimson finally threw himself in front of Ames, and stopped him. Unfortunately, he was kneed in the chest, which was seriously pushed in. As he was carried off the field, Holden exhorted the team not to worry about him, but to beat Princeton. This they did, and later, when a number of surgeons were having a consultation on whether to operate, Holden sneezed, and his chest returned to normal.

Fewer Injuries than Today

Although many games were played on a frozen field, and the players were no padding except on their elbows an knees, there were fewer injuries than there are today. One reason is that the teams were lighter. Woodman, for example, who played left tackle for three years in the Eighties, weighed only 175, and was considered easily heavy enough for that position.

The absence of blocking also accounts for the comparative safety of the game. Though there was still the tendency to "pile-up." as in a rugby scrum, the scientific and often dangerous body-contact of present-day football had not yet arrived. Tackling was more a question of pulling a man down than of bringing him down.

Like the injured captain of the Harvard team, no football player wanted to leave the game unless he was absolutely unable to keep going. There was scarcely a substitution made, a fact all the more astonishing when one remembers that each half was forty-five minutes long.

When a rare substitution did occur, the CRIMSON noted it in its account of the game with thinly-veiled surprise. In the story on the previously mentioned Princeton game, the daily lifts a collegiate eyebrow to say, "Price was worn out and requested Harvard to let his brother take his place. This was done and Channing started to run." Family ties were also important in those days.

Soggy Ball Used

The ball used was generally quite soft, and its shape was nearer to being round than it is today. With passing confined to a rare lateral, a large, hard pigskin was not needed. The team would lace and blow up the ball just before the game and often they had a long, difficult time doing it to their satisfaction. Woodman, one of the five surviving members of the team of '87, remembers his difficulties preparing the pigskin with pained amusements.

Football, having just reached manhood, was still informal, idealistic, and lusty. Though the team was supported by the college magazines, it did not draw large crowds out to Jarvis Field. There a couple of thousand people would gather to watch the bare-headed, mustachioed athletes tangle.