It has been a long and friendly relationship we have had with Harvard. It has stretched down the years from 1882 to today and there is no reason to think that it will not be continued so long as the game of football is played in this land.
It carries a moral, this record of a long friendship on the field of sport. For it is more than that. No one actually believes that what happens on the field of friendly battle means anything, but we can look for the significance of today's titanic tussle in the future.
Green . . .
The men who today will battle it out on the turf, and the men in the stands who will cheer them on to glory, will in a few years march hand in hand (figuratively speaking, of course) into the larger world that counts for so much more than sport. They will remember their happy undergraduate days, and they will be fired with a feeling of sportsmanship. The Duke of Wellington said that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton; we would amend his inspired sentence to read: the battle of life is to be won on the playing field of Harvard Stadium.
From this point of view it little matters who wins the game to be played on the Crimson greensward today. From the point of view of sportsmanship, it does not matter that Dartmouth's Indians have won the last three years under the great coaching of Tuss McLaughry.
Hills of
Do not forget that before the war, Harvard used to win under the coaching of Dick Harlow. These two coaches for the friendly rival teams of Harvard and Dartmouth, well sum up the great tradition of Ivy League football.
Take DcOrmond McLaughry, for instance. Who calls him by his first name? No one. To every man on the campus, he is "Tuss," the most popular head Indian Dartmouth has ever had. And why is this? Certainly not because he has been a coach of always-winning teams. As a matter of fact his teams have lost more games than they have won: his lifetime Dartmouth record is 30 wins, 31 defeats, and 3 ties.
But who round our part of the hills cares about that. The thing that counts is that "Tuss" is a leader of men, a coach who treats all his players from captain on down, like brothers--a coach we can be proud of.
Our readers will notice that there has been practically no grumbling around the college after the poor start of the Dartmouth team. There are very few other coaches in the business (and football coaching is a real business) who could survive a record of four losses and one tie in their last five games without being growled at by irate students and alumni. This is a real and touching tribute to the popularity of "Tuss."
Manheed
It does not matter, we repeat, who wins Of course, ever Harvard student wants his own stalwarts to win, and every Dartmouth man fresh down from the bills, his blood on tire with enthusiasm for his team, his Johnny Clayton, his coach McLaughry every Dartmouth student who has green blood in his veins will cheer for his team till he is hoarse.
Of course, the partisans of both teams will be cheering their own favorites on. But deep inside all the cheering men (and even the ladies bless 'em) will know that football is just a game.
It is a wonderful game. We wouldn't miss it for the world. But it is only a game.
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