e' the freshman team, and had our first
experience in a match game of football against the Harvard freshman at
Boston. I don't remember who won that contest, but I do remember the
University eleven, under Eugene Baker's careful training, beating
Harvard that fall at New Haven and my football enthusiasm being fired up
to a desire to make the team, if it were possible.

"Of course, Walter Camp has for many years, and deservedly so, been
regarded as the father of football at Yale, but in my day, and at least
until Baker left college, he was only an ordinary mortal and a good
halfback. Baker was the unquestioned star and I cannot disabuse my mind
that he was the original football man of Yale, and at least entitled to
the title of 'grandfather' of the game there and it was from him that my
tuition mainly came.

"My impression is that Baker was always for the open running and passing
game and that mass playing and flying wedges and the various refinements
of the game that depended largely on 'beef' were of a later day.

"For four years I played in the rush line with Walter Camp as a
halfback, and for two years, at least, with Hull and Ben Lamb on either
side of me, all of us somehow understanding each other's game and all
being ready and willing to help each other out. Whatever ability and
dexterity I may have developed seemed to show itself at its best when
playing with them and to prove that good team work and 'knowing your
man' wins.

"I got to know Walter Camp's methods and ways of playing, so that,
somehow or other, I could judge pretty well where the ball was going to
drop when he kicked and could navigate myself about so that I was, more
often than any one else on our side, near the ball when it dropped to
the ground, and, if perchance, it happened to be muffed by an opposing
player, which put me 'on side,' the chances of a touchdown, if I got the
ball, were excellent, and Hull and Lamb were somehow on hand to back me
up and were ready to follow me in any direction.

"During my last two years of football the 'rushers' were unanimously of
the opinion that the kicking, dodging and passing open game was the game
we should strive for and that it was the duty of the halfback and backs
to end their runs with a good long punt, wherever possible, and give us
a chance to get under the ball when it came down, while the rest of the
team behind the line were in favor of a running mass play game,
particularly in wet and slippe