one the best we could to win and
our confidence that with Cowan we could have won even if Holden had not
been hurt. We had beaten Harvard the year before with essentially the
same team that we played in this game."

CHAPTER XVI

THE FAMILY IN FOOTBALL

It is almost possible, I think, to divide football men into two distinct
classes--those who are made into players (and often very good ones) by
the coaches and those who are born with the football instinct. Just how
to define football instinct is a puzzle, but it is very easy to discern
it in a candidate, even if he never saw a football till he set foot on
the campus. By and large, it will be read first in a natural aptitude
for following the ball. After that, in the general way he has of
handling himself, from falling on the ball to dodging and straight arm.
Watch the head coach grin when some green six-foot freshman dives for a
rolling ball and instinctively clutches it into the soft part of his
body as he falls on it. Nobody told him to do it just that way, or to
keep his long arms and legs under control so as to avoid accident, but
he does it nevertheless and thus shows his football instinct.

There is still another kind of football instinct, and that is the kind
that is passed down from father to son and from brother to brother. They
say that the lacemakers of Nottingham don't have to be taught how to
make lace because, as children, they somehow absorb most of the
necessary knowledge in the bosom of their family, and I think the same
thing is true of sons and brothers of football players. Generally, they
pick up the essentials of the game from "Pop" long before they get to
school or college or else are properly educated by an argus-eyed
brother.

[Illustration:

Johnson Edgar Allen
Arthur Nelson Gresham Johnny

THE POE FAMILY]

But the matter of getting football knowledge--of developing the
instinct--isn't always left to the boy. Unless I'm grievously mistaken
it's more often the fond father who takes the first step. In fact, some
fathers I've known have, with a commendable eye to future victories,
even dated the preparation of their offspring from the hour when he was
first shown them by the nurse: "Let me take a squint at the little
rascal," says the beaming father and expertly examines the young
hopeful's legs. "Ah, hah, bully! We'll make a real football player out
of _him_!"

And so, some day when Dick or Ken is six or seven, Father p