and beseeches you to anticipate this cowardly action, and
you smile inwardly. Football seriousness is oftentimes amusing. Some of
our best Umpires always have a little talk with the team before the
game.

I often remember the old days when Paul Dashiell, the famous Umpire,
used to come into our dressing room. Standing in the center of the room,
he would make an appeal to us in his earnest, inimitable way, not to
play off-side. He would explain just how he interpreted holding and the
use of arms in the game. He would urge us to be thoroughbreds and to
play the game fair; to make it a clean game, so that it might be
unnecessary to inflict penalties. "Football," he would say, "is a game
for the players, not for the officials." Then he would depart, leaving
behind him a very clear conviction with us that he meant business. If we
broke the rules our team would unquestionably suffer.

Some of my most pleasant football recollections are those gained as an
official in the game. I count it a rare privilege to have worked in many
games year after year where I came in close contact with the players on
different college teams; there to catch their spirit and to see the
working out of victories and defeats at close range.

Here it is that one comes in close touch with the great power of
leadership, that "do or die" spirit, which makes a player ready to go in
a little harder with each play. Knocked over, he comes up with a grin
and sets his jaw a little stiffer for next time.

As an official you are often thrilled as you see a man making a great
play; you long to pat him on the back and say, "Well done!" If you see
an undiscovered fumbled ball you yearn to yell out--"Here it is!" But
all this you realize cannot be done unless one momentarily forgets
himself like John Bell.

"My recollection is that I acted as an official in but one game," says
he. "I was too intense a partisan. Nevertheless, I was pressed into
service in a Lehigh-Penn game in the late '80's. I recall that Duncan
Spaeth, now Professor of English at Princeton and coach of the Princeton
crew, was playing on Pennsylvania's team. He made a long run with the
ball; was thrown about the 20-yard line; rose, pushed on and was thrown
again between the 5- and 10-yard line. Refusing to be downed, he
continued to roll over a number of times, with several Lehigh players
hanging on to him, until finally he was stopped, within about a foot of
the goal line. Forgetting his offic