Every one of these men that I have known has had a strong personality.  Each one, however, differed somewhat from the others.  There is a great affection on the part of the players for the man who cares for their athletic welfare.  These men are often more than mere trainers.  Their personalities have carried them farther than the dressing room.  Their interest in the boys has continued after they left college.  Their influence has been a lasting one, morally, as well as physically.

On account of their association, the trainers keep pace with the men about them; not limiting their interest to athletics.  They are always found entertaining at the athletic banquets, and their personalities count for much on the campus.  They are all but boys grown up, with well known athletic records behind them.  In the hospital, or in the quietness of a college room, or on trips, the trainer is a friend and adviser.

Go and talk to the trainer of the football team if you want to get an unbiased opinion of the team’s work or of the value of the individual coaches.  Some of our trainers know much about the game of football—­the technical side—­and their advice is valuable.

Every trainer longs to handle good material, but more power to the trainer who goes ahead with what he’s got and makes the best out of it without a murmur.  In our recollections we know of teams that were reported to be going stale—­“over-trained”—­“a team of cripples”—­who slumped—­could not stand the test—­were easily winded—­could not endure.

They were nightmares to the trainer.  Soon you read in the daily press indications that a change of trainer is about to take place in such a college.

Then we turn to another page of our recollections where we read: 

“The team is fit to play the game of their lives.”  “Only eleven men were used in to-day’s game.”  “Great tribute to the trainer.”  “Men could have played all day”—­“no time taken out”—­“not a man injured”—­“pink of condition.”  Usually all this spells victory.

Jack McMasters was the first trainer that I met.  “Scottie,” as every one affectionately called him, never asked a man to work for him any harder than he would work himself.  In a former chapter you have read how Jack and I put in some hard work together.

I recall a trip to Boston, where Princeton was to play Harvard.  Most of the Princeton team had retired for the night.  About ten o’clock Arthur Poe came down into the corridor of the Vendome Hotel and told “Scottie” that Bill Church and Johnny Baird were upstairs taking a cold shower.

Jack was furious, and without stopping for the elevator hustled upstairs two steps at a time only to find both of these players sound asleep in bed.  Needless to say that Arthur Poe kept out of sight until Jack retired for the night.  A trainer’s life is not all pleasure.

Once after the train had started from Princeton this same devilish Arthur Poe, as Jack would call him, rushed up forward to where Jack was sitting in the train and said: