Eddie is known as “Pooch Donovan’s pet.”  Probably the bluest time that Donovan ever had—­in fact, he says it was the bluest—­was when Eddie Mahan had an off-day in the Stadium.  That was the day when Cornell beat Harvard.  Mahan himself says it was the worst day he ever had in his life, and he blames himself.

“It was just as things will come sometimes,” Pooch said to me.  “Nobody knows why they will come, but come they will once in a while.”

“Burr, the great Harvard captain,” said Pooch, “was a natural born leader of men.  He knew a lot of football and Haughton thought the world of him.  Burr went along finely until the last week of the season.  Then, in falling on the ball, he bruised his shoulder, and would not allow himself to go into the Yale game.  It was really this display of good judgment on his part that enabled Harvard to win.

“Too often a team has been handicapped by the playing of a crippled veteran.  As a matter of fact, the worst kind of a substitute is often better than a crippled player.  The fact that the great captain, Burr, stood on the side lines while his team was playing, urged his team mates on to greater efforts.

“In this same game the opposite side of this question was demonstrated.  Bobbie Burch, the Yale captain, who had been injured the week before the game, was put in the game.  His injury handicapped the Yale team considerably.”

Pooch Donovan has been eight years at Harvard.  He has five gold footballs, which he prizes and wears on his watch chain.  During the eight years there have been five victories over Yale, two ties and one defeat.  Pooch has been a football player himself and the experience has made him a better trainer.

In 1895 he played on Temple’s team of the Duquesne Athletic Club.  He was trainer and halfback, and was very fond of the game.  Later on he played in Cleveland against the Chicago Athletic Club, on whose team played Heffelfinger, Sport Donnelly, and other famous knights of the gridiron.

“In the morning we did everything we could to make the stay of the visiting team pleasant,” says Donovan, regarding those days, “but in the afternoon it was different, and in the midst of the game a fellow couldn’t help wondering how men could be so nice to each other in the morning and so rough in the afternoon.”

Pooch Donovan cannot say enough in favor of Doctor E. H. Nichols, the doctor for the Harvard team.  Pooch’s judgment is endorsed by many a Harvard man that I have talked to.

Keene Fitzpatrick

When Biffy Lea was coaching at the University of Michigan in 1901, it was my opportunity and privilege to see something of Western football.  I was at Ann Arbor assisting Lea the last week before Michigan played Chicago.  Michigan was defeated.  That night at a banquet given to the Michigan team, there arose a man to respond to a toast.