As it chanced the Shevlin car was put upon a siding adjoining that on which the car of Gill Rafferty lay.  Rafferty, as a matter of fact, was making his laborious way down the steps as Mr. Shevlin emerged from his car.  Mr. Rafferty looked up, blinked in the November sunlight and then nodded cheerfully.  “Well, Shevlin,” he said, “I suppose by to-night we’ll be known simply as the fathers of two great Yale favorites.”  Shevlin nodded and said “he fancied such would be the case.”  A few hours later, in the gloom of the twilight, after Yale had been defeated, the elder Shevlin was finding his somber way to the steps of his car and met Rafferty face to face.  Shevlin nodded and was about to pass on without speaking, when Rafferty placed his hand upon his shoulder.  “Well, Shevlin,” he said solemnly, “I see we are still old man Shevlin and old man Rafferty.”

W. C. Rhodes

One has only to hear Jim Rodgers tell the story of Billy Rhodes to realize how deeply the iron of football disaster sinks into the soul.

“Rhodes was captain of the losing team in the fall of ’90, when Yale’s Eleven was beaten by Harvard’s,” Rodgers tells us.  “Arthur Cumnock was the Harvard captain, and the score was 12 to 6.  Two remarkable runs for touchdowns made by Dudley Dean and Jim Lee decided the contest.

“For twenty years afterwards, back to Springfield, New Haven or Cambridge, wherever the Yale-Harvard games were played, came with the regularity of their occurrence, Billy Rhodes.

“He was to be seen the night before, and the morning of the game.  He always had his tickets for the side line and wore the badge as an ex-Yale captain.  But the game itself Billy Rhodes never saw.

“If at Springfield, he was to be found in the Massasoit House, walking the floor until the result of the game was known.  If at New Haven, he was not at the Yale Field.  He walked around the field and out into the woods.  If the game was at Cambridge, he was not at Holmes Field, or later, at Soldiers’ Field.

“When the game was over he would join in the celebration of victory, or sink into the misery of defeat, as the case might be.  But he never could witness a game.  The sting of defeat had left its permanent wound.”

A YALE NIGHTMARE

Those who saw the Army defeat Yale at West Point in 1904 must realize what a blow it was to the Blue.  The first score came as a result of a blocked kick by West Point, which was recovered by Erwin, who picked up the ball and dashed across the line for a touchdown.  The Army scored the second time when Torney cut loose and ran 105 yards for a touchdown.

Sam Morse, captain of the Yale 1906 team, who played right halfback in this game, tells how the nightmare of defeat may come upon us at any time, even in the early season, and incidentally how it may have its compensations.