Where is the old football player, who, gazing at this picture, will not be carried back to those days that will never come again; hours when you listened perhaps guiltily to the stinging words of the coach; moments when spurred on by the thunder and lightning of his wrath you could hardly wait to get out upon the field to grapple with your opponents.  At such times, all that was worth while seemed to surge up within you, fiercely demanding a chance, while if you were a coach you yearned to get into the game, only to realize as the team trotted out on the field that yours was no longer a playing part.  All you could expect henceforth would be to walk nervously up and down the side line with chills and thrills alternating along your spine.

There were no coaches in the old days.  Football history relates that in the beginning fellows who wanted fun and exercise would chip in and buy a leather cover for a beef bladder.  It was necessary to have a supply of these bladders on hand, for stout kicks frequently burst them.

In those days the ball was tossed up in the air and all hands rushed for it.  There was no organization then, very few rules, and the football players developed themselves.

To-day the old-time player stands on the side lines and hears the coach yelling: 

“Play hard!  Fall on the ball!  Tackle low!  Start quick!  Charge hard and fast!”

As far as the fundamentals go, the game seems to him much the same, but when he begins to recollect he sees how far it has really progressed.  He recalls how the football coach became a reality and how a teacher of football appeared upon the gridiron.

Better coaching systems were installed as football progressed.  Rules were expanded, trainers crept in, intercollegiate games were scheduled and competition and keen rivalry developed everywhere.  In fact, the desire to win has become so firmly established in the minds of college men that we now have a finished product in our great American game of football—­wonderfully attractive, but very expensive.

Competition has grown to such an extent that our coaching systems of to-day resemble, in a way, the plans for national preparedness—­costly, but apparently necessary.  All this means that the American football man, like the American captain of industry, or the American pioneer in any field of activity, is never content to stand still.  His motto is, “Ever Onward.”

It is not always the star player that makes the greatest coach.  The mediocre man is quite likely to have absorbed as much football teaching ability as the star; and when his opportunity comes to coach, he sometimes gets more out of the men than the man with the big reputation.

Personality counts in coaching.  In addition to a coach’s keen sense of football, there must be a strong personality around which the players may rally.  All this inspires confidence.

It is a joy for a coach to work with good material—­the real foundation of success.  The rules of to-day, however, give what, under old standards, was the weaker team a much broader opportunity for victory over physically larger and stronger opponents.