Then comes the dry-off and the rub-down, which seems to soothe all your bruises.  This picture of Pete Balliet standing on the end of a bench, while Jack McMasters massages an injured knee may recall to many a football player the day when the trainer was his best friend.  From his wonderful physique it is easy to believe that Balliet must have been the great center-rush whom the heroes of years ago tell about.

Harry Brown, that great Princeton end-rush, is on the other end of the bench, being taken care of by Bill Buss, a jovial old colored attendant, who was for so many years a rubber at Princeton.

I know men who never enthuse over football, but just play from a sense of college loyalty, and a fear of censure should they not play; who are sorry that they were ever big or showed any football ability.  College sentiment will not allow a football man to remain idle.

[Illustration:  Repairs]

I knew a man in college, who, on his way to the football field, said: 

“Oh, how I hate to drag my body down to the Varsity field to-day to have it battered and bruised!”

One does not always enthuse over the hard drudgery of practice.  Those that witness only the final games of the year, little realize the gruesome task of preparedness.  Every football player will acknowledge that some day he has had these thoughts himself.

But suddenly the day comes when this discouraged player sees a light.  Perhaps he has developed a hidden power, or it may be that he has broken through and made a clean tackle behind the line; perhaps he has made a good run and received a compliment from the coach.  It may be that his side partner has given him a word of encouragement, which may have instilled into him a new spirit, and, as a result, he has turned out to be a real football player.  He then forgets all the bruises and all the hard knocks.

How true it is that in one play, or in a practice game, or in a contest against an opposing college, a player has found himself.  Do you players of football remember the day you made the team, the day your chance came and you took advantage of it?  At such a time a player shows great possibilities.  He is told by the captain to report at the training house for the Varsity signals.  Who that has experienced the thrill of that moment can ever forget it?

He earns his seat at the Varsity table.  He is now on the Varsity squad.  He goes on, determined to play a better game, and realizes he must hold his place at the training table by hard, conscientious work.

One is not unmindful of the traditions that are centered about the board where so many heroes of the past have sat.  You have a keen realization of the fact that you are filling the seat of men who have gone before you, and that you must make good, as they made good.  Their spirit lives.

The training table is a great school for team spirit.  To have a successful team, any coach will tell you, there must be a brotherly feeling among the members of the team.  The men must chum together on and off the field.  Team work on the field is made much easier if there is team work off the field.