I never hear the expression “team mates” used but I recall a certain Princeton team, the captain of which was endowed with a wonderful power of leadership.  There was nothing the men would not do for him.  Every man on the team regarded him as a big brother.  Yet there was one man on the squad who seemed inclined to be alone.  He had little to say, and when his work was over on the field he always went silently away to his room.  He did not mingle with the other players in the club house after dinner, and there did not seem to be much warmth in him.

Garry Cochran, the captain, took some of us into his confidence, and we made it our business to draw this fellow out of his shell.  It was not long before we found that he was an entirely different sort of a person from what he had seemed to be.

In a short time, the fellow who was unconsciously retarding good fellowship among the members of the team was no longer a silent negative individual, but was soon urging us on in a get-together spirit.

It will be impossible to relate all the good times had at a college training table.  I think that every football man will agree with me that we now have a great deal of sympathy for the trainer, whereas in the old days we roasted him when it seemed that dinner would never be ready.

How the hungry mob awaited the signal!

“The flag is down,” as old Jim Robinson would say, and Arthur Poe would yell: 

“Fellows, the hash is ready.”

Then the hungry crowd would scramble in for the big event of the day.  There awaited them all the delicacies of a trainer’s menu; the food that made touchdowns.  If the service was slow, the good-natured trainer was all at fault, and he too joined in the spirit of their criticism.  If the steak was especially tender, they would say it was tough.  There was much juggling of the portions distributed.  Fred Daly recalls the first week that he and Johnnie Kilpatrick were at the Yale training table.  Kil called for some chocolate, and Johnnie Mack, the trainer, yelled back: 

“What do you think this is, anyway, a hospital?”

That started something for awhile in the way of jollying.  Daly recalls another incident, that happened often at Yale one year.  It is about Bill Goebel, who certainly could put the food away.  After disposing of about twelve plates of ice cream, which he had begged, borrowed or stolen, he called one of the innocent waiters over to him and asked in a gentle voice:  “Say, George, what is the dessert for to-night?”

Then there comes the good-natured “joshing” of the fellow who has made a fine play during the practice, or in the game of the day.  One or two of the fun makers rush around, put their hands on him and hold him tight for fear he will not be able to contain himself on account of his success of the day.  This sort of jollification makes the fellow who has made a bad play forget what he might have done, and he too becomes buoyant amidst the good fellowship about him.