Football writers from the daily papers mingled with the throng, and their accounts the following day reflected the optimistic spirit they encountered.  The betting odds were quoted at three to one on Princeton.  “Betting odds” is the way some people gauge the outcome of a football contest, but I have learned from experience, that big odds are not justified on either side in a championship game.

We were up bright and early in the morning and out for a walk before breakfast.  Our team then took the ten o’clock train for New Haven.  Only those who have been through the experience can appreciate the difficulty encountered in getting on board a train for New Haven on the day of a football game.

We were ushered through a side entrance, however, and were finally landed in the special cars provided for us.

On the journey there was a jolly good time.  Good fellowship reigned supreme.  That relieved the nervous tension.  Arthur Poe and Bosey Reiter were the leading spirits in the jollification.  A happier crowd never entered New Haven than the Princeton team that day.  The cars pulled in on a siding near the station and everybody realized that we were at last in the town where the coveted prize was.  We were after the Yale ball.  “On to New Haven” had been our watchword.  We were there.

Following a light lunch in our dining car we soon got our football clothes, and, in a short time, the palatial Pullman car was transformed.  It assumed the appearance of the dressing room at Princeton.  Football togs hung everywhere.  Nose-guards, head-gears, stockings, shin-guards, jerseys, and other gridiron equipment were everywhere.  Here and there the trainer or his assistants were limbering up joints that needed attention.

Two big buses waited at the car platform.  The team piled into them.  We were off to the field.  The trip was made through a welcome of friendly salutes from Princeton men encountered on the way.  Personal friends of individual players called to them from the sidewalks.  Others shouted words of confidence.  Old Nassau was out in overwhelming force.

No team ever received more loyal support.  It keyed the players up to the highest pitch of determination.  Their spirits, naturally at a high mark, rose still higher under the warmth of the welcome.  Repression was a thing of the past.  Every player was jubilant and did not attempt to conceal the fact.

The enthusiasm mounted as we neared the scene of the coming battle.  As we entered the field the air was rent by a mighty shout of welcome from the Princeton hosts.  Our hearts palpitated in response to it.  There was not a man of the team that did not feel himself repaid a thousand-fold for the season’s hard knocks.

But this soon gave way to sober thought of the work ahead of us.  We were there for business.  Falling on the ball, sprinting and limbering up, and running through a few signals, we spent the few minutes before the Yale team came through the corner of the field.  The scenes of enthusiasm that had marked our arrival were repeated, the Yale stand being the center this time of the maelstrom of cheers.  I shall not attempt to describe our own feelings as we got the first glimpse of our opponents in the coming fray.  Who can describe the sensations of the contestants in the first moment of a championship game?