Athletic Club at Cleveland.  George and myself were invited to play with the Cleveland club, and on the Crescent team were Alex Moffat and Terry.  Terry played left halfback, and right here was where I got in my work.  When Terry ran with the ball I generally had a chance to help him meet the earth.  I had one chance in particular.  Terry got the ball and got around our end, and on a long end run I took after him, caught him from the side, threw him over my head out of bounds.  As we were both running at the top of our speed he hit the ground with considerable force.  I felt better towards him after this game.”

In such vivid phrases as these a great hero of the past tells of things well worth recording.

* * * * *

Football competition is very strong.  There is the keenest sort of rivalry among college teams.  There is very little love on the part of the men who play against each other on the day of the contest, but after the game is all over, and these men meet in after years, very strong friendships are often formed.  Sometimes these opponents never meet again, but down deep in their hearts they have a most wholesome regard for each other, and so in my recollections of the old heroes, it will be most interesting to hear in their own words, something about their own achievements and experiences in the games they played thirty years ago.  Hector Cowan, who captained the ’88 team at Princeton, played three years against George Woodruff of Yale.  It has been twenty-eight years since that wonderful battle took place between these two men.  It is still talked about by people who saw the game, and now let us read what these two contestants say about each other.

“Of the three years that I played guard I met George Woodruff as my opponent,” says Cowan, “and I always felt that he was the strongest man I had to meet and one who was always on the square.  He played the game for what it was worth, and he showed later that he could teach it to others by the way he taught the Penn’ team.”

Says George Woodruff, delving into the old days:  “Hector Cowan played against me three years at guard, and he fully deserves the reputation he had at that time in every particular of the game, including running with the ball.  I doubt whether any other Princeton man was ever more able to make ground whenever he tried, although Cowan was not in any particular a showy player.  For some reason or other, Cowan seems to have had a reputation for rough play, which shows how untrue traditions can be handed down.  I never played against or with a finer and steadier player, or one more free from the remotest desire to play roughly for the sake of roughness itself.”

When Heffelfinger’s last game had been played there appeared in a newspaper of November 26th, 1888, a farewell to Heffelfinger.