Victor Harding, Harvard, and Yup Cook, Princeton ’89, had played on Andover and Exeter, respectively, and had trouble then, so four years later when they met, one on Princeton and the other on Harvard, they had more trouble.  Both were ruled off for rough work.  Cook picked Harding up off the ground and slammed him down and then walked off the field.  In a few minutes Harding, after trying to trip Ames, also was ruled off.  That was the net result of the old Andover-Exeter feud.

In ’91 Princeton was playing Rutgers.  Those were the days of the old “V” trick in starting a game.  When the Orange and Black guards and centers tore up the Rutgers’ V it was found that the Captain of the latter team had broken his leg in the crush.  He showed great nerve, for while sitting on the ground waiting for a stretcher, he remarked in a nonchalant way, “Give me a cigarette.  I could die for Old Rutgers,” his tone being “Me first and then Nathan Hale.”  One version quite prevalent around Princeton has it that a Tiger player rushed up and exclaimed, “Die then.”  This is not true as I played in that game and know whereof I speak.

Fifteen years after that had happened, I met Phil Brett who had captained the Rutgers Team that day, and he told me that his life had been a burden to him at times, and like Job, he felt like cursing God and dying, because often upon coming into a cafe or even a hotel dining-room some half drunken acquaintance would yell out, “Hello, Phil, old man, could you die for dear Old Rutgers?”

Several years ago while in the Kentucky Militia in connection with one of those feud cases, I was asked by a private if I were related to Edgar Allan Poe, “De mug what used to write poetry,” and when I replied, “Yes, he was my grandmother’s first cousin,” he, evidently thinking I was too boastful, remarked, “Well, man, you’ve got a swell chance.”

So, knowing that the football season is near I think I have a “swell chance” to tell some of the old football stories handed down at Princeton from college generation to generation.  If I have hurt any old Princeton players’ feelings, I do humbly ask pardon and assure them that it is unintentional; for as the Indians would put it, my heart is warm toward them, and, when I die, place my hands upon my chest and put their hands between my hands.

With apologies to Kipling in his poem when he speaks of the parting of the Colonial troops with the Regulars: 

    “There isn’t much we haven’t shared
      For to make the Elis run. 
    The same old hurts, the same old breaks,
      The same old rain and sun. 
    The same old chance which knocked us out
      Or winked and let us through. 
    The same old joy, the same old sorrow,
      Good-bye, good luck to you.”

CHAPTER XII

ARMY AND NAVY