Whenever I talk football with Joe Beacham he never forgets to mention Vaughn Cooper, to whom he gives a large share of the credit for the good work of his elevens.  Cooper was of the quiet type, whose specialty was defense.  These two made a great team.

It was in this period that West Point saw the development of one of its greatest field generals.  There was nothing impressive in the physical appearance of little H. L. Hyatt.  A reasonably good man, ball in hand, his greatest value lay in his head work.  As the West Point trainer said one day:  “I’ve got him all bandaged up like a leg in a puttee, but from the neck up he’s a piece of ice.”  The charts of games in which Hyatt ran the team are set before the squad each year as examples, not merely of perfect generalship, but of the proper time to violate that generalship and make it go, a distinction shared by Prichard, who followed in his footsteps with added touches of his own.

One cannot mention Prichard’s name without thinking at once of Merillat, who, with Prichard, formed one of the finest forward passing combinations the game has seen.  Both at Franklin Field and at the Polo Grounds this pair brought woe to the Navy.

These stars had able assistance in the persons of McEwan, one of the greatest centers the game has seen and who was chosen to lead the team in 1916, Weyand, Neyland and O’Hare, among the forwards, and the brilliant and sturdy Oliphant in the backfield, the man whose slashing play against the Navy in 1915 will never be forgotten.  Oliphant was of a most unusual type.  Even when he was doing the heaviest damage to the Navy Corps the midshipmen could not but admire his wonderful work.

What the Hustlers are to Annapolis the Cullom Hall team is to West Point.  It is made up of the leftovers from the first squad and substitutes.  One would travel far afield in search of a team with more spirit and greater pep in action, whether playing in outside games, or as their coach would put it, “showing up” the first Eleven.  Not infrequently a player of the highest caliber is developed in this squad and taken to the first eleven.

The Cullom Hall squad, whose eleven generally manages to clean up some of the strongest school teams of the Hudson Valley, draws not a little of its spirit, I think, from the late Lieutenant E. M. Zell, better known at the Academy as “Jobey.”  It was a treat to see the Cullom Hall team marching down the field against the first Eleven with the roly-poly figure of Jobey in the thick of every scrimmage, coaching at the top of his lungs, even when bowled over by the interference of his own pupils.  Since his time the squad has been turned over to Lieutenants Sellack and Crawford, who have kept alive the traditions and the playing spirit of this unique organization.

Their reward for the bruising, hard work, with hardly a shadow of the hope of getting their letter, comes in seeing the great game itself.  Like the college scrub teams the hardest rooters for the Varsity are to be found in their ranks.