Football in '80s Wild and Woolly, Featuring Pulled Whiskers, Flying Wedge, Fancy Kicking

When Rutgers and Princeton, the, Crimson's opponents of this week and next, baptized the American sport of football back in 1896, the game was played a little differently than it will be tomorrow. Among other things, twenty-five players who are told to "kick the ball when you can and kick the other fellow's shins when you can't kick the ball" will provide a spectacle not quite like that of eleven disciplined 'fellows' who have been trained for months in the principles of the T and the single wing.

It was not until Walter Camp, in the early Eighties, told his men that "football is tow thirds able the neck," that the game ceased to look like a traditional Freshman-Sophomore mud fight.

In the early days there were no uniforms no organized plays, on running or passing. Slowly the disorder resolved itself into a huddle, in which the quarterback would say cryptically, "now the flying wedge," or "let's try the triangle," and by 1885 football had entered its middle, or classic period.

The early experimentation had come to a stop, and the game was becoming in every way comparatively formalized. A few old photographs will immediately show the outward signs. The football player may not have worn a helmet, but a mustache in full bloom weighed him down almost as much.

Scores Were High

Sportsmanship has not been superseded by subsidization, as it has in most American colleges and the scores, which frequently zoomed to around the hundred mark, were a result of the cultivated, and now nearly neglected, art of drop-kicking.

Harvard had taken up football three years after Rutgers, but during the Eighties old Jawn was suffering from an inferiority complex. In 1886, for example, although he spanked Tufts 82-0 and Dartmouth 70-0, there was nothing he could do with Eli, who won to the tune of 29-4. In fact, the Crimson did not take one game from Yale during the Eighties, a time when the famous, and partly fictitious, "Harvard indifference" was born. There may have been a connection.

During these days, the game was less exciting, though often more eventful, than it is today. The forward pass was strictly for bidden but a number of delicate little methods for gaining ground were looked upon with tolerance.

Whisker-Pulling Common

Since the two team lined up almost cheek-to-check, and the referee never watched too closely, gouging of eyes and pulling of whiskers were fairly common practices.

"Pa" Corbin, center of the 1887 Yale team, were flashy side whiskers, and after a few plays of the game with Harvard at the Polo Grounds, he turned to the referee and said, "Mr, referee, this man opposite me is pulling my whiskers." "Marcou probably was," chuckles old Varsity man Francis C. Woodman '88, who had a player opposite him that aimed his fingers at Woodman's eyes every time he had the ball. Any innovation might prove useful in the new game.

President Eliot, when asked why, though a crew enthusiast, he never went to football games, answered tartly, "It's too much like a circus." That probably was at once the great drawback and beauty of the game during the Eighties. There were no forward passes and no real blocking, and yet the scores were phenomenally large. Part of the reason may be that organized defense systems were unknown, and the kicking was plentiful and accurate.

A number of the Princeton players the accepted masters in the art of the drop-kick, could boot field goals from any angle or from the 47 yard line. One of the backs would lie full-length on the ground, while the kicker would take on step up and place the ball squarely between the crossbars.

Flying Wedge in Heyday

There were only a few plays for the quarterback to choose from. The flying wedge was in its heyday, there being only one way to stop it. To accomplish this the defensive teams would have to perform the highly dangerous maneuver of lying flat on the ground and trying to trip up the onrushing wedge. If they succeeded, there would be a great heap of about twenty men in the line of scrimmage, and no yards gained.

One or two comparatively tricky plays helped whet the spectators' interest. One was for the left tackle to go into motion, run behind the quarterback, take the ball from him, and round right end hopefully. Penalties existed for tackling low, so if the man got started speedily, his chances of making a touchdown weren't too bad.

But the players were willing to try anything in a pinch. In the Harvard-Pennsylvania game of 1887, the men from Philadelphia could do nothing against a sturdy Crimson line. It was a stormy day with the rain coming down in torrents, and as the CRIMSON said, "rendering the ground and ball very slippery and making fine plays impossible."

Fat Guard Gets Chance

So the Penn captain looked about him, and his eye fixed on Bowser, a very fat guard. "Let's give Bowser a chance," he said, and Bowser was put in the backfield, while the team assured itself that his bountiful avoirdupois would cut through the Cantabs like a cleaver through soft butter.

But all did not go as planned. When the ball was hiked back to Bowser, it hit him in the stomach, and bounced off into the arms of Harding, the Crimson quarterback, who ran for a touchdown.

One of the more dramatic contests of the period was the '87 Princeton game, which Harvard won 12-0. For a while there was no score, while the Crimson players watched Nassau's full-back, "Snake' Ames, very closely. His nickname was well-earned; he was as slippery as an ecl. Near the end of the first half, Ames received the ball and began wending his sure way through the Harvard team,

Captain Holden of the Crimson finally threw himself in front of Ames, and stopped him. Unfortunately, he was kneed in the chest, which was seriously pushed in. As he was carried off the field, Holden exhorted the team not to worry about him, but to beat Princeton. This they did, and later, when a number of surgeons were having a consultation on whether to operate, Holden sneezed, and his chest returned to normal.

Fewer Injuries than Today

Although many games were played on a frozen field, and the players were no padding except on their elbows an knees, there were fewer injuries than there are today. One reason is that the teams were lighter. Woodman, for example, who played left tackle for three years in the Eighties, weighed only 175, and was considered easily heavy enough for that position.

The absence of blocking also accounts for the comparative safety of the game. Though there was still the tendency to "pile-up." as in a rugby scrum, the scientific and often dangerous body-contact of present-day football had not yet arrived. Tackling was more a question of pulling a man down than of bringing him down.

Like the injured captain of the Harvard team, no football player wanted to leave the game unless he was absolutely unable to keep going. There was scarcely a substitution made, a fact all the more astonishing when one remembers that each half was forty-five minutes long.

When a rare substitution did occur, the CRIMSON noted it in its account of the game with thinly-veiled surprise. In the story on the previously mentioned Princeton game, the daily lifts a collegiate eyebrow to say, "Price was worn out and requested Harvard to let his brother take his place. This was done and Channing started to run." Family ties were also important in those days.

Soggy Ball Used

The ball used was generally quite soft, and its shape was nearer to being round than it is today. With passing confined to a rare lateral, a large, hard pigskin was not needed. The team would lace and blow up the ball just before the game and often they had a long, difficult time doing it to their satisfaction. Woodman, one of the five surviving members of the team of '87, remembers his difficulties preparing the pigskin with pained amusements.

Football, having just reached manhood, was still informal, idealistic, and lusty. Though the team was supported by the college magazines, it did not draw large crowds out to Jarvis Field. There a couple of thousand people would gather to watch the bare-headed, mustachioed athletes tangle.

Some of the big games were played at the old Polo Grounds, in New York at 115th Street. Some quite large crowds came there to see Harvard play Yale or Princeton, for that was in the days when Ivy League football was the best there was to see.

Walter Camp was the first to work out a series of signals for when the ball was hiked back. Numbers had not yet come into use, but short sentences were employed instead.

A typical signal that Camp worked out for the Yale team went, "Look out quick Deac. Look out. Quick. Deac.," which meant that Twombly would run through the line, the ball being pushed to Peters.

Nicknames Used for Signals

Harvard took over some of Camp's stuff, reducing the signals to the nickname of the player who would get the ball. Thus, if Woodman was to run, it would be "Jumbo," or if Butle, "Tubby."

And in spite of Harvard's constant and ignominious defeats from its great rival, Yale, the annual game was still the most looked-for one in the country. There was undoubtedly good sportsmanship, but games frequently became rough and new. A minor legend of the early Eighties were Ben Lamb's teeth and their effect on the Harvard anatomy during a typically fierce game. The CRIMSON even penned a little poem on them:

Eli had a little Lamb,

His teeth were white as snow,

And every time Lamb bucked the line,

The Harvard gore would flow.

What made the Lamb treat Harvard so.

The Johnston all did cry.

Chose Harvard is Public meat you know,

And that's the reason why.