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Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball by William Hanford Edwards
page 118 of 403 (29%)
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."
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