Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball by William Hanford Edwards
page 134 of 403 (33%)
page 134 of 403 (33%)
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"I think it was in the Fall of '95 that Skim Brown, who played the
tackle position, was captain of the scrubs team at New Haven. Brown was a very energetic scrub captain. He was continuously urging on his men to better work. As you recall, the cry, 'Tackle low and run low,' was continuously called after the teams in those days. Brown's particular pet phrase in urging his men was, 'Run low.' So that he, whenever the halfback received the ball, would immediately start to holler, 'Run low,' and would keep this up until the ball was dead. He got so in the habit of using this call when on the offense that one day when the quarterback called upon him to run with the ball from the tackle position even before he got the ball he started to cry, 'Run low,' while carrying the ball himself, and continued to cry out, 'Run low,' even after he had gained ground for about fifteen yards and until the ball was dead. "It was in the Fall of '92 when Vance McCormick was captain of the Yale team, and Diney O'Neal was trying for the guard position. As you know, the linemen are very apt to know only the signals on offense which call for an opening at their particular position. And even then a great many of them never know the signals. Now Diney was bright enough, but like most linemen did not know the signals. It happened one day that McCormick, at the quarterback position, called several plays during the afternoon that required O'Neal to make an opening. O'Neal invariably failed because he didn't know the signals. McCormick, suspecting this, finally gave O'Neal a good calling down. The calling down fell flat in its effects on O'Neal as his reply to McCormick was, 'To Hell with your mystic signs and symbols--give me the ball!'" "The real founder of football at Dartmouth was Bill Odlin," writes Ed Hall. "Odlin learned his football at Andover, and came to Dartmouth with |
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