if your opponent wins, it is going to be over your dead body. This sort
of spirit is contagious, and generally passes from one to the other,
until you have a wonderful team spirit, and eleven men are found
fighting like demons for victory. Such a spirit generally means a
victory, and so gets its reward. There must be no dissenting spirit. If
there is such a spirit discernible, it should be weeded out immediately.

Some years ago the Princeton players were going to the field house to
dress for the Harvard game. The captain and two of the players were
walking ahead of the rest of the members of the team. The game was under
discussion, when the captain overheard one of the players behind him
remark:

"I believe Harvard will win to-day."

Shocked by this remark, the captain, who was one of those thoroughbreds
who never saw anything but victory ahead, full of hope and confidence in
his team, turned and discovered that the remark came from one of his
regular players. Addressing him, he said:

"Well! If you feel that way about it, you need not even put on your
suit. I have a substitute, who is game to the core. He will take your
place."

It is true that teams have been ruined where the men lack the great
quality of optimism in football. When a man gets in a tight place, when
the odds are all against him, there comes to him an amazing superhuman
strength, which enables him to work out wonders. At such a time men have
been known to do what seemed almost impossible.