Jack Munn, a former Princeton halfback, tells the following story:
“My brother, Edward Munn, was the manager of the Princeton team in 1893.
In the spring of that year there was a conference with Yale
representatives to decide where the game was to be played the following
fall. Berkeley Oval, Brooklyn, Manhattan Field, and the respective
fields of the two colleges all came under discussion, and I believe that
some of the newspapers must have taken it up. One afternoon in the
Murray Hill Hotel, when representatives of Yale and Princeton were
discussing the various possibilities, a bellboy knocked at the door and
handed my brother an elaborately engraved card on which, among various
decorations, the name of Colonel Cody was to be distinguished. Buffalo
Bill was invited to come up, and it seems that, reading or hearing of
the discussion about the field for the game, he came to make a formal
offer of the use Sporting Watches of his tent. After setting forth the desirability of
staging the game under the auspices of his Wild West Show, he brought
his offer to a close with his trump card.
“For, gentlemen, said he, besides all the other advantages which I
have mentioned, there is this further attraction–my tent is well and
sufficiently lighted so that you can not only hold a matinee, but you
can give an evening performance as well.
“And those were the days of the flying wedge and two forty-five minute
halves with only ten minutes intermission!”
Walter C. Booth
Walter C. Booth, a former Princeton center rush, was one of the select
coterie of Eastern football men that wended its way westward to carry
the eastern system into institutions that had had no opportunity to
build up the game, yet were hungry for real football. Booths trip was a
successful one.
“In the autumn of 1900, after graduating from college, I arrived at
Lincoln, Nebraska, in the dual rôle of law student and football coach of
the State University,” says Booth. “This was my first trip west of
Pittsburgh and I viewed my new duties with some apprehension. All doubts
and fears were soon put at rest by the hearty encouragement and support
that I received and retained in my Nebraska football relations.
“Most of the Faculty were behind football, and H. Benjamin Andrews, at
that time head of the University, was a staunch supporter of the game.
Doctor Roscoe Pound, later dean of Harvard Law School, was the father of
Nebraska football. He had as intimate an acquaintance with the rule book
as any official I have ever known. His advice on knotty problems was
always valuable. James I. Wyer, afterward State Librarian of New York,
was our first financial director, and it was largely by reason of his
unflagging zeal that football survived.
“Football spirit ran high in the Missouri Valley and there were many
hard fought contests among the teams of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and
Nebraska. Those who saw these games or played in them will never forget
them.
“Many amusing things happened in that section as well as in the East.
The Haskell Indians were a picturesque team. They represented the
Government School at Lawrence, Kansas–an institution similar to that of
Carlisle. In fact, many of the same players played on both teams at
different times. We always found them a hard nut to crack, and Redwater,
Archiquette, Hauser and other Indian stars made their names well known
on our field.
“John Outland, the noted Pennsylvania player, had charge of the Indians
when I knew them. He was a great player and a fine type of man, who
succeeded in imparting some of his own personality to his pupils. He
once showed me a dark faced Indian in Lawrence who must have been at
least six feet four inches tall and of superb physique. He was a full
blooded Cheyenne and went by the name of Bob Tail Billy. Outland tried
hard to break him in at guard, but as no one understood Bob Tails
dialect, and he understood no one else, he never learned the signals,
and proved unavailable.
“We traveled far to play in those days; west to Boulder, Colorado,
handicapped by an altitude of 5000 feet, south to Kansas City and north
as far as St. Paul and Minneapolis. We were generally about 500 miles
from our base. We were not able to take many deadheads.”
