“The Old Game”

This was the football primeval. The onrushing backs and the forwards, Armored to toes and in garments torn, fought like fiends ev'ry autumn, Fought like henchmen of eld, in rushes stern and unending, Fought like warriors bold who knew no peace save in conflict. Shrill from his crouching position, sharply the quarter back signaled— Called, and his half backs, fight lustful, answered his cry with the distance. Such was the football primeval; but where are the plays it developed— Sent with a dash and hurled with a crash into the line of the others? Where is the guards-back formation devised by Quakerian coaches— Men with lives given to the beating of Harvard, the Crimson? Lost is that virile play and the coachers forever departed! Scattered like flying wedges, invented by mentors in Cambridge. Hidden, nearly forgotten and covered with present day "passes." Naught but tradition remains of the strenuous football of old time.