ainst West Point our Princeton teams have
always realized the hard, difficult task which confronted them, and
victory was not always the reward.

Football plays a valued part in the athletic life of West Point. From
the very first game between the Army and the Navy on the plains when the
Middies were victorious, West Point set out in a thoroughly businesslike
way to see that the Navy did not get the lion's share of victories.

If one studies the businesslike methods of the Army Athletic Association
and reads carefully the bulletins which are printed after each game, one
is impressed by the attention given to details.

I have always appreciated what King, '96, meant to West Point football.
Let me quote from the publication of the _Howitzer_, in 1896, the
estimated value of this player at that time:

"King, of course, stands first. Captain for two years he brought West
Point from second class directly into first. As fullback he outplayed
every fullback opposed to him and stands in the judgment of all
observers second only to Brooke of Pennsylvania. Let us read what King
has to say of a period of West Point football not widely known.

"I first played on the '92 team," he says. "We had two Navy games before
this, but they were not much as I look back upon them. At this time we
had for practice that period of Saturday afternoon after inspection.
That gave us from about 3 P. M. on. We also had about fifteen
minutes between dinner and the afternoon recitations, and such days as
were too rainy to drill, and from 5:45 A. M., to 6:05 A. M.
Later in the year when it grew too cold to drill, we had the
time after about 4:15 P. M., but it became dark so early that
we didn't get much practice. We practiced signals even by moonlight.

"Visiting teams used to watch us at inspection, two o'clock. We were in
tight full dress clothes, standing at attention for thirty to forty-five
minutes just before the game. A fine preparation for a stiff contest. We
had quite a character by the name of Stacy, a Maine boy. He was a
thickset chap, husky and fast. He never knew what it was to be stopped.
He would fight it out to the end for every inch. Early in one of the
Yale games he broke a rib and started another, but the more it hurt, the
harder he played. In a contest with an athletic club in the last
non-collegiate game we ever played, the opposing right tackle was
bothering us. In a scrimmage Stacy twisted the gentleman's nose very
severely a