we
were playing West Point. In the latter part of the second half of that
game, with the score 6 to 6, Charlie Daly attempted a field goal, which
was unsuccessful. What Billy Bull and I had discussed many times came
into my mind like a flash. I picked the ball up and walked out with it
as if it had been touched back of the goal. When I passed the 25-yard
line, walking along casually, Bucky Vail, who was the referee, yelled to
me to stop. I walked over to him unconcerned and said: 'Bucky, old boy!
this ball is not dead, because I did not touch it down. And I am going
down the field with it.' By that time the West Point men had taken their
positions in order to receive the kick from the 25-yard line. While I
was still walking down the field, in order to pass all the West Point
men, before making my dash for a certain touchdown, it struck Bucky Vail
that I was right, and he yelled out at the top of his voice. 'The ball
is not dead. It is free.' Whereupon the West Point men started after me.
An Army man tackled me on their 25-yard line, after I had taken the ball
down the field for nearly a touchdown. I have often turned over in my
bed at night since that time, cursing the action of Referee Vail. If he
had not interfered with my play I would have walked down the field for a
touchdown and victory for Yale. The final score remained 6 to 6.

"I have often thought of the painful hours I would have suffered had I
missed the two open field chances in the disastrous game at Cambridge in
the fall of 1902, when Yale was beaten 23 to 0. On two different
occasions in that game a Harvard runner with interference had passed the
whole Yale team. I was the only Yale man between the Harvard man and a
touchdown. The supreme satisfaction I had in nailing both of those
runners is one of the most pleasant recollections of my football career.

"When I was a little shaver, back in 1889, I lived at South Bethlehem,
Pa. Paul Dashiell and Mathew McClung, who were then playing football at
Lehigh University, took an interest in me. Paul Dashiell took me to the
first football game I ever saw. Dibby McClung gave me one of the old
practice balls of the Lehigh team. This was the first football I ever
had in my hands. For weeks afterwards that football was my nightly
companion in bed. These two Lehigh stars have always been my football
heroes, and it was a happy day for me when I played quarterback on the
Yale team and these two men acted as officials tha