The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-11-27
Holy Cross in
Foot Ball.
THE SEASONS WORK
Strongest Eleven That Ever
Represented the College.

The Holy Cross College foot ball
team completed its third season on the
gridiron Thursday afternoon, at Bos-
ton, and though defeated in the final
and most important match of the sea-
son, the work of the varsity team has
surpassed that of any previous year.
and, altogether, the season was sue
cessful. There was one peculiar incl
dent, or rather series of incidents, that
marked the progress of the seasons
work and characterized its termination.
1t was that the wearers of the purple
sweaters lost every one Of their out-of-
| town games, and won, with a single
exception, all of the games played on
the college grounds. Holy Cross played
10 games, won s. lost 4 and tied /.
The advancement made in the great
college game at Mount st. James this
season has been remarkable, and with
the same proportionate improvement
next year over this, by the time the
season of 1900 rolls along, Holy Cross
will have a team strong enough to win
its share of the games played with the
colleges now occupying positions in the
second division. Not until this season
was the team at the college thought to
be sufficiently versed in the Rugby
game to attempt to try conclusions with
any of the prominent colleges.
When ii came to making out the
schedule of games for this season. how
ever, Manager NJ. J. Thompson saw
visions of a strong eleven. and so ar
ranged games with Brown. Wesleyan
Tufts and a few Of the other New
England colleges. The showing made
AGAINST all Of these teams was COM
mendable. when the fact that Holy
Cross had only been initiated into the
game two Years previous was taken
into consideration. Like other games
that REQUIRE an active brain and a
sound body. it takes time to learn its
fine points and hours of practice daily
to become proficient in plays that will
be helpful
1t was during the season of 1896 that
the students of Holy Cross College took
their first determined step toward the
organization of a varsity foot ball
team But few games were played
that year, and most Of them We're I'M
| important except to the students that
were directly interested in the team
| The progress of the college team Of the
/ following wear was married bV the loss
Of a permanent coach. Before the sea-
! son of '96 was closed the college team
had been under the instruction Of three
different coaches, all of whom had wide
| w different ideas of how the game
should be PLAYED. First one system of
| training and playing was given the
men. and another and still another.
| DR.. A. c. n. Petersen was first enI
gagged to give the players pointers on
| the game. He was not long in charge,
but during his stay he told the players
| how the game was PLAYED successfully
| by the University of Pennsylvania, and
as the men were not particular then
what system they learned. DR.. Petersen
| taught them few of Coach Woodruff's
net PLAYS. Those woodruff PLAYS"
worked all right, but it takes more
than a mere handful Of plays to win a
game and that was Whv DR.. Petersen
was replaced by Corbett, an old Har-
ward player, who started out about the
middle of the season with an idea that
| Harvard's stvle of game was the one
that would bring the greater number of
victories to Holy Cross. So the Penn
sylvania style of play was dropped and
! the methods adopted at Cambridge
pursued.
| The change from one stvle of plav to
another. though not especially crafty
| ing to the hackers Of the team, was
| continued till the season was nearly
| over and then Maurice Conner, another
| ext Harvard plaver was engaged to di-
| rect the movements Of the team Mr..
| Corbett was not exactly the "ideal
coach in the ewes Of the HOLY Cross
students for though he told the Dlav-
| ers what to do he was lame in his
methods of showing. them how to do.
Coach Corbett failed to put the right
spirit life and ginger into his work.
When Maurice Conner came to Mt
| st. James to coach the foot ball eleven
| he in the first place put new life into
! the team. a. thing that was very much
/ lacking in the team when he took hold
| of it, Coach Conner is the man who
| brought HOLY Cross to its present
| standing i'm the foot hall world He
| has studied the weak noints Of all Of
his PLAYERS. and has remedied them
| He has been with the PLAYERS in theiI.
! daily nractica ali of +he nresant saa-
! son and from a snuad of nIavers that
were merely acouainted with the rudi-
nents Of the game he has moulded a
team that is q. toD-notcber AZ ITolv
| Cross C,oIleoa and one +bat hos botfIa1
successfuIIv as many times as II has
met defeat Coach Conner has worked
hard with +be HOW Cross tean, and
hoe not basi+s+ad "a Ill fe ~
clothes and don tbe Ruehv rrifor,,, 10
explain poinfs to his 6Iave RS Sin
| eI-en Commons hos faI1ts ana +bo go
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with tba team &c tba+ he is Te,,,J So
1-ara with bie mon d,Iri,,er q cane ord
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