The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-11-17
FOOTBALL FIGHTING SPIRIT

" (By Sol Metzger, Coach Washington |
& Jefferson Football Team.)
Leo Leary, the old Harvard coach, |
whose Charlestown Navy Yard eleven |
recently defeated the 18th Division |
eleven from Camp Devens, coached by
Percy Haughton, told me not long ago
that the big moment in football was
when the team you were coaching was
ahead when the last whistle blew. But |
than victory and that is it's fighting
spirit.
Fighting spirit is bred in football
players. it is the soul of the game and
about the fighting spirit of football
teams there rallies college spirit, |
which is close kin to patriotism. In
deed, were it not for the fighting spir-
it of college elevens there would be
little college spirit. Football fighting
spirit has taught the college man to
patriotism and loyalty 1t
has enabled the college man to do his
part in this war in no small degree
just as the discipline and spirit of
college sport, according to Secretary
Baker, gave the government its plan
for solving the recreation problem in
our IIl11ldIy anu naval CAMPS.
There are two kinds of fighting
spirit in Observation-Disclosures and
team. We, who have much to do with
this fighting spirit above systems of
play and our knowledge of the game
Without it a team is doomed to fail
ure-failure in good old. American
grit and nerve. Though it may win,
the team which shows the fighting
spirit gets all the praise.
This fall I had the god fortune to
witness two good examples of football
fighting spirit. In the Pfttsburg-
Pennsylvania game the latter eleven
gave a magnificent example Of fight
ing spirit against great odds. In the
Army-Notre Dame contest O1iphant,
the brilliant leader of the West Point
eleven, seemed to me to be playing
such splendid football that alone he
was almost an equal match for the
Notre Dame eleven. In both these ex-
amp1es this fighting spirit was note
worthy because it was made against
odds.
In the Pennsy1vania-Pitts game
Penn was not expected to have any
chance whatever. An overwhelming
defeat at the hands of Georgia Tech
at the start of the year, the fact that
the team was much the lighter of the
two and the known prestige of Pitt
were the reasons assigned for another
crushing set back.
But the little Quakers, filled to
Overlooking with what they call The
Spirit Of '76"e-in Red and Blue foot
ball, made up in savage determine
ton and sheer reck1essness what they
lacked in almost everything else.
While they went down to defeat, two
ltouchdowns to one, there was not one
present, including the clean playing
and sportsmanlike Pitt players, who
did not think it a defeat tinged with
victory. At that the breaks of the
game favored Pitt. Its first score was
| a most fortunate execution of a long
forward pass and its second, a block
ed kick, while the excellent football,
was no finer bit of playing than the
little Quakers themselves showed
when they, too, blocked a punt. In
the first case the ball bounded back
close to PENIS goal where a Pitt
player gained it.; in the second the
ball fell dead behind the line of
| scrimmage. Everybody admired Penn
for that gallant fight.
| The play Of collie" Oliphant against
Notre Dame was nothing short of
miraculous. Without in any sense
wishing to detract from the splendid
playing Of the we'll balanced team of
Notre Dame it is my belief that on
a dry field Ol1phant would have
come very close, single handed, to
winning that game for the Army. His
play was Of the savage, fighting style,
yet never did he lose control of him
self or fail to make use of every fac
I..1L -
comforting to know that men of Oil
plants type are bred on. the football
fields Of West Point and Annapolis
each year.
A year ago a coach and a team
from the eastern section Of the Mid
die West sprang into, sudden fame
when Indiana, 'tutored by "Humbo"
Stiehm, defeated the splendid eleven
of Tufts, conqueror of Harvard. AL
the odds favored Tufts and when a
touchdown and goal from the field
had sent the down-easterners home
without the bacon many left that
game with the impression that Indi-
ana won a fluky victory. Stiehm. the
Coach was new to the East. True, he
had been a Wisconsin star in his col
Ilege days and later had won renown
i at Nebraska, but these facts had been
4 almost totally overlooked III lie Last
Stiehm now stands high as a coach
Anywhere. This is his version Of that
memorable game:
"In our Tufts game last fall you
will remember that Tufts had a SER
les of plays in which the center faced
his backfteld and tossed the ball to
the quarter. The plays were extreme
! ly dangerous when once under way
The chances, of their going wrong
were small Tufts had used them to
good advantage against both Har-
ward and Princeton.
"Our plan was to smash up this
attack before it got under way. To dc
so we had to NAH the quarter in his
tracks before he could pass the ball
to another back. We accomplished
this by having Statesman, our center
dive over the Tufts center. as he pass
ed the ball, and tackle the quarter
receiving it.
I'VE also knew that Tufts did not
sufficiently protect the players who
received forward passes. We took
advantage of this by covering each Of
their eligible men with two or three
of our players, each time Tufts tried
4 the pass. When Erehart caught 6
Tufts forward pass and sprtnted forty
yards for a touchdown there was nc