Evening star., 1924-12-07
- M. l3-tThe Last.)
As TOLD BY FIELDING III, (Hurry
Cp"D YLsT, Head Coach, University
of Michigan,


| Whenever anybody mentions foot
ball strategies to me my mind races
| back to my boys of 1910, and just as
| naturally the threads OF memory pick
up the final stages of the Michigan
Minnesota game of that year at Ann
| Arbor.
-Four minutes TO go and both teams
! scofeiess. And then one of the most
wonderful strategicaI drives the
| grldiron ever saw. Four minutes! !!
| such short space of time. But dur
! ing 1t an All-American end was made,
and All-American guard conclusively
! earned his right to the honor the sec
| ond year in succession. and a half
| back, center, a tackle and an end
| won places on the An-Western and
! All Conference eIevens And, last, but
| not least, Western championship
was decided
! Memorable Occasion.
No one seeing that battle could
! forget one detail of those last thrill
| ling minutes. After IA years they are
| as fresh in my mind as on that No
Vtmber afternoon.
To begin with, Michigan faced Min
| nesota amid general expectation that
! the latter would win. Although Illi-
nois and Minnesota had won all their
games that year, Minnesota's Victories
! had been more decisive, particularly
against Chicago. the one team which
| both had met. Minnesota seemed to
| have the clearer title to the Western
| Conference championship.
| Certainly the Gophers were a pow
! erful aggregation. In Walker, their
! left tackle, they had an All-Ameri-
| can player. unerring in sensing the
| direction OF play, uncanny in his
! ability at breaking through. block
| ing kicks, handling an opponent. or
hrin ging down the man with the ball
! despite his interference. McGovern,
/ their quarterback, was an All-Ameri
| can. too while Right Half Rosenwald
| and Fuliback Johnson were All-W est
! ern and AlI-Conference men.
| our record had not been nearly SO
good as MnneSota's. In our earlier
games Case and Ohio State had held
| us to 3-to-3 ties, while we had beaten
! the strong Michigan Aggies only 6
to :. Later. against Syracuse. we de-
| liVered an 1I-0 victory. but it WAS
| not until we encountered Pcnnsyl-
! vania at Philadelphia that we began
| TO show our real strength.
! The fact is. we seldom had been
/ able to produce anything like our
actual power because of some of our
| best men being unable to play Even
out the services of our great end.
| Borleskie.
But this game demonstrated that
We had really dangerous machine.
| We presented a stonewall defense to
the QuaIers, checking Mercer, their
Iall-American fullbaclS, without gains.
Their hammering formations were
! ripped to pieces. The critics seemed
TO feel that although the result was
"A scoreless tie. Michigan had had
bit the better Of the argument. | re
call that we felt pretty good as We
boarded the train for Ann Arbor after
the game.
Special Pass Devised.
All our thoughts now were Of the
Minnesota battle. only a week away.
We had five actual days for prepara
tion and, believe me. We work ed hard.
The spirit of my boys throughout the
grind was splendid.
We had too much respect for the
Gopher Intelligence" department to
think that they had not worked out
defense for every offensive play
we had shown up to this time, so
naturally we evolved some new ones.
Among these was forward pass
which we have since dubbed the Min
nesota pass. Youll learn why before
you have finished reading this inter
view.
Against Minnesota we would be BILE
to muster some stars too. Benbrook
our left guard, was rated by Walter
Camp and all the other critics the
most powerful and dashingly aggres-
sive guard playing foot ball. and had
been an All-American in 1909. Half
back Magidsohn, Center Cornwell
Left Tackle Edmunds and Left End
Borieskie were all great players.
a ahnVa a u-p ha al IINr
good at fullback or right end. Quiet.
Studious, industrious, he was the king
Of them all. Why, that boy only
played two years of foot ball--junior
and senior-but in that. period he
showed enough to convince me that
he was the best man I had for these
two positions. Using d man in this
way is not done very much because
he is hard animal to find. But
when you have a genius like Wells
on your team you've got to do it.
Couldn't Be Discouraged.
His story is unusual. AS a fresh
of the boys who reported for the
team. But you couldn't discourage
him. He developed slowly to a GER
tain stage. Then overnight he showed
an ability that demanded attention.
He did his assignments with a totally
unexpected degree of brilliancy.
We had been worrying about d
right end. Wells, we found, not only
could fill the position in a highly sat
isfactory manner but was an unusual
ly clever back. In fact, l can say
without hesitation that he was far
and away the best line -plunging back
| have seen in all my years of coach
ing. His versatility made him in
valuable to us. He combined bril-
liancy with reliability In his senior
year l never hesitated to use him in