University of Chicago - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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Chicago 18 Princeton 21. 28 October 1922. slohn Thomas Flashes Through the Tiger Line. to uphold tradition, turned out to a man to transform the playing field into a bedlam in their efforts to unnerve the green frosh team. The sophs, however, did not reckon with Amos Alonzo Stagg who had that year joined the ranks ofthe Yale youngsters. l-le was too old a hand at pitching to be rattled by any type of ragging. l-lis attitude instilled confidence in the entire freshman team, and in spite of the frantic rooting of their classmates, the sophomores were forced to bow their heads in defeat. l'lis spectacular performance in this game definitely marked Stagg as baseball material and the following year found him a candidate for the varsity team. 8tagg's chief rival was another freshman, jesse Dann of Buffalo. Dann's major asset was a smoking fast ball which he rifled at the plate with such speed that no catcher could be found who could hold it. For this reason Dann was shifted to the position of catcher and Stagg became the first-string pitcher, to form the battery of Stagg and Dann which became famous in the annals of college baseball. The first game of the 1886 season was played at Philadelphia against the Athletics. Both teams played ragged ball and Yale took a tremendous beating. But Stagg continued to do the pitching and the team steadily improved behind him until the end of the season found Yale and l-larvard tied for the championship. The playoff was at l-lartford, Connecticut, on an extremely hot day with a great crowd of enthusiastic alumni and students from both schools lining the field. l-larvard had a veteran battery consisting of Nichols and Allen, who had been responsible for the winning of the pennant in 1885, nevertheless, the great combination of Stagg and Dann forged to the front and led the Yale team to a decisive 8 to 3 triumph. Stagg pitched four more seasons for Yale and in each year his team won the championship and the annual series from both l-larvard and Princeton. lmmediately after he had won his first championship for Yale, Stagg was offered his first opportunity to enter professional baseball, but he wisely refused this and the subsequent larger and more generous offers which continued to flow in upon him during the next four years. Stagg had two excellent reasons for main- taining his amateur status, . . the first was loyalty to Yale, inasmuch as l should be lost to the team if l played professionally. The second was the character of professional baseball. Despite lVlr. Q'l2ourke's literate eloquence, the professionals of his day were a hard-bitten lot, about whom grouped hangers-on, men and women, who were worse. There was a bar in every ball park, and the whole tone of the game was smelly. ln the three year period covering the years 1886, 1887, and 1888, Stagg pitched in every championship game, establishing a record never equalled by any other college pitcher up to the present time. The most spectacular game of his career at Yale was an exhibition match played 26 May 1888 at Princeton, when he set a record of twenty strike outs, and held the Tigers to two hits. The game was to have decided the 1888 championship, but it rained steadily until four o'clock, by which time the field was so muddy that the two teams refused to play. lVlrs. Grover Cleveland, however, happened to be visiting Princeton and was to attend, and the boys not wishing to disappoint her decided to play an exhibition game. Amos Alonzo took little interest in football after his freshman year until in the fall of 1888 Pa Corbin, captain of the squad, asked him to turn out for right end to fill a vacancy left by the graduation of F. C. Pratt. By that time the game had gone through a number of very radical changes, but the rush lines remained intact, while sparring with the flats of the players hands with the idea of having the opposition off balance as the ball was snapped was still a common practice. The ball also continued to be passed with the foot, in fact Stagg tells us how, . . every fall morning between classes, the center, Captain Corbin, and the quarter, Wurtemburg, used to practice this foot passingff During this year Walter Camp acted as a sort of an advisory coach, winding up every practice with a race 21

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if' 55 , B al Chicago E29 Minnesota O. Q5 November 1899. New England winter, which he weathered without any underwear. l-le recalls how he gladly accepted the first job offered to him. It consisted of sweeping out the chapel at fifty cents a week. l.ater the German instructor, Professor faulhaber, gave him board for doing the chores at his home. Meanwhile, for three months of what he declares to be the bitterest winter he had ever experienced, his rations cost him but sixteen cents a day. l'le took the Yale entrance examination in glune, 7884, and his hard work was rewarded when he passed it with flying colors. During the remainder of that summer he worked for his father, putting up hay in the Newark meadows. The following September found a rather perplexed, anxious looking new student at Yale, with his entire wealth of eighteen dollars safely tucked away in his pocket. l-le immediately rented a small, dingy room in a garret, very similar to the one in which he had spent his days while at Exeter, and reverted to his old diet of crackers. feeling mildly prosperous on various occasions, he treated himself to a pound of round steak which he cooked on his garret stove. At the end of a few months he was successful in obtaining a job waiting on table, and in that way picked up enough money to make life reasonably comfortable during his period of adjustment. The athletic program at Yale opened with a huge student mass meeting at which addresses were made by the captains of the crew, the baseball team, and the football squad. Stagg attended the meeting with his fellow townsman George Gill who was disposed to the crew, and where Gill went Stagg was inclined to go. But on the way down Chapel Street to the boathouse on the first afternoon of practice the two novices were met by a friend of Gill's, a football enthusiast, who persuaded them to turn back to the new Yale field and to report for football practice. Stagg had seen only one football game, a contest played the year before between Yale and Princeton on the Polo Grounds in New York. football, therefore, was a relatively new experience to the aspiring athlete, and it was with some trepidation that he lined up with the scrubs against the powerful Yale varsity. No better picture can be painted of Staggfs first experience as a football player than his own descrip- tion of the activities of that afternoon. HAlex Coxe, Q90 pounds and big boned, was at left guard for the varsity. Not content with using his bulk in the line, Captain Richards was employing Alex to lug the ball. Tackling Alex waist-high or higher, as the rules enforced, was a auixotic enterprise, and he dragged us steadily toward our goal line. llhis was ata period before the old Rugby Union rules had been com- pletely abolished, and the so-called maul in goal still persistedl Another steam-roller sortie and he went over the line, with lillinghast of the scrubs still hanging on. Coxe landed on his back, and the ball was not down in that clay until it actually touched the ground. If Tillinghast could keep Coxe from turning over, or could wrest the ball from him, there would be no touchdown. This was the maul in goal, legislated out the following year, and the rules stipulated further that it was a strictly private Fight between the man with the ball and the man or men who had their hands on him when he crossed the goal . . . What lillinghast lacked in weight he made up in fight. While twenty of us looked on, the two fought it out for fifteen minutes- and l do not exaggerate. lt ended in a victory for the scrubs, -fillinghast getting the ball away from the winded Coxe. Thirty-five candidates reported for practice that season, and the team was coached by a staff of graduate students. Stagg won a place on the varsity but did not play in any important games. At rushing time in the Spring of 1885 the freshmen and the sophomores played their annual baseball game. lt was seldom that a first-year team managed to beat its older rivals, and the sophomores, determined 20

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from one end of the field to the other. Stagg usually beat the other members of the team in this daily race, and for this reason Mike Murphy, Yale track coach, had hopes of making a great sprinter out of him. l-le did turn out to be a fairly good dash man, but was never good enough for varsity competition. The 1888 team was ever victorious, scoring 698 points to its opponents' O, a record still unapproached anywhere in the country. The individual had not yet been merged into the whole quite as much as now, it still being pretty much the fashion for one side of the line to rest while a play went through the other side. Stagg played consistently good football throughout this season, although there were other members of the team who played more brilliantly. Those were the days when football scores really mounted up, the classic example being the first game of the '88 season when the Yale team completely smothered Wesleyan 105 to 0. All football fans of that period will still remember l.ee Mcflung, later treasurer of the United States, who scored a total of 500 points for Eli in his four years at half, a personal record that still stands. The Big Three of the East lost heavily by graduation in 1889 and prospects for good teams at any of the schools were very slight. Qnly three veterans returned for football at l-larvard, four at Princeton, and four at Yale, Stagg among them. Before the football season opened Stagg was reelected student secretary of the Y. M. C. A. and his time was so arranged as to permit him to enter the divinity school. It was in the course of this football season that the first murmurings were heard concerning objections to the playing of graduate and special students. The growing scandal of professionalism brought the issue to a head, and early in November, 1889, Wesleyan and Yale united in a call for a meeting which was to determine certain pressing questions of amateur standing. At this meeting the difficulties were finally ironed out, graduate students being allowed to play but professionals being banned. The end of the 1889 season saw the Princeton Tigers emerging with the coveted championship. Since the formation of the Football Association in 1879, Yale had won the title five times to l3rinceton's once and l-larvard's blank. Yale had won ninety-three out of ninety-eight games, losing three times to Princeton, once to l-larvard, and once to Columbia. Since the first time that touchdowns had been scored, the Yale total was 3000 to their opponents 56. Although the season was not outstandingly brilliant from the stand- point of the Yale team, Stagg developed a great deal of ability at deceptive and speedy ball carrying, which resulted in his selection to Walter Camps mythical All-American eleven of 1889. This sketch ofthe activities of Amos Alonzo Stagg during his years at Yale is likely to convey some wrong impressions, especially since so much space has been devoted to his participation in athletic pursuits. It is not to be thought that he spent all of his time in developing a strong body, on the contrary, through- out this six year period he set aside definite hours each day which he devoted entirely to study. l-le was deeply interested in all activities pertaining to religion and it was with areat enthusiasm that he turned to the study of religious work that was offered in addition to the prescribed training. Beginning with his freshman year, he had done much valuable work of a religious character through the local Y. M. C. A. and in the New Haven missions. ln his first post-graduate year his work in this field was re- warded when he was elected to the position of student secretary of the Y. lVl. C. A. It had been his original plan to enter the divinity school in the fall of 1888, but the time required for the student secretary's job made this impossible, so he decided to enroll for some courses in graduate study instead. Une of these courses in the study of Biblical litera- ture, was given by William Rainey l-larper, who later became the first president of the University of Chicago. It is interesting to turn for a moment to the lighter side of Yale life in the glorious '80's, and to learn how the social life of New lclaven impressed the University's greatest athlete. . . l was not a handsome youth, but that did not prevent me from i getting notes from girls on my pitching record at 1 Yale, not one to a hundred that come to the college athlete from the clear-eyed maidens, l believe they call them, of today, but l did get them. l had never been inside a theatre until that year, when a fellow student took me. Another classmate dragged me to the Junior Prom, my first dance. It would seem Below-Coming l-lame from the Penn Relays, Q6 April 1915. that College men then were muck' 95 they are DOW for Mr. Stagg recalls that . . when electric Above-Kennedy, Hall, Coach Stagg, Speer, l-larris. Champion indoor Relay Team, 1919.