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

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Dismoncl, Campbell, Coach Stagg, Stegeman, Breathed, Knight. The Panama-Pacific Exposition Games, 1915. lights arrived in New l-laven, the city installed an arc on the corner over the fence, violating our privacy by making us visible to any vulgar towner who passed along Chapel Street. We drew up a petition asking its removal, which the city ignored. When we showered it with rocks, a policeman was assigned to guard it. Billy Kent, later a congressman from California, then thrust his .QQ rifle out of his dormitory window and shot the light out in the best of California tradition . . The city moved the light across the street. Membership in the Yale Glee Club, in which he sang first tenor, rounded out Staggys participation in extra-curricular activities. The Glee Club s annual Christmas trip to the West has since become a traditional ovation to Stagg. ln T890 Amos Alonzo Stagg left Yale having decided once and for all that he would never be able to be a minister. l-le felt that he could influence others to Christian ideals more effectively on the athletic field than in the pulpit. Qnce he had made up his mind concerning a career, Stagg decided to go to the Y. lVl. C. A. College at Springfield, Massachusetts to study to be a physical director. The school had been opened in 1890, and Doctor Gulick, then head of the physical department, sold Stagg on the idea of turning to this new field of work. l-le first entered as a student in a class of four and later was made a member of the teaching staff, being the proud possessor of the formidable title of Hinstructor in the theory and practice of training. Stagg well remembers another ofthe four in the class, namely ,lames lNlaismith, who later invented the game of basketball. Stagg's career as a coach began in T890 when he coached his first football team at Springfield. There were only forty-two students in the school, but he performed the remarkable feat of developing a team from a handful of players that was capable of defeating a number of New England colleges. It was during this preliminary period of coaching that Stagg made a valuable contribution to the strategy of the game in the use which he made of his ends. Making use of experience gained while playing end at Yale, he pulled his ends back out ofthe line and used them like backs to carry the ball around opposite ends and to drive into the line ahead of the ball carrier, both revolutionary practices which were later copied by the coaches of other schools. Qther drastic changes in the technique of the game were made by Stagg during his coaching years at Springfield, but they are too complicated and detailed for consideration here. The very scantiness of Stagg's material at Springfield redounded to his advantage because his remarkable teams gained wide recognition for their coach. Casper Whitney, the great football pundit of the time ably summed up Staggys coaching methods when he said, ul-lere is a school that contains just forty-two boys, and yet out of these Stagg has succeeded in developing a team that has made those of l-larvard and Yale play ball. l acknowledge at once that the school is favored exceptionally in having so thorough a student of the game as Mr. Stagg to lead, but are not Yale, l-larvard and Princeton supposed to be, and generally are, provided with expert coaches? The prime difference is that Stagg picks the most likely boy for a position, puts him in it and drills him continuously in the theory and practice of playing it, while the others, rich in candi- dates, try one after another in the line, leaving them to grope and bang against one another with little, or no aid from the coaches, tumbling into their positions after weeks of work. lf Stagg, out of a school of forty- gwqgould develop the team he has, what could he not have done with eleven such men as will face Yale atur ay. During this time many rumours were floating about the East to the effect that Stagg was planning to take charge of the Department of Athletics at Yale, but Stagg for many years had entertained the idea of becoming director of athletics at a university in the first stages of its development. lt was a poor player, stated Stagg 23

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FAMOUS MIDWAY PERSONALITIES Cn the page to the left, we have . . . xlimmyfouhig . . . god ofthe rolling greensvvard . . travels with the team of QQ. Wally Eclcersall . . . oneofthegreatestfootballplayers of all time . . . needs no introduction. Coach Stagg . . . disabled . . , congratulates HShorty Des vlardien from his motorcycle sidecar after a Chicago victory over lndiana. U8abe Meigs . . . famous ball carrier ofthe champion- ship 1905 team. C. 8. l-lerschberger . . . Chicagos first All-American selection. Qtto Strohmeier . . baclcfield mainstay of the powerful 'QQ squad. Pete Russel . . . the great T915 captain tall4s things over with Coach Stagg. Norm Paine and Nels Norgren . . . jovial friends . . winners of the C . Ned Merriam . . . smiling Speedster of Maroon tracl4 and football squads. Wally Steffen and Pat Page . . . the great combination . . Wally holds the ball for Pat. INTERVALS IN THE LIFE OF THE GRAND OLD MAN Pictured at the right . . Stagg plays end as a son of old Eli. A young divinity student at Yale in one of his lighter moments, Stagg poses for a picture on the Yale diamond in 'l888, after leading the Frosh to victory over the Sophs. After the game . . . Stagg leads his 'l9'l3 Warriors off the field. The famous coach smiles jovially for the cameraman at Western Normal on 'l'l April 1930. Baclc in his vvorlc clothes . . . Stagg begins early in September to whip his T930 sauad into shape for the first game. As we lil4e to remember the HGrand Old Manf, . . . posed Ion Stagg field, wearing the Maroon jaclcet he loved so We . I N l