It was in this same game of 1893 that J. R. Blake, the Princeton fullback, did a bit of quick thinking and took a dangerous risk that meant a great deal to Princeton's chances. It was at a time when Princeton was working steadily down into Yale territory. Yale managed to get the ball, but was forced to kick at once, and Butterworth lifted a high, short kick to Blake, who was playing a very deep backfield. Blake came up at top speed, but instead of slowing up and trying to make sure of the ball on the bound, he lunged forward full length and snapped it up on the fly. It was a dangerous form of catch to attempt, but once having made up his mind Blake put his plan into perfect execution. The Yale forwards, notably Hinkey, were well down on the ball, and a fumble at this stage would have meant trouble for Princeton, possibly a long run on a picked up ball, or worse. As Blake dived forward and gathered in the ball he and Hinkey came together head on in one of the worst collisions I have ever seen in football, and neither man was himself after the crash for the rest of the game.

I have mentioned in my first chapter the genius of Cooney of Princeton, in adapting his defense to a new style of play in a game against Cornell, which was a very fair sample of individual initiative, and I want to say a word here about the clever thinking on defense of a man who played against Cooney. I refer to the late J. J. Hogan, of Yale, who was a fine type of athlete. The incident I have in mind occurred in the Harvard-Yale game of 1903. Harvard had made a desperate rally, determined to score, and at last sent Nichols away for what seemed a sure touchdown. He was tackled just as he seemed to be crossing the line when Hogan swung around behind from the other side, and tackling the Harvard halfback high, and holding him up, slowly bent him back and away from the goal line, finally putting him to the ground when the last chalk line was safe from invasion. Nothing but great strength and tackling in a certain way prevented a touchdown.

Harvard had an eleven in 1912 nearly every member of which was close to a football genius. This accounted in part for the superb individual interference so much in evidence on the day of the game with Yale. Perhaps the greatest credit in the way of thinking football on that day should go to Gardner, the quarterback, who made a remarkably fine selection of plays, and in so doing removed the last criticism against Harvard's football methods. For Brickley as a drop-kicker Yale had been prepared, but not for Brickley as a runner. Using Wendell in the middle of the field, the little Crimson field general suddenly fell back upon Brickley when at" last within striking distance, and also chose a wide end run although there was not a great deal of ground to cover. How well his choice was made was proved by the result, for Yale was not prepared to see Brickley take the ball, and this allowed just enough of a start to make the play go, aided by superb interference on the part of Wendell and Hardwick. This was football sense amounting to genius on Gardner's part, and although he did not achieve an All-America standing, his day's work was as useful as a quarterback could be called upon to show. . Brickley himself is a fine sample of football genius, although his kicking is so spectacular as to rob him of credit due for other good points of play. He is the popular type of football hero, but would be a great asset to any team even if he could not kick at all.

It required no deep student of the game to recognize the football genius of E. H. Coy of Yale, yet Coy's finest achievement was not merely the making of a run that resulted in a winning touchdown, but in keen estimation of the value of each man on his team and accurate summing up of his own abilities, so that in the year of his captaincy he converted himself from a wonderful runner into a remarkable drop-kicker. And the way he went about it was characteristic, for finding the regular drop-kicking method unsuited, he dropped the ball so that on the rise he could catch it on his instep, thus, while keeping within the rules, turning his powerful punting ability into a successful scoring factor. Coy knew that he was not at his best as a runner in his last year, but was determined still to be a foremost figure in the scoring. This bit of headwork resulted in his retiring with his reputation still at its zenith, instead of going the way of so many other stars in the year of their captaincy.

The individual exploits of John DeWitt of Princeton are still fresh in the memory of most followers of the game, but some of his warmest admirers maintain that his genius lay in his qualities as a leader, his adaptability, and his actual line play, even against such a remarkable man as Glass of Yale. Until Thorpe, the Carlisle Indian, made his appearance, there was no more dangerous runner from the strategically interesting kick formation than DeWitt, and I firmly believe that DeWitt's running was done against better defenses than Thorpe was called upon to face. DeWitt's build was ideal for the tackle position, but he was quite as good a guard, and his all-round knowledge of the game was as great as that of any man who has come out of Princeton in recent years.

No consideration of football genius would be complete without mention of the coaches. Genius is, of course, to be expected of them in the way of planning plays and laying out campaigns, but there are smaller things in which the same quality comes to the surface. One of these is the handling of men and getting out of them more than anyone would dream was in them. I have in mind a case at West Point two years ago, the coach in question being Capt. Joseph W. Reacham, Jr., U. S. A., and the player A. V. Arnold, a guard on the Army team. The eleven was being prepared for the final game of the season, the battle with the Navy. The Annapolis team boasted the services of a young man named Brown whose play at guard had been a terror to the Army the year before, and whose specialty was getting down the field as fast as the ends and smothering the catcher of kicks. The Army coaches figured for a long time over some way to keep Brown from getting down the field without using too many men in checking him. Finally, the head coach, who knew the temperaments of all the players as thoroughly as any coach I have ever seen, tried the simple scheme of a sort of mental suggestion. Hyatt, the team captain and quarterback, was the man played back on kicks, and he was not rugged enough to stand the hard tackling of a man like Brown should it prove to be constant. Hyatt was a popular leader and the other members of the team swore by him. One day after the practice the coach led Arnold aside and said to the husky guard, "Arnold, do you like Hyatt?"

"Why, yes, sir; why?" was the puzzled reply.

"Oh, nothing, never mind," said the coach, "I just wanted to know."

Question and answer were repeated day after day, but it was not until within three days of the big game that the coach enlightened the big forward on the subject. He put the usual query and received the usual answer. Then he said, impressively: "All right, if you care anything about Hyatt don't you let that man Brown get down the field."

Throughout the big game Arnold played as never before, and whenever the Navy kicked saw to it that Brown, with all his strength, speed, and cunning, did not get down the field. One of the most dangerous men in the Navy line was thus effectively checked, and by one man. Surely this was in the nature of genius on the part of the coach in handling men.

When it came to genius as shown in the invention of football plays Walter Camp, Lorin F. Deland and Wylie Woodruff long had the field to themselves, but to-day Dr. H. L. Williams at Minnesota, Percy D. Haughton at Harvard, Fielding H. Yost at Michigan, A. A. Stagg at Chicago, Ed. Robinson at Brown, Frank Cavanaugh at Dartmouth, and Glenn Warner at Carlisle are names to conjure with, while Prof. Gattell at Trinity, J. F. High at Wesleyan, and Hermann Olcott at New York University, who also coaches at Annapolis, are rapidly working into the front rank of the strategists. And the Springfield Training School has proved that it has some football genius who is supplying the teams from that institution with some of the cleverest and most successful forward passes the game has seen. The individual has certainly survived.

Coming to diagnosticians of the coaching ranks we find such men as George Foster Sanford of Yale and Reginald Brown of Harvard in the field. Sanford's exploit in changing the whole style of Yale's defense between the halves in the game at New Haven in 1907 so as to check a brilliant Princeton attack that had rolled up ten points in the first half is too well known to need more than mention here, while any man who has sat close to Brown in the grandstand and heard him call off play after play before the ball was snapped will hardly need be told that this quiet Harvard man is also one of the real geniuses of the game.