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Its obvious dangers are distraction from study and overestimation of the value of victory, especially in the artificial glamours which the press and the popular furor give to great games; unsportsmanlike secret tricks and methods, over-emphasis of combative and too stalwart impulses, and a disposition to carry things by storm, by rush-line tactics; friction with faculties, and censure or neglect of instructors who take unpopular sides on hot questions; action toward license after games, spasmodic excitement culminating in excessive strain for body and mind, with alternations of reaction; "beefiness"; overdevelopment of the physical side of life, and, in some cases, premature features of senility in later life, undergrowth of the accessory motor parts and powers, and erethic diathesis that makes steady and continued mental toil seem monotonous, dull, and boresome.
And poised behind the rush-line, wearing his hard- won university blue, was the lithe figure of the Freshman full- back, Ernest Seeley. The youngster, whose fate it was to be called a "forlorn hope," looked fragile beside his comrades of the eleven. Although tall and wiry he was like a greyhound in a company of mastiffs.
He's rush-line, centre, full-back, half-back, and flying wedge, all rolled into one. Then the Hades chaps made the bad mistake of sending a star team. When you have an eleven made up of Hannibal and Julius Cæsar and Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and Achilles and other fellows like that you can't expect any team-play.
Perhaps because he was fresher than the other backs, perhaps because the captain knew his man, the ball was given to the Yale full-back for one swift and battering assault after another. His slim figure pelted at the rush-line, was overwhelmed in an avalanche of striped arms and legs, but somehow twisted, wriggled, dragged itself ahead as if there was no stopping him.
"Football's the noblest game that's played, but it's got to be played right. We did away with the old mass-play evil and then promptly invented the guards-back and the tackle-back. Before long we'll see our mistake and do away with those too; revise the rules so that the rush-line players can not be drawn back.
The salmon, resting in the comparatively still water of the pool, had remained at the end of the slack, and the hook, by some fortunate chance, held firm. It took but a moment to get the line taut and the point of the rod up again. And then the battle began anew. The salmon was refreshed by his fifteen minutes between the halves of the game. No centre in a rush-line ever played harder or faster.
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