St. Nicholas/Volume 41/Number 1/The Full-Field Run

by Parke H. Davis

THE FULL-FIELD RUN
FROM KICK-OFF TO TOUCH-DOWN
BY PARKE H. DAVIS

Author of “Foot-ball, the American Intercollegiate Game,” and Representative of Princeton University on the Rules Committee

THE HONOR ROLL
R. W. Watson	(Yale)	against	Harvard	Nov.	20,	1880	90	yards
J. H. Sears	(Harvard)	against“	Pennsylvania	Nov.“	25,	1886	85	yards“
G. B. Walbridge	(Lafayette)	against“	Wesleyan	Nov.“	14,	1897	100	yards“
E. G. Bray	(Lafayette)	against“	Pennsylvania	Oct.	21,	1899	100	yards“
E. B. Cochems	(Wisconsin)	against“	Chicago	Nov.	28,	1901	100	yards“
C. D. Daly	(Army)	against“	Navy	Nov.“	30,	1901	100	yards“
Charles Dillon	(Carlisle)	against“	Harvard	Oct.	31,	1903	105	yards“
W. H. Eckersall	(Chicago)	against“	Wisconsin	Nov.	26,	1904	106	yards“
W. P. Steffen	(Chicago)	against“	Wisconsin	Nov.“	21,	1908	100	yards“
W. E. Sprackling	(Brown)	against“	Carlisle	Nov.“	20,	1909	105	yards“
E. E. Miiller	(Penn. State)	against“	Pennsylvania	Oct.	28,	1911	95	yards“
R. O. Ainslee	(Williams)	against“	Cornell	Nov.	4,	1911	105	yards“
R. E. Caprron	(Minnesota)	against“	Wisconsin	Nov.“	18,	1911	95	yards“

There is no exploit in foot-ball so difficult of achievement and so rare as the full-field run from kick-off to touch-down. Theoretically, such a performance would seem to be impossible. Actually, however, it has been accomplished thirteen times against elevens of major strength in the past forty years, and probably has been achieved as many more against minor teams.

Consider the extraordinary difficulties surrounding the accomplishment of this great feat. Here are eleven men, deployed in a space 160 feet wide and 300 feet long, to prevent a solitary runner from traversing the lime-line stripes that mark this space and reaching the last line for a touch-down. The disposition of these eleven men within this space is not made at random. Indeed, their system of deployment represents the study and experience of forty years, and presents the most ingenious arrangement that can be devised to protect every inch of the field against any and all contingencies. Further, the defensive eleven is not handicapped on this play by the feature of surprise. The attempt to make a full-field run upon the kick-off does not come unexpectedly, like a sudden thrust at end following a prolonged attack upon the line, as in scrimmage. Before the ball is kicked, every man upon the defense knows that only two plays can follow, either a return kick or an attempt to make a run, and such is the informidable character of a return kick upon this play, that the defensive eleven may devote its entire attention to preventing the run.

True, the runner, in racing and zigzagging through this spread of eleven men, will have the assistance of his ten comrades to block and interfere, but blocking at the longest is only momentary, easily evaded, and quickly overcome. A low, sharp tackle, a slight jostle, a blockade, or a push, and the flying runner loses his footing, and instantly is buried upon the sward, beneath an avalanche of opponents.

Against such enormous odds and such a great combination of adverse chances, therefore, the full-field runner from kick-off must make his way. Strange to say, a study of the successful runs of this character discloses the astounding fact that their possibility is increased by the very precautions taken for their prevention. With only a single exception, each one of the thirteen full-field runs above tabulated, was accomplished in precisely the same manner. That is, not, as one would suppose, by a swift dodging dash to one side of the field or to the other, through a broken and scattered mass of defenders, but by a run straight into and through the very center and thickest of the opponents. In the thousands of instances where a runner has tried to fly up the outside stretches, in all save one he has failed.

What is the cause of this peculiar phenomenon of foot-ball? Why is a defense to this play the weakest at its strongest point? Because the defending players, in concentrating upon the runner at the center of the field, so interlock, block, impede, and interfere with one another at the

R. W. WATSON. (YALE) November, 1880. 90 yards.

J. H. SEARS. (HARVARD) November, 1886. 85 yards.

G. B. WALBRIDGE. (LAFAYETTE) November, 1897. 100 yards.

E. G. BRAY. (LAFAYETTE) October, 1899. 100 yards.

very moment they meet him, that, occasionally, it happens that not one of these defensive players can free his arm to seize him, while the runner, tenaciously keeping upon his feet, is whirled and rammed straight through the defensive mass into a comparatively clear field, in which he then has to elude only one or two tacklers. In an open field, it is not difficult to dodge one and two tacklers in succession, but it is extraordinarily difficult in an open-field dash to dodge an entire eleven. Hence, on a full-field run from kick-off, fortune favors the bold runner who directs his flight squarely into the central bulwark of the defenders, and not at their apparently exposed flanks resting against the side-line.

While the kick-off, substantially in the form of the present day, always has been possible under the rules, in practice it has not always been a method of play. From 1876 to 1880, the initial play was a kick-off as it is to-day, except the kick might be a punt or drop-kick, as well as a place-kick. About 1880, however, some unknown genius devised the “dribble.” This was only a technical kick-off by which the kicker kicked the ball forward a foot or two to be picked up by himself or by a comrade for a run. In 1884, Princeton produced the famous “V trick,” which still further distorted the kick-off, although still technically observing it. In the trick, the player with the ball technically kicked off by striking the ball with his foot while the ball was in his hands and without releasing it. In 1892, the V trick gave way to Harvard's celebrated “flying wedge.” in which the ball was still put into play in the same manner as in the V trick. In 1894, the flying wedge was abolished by rule, and the old-fashioned kick-off reëstablished and limited to a place-kick. During the first year or two, it was a common sight to see a player hold the ball for the kicker. Eventually the little tee of earth prevailed, and from that day to this the game has had a real kick-off and the opportunity for a full-field run from kick-off to touch-down.

A search through the accounts of the games from 1876 to 1881 finds only a single instance of a full-field run from kick-off to touch-down. Harvard was playing Yale at Boston, November 20, 1880. A hard, grueling battle was drawing to a close without a score by cither cleven. Just as the last five minutes began, Walter Camp kicked a goal from the field for Yale. The teams quickly lined up for a kick-off, and Cutts, of Harvard, sent a long, swirling kick to Yale's twenty-yard line, where it was caught by R. W. Watson, captain of Yale. With the catch of the ball Watson leaped into flight, and sped straight up

E.B. COCHEMS. (WISCONSIN) November, 1901. 100 yards.

w. H. ECKERSALL. (CHICAGO) November, 1904. 106 yards.

C. D. DALY. (LAFAYETTE) November, 1901. 100 yards.

the center of the field. The Harvard men did not mass upon him in that primitive day as would now occur, but met him with a scattered formation. Through this broken field Watson raced and dodged, flinging off tackler after tackler, and crossed the line, scoring the first touch-down ever scored against Harvard by Yale; Yale's previous victories were achieved by goals from the field.

Six years later occurred another instance of this rare play. This time, the warriors were Harvard and Pennsylvania, and the battle-feld was famous old Jarvis Field, at Cambridge. Pennsvlvania was varying the opening plays by a mixture of dribbles and kick-offs. Upon one of the latter the ball sailed down to Harvard's full-back, Joseph Hamblen Sears, a renowned name upon the gridiron twenty-five years ago. This swift and powerful runner leaped into flight straight up the center of the field. Dodging Pennsylvania’s ends and tackles, the first to meet him, he suddenly swerved to the right, and, by a marvelous zigzagging run, threaded his way in and out among Pennsylvania’s remaining rushers and backs, until he flashed by every one and burst into a clear field, over which he leaped to the goal-line—accomplishing a full-field run of eighty-five yards, and a touch-down.

And now came and went eight years in which the kick-off and the possibility of the full-field run from a kick-off passed from the game. With the return of the kick-off in 1894, curiosity eagerly awaited the achievement of the first full-field run from kick-off to touch-down. 1894, 1895, and 1896, however, came and went without the accomplishment of this great feat. 1897 likewise opened, waxed, and drew to a close, when, suddenly, George B. Walbridge, of Lafayette, in a game against Wesleyan, made the run. Even in this instance a cunning stratagem was necessary to clear the way for the powerful but fleet-footed Walbridge.

This stratagem still available was a variation of the triple pass adapted to a kick-off. Wesleyan won the toss of the coin, and, selecting the ball, kicked off. Duffy, of Lafayette, caught the ball on his twenty-yard line, and, quickly turning around, passed it five yards farther back to the giant Rinehart, who instantly dashed obliquely across the field to the left, as though to turn up the left side-line. Walbridge, who had been stationed on the ten-yard line well to the left, now advanced slowly forward, as though to interfere for Rinehart. In the meantime, the remaining Lafayette players were crossing the field and concentrating in front of Rinehart to protect him

W. F. STEFFEN. (CHICAGO.) November, 1908. 100 yards.

W. E. SPRACKLING. (BROWN.) November, 1909. 105 yards.

E. E. MILLER. (PENN. STATE.) October, 1911. 95 yards.

R. E. CAPRON. (MINNESOTA.) November, 1911. 95 yards.

in his attempt to force Wesleyan’s right flank, thus drawing all of the Wesleyan players also over to the left. As Rinehart and Walbridge met, the former handed the ball to the latter, the pass being concealed by the close mass of Lafayette players about them. Rinehart, feinting to have the ball, continued his flight up the left side-line, preceded by five of his comrades as interference. The remaining four Lafayette players, who were the most skilful interferers on the eleven, suddenly parted to the right, and, out-flanking the last straggling Wesleyan men coming across the field, swept them also into the trap on the left, while Walbridge, swift as Mercury with his winged shoes, and only detected by a few Wesleyan men who were helpless to reach him, swept up the field, and over the line.

It was another Lafayette man who achieved the next full-field run of this kind. This player was Edward G. Bray. Bray's run holds a place of singular distinction in the list of these runs. First, it was the only one of two full-field runs from kick-off which have the honor to have won a game; second, although made in the first fifteen seconds of play, it was the only score of the day: and, third, it was achieved against a brilliant Pennsylvania eleven in a sensational, spectacular dash of one hundred yards replete with repeated displays of strength, skill, and speed.

Of the 15,000 spectators who assembled at Franklin Field on that crisp autumn day, October 21, 1899, probably not one dreamed of the remarkable play that was to occur on the kick-off, and eventually win the game. Lafayette won the toss and chose the western goal. Pennsylvania kicked off. The ball, sailing high from the powerful foot of T. Truxton Hare, floated down to Lafayette’s ten-yard line. With the kick, the entire Pennsylvania eleven, except Woodley, swept down the field in a great, converging crescent. On the tips were the two end-rushers, Combs and Stehle, cautiously following the side-lines and alert for any stratagem. In the center came Overfield, McCracken, and Snover, with a secondary defense behind them composed of Davidson and Kennedy. The ball, with a sharp impact, struck the tenacious arms of Bray, and the great full-back instantly leaped into flight, Settling the ball securely in his left arm, with head well back and right arm free, he sprang from line to line, going straight up the middle of the ficld, with his comrades forming before him a V-shaped wedge, apex forward. The two elevens, with a tremendous crash, came together upon Lafayette's thirty-five-yard line. For the fraction of a second, they stood still as the recoil and shock shook every man, and then, like a great pair of folding-doors, Pennsylvania’s crescent was burst in two, and through the opening leaped the indomitable Bray, followed by two other Lafayette men, Knight and Chalmers. With machine precision, Pennsylvania’s secondary defenders closed in, but Kennedy went down before Knight and Davidson was blocked off by Chalmers. As all four went to the ground, Bray leaped forward into a clear field save only Woodley, a swift, low, hard tackler. This clean-cut player, seeing the grave danger, came up the field on a curving course so as to intercept Bray near the side-line, a safe forty yards from Pennsylvania’s goal-line. The spectators, who were sitting dumfounded by the swift kaleidoscope of sensations, now saw that the bold assault of Bray would come to naught, as he was caught between the side-line and the ferocious Woodley. As the men approached, they saw Woodley crouch to spring, when suddenly, as though from nowhere, Chalmers’s great bulk flashed across the path of Bray and struck the springing Woodley with the full force of its 180 pounds. Down went the little warrior Woodley with Chalmers upon him, while Bray leaped past them, and in ten strides was across the goal-line.

Such a performance as this would have been sufficient to sate the throng who saw it, but fortune was lavish that afternoon, and other sensational plays followed. Here was the lighter, less skilful but immensely spirited eleven six points in the lead, with substantially the whole game still to be played. Fiercely, indeed, did that Pennsylvania eleven of giants assail that little Lafayette team. Time and again did the great guards Hare and McCracken, in Pennsylvania’s most famous mechanism of attack, “guards back,” batter Lafayette backward line upon line, only to be piled into a pyramid of red and blue jerseys in the last space, and the ball taken from them. Thus the battle waged and thus the battle closed, Lafayette safeguarding to the last the touch-down which Bray had won.

Again two years were destined to come and go before another warrior of the gridiron would achieve a full-field run from kick-off, and then, only two days apart, two brilliant instances of the play occurred. In the west, November 28, 1901, E. B. Cochems, of Wisconsin, in a game against Chicago, caught the ball from kick-off on his ten-yard line, and dashed and dodged, plunged and writhed through all opponents for a touch-down. Two days later, Charles D. Daly, of the Army, famous previously as a player and captain at Harvard, caught the Navy’s kick-off, also on his ten-yard line, and sprinted an even hundred yards for a touch-down.

Cochem’s run came near the end of the game, when his eleven had victory well in hand. Daly achieved his performance at the opening of the second half, dramatically breaking a tie that had closed the first period of play. Cochem’s great flight presented all of the features of speed, skill, and chance which must combine to make possible the full-field run. Like his predecessors, he boldly laid his course against the very center of Chicago’s on-coming forwards, bursting their central bastion, and then cleverly sprinting and dodging through the secondary defenders.

Daly’s famous dash presents the only instance of a full-field run from kick-off being achieved by skirting the flanks of the enemy. Not only was this run made along the outside, instead of through the center, but it was so successfully executed that not a single hand, comrade’s or opponent’s, was laid upon Daly from the beginning to the end of his flight.

The first half had closed with a score of 5 to 5 Daly having kicked a goal from the field for the Army, and Nichols having scored a touch-down for the Navy, the try for goal being missed. After an intermission tense with expectancy and excitement, the elevens deployed upon the field. Navy kicked off. The kick was low, but possessed power and shot straight down to Daly on his ten-yard line. The Army instantly charged toward the center of the Navy’s running crescent, forming, as they ran, the familiar hollow wedge for Daly to enter. But this alert-minded player, by one of those sudden decisions to vary an established rule of action which in real warfare has won many a brilliant victory, sharply turned to the right, abandoning the protecting wings of the wedge, and started with incredible swiftness on a wide, circling dash around the Navy’s left flank. The Navy forwards checked their charge and ran to the left to force Daly out of bounds, but the latter, outrunning and outracing all, flashed by the pack, and, clinging close to the side-line, dashed down the field and across the goal-line.

Fortune with curious regularity now permitted another period of two years to elapse before the occurrence of another full-field run from kick-off. This time it was a Carlisle Indian who covered the long distance, in a game against Harvard, October 31, 1903, and did so by the craftiest, wiliest stratagem ever perpetrated by a redskin upon his pale-faced brother. The first half had closed with the Indians in the lead five points to none. Harvard opened the battle by sending a long kick to Johnson on Carlisle’s five-yard line. The Indians quickly ran back to meet Johnson, and formed a compact mass around him. Within the recesses of this mass of players, Johnson slipped the ball beneath the back of Dillon’s jersey, which had been especially made to receive and hold the ball. Then, the ball thus secretly transferred and hidden, Johnson uttered a whoop such as Cambridge had not heard since the days of King Philip’s War, and instantly the bunch of Indians scattered in all directions. Some ran to the right, some to the left, some obliquely, and some straight up the center of the field, radiating in all directions like the spokes of a wheel. The crimson players now upon them looked in vain for the ball, dumfounded, running from one opponent to another. Meanwhile, Dillon was running straight down the field so as to give his opponents the least opportunity for a side or rear view, and conspicuously swinging his arms to show that they did not hold the ball. Thus, without being detected, he passed through the entire Harvard team excepting the captain, Carl B. Marshall, who was covering the deep back-field. Obeying instructions, Dillon ran straight at Marshall. The latter, assuming that the Indian intended to block him, agilely side-stepped the Carlisle player, and, as he did so, he caught sight of the enormous and unwonted bulge on the back of Dillon. Instantly divining that here was the lost ball, Marshall turned and sprang at Dillon, but the latter was well on his way, and quickly crossed the line for a touch-down.

The next instance of a full-field run from kick-off brings us to the longest run achieved in any manner in the history of the major games, 106 yards, by Walter H. Eckersall, of Chicago, against Wisconsin, November 26, 1904. Still complying with the law of these runs, this flight was made straight through the center of the enemy. The battle was raging closely, scoring by one side being quickly followed by a score by the other. Near the middle of the second half, L. C. De Tray, of Chicago, picked up a fumbled ball and ran eighty yards for a touch-down. Notwithstanding this lead, the game was too close for Chicago to feel sure of victory or for Wisconsin to become resigned to defeat. Kennedy added another point to Chicago’s score by kicking the goal. Thereupon Melzner kicked off for Wisconsin. The ball soared high, then sank swiftly down into the arms of Eckersall, who was standing on Chicago’s four-yard mark. Crouching forward, he ran up the center. On the twenty-yard line, he cleverly sprang out of the clutches of the two Wisconsin ends by leaping between them. Ten yards farther forward, with an interference of seven men closely massed about him, he crashed into eight Wisconsin players. Again these colliding masses inexplicably burst in two at the center, and the runner was shot through into a clear field, save a solitary secondary defender whose fleetness of foot was no match for the incomparable Eckersall.

As proof of the extraordinary difficulty of achieving a full-field run from kick-off, four long years now came and went without any player in a major game accomplishing this great feat. In 1908, however, it again befell Chicago to ornament the annals of foot-ball with another full-field run. The hero on this occasion was Chicago’s captain, W. P. Steffen, and the opponents were again Wisconsin. The play occurred on the game’s opening kick-off, and while Chicago twice afterward scored, the battle would have resulted in a draw without Steffen’s touch-down.

The following year brought forth a beautiful full-field run by W. E. Sprackling of Brown through the formidable Carlisle Indians, an exceptionally fleet-footed, sharp, hard-tackling team, but on this occasion out-plunged, out-raced, and out-dodged by the extraordinary Sprackling, 105 yards for a touch-down.

Three other full-field runs from kick-off have occurred since the run of Sprackling, and, curiously enough, they occurred in the same year, 1911. These were the runs of E. E. Miller, of Pennsylvania State College, against the University of Pennsylvania, a dash of ninety-five yards; the run of R. O. Ainslee, of Williams, 105 yards, through Cornell; and that of R. E. Capron, of Minnesota, against Wisconsin, for ninety-five yards.

Since 1911, an improvement has been made in the defensive plans of teams to prevent a full-field run from kick-off. Many elevens now deliver the kick-off into a corner of their opponent’s territory instead of in front of the goal-posts. When the kick-off is sent into a corner of the field, it gives to the kicking side the advantage of a deadly side-line over which to force the runner and also to hamper him in his flight. It also places the ball in the arms of a less formidable back, since the best running back invariably is stationed in front of the goal-posts. Most important of all, it does away with that colliding mass at the center of the field which, by the inexplicable combination of chances alone, makes possible the bursting through of the runner. Fortunately for those who desire to see, some day, a full-field run from kick-off, the corner kick-off involves the danger of a kick out of bounds, and so cannot be regularly employed. Thus the honor roll awaits the addition of other heroes of the gridiron who shall achieve the greatest feat upon the lines of lime—the full-field run from kick-off to touch-down.