VETERAN foot-ball men, like other veterans, find Tactics and tacticians, however, have not been hurled his body against the gigantic wedge, and, single and alone, sent the mass of eleven men, tangled and helpless, crashing to the ground. What was the V trick? As finally perfected, it was the formation of the eleven players of the offense into a V-shaped mass, apex forward, and solidified by the players wrapping their arms. about each other. The formation massed ten yards behind the line of scrimmage,-there was no rule in those days requiring players of the offensive side to stand upon the line,-and, at the snap of the ball, the great mass, firmly locked and in step with machine-like precision, ponderously but swiftly moved forward, being in full motion before it reached the defenders. The player with the ball was hidden within this formidable mass of men, which was rendered still more powerful by having the heaviest men in the apex. This was the first of the famous momentum-mass plays of twenty-five years ago. Skill, indeed, was necessary to execute the V trick, but courage as well as skill was necessary to stop it. When the offensive eleven fell back to form the "V," the defensive line deployed widely along the line of scrimmage, because no one of them knew in advance in which direction the "V" would come. The instant the ball was put in play and the V simultaneously moved forward, the defensive rushers leaped forward toward the mass. The first player to strike the V usually was the guard or tackle upon the side of the V's direction. If this player, with the height of skill and force, struck with his shoulder the knees of the second man in the apex of the V, the wedge with a loud report would collapse, its men would pile up a writhing heap of arms and legs, beneath which would be the player who had wrought the havoc, and the player with the ball, darting out from the rear of the disrupted wedge into the open field, would be caught in a shearing tackle by the nimble de1 Inventor of the "flying wedge" and the "turtle-back." If one who has lived long in foot-ball, seen much, and remembered well were asked which are the greatest plays of all time in American foot-ball, tactically considered, he would reply: the V trick, the flying wedge, guards-back, the turtle-back, the revolving tandem, the tackleback, and the Minnesota shift. Ah, what thrilling memories come back to some of us at the mention of the V trick! Memories of great crowds hushed and breathless as the mighty engine of humanity plowed its ponderous way through opposing players, and of the mighty shout that went up as some daring defender fensive end, who had lain back alertly awaiting such an outcome to the manœuver. Unlike other great tactical productions of the gridiron, this truly great play was not the result of long and laborious study and experimentation, but was the sudden conception of a player in the turmoil of a desperate battle. This game was the contest between Pennsylvania and Princeton, October 25, 1884, and the inventor of the play was Richard M. Hodge, of Princeton, a young sophomore quarter-back playing upon the team. Hodge, in response to a request for an authentic, first-hand account of the creation of this famous play, has contributed the following to the history of the sport: "In the middle of the game, Captain Bird, of Princeton, had called upon Baker, '85, a halfback, to run behind the rush-line, which charged seven abreast down the field. It was an old play, and gained little ground the second time it was used. It suddenly struck me that if the rush-line would jump with the snap of the ball into the shape of a V, with the apex forward, we ought to gain ground. A consultation was held, and upon the next play the formation was tried, Baker plowing in the V to Pennsylvania's five-yard line, from which on the next play he was pushed over." Following this game, the tacticians at Princeton improved this manoeuver by withdrawing the eleven, for the formation, ten yards behind the line of scrimmage, thereby gaining the momentum of the ten-yard rush forward, and the trick was reserved for the opening play in the game with Yale. Achieving indifferent success in this game, the play was abandoned in 1885, but revived and improved in 1886, in which year it was employed so successfully that by 1887 and 1888 it had become the regulation opening play, supplanting the kick-off, upon all the teams in the country, and remained so until 1894. A curious feature of the play throughout all of these years was the technical preservation of the kick-off which the rules required. This ingeniously was. accomplished by the player with the ball standing at the apex of the V. When the signal to begin play was given by the referee, this player touched the ball to the ground and his foot simultaneously, without releasing the ball from his hand, thereby complying with the rule to kickoff, which in those days imposed no yardage for the kick. Thus the V trick became one of the commonplace manoeuvers of foot-ball, so regularly executed that no idea, however slight, occurred to players or public that it would be supplanted. But a thunderclap in a clear sky was soon to break. In the city of Boston was a gentleman, unknown in foot-ball but well known in many other activities, among which was a fondness for chess. This gentleman was Mr. Lorin F. Deland. Turning his propensity for problems in chess to the field of foot-ball, he quickly evolved an astounding manoeuver, and secretly taught the play to Captain B. W. Trafford's team at Harvard. The play was sprung at Hampden Park, Springfield, November 19, 1892, in Harvard's game with Yale. Yale winning the toss, selected the ball and opened the battle with the time-honored V trick. The long half of forty-five minutes, fiercely fought, came to an end without a score. After the usual intermission, the teams again took the field, and Harvard had the ball for the opening play. Yale, assuming that, of course, the play would be the customary V trick, deployed widely along the line, Hinkey, Winter, McCrea, Stillman, Hickok, Wallis, and Greenway crouching low and trembling with eagerness to hurl themselves against the wedge. To the surprise of the players in blue, however, and to the consternation of the spectators, Harvard did not form a V. Instead, Trafford, Harvard's captain, holding the ball, took a position at the center of Harvard's forty-five-yard line. The remaining players in two sections fell back to their twenty-five-yard line, each section grouping near its side-line. Without putting the ball in play, Trafford signaled with his hand, and the two groups of players leaped swiftly forward in lock-step, converging toward Trafford and gathering tremendous momentum as they ran. Just as they reached Trafford, the latter put the ball in play and disappeared within the great flying wedge as it passed him crashing into the Yale men, who, until the ball was put in play, were forced to stand still upon their line and thus with no momentum of their own be struck with the flying weight of the eleven men in crimson. Straight through the Yale team this mighty flying wedge plowed and crashed, until, torn to pieces by their fearless opponents, Frank Butterworth, of Yale, brought Trafford down twenty yards from Yale's goal. Of all the major tactics in foot-ball, this play, the flying wedge of Lorin F. Deland, unquestionably was the most spectacular, the most famous, and the most momentous in results. Within one year, it had supplanted the V trick upon every team in the country, and brought forth hundreds of tacticians ambitious to achieve the success and fame of Mr. Deland, thereby giving an enormous impulse to the tactical department of the sport. The first result was the introduction by George W. Woodruff, the old Yale guard, famous as Pennsylvania's greatest coach, of the |