Harvard-Yale Football "The Game": History

The tale is worth retelling: how a legendary football hero returned to the campus 25 years after his last game, insisted on scrimmaging against the varsity — and had to be asked to desist. The old boy was too rough; he was injuring too many young bucks who had to play on Saturday.

Distinguished sportswriters Grantland Rice, Allison Danzig and Tim Cohane all described the incident at Yale in 1916 when Pudge Heffelfinger, the immortal guard of 100 years ago, made it physically evident that he, at least, was ready to line up against Harvard. “I had to show the men I was still tough, or they wouldn’t have paid any attention to me,” Heffelfinger told Cohane.

Tad Jones was Yale’s coach at the time. He was the coach who, on the day of the game against Harvard, informed his squad: “Gentlemen, you are about to play Harvard in football. Never again in your whole life will you do anything so important.”

Against his better judgment, Jones let Heffelfinger, then 48, work out against his starting team, cautioning his men to go easy on the onetime campus hero. Heffelfinger bowled over several players on the opening snap. On the next play, a starting tackle suffered two broken ribs in a collision with Heffelfinger. “A few more plays and four more men were stretched out cold,” Jones related later. “I finally had to call Heffelfinger off the field and request him to confine his efforts to vocal instead of physical instruction.”

(excerpt from AthlonSports.com - College Football Update 10/09/01)