The ep24 Footballs Advance Guard

This is Jimmy Powers ready to bring you another story from the tumult and the shouting. Once again, this is yours truly, Jimmy Powers. From his first exposure to football as a Vanderbilt University undergraduate in 1899,

Granny Rice never lost touch with the collegiate game. As the Grantland Rice byline began to emerge around 1910, Granny's impact on the game was constructive. Later in the Golden Twenties, the Grantland Rice All-America teams received national attention attention. In fact, right up to and through his last All-American team in 1953, Granny's All-American selections were about as official as you can get.

Well, Granny knew the players and you can bet he knew their coaches. From Walter Camp, father of football at Yale, right on through the moderns of today, such as Armies Earl Blake and Oklahoma's Bud Wilkinson, Granny knew them all. So with a warm salute to the every young spirit of to Grantlin Rice, I take up his narrative in First Person.

First he hotted the Harvest Famous coach from 1908 to 1916, was one of the best in football's long history. It was Houghton who first developed the hidden ball perfectly. He worked his team to the limit in this deception where everyone had to be an actor. He developed the mousetrap fully. I asked him before one Yale game if he could stop Yale's big line. I'm not going

to try," he said. I'll let them break through and then cut them down from the side. Harvard won that 1914 game, 36 to nothing. Houghton had another odd slant. In contrast to the practice at Yale, he wanted no old stars haunting his practice field.

I sat there with him one afternoon before practice, as Charlie Brickley and one or two other famous wearers of the Crimson came in. As he left for the field, they started with him. I'll see you fellas back here," Houghton said.