Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/180

 It is hard for the young fellow who has once got the athletic fever into his blood to get it out. After a hard game or a hard season, especially one followed by defeat, I have often heard an athlete vigorously affirm that he was through with the whole business. There was nothing to it, he avowed, and when he laid aside his athletic togs, he swore he would never put them on again. Perhaps the next season he was tardy in coming out at first, but he could not stay out of the game long. Neither danger, nor pain, nor exhaustion, nor possible defeat daunted him. The game had got into his blood and he had to take it up.

I have a vivid recollection of "Cap" the night after we had been defeated by Chicago. He had played a masterly, though a losing game, and had come away bearing on his body the scars of hattle. I called at his house after dinner to offer him my congratulations on the game he had put up and my eondolences on the unsatisfactory outcome. He was a sad looking figure. His nose had been broken and some one had kicked him in the eye, which was discolored and swollen shut. His whole body was bruised and sore and he was in a furious temper.

"This is my last appearance, pos-i-tív-ly," he growled. "There's nothing in it. A man's a fool to let himself be mangled up the way I am. I'm out of it. Never again for me. If I ever have a son who wants to play football I'll lock him up or strangle him. It's me in the future for the peaceful life."

I said nothing, for I knew the outcome. He was in the next game as chipper as ever, and the next fall he was the first man out on the field, when it came time for practice. He could not keep away from it