Page:St. Nicholas - Volume 41, Part 1.djvu/27



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

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