The Yale Epic

Dartmouth's 1929 system was built for Al Marsters. There was no getting around the fact that as the Green team took the field at New Haven that Saturday that upon the shoulders of Arlington Al, Dartmouth would sink or swim, for he was the key man on every play, and he was always the triple threat of the Dartmouth backfield. Likewise Yale pinned their hopes on Little Albie, their 144 pounds of dynamite. Without Albie, Yale had been colorless and uninspiring, and only his presence in a game had served to pull the Elis out from certain defeat. He was small, and they said'that he couldn't play the whole game as his physical capacities would not allow it. Against 'Brown and the Army, Yale was just a football team until Booth went into the game; he was never started in a game, but was injected with all the dramatics concomitant to such a situation.

Dartmouth'appeared on the field in snow white distinct'innovation, and the entire squad limbered up on the field before the game. Yale was nowhere to be seen until just before the opening whistle when the Blue squad filed into the Bowl and'took'their seats.

But whistle, Yale tore into the Dartmouth with surprising man power pushed the ball down to the twenty yard line. The referee's whistle blew' and the smallest'gridiron player we have ever seen ran out to him to report. The Yale stands were in the highest state of pandemonium, and we could hardly hear the press box announcer bellow over and over again, "Yale substitution, Boooooooth for Hall!" Dartemouth had their backs to the wall; they wer on the verge of demoralization, the game was only a few minutes old, and Albie Booth was substituting in the Yale lineup! Booth crashed a tackle, he hit center, and it was first down for Yale on Dartmouth's 15 yard line. It was at this point that the Green forward wall stiffened, and Booth could not gain. On fourth down he dropped back and booted the ball squarely through the uprights for a field goal, and Yale was leading 3-0. So cock-sure was he of himself that he never stopped to see if the ball had cleared; he turned away immediately and walked back to the center of the field.

And all through that first half, which ended 3 to 0, Dartmouth appeared in mortal terror of Albie Booth. The Yale midget put on the most dazzling succession of runs we have ever seen on a gridiron; he caromed all the tackles, he slid around the ends, and he gained yards and yards. The most startling fact of all was, however hard he tried, he scored no touchdowns, for Dartmouth held when pushed back to their goal. The great Marsters had been bottled up from the start. The Yale ends were down under Booth's high punts to drop him in his tracks, and his interference had gone awry when he needed yardage. Only once had he shone, and that was when he grabbed a kick to weave nearly 40 yards through the Yale team only to be driven outside at midfield, it being the longest run of the afternoon from a kick, and it showed Marsters at his best.

So we filed out of the press box at the end of that half, wondering about it all, for a 3-0 score did not show up Yale in their true worth, and yet it gave Dartmouth a world of credit for their defensive game. Yale had completely out-played Dartmouth; there was no question about that, and the Dartmouth stands had not had much to cheer about.

The second half was started. Early in that third period, Dartmouth was again pushed to their own goal, where they took the ball from Yale. And then one of those things happened. Marsters attempted to run the ball through tackle, and as he was hit, the ball popped right out of his arms, went sailing through the air into the waiting hands of Alpheus Beane, who up to that point had been just a Yale substitute. Beane recovered in a flash and was off around his left end to a touchdown. It all came with such breath-taking suddenness, that few spectators noticed that Booth kicked the extra point into the score which now read, as large as life, Yale 10, Dartmouth 0. It was one of those things, and now Yale had a lead which looked most comfortable.

Booth was still playing a great game, and the Dartmouth team so had the fidgets over this little terror that they allowed men like Miller and Austen of Yale to walk through the center of their line for gains of ten and twelve yards while they were watching Booth. Yards of sport stuff had been written about Albie, and we had found them all to be true.

Now came the peak of that game which will go down in sports history as the greatest rally ever made by a beaten Dartmouth team. Dartmouth had their backs to the wall again; they were fighting hard, but it all seemed so insurmountable. Shep Wolff stood behind his goal line, and threw one of his famous forward passes. Upward it sailed in a graceful arc and came down, SO yards distant, into the waiting arms of Wild Bill McCall, who was downed in his tracks by a surprised Yale halfback.

The stands sensed a threat and every Dartmouth man was on his feet, as A1 Marsters received the ball and faded away from his center. Marsters tossed a flat pass to Harold Booma, who was again downed. For the second time, Marsters, who was unable to gain through the Yale line, received the ball from center and dropped back. This time, as swift as a bullet, as sure as a die, he passed, the ball going to Wild Bill McCall, who stumbled, recovered, and fought his way across the Yale goal line for a touchdown.

In three passes Dartmouth had suddenly come from oblivion to a score, and Dartmouth men were shouting the name of Marsters from the Green side of the Bowl. Dartmouth kicked off to Yale after the try for point had been missed, and a Yale runner, Austen, carried the ball out to the 25 yard line. It slipped from his fingers. It rolled crazily a few feet, and Harold Andres, the great Dartmouth center, was on it like a flash. Dartmouth had the ball on Yale's 30 yard line. A1 Marsters, from punt formation, crashed 15 yards through the Yale right tackle. Again Marsters slid off tackle to the three yard line, and for the third time in succession, Marsters hit the very center of the Blue wall, riding high on the crest of a wave to a touchdown.

There is a limit to one's emotions. There is a breaking point where one can cheer no longer. Dartmouth undergraduates, who are supposed to be hard boiled and callous and impervious to sweeping emotions, had shouted the name of A 1 Marsters till they could shout no more, and now they stood with tears of joy running down their cheeks as Marsters, enjoying the greatest five minutes of football the game has ever seen a player experience, had turned the impossible into the possible and had changed a beaten team into a fighting, winning-mad machine riding high on a slim 12-10 supremacy.

Little did they realize a few minutes later that they had seen A1 Marsters for the last time upon a college gridiron. For Marsters, who had given everything he had for Dartmouth in five glorious minutes of football, received an unintentional kick in his back as he threw his lithe body against a Yale tackle in an attempt to take him out on interference. He writhed in pain on the ground, and protesting any efforts to take him out, attempted to take his place again with his team. He was finally persuaded by Harry Hillman that he must go out, and with drooping shoulders and head down he slowly walked off the field, stopping for a minute in the ramp of the Bowl to watch the teams line up for the next play.

A few days later Marsters was lying flat on his back in Dick Hall's House, with two fractured processes of the veterbrae, with his football days behind him. Grantland Rice, after he had learned of the seriousness of Marsters' injury, wrote that the Special Delivery Kid was "one of the greatest backs the game has ever known—and this is barring no one, from Heston on through Grange to the present day."

So, protecting their two point lead, Dart- mouth and Yale battled on to a standstill as dusk fell over the Bowl. Along late in the last period, Little Albie Booth was still playing for Yale, after they had said that he could not last. But it was a different Booth, as he discovered that the Yale line was fast fading, and the Yale backs were not interfering as they had done earlier in the game. Tommy Longnecker had replaced the injured Marsters, and he had whipped his team to the Blue 25 yard line, with another score in sight.

Longnecker dropped back for a forward pass, and just as he was set to let it go, two Yale men bore in on him. The Dartmouth quarterback fell to one knee, and gambling all, let the ball go. The most sickening sensation ever experienced by a band of students was felt in the Dartmouth stands as they saw the ball sail out over the left Dartmouth flank straight into the arms of Hoot Ellis, a Yale substitute back and a ten second man on the Blue track team. Ellis, with a clear field, for the pass was not covered, tore straight as an arrow for the Dartmouth goal 80 yards away and put the ball down between the uprights for the most unfortunate touchdown ever seen from a Dartmouth viewpoint. The game ended in Yale's favor, 16-12 a few minutes later.

It is not for us to explain the whys andwherefores of Longnecker's pass. It is nowpast history, and the game is over. It is soeasy to criticize when not playing thegame, that the pass will go into the bookssimply as one of the weirdest plays infootball.

Dartmouth had been in football heaven, and in a few seconds they were plunged into the lowest possible emotional state. As Ellis was making his historic run, we could see Dartmouth players collapsing all over the field, and the team was played out to the point of Exhaustion. They had been going on nerve alone, and suddenly the gods of fate had turned against them. It was a situation unparalleled: Yale had scored two touchdowns on the breaks of the game, and yet they had outplayed Dartmouth during the whole game. Dartmouth had scored two touchdowns on the hardest sort of football, and both were earned, yet they lost the game.

AL MARSTERS RUNS WILD IN THE STADIUM With the score tied, 7-7, the Green star provided the spark that set the Dartmouth attack going. Here is Marsters on1 his thrilling 35-yard run from scrimmage early in the second half. He is shown here at his best.

THE SUTTON-ARMSTRONG TOUCHDOWN Crashing through the right side of Harvard's line Sutton scored for Dartmouth. He was tackled as he crossed the goal line and fumbled. Capt. Armstrong (28) may be seen running for the ball, which he recovered.