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Show I 4 I My Greatest Thrill in Sport 1 By J. W. HEISMAN j ? 0 Physical Director, University of Pennsylvania. W One's greatest thrill in sport, I fancy, must ever be experienced be- B."i.'i!"ls'J'lfl!IUIIMIM.muxli f -v 4 J cause of a direct connection with the sporting event in which the thrill came; otherwise oth-erwise there is lacking that personal per-sonal Interest whence comes the thrill. In 1922 1 was coaching the University Uni-versity of Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania football eleven. We had a J. W. Heisman. very strong Navy team on our schedule, and both teams had won all their games up to the Saturday on which they were to meet. The proper composition of our team was not difficult to arrive at, with hut one exception, and that was whether Capt. "Poss" Miller should start the game at right or some one else. Mil-1 Mil-1 ler had been off his game all season, but I was certain that he would hit his stride In this game. So I Insisted on his starting at his old position. The first haJf was all Navy. We went on defense and let them have the ball. To everybody but myself I know the case looked hopeless. They hammered us all the way down field for a touchdown and goal. Going out on the field for the second half, I told Miller that now was our time to test out our own offense and that we would not play a kicking game any longer, as I was sure we had tired them a lot and could now gain ground ourselves. I told Miller to run himself him-self as much as he could stand, and I gave him an encouraging slap to let him know I still had every confidence in the world in him. He carried out instructions to tlw very letter. We received the kick-off and then the crowd straightway saw a perfect demon in action. Miller weighed only about luG, but how he smashed and crashed and catapulted into that line! Every time he carried the ball he gained from two to eight yards, and he called for It about two times out of every three that It went into play. Clear down to Navy's 14-yard line It went on the stralghtest kind of football. And then and there Miller recognized, by the aid of a perfect intuition, that the Navy defense had stiffened and that It would be all but an Impossibility for him or the team to muster enough strength to continue his drive long enough to get it over that remaining 14 yards of arid desert des-ert by straight ramming. Breaking all rules, he pulled a running run-ning pass, by the other half to himself, him-self, on the first down. Grimly determined de-termined to stop these running attacks, at-tacks, the Navy players sprang in like wolves to tear the interference to pieces, and just as they did the ball went sailing over their heads, right into Miller's upraised arms. Two Navy men nailed him just as he fell across the goal line. A moment more and the goal was kicked aud the score tied. That wonderful display of grit, that marvelous comeback by a man who realized he had been falling down In his play, who knew that his football foot-ball life was hanging in the balance, who knew there were more folks who thought he ought not to be In the lineup line-up than those who figured he should, the desire to prove himself for his own sake, that lightning, flashing vindication vin-dication against frightful odds yes, that was my greatest thrill. "Poss" Miller then went ahead and did it all over again carried the ball almost single-handed the length of the field to another and winning touchdown. But that, by now, I almost al-most expected. And so the thrill I got out of his second touchdown, even though it won the game, was nothing like the one I got out of his first grand march ((c) by Public Ledger Company.) |
