Outstanding c. 1894 albumin cabinet photo of Osgood with an unusual
bare-arm pose.
More appropriate than giving a straight Wikipedia style
biography, since it exists, is a first hand, period tribute to Winchester Dana
Osgood, by George Woodruff (played football for Yale in the 1880s and his
longest coaching stint was at Penn from 1892 through 1901). This was published
in the book Football Days, written by Bill Edwards.
“When my thoughts turn to the scores of manly football
players I have known intimately, Win Osgood claims, if not first place, at
least a unique place, among my memories. As a player he has never been
surpassed in his specialty of making long and brilliant runs, not only around,
but through the ranks of his opponents. After one of his seventy or eighty yard
runs his path was always marked by a zigzag line of opposing tacklers just
collecting their wits and slowly starting to get up from the ground. None of
them was ever hurt, but they seemed temporarily stunned as though, when they
struck Osgood’s mighty legs, they received an electric shock.
While at Cornell in 1892, Osgood made, by his own prowess,
two or three touchdowns against each of the strong Yale, Harvard and Princeton elevens,
and in the Harvard – Pennsylvania game at Philadelphia in 1894, he thrilled the
spectators with his runs more than I have ever seen any man do in any other one
game.
But I would belittle my own sense of Osgood’s real worth if
I confined myself to expatiating on his brilliant physical achievements.
His moral worth and gentle bravery were to me the chief
points in him that arouse true admiration. When I, as coach of Penn’s football
team discovered that Osgood had quietly matriculated at Pennsylvania, without
letting anybody know of his intention, I naturally cultivated his friendship,
in order to get from him his value as a player; but I found he was of even more
value as a moral force among players and students. In this way he helped me as
much as by his play, because, to my mind, a football team is good or bad
according to whether the bad elements or the good, both of which are in every
set of men, predominate.
In the winter of 1896, Osgood nearly persuaded me to go with
him on his expedition to help the Cubans, and I have often regretted not having
been with him through that experience.
He went as a Major of Artillery to be sure, but not for the
title, nor the adventure only, but I am sure for the love of freedom and
overwhelming sympathy for the oppressed. He said to me “The Cubans may not be
very lovely, but they are humans and their cause is lovely”.
When Osgood, with almost foolhardy bravery, sat on his horse
directing his dilapidated artillery fire in Cuba, and thus conspicuous, made himself
even more marked by wearing a white sombrero, he was not playing the part of
the fool; he was following his natural impulse to exert a moral force on his
comrades who could understand little but liberty and bravery.
When the Angel of Death gave him the accolade of nobility by
touching his brow in the form of a Mauser bullet, Win Osgood simply welcomed
his friend by gently breathing “Well”, a word typical of the man, and even in
death, it is reported, continued to sit erect upon his horse”.
Osgood was an accomplished and award winning athlete, and
although we tend to know him best for his football exploits, he competed in
wrestling, field and track, boxing, crew and gymnastics as well.
1890s Sheet music memorializing Osgood.
