I have never
asked Jacob which of our football programs is his favorite, but this one is
mine. It is quite early in the scheme of American football, and there are a number
of things about it that appeal to me. It is a tremendously scarce example,
being the only program from this game we are aware of. It is a vibrant orange,
as opposed to the muted pastel beige, blue or white colors normally associated
with 1870’s programs, and what makes it very unusual and of particular interest
to me is the fact that it calls out four Yale players that played for Trinity,
as Trinity did not have enough people to form a team (at this time fifteen men
on a side was generally the norm). From Yale, playing for Trinity, were Crouch
(Forward), Hill (Half back), Bacon (Forward) and Wilson (Forward). Bacon went
on to play for the varsity from 1879 through 1883.
On November
9, 1878, Yale played Trinity College at Hamilton Park. Accounts of the game
numbered the crowd only in the low hundreds, one of the reasons for this
programs rarity.
On November
13, a second game, this time at Hartford (Baseball Grounds) was played
between Yale and Trinity. Again Yale supplied four players to their opponent,
changing out Crouch and Bacon for Miller and Fuller. The biggest difference in
this game was that Walter Camp played for Yale, scoring two goals. This game
was played “in presence of a small assembly”.
Of the six
games Yale played in 1878, two were against Trinity, two against Amherst and
one each against Harvard and Princeton (Yale’s only loss was to Princeton; they
also had one draw with Amherst). Walter Camp (Captain) did not play in the
first game against Trinity or in the second game against Amherst, being “away”.
It appears the two games with Yale were Trinity’s only games of the year.
See also related
blog entries dated August 17, 2013 and January 24, 2014.
