Strategist

Recent researches at Wesleyan, Princeton and Yale have revealed the fact that Woodrow Wilson, idealist, man of destiny, political philosopher, was once an eager football strategist. In 1878 he coached a Princeton eleven which defeated both Yale and Harvard and won the first of the "Big Three" championships (see p. 32). Then he went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., officially as a history professor--but little time was lost in making him a member of the football advisory board. Soon Wesleyan teams began to baffle their cumbersome rush-line opponents with crafty off-tackle plunges, with neat crisscross plays. People began to talk of a lean history professor, who did no active field coaching but who had an impressive little blackboard.

Together with Walter Camp of Yale in 1889, he drew up the first set of rigid eligibility rules in the history of college athletics. They called a meeting of the old Intercollegiate Football Association,+- urged the adoption of their code. Their rules were accepted several years later.

And so, in annals of modern football strategy and ethics the name of a determined history professor is inscribed along with Camp of Yale, Moffatt of Princeton, Deland of Harvard, Bell of Pennsylvania.

+- Including Harvard, Pennsylvannia, Princeton, Wesleyan, Yale.