Ring Lardner
Evening Public Ledger/October 29, 1914
ST. THOMAS, Canada, Oct. 29.—“The greatest football team ever developed in the West” is on its way to Cambridge. “The greatest football team ever developed in the West” is what this year’s Michigan bunch was called in a Boston paper which was circulating around Ann Arbor before Yost and his young men left there yesterday.
That the Boston writer was perfectly accurate in so styling the Wolverines is the firm conviction of everybody except the entire population of the United States and Canada. This piece in the paper, which later on stated that Michigan was “outclassed” by Syracuse last Saturday, that Harvard should beat Michigan by at least two touchdowns without showing anything but old-style footfall, and that Maulbetsch was a heavy halfback, had one good effect. It made Yost laugh and kept him in good humor all day when otherwise he might have been a disagreeable traveling companion.
Whether the Michigan team Is the West’s greatest or not, it is, as previously hinted, on its way to Cambridge or rather to Auburndale, where It will be housed until Saturday afternoon. The departure from Ann Arbor was attended by the usual send-off ceremonies, the student body doing all in its power to simulate confidence in the team’s ability to lick Harvard, a confidence which does not exist. The football players probably were cheered by the display of enthusiasm, but at the same they knew perfectly well that the rooters were trying to hide their real feeling, which is one of hopelessness.
Since the Syracuse game almost every Michigan man, except the members of the team, has given up. If the students knew how the athletes themselves felt they might be able to shake off some of their gloom, for the footballists really think they have an even chance to down the Crimson, provided, of course, that the regulars last through the greater part of the game.
The varsity squad, listed yesterday, plus Mr. Millard, was on the train that issued out of Ann Arbor at 2:42 o’clock, to the accompaniment of Michigan cheers. The bunch was in charge of Yost, the assistant coach, Hugh White; Farrell, the trainer; Muehlhead, the assistant trainer; Jack Leonard, the manager, and Dean M. T. Cooley.
Director Bartelme and the scrub will follow tomorrow on the students’ special. Tomorrow’s train will consist of one car of alumni from Chicago, one of students and the scrub from Ann Arbor, two of graduates from Detroit, one each of alumni now resident of Grand Rapids and Toledo, and one containing the university band. The band has 41 members, and as they are slated to travel in one Pullman it is expected that some of them will have to sleep in the horns or on the bass drum.
The train reaches Auburndale tomorrow morning, as I may have stated once or twice before. The students’ special will arrive at Boston on Friday, and on that night there will be a Michigan smoker at the Copley Plaza Hotel. The speakers for that occasion are Denn Cooley, Bill Day and J. P. Muran. Bill Day is probably the best known Michigan rooter in the country. He is an ex-judge and a son of Justice Day, of the Supreme Court.
To the astonishment of the varsity squad, orders were issued for a final signal practice on Ferry Field this morning and the players were at it until they had to hustle to make the train. But we are off, finally, and there’s no chance to practice again until tomorrow.
For more than one reason I am glad to have been in Ann Arbor—but for one in particular. After this when somebody asks me the embarrassing question, “What was your college?” I can answer that I went through the University of Michigan. For I did that very thing this morning with the genial secretary, Shirley Smith, as guide.
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