CAPT. HUNT, R. H. B. U. C. FOOTBALL ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE. BY JOHN CRAIG. ALIFORNIA has for many years been a paradise for the athlete. Amateur sports each year find a fresh awakening of interest in them in the public mind, and football stands distinctive above all. The climate of the Golden State offers advantages for athletic training perhaps unequaled elsewhere, as out-ofdoor work can be done in every month of the year, and this is particularly desirable to the men who make up the football elevens. While the press of the country records from time to time the brilliant intercollegiate games of the East little has been told, outside of the local papers of the section, of the sturdy wearers of the canvas jacket on the Pacific side, although many games have been played there that for exhibitions of strength and skill would compare favorably with the contests on the other slope. Football on the Pacific slope has not seen many years of life; it is yet in its infancy, and perhaps not more than ten years have seen the game in progress there. About the first clubs to organize were the Phoenix and Wanderers. These were composed, in the main, of grown men-the Wanderers principally from the English residents-and all their matches were under the Rugby rules. Some exciting games were played at the old Recreation Grounds, in San Francisco, in the Fall and Winter of 1880-81, the "punting" of Nicholson, captain of the Wanderers, and the "tackling" of Coubrough and Woolrich of the same club, with the clock-work "passing" and the running of Dean and Sime, of the Phoenix team, being the features of these contests. The two last named played together like parts of a machine, one always following a few yards behind WEBER, Right End; ORCUTT, FIELD, WHITTEMORE, CAPRON, F. DOWNING, FRY. LELAND STANFORD, JR., FOOTBALL UNIVERSITY TEAM. the other, each invariably "passing" the ball before or on being "tackled." Sime was a wonderful runner, doing 100 yards very close to 10 seconds, and was selected by the Olympic Club of San Francisco, with Belcher and R. B. Haley, for whom a record of 9 seconds for 100 yards is claimed, to represent that club at the championship games in the East several years ago. Not long after this a number of other clubs entered the field The Merion Cricket Club organized a team, and then the Union Club was formed from members of the San Francisco Boys' High School. The Unions soon showed the great advantage of constant practice which, as school boys, they were enabled to get, and in a game with the Merions at the Presidio of San Francisco, early in 1882, easily defeated their older opponents. The Unions had a heavy team, and many brilliant players. Edgar Foster, the captain and "half-back," proved himself a wonder in the foot-ball line, and seldom failed to carry the ball from fifteen to twenty yards with each run. Booth, the full-back of this team, developed into a formidable player, and his dodging and tackling were superb. Among other good men who played on the Union team were Perkins, Wm. Hughes, Robert La Motte, Irving Lyons and Beverly Letcher. The Unions were especially strong in "tackling and "blocking," a trait that they handed down to The Wasps,-of which we will speak later on, a team that many of the Unions joined in after years. After defeating the Merions, the Unions decided to try conclusions with the older clubs, which were composed in the main of grown men, and which had in consequence a decided advantage over their younger rivals in the matter of weight, an important factor in the Rugby game, with its "push scrimmage." In two very close games played early in 1882 with, first the Phoenix team, and then the Wanderers, the younger men were defeated, though in each game they contested stubbornly every inch of the ground, and surprised their heavy opponents with their wonderful "tackling" and running. Their |