Houghton Used Wife and Dog When Developing His Famous New "Hidden Ball" or Spinner Play

This is the last of a series of articles about Harvard football written by James L. Knox '98, coach of the Jayvees team from the Haughton to the Hariow regime.

1915 marked the introduction of the "hidden ball" or spinner plays. Haughton had developed these the summer before by experimenting with the plays, using his wife, famed for her judgment, and his dog, which was an excellent ball-chaser. Finding that both womanly institution and canine instinct were successfully fooled in trying to locate the holder of the ball, he decided that plays of this type were feasible in actual play.

The spinner was first tried on Princeton, and I don't blame them for thinking that their eyesight had gone bad, as King or some alternate back had the ball where the Tigers defence men were not!

The war hiatus followed the 1916 defeat in which Eddie Casey scored an unallowed touchdown, which, with other things makes Harvard players chew nails every time they think of the final score: Yale 6, Harvard 3.

After the war Bob Fisher became head coach in the fall of 1919 and after the season's close the team was invited to go to Pasadena, where it became the first Eastern team to win a Rose Bowl game, which it did, 7-6, (a touchdown and goal, against two field goals) The number of Yale games which Harvard won 10-8 comprised one unusual phase of Fisher's regime. He held the reins of head coach from 1919 through 1925, when he was followed by Arnle Horween in 1926. Horween's 1928 team had the famous lateral pass combination of Guarmaccia to French and a flying interferer who did more flying than interfering; characterizing the type of play which he taught.

Eddie Casey, followed Horween in 1931 and lasted through 1934, to be succeeded by Dick Harlow.

In the 1890's Harvard paid Dartmouth less than $500 for all expenses in connection with two games which Dartmouth came to Cambridge to play. In the 1920's the H. A. A. gave Dartmouth over $40,000 for her share of a single game. That, with no small degree of accuracy, represents the growth of football at Harvard and throughout the country.