Within the recesses of this mass of players, Johnson slipped the ball beneath the back of Dillon’s jersey, which had been especially made to receive and hold the ball. Then, the ball thus secretly transferred and hidden, Johnson uttered a whoop such as Cambridge had not heard since the days of King Philip’s War, and instantly the bunch of Indians scattered in all directions. Some ran to the right, some to the left, some obliquely, and some straight up the center of the field, radiating in all directions like the spokes of a wheel. The crimson players now upon them looked in vain for the ball, dumfounded, running from one opponent to another. Meanwhile, Dillon was running straight down the field so as to give his opponents the least opportunity for a side or rear view, and conspicuously swinging his arms to show that they did not hold the ball. Thus, without being detected, he passed through the entire Harvard team excepting the captain, Carl B. Marshall, who was covering the deep back-field. Obeying instructions, Dillon ran straight at Marshall. The latter, assuming that the Indian intended to block him, agilely side-stepped the Carlisle player, and, as he did so, he caught sight of the enormous and unwonted bulge on the back of Dillon. Instantly divining that here was the lost ball, Marshall turned and sprang at Dillon, but the latter was well on his way, and quickly crossed the line for a touch-down.
The next instance of a full-field run from kick-off brings us to the longest run achieved in any manner in the history of the major games, 106 yards, by Walter H. Eckersall, of Chicago, against Wisconsin, November 26, 1904. Still complying with the law of these runs, this flight was made straight through the center of the enemy. The battle was raging closely, scoring by one side being quickly followed by a score by the other. Near the middle of the second half, L. C. De Tray, of Chicago, picked up a fumbled ball and ran eighty yards for a touch-down. Notwithstanding this lead, the game was too close for Chicago to feel sure of victory or for Wisconsin to become resigned to defeat. Kennedy added another point to Chicago’s score by kicking the goal. Thereupon Melzner kicked off for Wisconsin. The ball soared high, then sank swiftly down into the arms of Eckersall, who was standing on Chicago’s four-yard mark. Crouching forward, he ran up the center. On the twenty-yard line, he cleverly sprang out of the clutches of the two Wisconsin ends by leaping between them. Ten yards farther forward, with an interference of seven men closely massed about him, he crashed into eight Wisconsin players. Again these colliding masses inexplicably burst in two at the center, and the runner was shot through into a clear field, save a solitary secondary defender whose fleetness of foot was no match for the incomparable Eckersall.
As proof of the extraordinary difficulty of achieving a full-field run from kick-off, four long years now came and went without any player in a major game accomplishing this great feat. In 1908, however, it again befell Chicago to ornament the annals of foot-ball with another full-field run. The hero on this occasion was Chicago’s captain, W. P. Steffen, and the opponents were again Wisconsin. The play occurred on the game’s opening kick-off, and while Chicago twice afterward scored, the battle would have resulted in a draw without Steffen’s touch-down.
The following year brought forth a beautiful full-field run by W. E. Sprackling of Brown through the formidable Carlisle Indians, an exceptionally fleet-footed, sharp, hard-tackling team, but on this occasion out-plunged, out-raced, and out-dodged by the extraordinary Sprackling, 105 yards for a touch-down.
Three other full-field runs from kick-off have occurred since the run of Sprackling, and, curiously enough, they occurred in the same year, 1911. These were the runs of E. E. Miller, of Pennsylvania State College, against the University of Pennsylvania, a dash of ninety-five yards; the run of R. O. Ainslee, of Williams, 105 yards, through Cornell; and that of R. E. Capron, of Minnesota, against Wisconsin, for ninety-five yards.
Since 1911, an improvement has been made in the defensive plans of teams to prevent a full-field run from kick-off. Many elevens now deliver the kick-off into a corner of their opponent’s territory instead of in front of the goal-posts. When the kick-off is sent into a corner of the field, it gives to the kicking side the advantage of a deadly side-line over which to force the runner and also to hamper him in his flight. It also places the ball in the arms of a less formidable back, since the best running back invariably is stationed in front of the goal-posts. Most important of all, it does away with that colliding mass at the center of the field which, by the inexplicable combination of chances alone, makes possible the bursting through of the runner. Fortunately for those who desire to see, some day, a full-field run from kick-off, the corner kick-off involves the danger of a kick out of bounds, and so cannot be regularly employed. Thus the honor roll awaits the addition of other heroes of the gridiron who shall achieve the greatest feat upon the lines of lime—the full-field run from kick-off to touch-down.