Advertisement

PERCY D. HAUGHTON

At the dedication of the memorial to Percy D. Haughton on Saturday Dean Briggs pictured him with a characteristically happy phrase as a man "unquenchable in spirit, irresistible in command, feared, loved, and honored by all." These are the qualities that make a coach great to the men whom he has in his charge, and there is no one whose judgment is of more worth. The corroboration of the words of Dean Briggs comes from the hundreds of men who worked beneath Percy Haughton at Harvard and elsewhere. All these qualities he had in abundance, and such was his affection for football that it communicated itself to his men.

The influence of Percy Haughton on American football began when he played for four years on the University eleven. From that first connection is traceable the growth of a personality that was, with Walter Camp's one of the most profound forces in American sport. When radicals would have turned the game into an event of no more sporting significance than a tug-of-war, or would have made it over into a kind of outdoor basketball, his was always among the first of the restraining hands. He recognized the place of football in American sport, and would not see it undergo a usurpation at the hands of rule makers.

With all his insistence upon absolute obedience and sincerity from the members of his squads, he was yet not unmindful that football was a game. The tradition which made football for any and all a part of the athletic policies of Harvard and other universities had its inception in Percy Haughton. The annals of sport are not so complete but that heroes' names are soon forgotten. It is safe to predict that this will not be the case with the memory of Percy Haughton. Even if it should be go, he would be content with a lifework well done, whose end is not yet in sight.

Advertisement
Advertisement