Divided Loyalties

As part of his remembrance of Reddy Finney yesterday, TigerBlog mentioned his grandfather John, a member of the Class of 1884.

One thing TB did not include in that was the fact that John, at least according to the "Princeton Companion," John Finney is the only person who ever played football for both Princeton and Harvard.

According to the Companion, John Finney played at Princeton and then, after graduating, played the next year for Harvard while attending medical school there. Back then, there were no rules about having grad students play. There were probably no compliance officers, and, since the NCAA was still 21 years away from being formed, presumably no rule book.

Apparently, though, John did not play for Harvard against Princeton that fall.

The entry also mentions that John scored Princeton's only touchdown against Harvard his senior year, which is a little confusing. Actually, it's a lot confusing.

If you assume John's senior football season was 1883, then Princeton defeated Harvard 26-7. If it was 1884, then it was Princeton 36, Harvard 6. If it was 1882, then it was still when they had scores like 1g-1g,1t, which is the score that both teams list in their archives.

So no matter how you look at it, there's no game in there where Princeton scored only one touchdown. That's okay though.

Here's another interesting bit of information from the Companion. TB will quote directly:
A scrappy player, Finney's hard tackle of a back in the Yale game his senior year led to an exchange of unpleasantries. The following week the Police Gazette asked Finney for his photograph to include with John L. Sullivan's in a gallery of ``the leading exponents of the manly art of self-defense,'' but Finney did not avail himself of this honor. ``I got credit,'' he later recalled, ``for a lot of slugging that was going on around me, in which I had no other part than that of peacemaker.'' 

That's just funny. This part gives you a better perspective on the man:
Finney gave up football after his first season with Harvard in order to do justice to his medical studies. On receiving his M.D. and completing his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital, he went to Baltimore, where as professor of surgery he was associated with men like William H. Welch, Sir William Osler, and William S. Halsted in developing the great medical school and hospital at Johns Hopkins. Finney specialized in surgery of the alimentary canal, for which he devised a number of important operative techniques.
As chief consultant in surgery for the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, Finney organized new methods for administering surgical aid to the wounded at the front, and was decorated by the United States, France, and Belgium. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England, of Ireland, and of Edinburgh, and in 1932 was awarded the Bigelow gold medal, one of the highest honors in surgery in this country. He was a founder and first president of the American College of Surgeons. He was also president of the American Surgical Association and of the Society of Clinical Surgery. He pioneered in the recruitment and training of black surgeons. 

That's quite a family, the Finney family.

Anyway, back at the point, John Finney once could understand what Julie Shackford will be thinking this weekend.

Shackford spent 20 years as the head coach of women's soccer at Princeton. No soccer coach at Princeton, with the men's or women's team, has ever won more than the 203 games she did.

Beyond that, Shackford also took her team to six Ivy League championships and eight NCAA tournaments. The crowning achievement for her came in 2004, when she led the Tigers to the NCAA Final Four while earning national Division I Coach of the Year honors.

Shackford left Princeton after the 2014 season, and she is now in her second season as the head coach at her alma mater, William & Mary. This Sunday she brings her team back to Princeton, to Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium.

Shackford will be coaching against her successor, Sean Driscoll, who has won three Ivy titles and been to three NCAA tournaments - including one quarterfinal spot - in his first four seasons with the Tigers.

There are other Princeton-William & Mary connections in women's soccer than just the Tribe head coach. W&M freshman Jillian O'Toole, for instance, is the younger sister of Princeton's Kevin O'Toole, the reigning Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year.

And then there is Kayleigh Shackford, Julie's daughter. Kayleigh essentially grew up on Myslik Field, running around with that year's Princeton players and kicking a ball with her younger twin siblings Cameron and Keegan.

Kayleigh is now a William & Mary freshman. It'll be a homecoming for her too.

There have been other former Princeton coaches who have come back to play against the Tigers, most recently Jeff Kampersal with the Penn State women's hockey team and Bill Tierney with the Denver men's lacrosse team. It's always special.

Sunday's will be as well. For mother and daughter.