The sun rises in a cloudless sky, and the day gradually grows hotter, until, by afternoon, the last trace of heaviness has been burned out of the cinder path, and the tiers of "bleachers" are packed and jammed with cheering, sweltering college men and groups of equally enthusiastic college girls. Three of the bleachers are a mass of crimson flags, dresses, and ribbons--the Harvard "rooters," a loyal band who have come down from Cambridge to encourage their team. And now the air is shattered by volleys of cheers from the Yale tiers. Before each section stand prominent Seniors who in ordinary life bear themselves with a dignity befitting their high position in the college world, but who are now devoting every atom of the energy which has made them marked men to waving their arms and hats as leaders of the cheering, terminating each effort with a peculiarly enthusiastic bound. A triple "Rah! Rah! Rah!" from one section is followed from another by the classical "Brekity-kek-coax-coax"--a cheer adopted from Aristophanes. The cause of all the commotion is a great blue 'bus, which has just lumbered up to the training-house, a short distance from the track, with "Varsity" painted on the side. Out of this are pouring strapping hammer-throwers and shot-putters, slim distance-runners, wiry jumpers, and all the other competitors who go to make up an athletic team. And now the crimson delegation have their innings as the Harvard team file into the training-house. The Yale men are located on the ground-floor, while above them in the same house are their rivals.
In the training-house is the faint feverish smell of raw alcohol, and the sound of resounding slaps as the brawny rubbers massage divers sinewy legs. The sprinters and quarter-milers, whose events come first, are slipping into their scanty jeans and lacing up spiked shoes, every muscle quivering with that deathly nervousness which even veteran runners feel before a race.
Mike, the grim old trainer, is trotting around with a fixed smile on his face that he fondly imagines to be reassuring, answering numberless questions, encouraging this man, advising that, looking up lost articles--in short, giving backbone to the whole team by his presence. Suddenly the noise stops. The Captain of the team, a hammer-thrower with a frame like a young Hercules, has climbed upon the rubbing-table, and with a sixteen-pound hammer for a gavel, is calling for silence with a series of crashing blows on the long-suffering table-top.