“The spirit that never admits defeat and the mental and physical alertness that knows how to make the most of an opportunity, both so characteristic of Princeton traditions, inspired the agile Princeton football team of 1903 to win a glorious victory at Yale Field, New Haven, on November 14th.” Those were the opening lines of PAW’s story about the 1903 Yale game, a contest that capped Princeton’s 11-0 season.
Beating Yale made the Tigers the year’s de facto national champions and ended a streak of three consecutive losses to the Bulldogs. John DeWitt 1904 was the day’s star, scoring 10 of Princeton’s 11 points, but Thomas Alva Edison is the man who assured the game’s place in history.
Edison tested the latest version of his motion picture camera at Yale Field, panning the crowd of 50,000 spectators and capturing a few glimpses of the action. The film, which provides some of the earliest moving images of football, is now housed in the Library of Congress.
Princeton's 11-6 win over Yale capped an undefeated season in 1903