1893 season

Prior to the 1893 season, Morse's father, William Horace Morse, was opposed to having his son play and petitioned the school to have him removed from the team. In November 1893, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

Princetonians are greatly elated over the return Frank Morse, half-back on last year's team. Frank's father is at present opposed to his playing, and unless he retracts the faculty will prohibit him from so doing, as one college rule states that no student will play with a 'Varsity organization without the consent of his parents. ... Morse played quarter-back in the '91 team and won laurels at half-back in the Thanksgiving game last year.^[3]

Though press accounts do not indicate how his father's objections were overcome, Morse was the starting halfback for the 1893 Princeton football team and was named an All-American at the end of the season. The 1893 Princeton team was known as the "perfect team" and filled five of eleven spots on the 1893 All-American team—Morse at halfback, Philip King at quarterback, Art "Beef" Wheeler at guard, Langdon "Biffy" Lea at tackle, and Thomas "Doggie" Trenchard at end. Three of those players, Wheeler, Lea and King have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. In November 1893, The World of New York published a full-page profile on the physical conditioning of the Princeton and Yale football teams. The paper noted that Morse was known for his ability to avoid serious injury despite his "daring and reckless" somersaults:

Morse and Ward are fixtures at halfback. Morse has had considerable trouble in convincing his people that he still needs vigorous exercise. He is without doubt the most daring and reckless half-back on the field. He possesses a singular faculty of preserving a certain amount of self-control throughout all of his somersaults and never receives but temporary injuries.^[4]

In 1892, Morse was knocked unconscious by a tackle in the Princeton-Penn game and had to be carried from the field. In 1893, a newspaper described one of Morse's leaps in his second Princeton-Penn game: "Morse made a tremendous leap in the air to go over Osgood, but the latter caught a foot and the pretty play was spoiled. Cheer after cheer rang out from both sections."^[5]

The most famous play of Morse's career came in the 1893 Princeton-Yale game, played before a large crowd at Manhattan Field on Thanksgiving Day. With the ball at midfield, Morse ran for the sideline and caught a pass from Dougal Ward. Morse was running in the open field for a touchdown when he stumbled. Nevertheless, the play was "the longest pass on record, a brand new play" that caused football experts to evaluate the efficacy of long passing and "eventually brought the forward pass into the game."^[6]

1894 season

In 1894, Morse was moved to quarterback to replace King.^[7] Newspaper accounts indicate that Morse's move to the quarterback position was less than successful. One paper noted pointed to the quarterback position as Princeton's downfall and noted, "Morse, who by the way is a splendid half, was anything but a success in the position."^[8] Morse was sidelined due to illness in the middle of the season with what was described as "a threatened attack of pneumonia."^[9] Morse returned to the lineup for the Penn game and put on a display that drew praise for his "pluck" but also dismay at the physical beating he took. The New York World reported as follows:

Morse and Ward were both cripples. I don't believe in talking about the roughness of the game. Any man who goes into it must expect anything and take it, but Morse was tackled altogether beyond the pale of pardon, more than once. When a man gets as far gone as he was and nothing but his indomitable pluck allowed him to stand, somebody should have had the power and the will to force him to leave the game. But he died fighting ...^[10]

Despite the beating, Morse was Princeton's leading rusher in the 1894 Penn game, and his 25-yard run was the longest of the game.^[11] However, the beating took a permanent toll on Morse. After the game, The New York Times reported on Morse's retirement from football:

Franklin B. Morse, '95, Princeton's greatest half back, has gone out of training and quit the game. This move was not taken by Morse until it was forced upon him. He has been ill for some time and was really unable to go in the game with Pennsylvania, although he played in that game as long as he could stand on his feet. Since then he has been on the field only a few times, and had to leave the game each time. The whole student body deeply regrets Morse's inability to continue playing.^[12]

Model for Charles Dana Gibson's "The Halfback"

Morse also gained fame as the model for a famous drawing by Charles Dana Gibson titled "The Halfback." In the 1890s, Gibson asked the handsome blond Morse to pose for him. The resulting portrait, titled "The Halfback," gained tremendous popularity and prints of the portrait were reportedly "hung in most college rooms throughout the country in those days."^[6]

Morse graduated from Princeton in June 1895 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.^[13]

Football