Life — April 26, 1928 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Shell Game THE shell game is in full swing again. Not the shell game that includes a vanishing green pea as part of the equipment, but the college rowing sport that calls for cight men and a half in a cedar con- traption about sixty-three feet long and not nearly wide enough. The half-portion komo is, of course, the coxswain. A coxswain, according to the testi- mony of cach and every athlete who has ever pulled a sweep, is an under- sized devil with an oversized voice. He wears a megaphone strapped over his head so that his insults will carry up to the bow of the boat with- out spilling. He browbeats great, husky chaps in a delightfully ribald and malicious manner and were it not that he is under the protection ne laws, the supply of cox- swains would be suddenly and com- pletely exhausted. LL. through the season the sweep- swingers while away their lei- sure moments in planning horrible deaths for the coxswains after the New London and Poughkeepsie re- gattas. There is talk of filling them full of quadratic equations and drop- ping them from tall buildings. It has been urged that, with the aid of a steamroller, a coxswain can be made into a capital animal rug in no time at all. And yet when the final race “Where are you going with that big suitcase? “That's not a suitcase. That's an overnight and I am going to the arctic regions.” “Well, Dorothy, are you through crying yet?” “No, I'm just getting my breath.” is rowed and won, what happens? Those big, lubberly, misguided oa men crowd around the coxswain and shout: “Hooray, Shorty! Good old runt! Nice work — boy, you're there!” And_ they haven't killed one yet. AS for college oarsmen in general, they are the un- known soldiers of the sports world, They row and row and row, and so far as personal fame is concerned, they never get anywhere. They are like the fabled colored gentleman who started at dusk to row from Mississippi to Canada. He rowed all night but, unfor- tunately, he forgot to untie the boat. In the cold gray dawn he heard a voice from the bank calling: “Hello, Sam!) Which caused Sam to cry out in as- tonishment: “Who knows me in Canada?" Harvard won a great race against Yale at New London last year. Thousands of people bag saw it and cheered the victors wildly. How many volunteers will step up and give the cast of characters in the Harvard boat, reading from left to right? The Columbia crew roused half the countryside to enthusiasm by its victory at Poughkeepsie last June. Will some well-informed gen- tlemen (Columbia students and rela- tives of the oarsmen barred) name any two of the eight (and a half) men in the winning boat? HE =’S a fine opportunity for bank robbers or other fugitives from justice. If one of them really wished to drop out of sight, all he would have to do would be to enroll at some college and go out for the crew. No one would ever hear of him again. Unless, of course, he happened to collapse in the last quarter-mile, thereby losing the race. John Kieran. BE: What made Lon Chaney so mad? Dave: The director said, “Aw, come on, Lon; be yourself!” comicbooks.com