Life — October 26, 1928 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

SPORTSMEN and SPORTS The Old Grads Tue cottece football coaches seem to be giving up the huddle but the Old Grads are still using it. The usual custom is for the Old Grads to peer at the team, go into a huddle, and come out again to peer at the team. That's quite all right. It’s when they come out of the huddle and peer at the coach that trouble looms. It’s an odd point but the angle of vision is largely dependent upon the scores of the games. The Old Grads look at the team as long as it wins. When it begins to lose, they look at the coach. The situation with regard to Arnold Horween and Har- vard is particularly complicated because the Crimson Old Grads—some of them have been really crimson for two or three years now—have been going into huddles in different cities and have come out peering in all directions. Some of them have been fixing a concentrated glare on Arnold Horween, If the current campaign of the Cambridge troops shows no appreciable advance, no ground gained over the gloomy level of recent seasons, the amiable and quite capable coach may be doomed. The Harvard Old Grads are a portly and dignified lot, leaders of art, science, commerce and all that sort of thing, and they will put it quite nicely and courte- ously, but the thought behind it will be quite as determined and decisive as that which led the Irish police sergeant in “The Crock of Gold” to say to the con- stable who was guarding the offending prisoner: “Shawn! Fetch that man a clout in the jaw!” “Harvard Must Win!” is the slogan, and a very good slogan it is. Who would suspect so much blood and iron under- neath the glossy boiled shirts of these elderly, dignified and apparently peace- able gentlemen? They themselves can sit by John Kieran around an appropriately decorated table and win game shes game by thumping the groaning board with clenched fists, by ripping up an opposing line with im- aginary plays and impossible strategy with non-existing athletes,—and by firing the coach. It’s no trouble at all to win a foot- ball game after dinner, provided nobody interrupts you. But out on the field it is a different matter. A sure cure for a good deal of this Old Grad indignation would be to take some conspicuous examples and put them in the luckless positions where many coaches now stand. Harvard hasn't a monopoly on athletically discontented alumni or on disappointing football re- turns, cither. Give all of them a chance. The next time they come out of a huddle let it be with a nomination of one of their number to take charge next season at Rutgers, at Cornell, at Ohio State, at Chicago, or wherever the smoldering fires of indignation are burning below decks. Harvard must win, of course. And so must Yale and Army and Navy and Pennsylvania and Dartmouth and Prince. ton and Penn State, but as a good many of these teams play each other, it becomes embarrassingly evident that if some of them must win, others must lose. Ap unprejudiced observer can see that, but an Old Grad is not an unprejudiced ob server, naturally enough, and that cold and clammy fact about the Necessity of there being losers is out of his line of vision enurely. It’s on his blind side, But there's no need of being to hard on the old boys. Bless their ancient and irate hearts! all this elderly indigna- tion over the game of football is proof positive that they still keep the spirit of youth, that they are = still young—and foolish. Let the younger generation bear that in mind when the worn and weary coach says sorrowfully: “We're out of luck this year. All our best kickers are oa the Alumni Advisory Board.” NO CHANGE Crara: Do you get your alimony regu. larly? Marie: No, I might just as well be living with him. “One-Eve” Connoty Crasnes tHE Ku Kiux MEetinc comicbooks.com