The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-11-24
Football Issue Fought Out
at Richmond Today.
"A BIG GAME HERE
A. & Ms. Strong Team to Meet Husky
Delegation From South Carolina
in Fair Ground FieId---Some-
thing Of the Games and
Teams.

The eyes of two States will be
turned on Richmond today where the
representative football elevens of the
Universities of Virginia and North
Carolina will meet in their annual
contest on the "gridiron.."
Since the inception of the Thanks
giving day games twelve years ago, the
contests have grown in Importance
year by year until at this day the
| game is the chief athletic event of the
entire South.
No one who has not been in Rich
mond on Thanksgiving day can appre-
| ciate the hold that football has on the
/ people. Old alumni of the two uni
versities are present from all parts of
the country. The game acts like
magnet; it draws it's enthusiasts to
Richmond by the thousand. On the
day of the game, the city undergoes
complete change of character. Bust
ness is forgotten Everybody is in
gala rig. The streets TEEN with
shouting students. Every available
point flashes forth its colors. Beauti-
full women drive with their escorts
through the streets their vehicles
wreathed with ribbons. The street
cars are alternate white and blue or
gold and black: every dray horse has
its bunch of ribbon at the head-strap.
Newsboys push in and out among the
throngs of students and visitors. cry
ing details of the teams, interviews
with the '"coachers,' the latest i'm
formation from the sprained ankles
of the more doughty players. Foot
ball is in the air. 1t sings in the
wind. 1t monopoliZes conversation.
The hotels are full of it, the bars
clamor with it. Everybody walks
fac
of quality that reaches the nerves
of all. Amid the tumult of the horns.
the College cries, the songs of festive
students, no one thinks of aught else
than football! From the banker in his
high hat TO the professional tout in
his nap-worn coat of greenish black
who has just learned the secret of the
trick play that will win the game and
will sell it for a price, one motive
actuates the crowd--to talk, eat and
think the great game that the twenty
two young men are to play.
These young men, big, smiling 81
lent fellows or sharp-featured, wiry
looking youths preserve as the centre
of the connection an admirable re-
serve. To them the game is the climax
of months of the hardest sort of work,
the most rigorous self-restraint No
one who has not been in close touch
with a college town can guess either
result of the yearly games holds for
the players on the field. In the re-
stricted college life, the football event
is the height of student desire or
despair. The team is individual to
the college and representative of all
the students. 1t is the best the institu
ton can do. on it hang the hopes Of
thousands-the hopes and the money
of those who back their hopes. Con-
sidering their responsibilities and the
nervous tension, the calm of the play
ers is remarkable. 1t is a triumph Of
training. While their fellow students
frolic through the streets, boasting,
betting and shouting, the players sit
about the hotels as silent as the prize
winners at bench show, modest and
void of expressed opinion.
What VIII Be he score?
AS far as can be determined of
football game-and that is a distance
that expires before its start--it may
be said that Carolina will almost as
suredly score if the day be clear and
the ground dry. This prophecy is based
on the superiority of her back field,
which is very quick and fast In
Bear, Jacocks, Carpenter and Robin
son the Varsity has a quartette that
can be depended upon both to gain
ground and TO take advantage of
each one of their opponents mistakes.
At center and left end, also, the Tar
heels outcIass the Virg. mans. Stewart
and Townsend both being star play
ers.
Virginia, however, has stronger
and heavier line and the question
is, therefore, whether Carolina can
hold her opponents down to a score
less than that she can almost be de-
pended upon to make. The forecast
is, therefore that both teams should