Los Angeles herald., 1905-12-03
Blind Football

THE millions who have at various
times watched with most intense
and partisan interest the struggle
for supremacy of two football teams,
noted the tricks of the game, the bull
dog tenacity, the giant-like strength,
the cunning and at times feroclouSness
of these gladiators of the flatiron, Will
find some difficulty in grasping and
accepting the statement that in Louis
vile, KY, there are eleven blind boys
who play the game for all there is in
it, who are just as cunning as their
seeing" opponents, as scientific as
their needs demand full of pluck and
endurance and splendid courage, and
at all times as keenly alive to what is
going on around them as though they
We're gifted with the vision of the eye.
TO the uninitiated this seems impossi-
BILE, but it is not, and there is reason in
plenty for it's not being impossible. First
of all is that the inmates of the Ken
lucky Institute for the Blind are just
like any other boys with the same
instincts, the same love for fun and
the same wholesome desire for Suprem-
acy. In a general way they are alb
solutely unconscious of the fact that
they do not see, because nature, having
deprived them Of vision as we under
stand it. has turned their ten fingers,
their ears and every muscle of their
bodies into so many eyes, Wherewith
they may have vision after their kind.
Strange as it may seem, blind boys
actually believe they do things just
little bit better than those known as
seeing boys. This is perhaps due
largely to the fact that when strangers
visit the institute they are continually
eXclaiming Wonderful! "It seems in
credible!" until the students become
very vain of their accomplishments.
This statement is made on the author
ity of Superintendent b. b. Huntoon,
who has been in charge of the institute
for nearly forty years.
Not only are these boys of the blind
institute we'll Versed in football, but
they understand and actually play the
great national game of baseball. In
addition to this they go in for all field
games, and at the last summer meet
they beat the Y. M. C. A. team handily,
scoring fifty-three points to their op-
ponents' thirty-seven.
One naturally wants to know how all
this is done and under whose faithful
tutelage it has been brought to such
high perfection. 1t is due primarily to
the superintendent of the institution
and later to the care Of Professor John
Dallas Gregory, jr, a graduate of the
Louisville high school.
1t is nearly four years since any GER
tain attempt was made to develop the
boy" in the blind boys of the institute
They are by nature playful and full
OF pent up animal spirits, anxious for
all kinds of sports but not knowing
just how to go about it, 1t was then
that Mr.. Gregory took charge. During
the first year the task was not AN
easy one, though the boys were any
thing but stupid, the very contrary
being true, but you and /, who have
played football and watched the game
from bleachers and grandstand, know
its difficulties, and can therefore fully
appreciate just what these little blind
would-be athletes had to contend with.
The following year the thing was
easier, ana during the season of 1904
the football eleven made a most re-
markable record, playing three games
winning one and tieing two. This