Omaha daily bee., 1905-12-11

any cost" has been the cry OF the foot !
ball factions contending for supremacy |
on the gridiron.
Last year. II will be remembered, public
Indignation was at a white heat just about
the time that the foot ball season reached
its end. The makers Of the rules professed
repentance--changed a word here-juggled
a phrase there-snd the general public was
told to look for an mprovement-an inn
provement which never came Wise friends
Of true sport in every form saw that foot
ball was rolling TO a crash, and accordingly
bent their efforts and energies in the d.
rection Of safe and sane foot ball"
The crash came when Columbia university
''bolted brutality" and banished foot ball.
Coach william Raymond Morley, who has
brought the Columbia foot bail team to a
| high standard of efficiency, called atten-
ton to the fact that the deaths this year
from foot ball were nineteen-about the
same as last year. not high rate when It
is remembered that 100000 players annually
| indulge in the game. But President Eliot
OF Harvard, while advising IAN interval
| for cooling down" before taking drastic
| action, thereby demonstrating his judicial
| temperament and putting himself in the po-
| sition of a man who is keeping in the
] middle of the road" also calls attention
to the fact that the death rate is really
not the chief point at issue-that the fact
that cheating and brutality are profitable
| is the main issue"
End or Mend the Game.
| Two courses appear to be open to foot
| ball authorities of the various colleges and
universities. The lrst is to abolish foot
ball as 1t Is played in America today and
substitute what is known as association
or ''socker" foot ball. Already "socker''
foot ball has obtained a hold among the
various colleges of the east At Cornell
the athletic council has given Official recog-
milton to this new sport, placing it on an
| equal footing with basket ball. la crosse
and the other minor branches of athletics
At Princeton association foot ball has been
growing in favor among the undergradu-
ates, and a squad of thirty men has been
practicing the game regularly. Both Cor
nell and Princeton. together with Penn
| sylvania, have applied for admission into
the intercollegiate Foot Ball league, which
was formed last May with Columbia, Har-
ward and Haverford as the charter men,
bers. 1t is expected that Yale will Join
the league in the near future. Fred Mines
OF the Pilgrim ''socker" team which re-
Gently played series of test matches
| throughout this country. thereby adding
materially to the interest taken in this
| sport, has given a trophy cup to the
league and II is to be played for under
conditions which have been named by him.
| With colleges like Columbia out OF regular
foot ball and taking up with "socker"
or association foot ball 1t would appear
as though a strong current is setting in
the direction Of the game as It is played in
England.
Chance of Ten Yard RnIe.
II the college foot ball authorities take
the other course and cling to the American
style of foot ball it will be because the rules
committee bends instead of breaks before
the storm Of public indignation While GER
tain members of the rules committee ap-
pointed by the leading colleges of the east
are apparently of the opinion that no rad
ical changes are needed the committee as n
whole appears 20 realize that the methods
of the thug and plug-ugly cult can no
longer be adopted on college foot ball fields.
Walter Camp, whose WORD upon foot ball is
listened to east, west, north and south, calls
attention to the fact that the ten-yard rule,
which he has for years advocated, is work
ing we'll in Canada. This is only one of the
| changes which will be insisted upon by in
terests powerful in athletic college councils
here in the east. Another change will prob
ably be in the direction Of the more rigid
enforcement of existing rules more officials
being placed on the field for the purpose in
the future. 1t is urged that four men could
see things which two might in the excite
nent of the game overlook.
Whether slight changes will be sufficient
to save the game remains to be seen. In
certain high and mighty college quarters
there appears to be a disposition to aban-
don all rrles and begin all over again the
work Of forming new rules and regulations
One powerful argument Is that outside OF
! its brutality wiiich may perhaps appeal to
. the mob much as the contests of gladiators
appealed to the ancient Romans the game
: is not even interesting to the average man
, since not even foot ball expert can make
/, much out Of mass of forty-four arms
. and forty-four legs, all moving about, ap.
parently without any method in their mad
. ness. Public opinion put an end to the ny.
. ing wedge. Yet the flying wedge was more
lspectacular and less dangerous than some
: of the mass plays devised nowadays by
!, these same foot ball experts who appear tC
imagine that they can move men as pawn'
are moved about on chessboard, as sol
> diers are moved about on a field of battle.
s what IL Like ely.
s II the American style of playing foot bal
e is retained as the basic principle for tn,
t foot ball of the future. it is believed tina
: the evolution must be something like this
Il College athletic officials with more powe
e In their hands; more drastic enforcement o
h drastic rules by larger number of Official
d on the field penalties great enough L
s largely prevent rough play and the inser
d ton at regular intervals of advertisement
n in the daily papers showing in itemize
y form the amounts of money received an
Is the amounts of money expended by tn
70 various colleges and universities upon thei
lie different foot ball teams
IL MARION j. PIKE.
IT COMMENT ON CHANGE OF RULE