The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1906-09-27
WHAT WILL
FOOTBALL BE?
NOBODY KNOWS JUST WHAT
KIND OF A GAME THE NEW
RULES WILL CREATE.

1t is intensely interesting to a lover
of the intercollegiate game of football
to watch the practice which is going
on daily at PunahOu where coach Reed
has his thirty husky aspirants out for
practice every afternoon. The game
is new to the boys in many respects
but they are taking to it as a duck
takes to water.
In the opinion of the coach the game
will not suffer materially from Its
treatment at the hands of the foot
ball rule committees. The same old
football spirit prevails with less dam
ger to the players.
Throughout all the winter the mem
bers of the committee worked jealous
ly and faithfully to produce new foot
ball code which should meet with favor
in all sections and it was a task of
tremendous proportions and embodied
a greater amount of clerical work and
careful attention to detail than any
one had deemed possible when the
codifying of the new rules began.
All kinds of interests had to be con-
suited and every plan which somebody
or another was hopeful would add to
the interest of the game was given
careful consideration, that nothing
might be omitted which would aid in
preserving the best fall outdoor sport
which the United States has devised.
After the rules had been changed in
their wider scope it became necessary
to go over them a second and a third
time in order that some points might
be more simplified and that contradic-
lions might be thoroughly eliminated.
1t was long after the middle of the
summer that the rules We're deemed
ready for the printer, and even then
the foot ball committee passed upon
them once more that they might be
presented to the public in such man
ner that there would be no misunder-
standing as to their Interpretation.
| The result of all this has been to
| build the foundation for the new foot
| ball. Exactly what the new football
shall be is another story. 1t will be
! told. chapter by chapter, until the end
of next December and by that time 1t
will be evident how far the work of
| the committee has succeeded in open
! ing the game and how much more is
needed to render it nearer perfect.
To understand what the rules in their
modified form have attempted to ac-
complish the reader must bear in mind
that there has been a clamor for the
last three years from almost all the
nublic which is fond Of foot ball, and
from many of the colleges, especially
the smaller colleges where the number
of students is smaller than at the great
err universities, for an "open game
1t was asserted, and with some rea-
son, that football was not accomplish
ing it's primary purpose; that it was
becoming a tug of war on a gigantic
scale that it was test of bodily
strength, man to man, rather than a
pastime in which activity and general
field abilities predominated; that it was
devoid of action, and therefore tame tC
the spectators, and that it savored toe
strongly of wrestling and boxing and
too little of running and lodging.
To abolish all these defects was the
lobject of the rules committee They
have gone so far as they think con
sistent at the present time. They arr
not sure that the new game will b.
thoroughly understood at once. II
fact, as remarked before, they no mor'
than the coaches, who have barely haC
a chance to ponder over the rules, ar
quite agreed in their own minds as t
what foot ball will be like but the!
believe that they have legislated sue
cussfully against repeated and mono
tonous mass plays, against all kinds o
abuses for transgression of rules b!