Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-05-28
POLYTECHNIC ADOPTS
RUGBY FOR NEXT YEAR
New Material VIII Be Needed, as Old
Players Graduate This Year.
Team Has Good
Prospects

Hard work is before Coach Thomp-
son of the Polytechnic high school in
his efforts to turn out crack rugby
football team next year at Polytechnic,
where the former Stanford star in the
American game is handling the grid
iron aspirants. 1t will be necessary,
according to present indications, to
form an almost entirely now team,
though a few of the old men will be
left as a nucleus around which to
build the team of 1909. Most of the
good men who made the team one of
the best high school rugby organiza-
tions In the south last year Will be
lost through graduation, while Few
will not return, although their term
of school Is not completed. AS a whole
the outlook cannot be called encourage
ing, but as the game is new in the
south, and 1t will take time to put 1t
on a solid footing in any institution,
the manual school lads are not losing
heart.
It has been definitely decided. largely
through faculty influence, that the
game to be played by Polytechnic next
year will be only rugby. Despite the
results of the last year, when the
Southern California fans and athletes
showed themselves overwhelmingly in
favor of the American game as OPP
posed to the rugby style Of play, the
manual lads have decided to stick to
the English game, and they Will not
put out an American football team.
This is to be regretted, as the last year
In which Polytechnic appeared on the
gridiron in the game played by all the
larger schools of the south she more
than held her own.
Coach Thompson, backed by the
faculty, however, believes that rugby
has come to stay. He voices the be-
lief that the season of last year was
highly successful and is looking for
ward to an extension of the English
style of play next season.
The Polytechnic coach expects to
turn out a first class team next year,
one which will give good account
of itself against any high school In
the south. There is indicated an abun-
dance of new material which. with
the remaining members of the old
guard, will be sufficient to give the
team a good start when training be-
gins In the fall.
OF the old men, Henricksen, F. Rick
ershauser and Price still will be on the
line. The team will lose c. Kicker
shauser. Fallow and Smith. In the
back of the line many new men will
have to be broken in. Malone will
graduate this year and Robertson and
Yerkes, two of Polys most dependable
players, also will be missing, as they
will leave school next month. Pierce
Strang and Rowell are the only men
who will be present in the back field
when time is called for the first game
next year.
This school is the only large school
in the south to stick to the rugby style
of play. Strenuous efforts on the part
of followers of the new game to fol-
low the example of the northern uni.
versities and substitute rugby for the
American game among the Southern
California colleges and high school.
met with a fiat failure. Los Angeles
high, Throop, Harvard, Pasadena high
Whittier and all the larger institutions
with this single exception, stuck to the
old American game, and the season
has brought the familiar old plays II
even more popular favor, after severa
of the examples of rugby given In the
south last year. There are already
signs that several of the smallel
schools which last year played rugb,
will return to the American game thii
sea son.