The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-11-27
Sport Writer'S Post Norton of
X. U.-Miss0uri Game.
Makes Light Of Claim That
johnson Was Out of Head.
HE WAS TOO CLEVER
Skill Would Have Been Impossi-
BILE With Befuddled Brain.
Always Excuses Made for the
Losing Team"

Kansas City, Nov. 27.-E. w. Coch-
ran, a local sporting expert, has writ
ten the following postmortem on the
Kansas Missouri game:
No battle was ever fought but what
some one wanted to make excuses for
The loser. 1t seems to be the habit of
some persons, especially hard losers,
men who hate to taste defeat, to make
excuses for the defeat. The fair way
TO do is to give the winner, no matter
whether it is in football. baseball or in
any contest, credit for the victory.
However, some do not like to be fair.
There are hundreds of Kansas I'M
dergraduates and alumni who were
willing to tell the truth and say the
better team won the annual Kansas
" 1ssouri battle at Association park
Thursday. In fact there were very
few who wanted to make excuses and
most of these were men who wanted
10 cover UP their own shortcomings
AID excuse themselves for the mistakes
they had made in doping the affair be-
fore the game. Missouri won that
attic because of superior team work
and because the players were better
coached, had more plays and to use
the expression of a Kansas student
who was deeply interested in the out
cCme of this game, Missouri played
Kansas off her feet, and deserved the
we'll earned victory" That expressed
i. exactly.
The surprise of this whole affair is
that one Kansas alumnus would say
that Tommy Johnson was crazy or
had lost his mind in the first half.
Possibly Johnson was little bit
worried or ratified because his team
was going down to defeat and 1t was
a surprise to his overconfident team
q M inc
the team as he should and possibly
he was not making plays he should
have made. But that is Johnson's
fault. He was not crazy. A crazy
did and by clever football tactics re-
| turn twenty-five yards before he is
downed. A man who has lost his
mind cannot make the runs Johnson
did. The men making these excuses
for johnson say he was not in that
condition in the second half but was
in the first. If the Kansas coaches
can cure a man who has lost his mind
in ten minutes. which is the time be-
tween halves. those coaches have no
but should be curing the thousands Of
crazy men and women who are in our
insane asylums. Players play for
glory Coaches coach for money and
nothing else. If these men can secure
in ten minutes men who have lost
their minds they can be multi
millionaires in a year. If it is pos
sible that johnson could have been in
that condition Kennedy should be
called to account for not taking him
out
1t was claimed by the excusers that
johnson was injured in a collision in
the first half so that he forgot the sig
rails and lest his mind. A man hurt
badly as that could not have contin-
ued in the game, especially to dodge
tackler after tackler as Johnson did.
And Coach Kennedy says johnson had
a dream the night before the game
that he would be hurt and the team
would lose. That kind of talk could be
given by q feeble minded old person
and could be excused, but that person
would not be used in a football game.
1t is true that Mosse did want to take
substitute He'll But not because John
johnson was not handling the team as
1t should be handled in order to win
from that great Missouri aggregation
and he thought change might do some
good. Mosse was right. If he had been
given charge Of the team before it
would probably have given a better
account of itself. but the Missouri team
should have every spark of credit due
it for the victory.
No fair minded rooter or follower of
either team Will make any excuses. AS
Pat" Crowell, captain of the 1908 Jay
hawkers said, THE better team won
and no team should be ashamed to be
defeated by that eleven Missouri pre-
senled.''