The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1909-11-28
FOOT BALL
It Is Noted Chiefly for It's Brutality and
Its Fatalities Revision of Rules De-
manded.

Everywhere the cry is against the
game of foot ball AS played today it
is brutal and should be denounced.
Throughout the United States there is
growing the protest which is certain to
obliterate the game, unless it shall be
relieved of its savagery. 1t is certainly
not to the credit of this game when it
is said that the players before entering
in contest with each other entertain a
self-apprehension of accidents and of
fatalities, and yet, notwithstanding, they
rush in and are elated at the end if
they have escaped death or being Grip
pied or used up beyond recognition.
II is the record that not less than
thirty deaths have resulted directly
from injuries received this season, and
that nearly three hundred young men
have been more or less seriously in
jured some being manned for life.
Is not this record of thirty deaths
and three hundred injured appalling?
And what is gained thereby? The
plaudits of the spectators, among whom
are numbered ladies, who should frown
down the game as it is played.
For instance, in Shreveport on
Thanksgiving Day in the contest be-
tween the Athletic Club and the Cen
tenary College team, c. G. Rives Jr.,
son of the City Comptroller, received
a blow on the back of the head which
laid him low. He was conveyed to his
home sense1ess and he did not rally and
become conscious until several hours
afterwards. Fortunately he is i'm
proving, to the qualification of his par
ents and his friends.
On the same afternoon and during
the same game young man, Herman
Bonner, a pressman playing with the
Athletic Club, had his collar bone frac
ttired, and several others had their
noses bloody and returned from the
field with bruises, more or less severe.
Is it not time for every good citizen,
every father and every mother, to pro-
test against such game, which when
being played may leave them bereft of
a son, or have returned to their home
a son crippled, or so injured as to in
volve them in the greatest of anxiety,
besides the expense attending the calls
of the physician and the surgeon.
1t would seem that the greatest are
the number Of fatalities and cripples
and Of injured, the more glory is at
tached to the game.
In the Caucasian's issue of Tuesday
there was printed the protests of men,
the. heads of colleges and of institutes
of learning, against the brutalities of
the game as it is played today.
One Of the reprehensible rules Of the
game is designated as taclling Besides
the Authorities cited a few days since,
such as Dr.. Alderman, formerly con-
nected with Tulane University in New
Orleans but now the, president. of the
University Of Virginia, who has de-
clared deliberately that the peril and
injury inherent in the strategy of the
game should be eliminated or the game
will be abandoned, We would add the
opinion of Buster Brown of Tulane
on the revision Of the taciling rules:
The best way to eliminate the dam
ger of accidents from foot ball is to
revise the rules on tack1ing. A rule
should be passed making the tackling
of a player above the waist illegal, just
as taclling below the knees is now.
Also that only one man can tackle am
other, instead of two or more.
AS It is now one played will tackle
the man with the ball and another will
tackle him at the same time above the
waist. The result is that the man car
rying the ball Is thrown heavily and his
body in falling is twisted in two differ,
ent ways by the two tacklers.. It Is here
that the most danger in foot ball lies,
and 1t accounts for most of the acci-
dents.
If man is tackled between the
knees and the waist he falls easily and
with little danger of injury It is the
high tackles now that cause all the in
juries. A rule of this kind would cut
out to a large extent the dangerous
flying tackle, where one man springs on
another from some distance.
''The allowing of several men to
tackle another at the same time is also
for many accidents. Be
sides the awfal twisting strain given a
man when two others hit him at once
and the hard fall, it means a big piling
up of the players, which forms another
element of danger.
Z don't favor the plan advanced by
Coach Stage Of Chicago Of increasing
the downs to fifteen yards, for two
evenly matched teams could then play
all day long without scoring II would
roh tha oa447a Of ts,e, MANY IF lie feat