Los Angeles herald., 1910-11-11
BIC FOUR LOSES
CASTE BY RULES
Necessity for Speed in Preference
to Weight Works Hardship
with the Yale Team

NEW YORK, Nov. 10.-The revolu-
tion in the rules of football has brought
about very interesting kink in college
athletics, and for the first time in years
the stars of the gridiron squad can no
longer look down on the members or
the track squad as subsidiary heroes.
In fact, the track men are the attn
letes who must be depended on to carry
the ball acros the goal.
The trouble started the minute the
rules committee decided that locked in
reference was thing of the past, and
that pushing or pulling would be no
longer permitted.
The first team to feel this change
adversely was Yale, and at the same
time Princeton, Dartmouth and Har-
ward began to profit by it. In all of
the colleges a distress call has gone
out to the track teams to come to the
rescue. In Princeton Pendleton is a
track man, and is as fast as lightning
He is, therefore, the star of the Tigers
for this season.
In Pennsylvania Ramsdell was
yanked from the sprinting class, and
to him the team will look for speed. At
Dartmouth Lovejoy, who can run 100
yards in considerably less than eleven
seconds, is tearing things up. At
Harvard the two fast men are Corbett
and Leslie, and their speed has counted
for much in the season which is yet
young. At Dartmouth Harry Hillman,
the trainer who knows runner the
minute he lays eyes on him, has gone
into the track team and dug up the
men who will show as sprinters on the
grldiron. He is helping to train the
entire squad on the lines usually
adopted for developing runners.
The fastest man on the Yale team
is said to be Fitzpatrick. Unless some
~ ha douaInv, Y1idlU
he will have to do the ball carrying
for the greater part of the time.
The new rule which prevents inter-
ference hit Yale the hardest, because
there are experts at New Haven who
have spent years devising means of
protecting a runner in going around
the end or through the lines. The
system has been so perfectly developed
and the experts have worked so long
with that one object in view that the
minute the change occurred they were
lost. They must now work to undo
what they have built up for the past
decade. No matter how strong and
heavy a line plunger may be, he will
find 1t almost impossible to plunge
through a hole in the opposing line
unless there is somebody to go ahead
or behind him and check off the oppos-
ing taeklers. They can go around an
end without locked interference, but
the man who takes the ball must be
exceptionally fast.
The same thing is true of the man
who catches the forward pass. 1t was
formerly the intent of all coaches to
secure a combination of speed and
strength for the backs and the ends.
Now they must find men who have
powerful speed regardless Of whether
they have the bulk or not In other
words, speed is of more value than
strength, and everything must be sac
rificed for speed. 1t is a natural con-
sequence that the track teams must be
looked to for the athletes with speed.
Up at Harvard they are of the i'm
preston that nobody can beat them.
They realize that Princeton has team
of exceptional speed, but so long as
the Crimson does not have to play the
Tigers that makes little difference. A
Harvard alumni who was formerly a
member of the Crimson team said last
night that he expected Yale to be
beaten by both Princeton and Harvard.
The necessity of speed in preference
to weight and strength is certain to
break down the prestige of the famous
Big Four.