Norwich bulletin., 1914-12-04
WAR ON COACHING
 AT PRINCETON Permanent and Independent Coach Demanded.

popular issurrection against the Princeton football coaching system, which has sputtered for a few days and then died annually at the close of each unsuccessful season since 1911, has made it's appearance again and is assuming commanding proportions. The demand is for a permanent and independent football coach for the Tigers to replace the committee su- pervision that has proved so ineffect- ual for the last few years.
 Comes to Head.
 The distastrous Harvard game of a little more than a week ago and the Yale defeat last Saturday have brought matters to a head; for the last period of Saturdays game, when the Tigers showed their only finish of the power there was in them, proved beyond a doubt that the fault was not in the teams but lay in the lack of the per- sonality of coach who knew his men and his own mind.
 Not in the last IS years has a Princeton team given it's advocates the supreme delight of seeing Yale back and keep backing without re- spite for 122 yards and two touch downs before nothing but the sim plest of straight football plays. It was triumph of desperate spirit and players Judgment over conservative training and tinlid coaches; but pride in fighting spirit that knows no death only aggravates the discor tent with the methods used to utilize that spirit.
 The season of 1914 has ended in disappointment for Princeton, but its failure may even prove to be benefit to the Tigers by forcing an early set tlement Of the problem of coaohing. There is no personal resentment in the anti-committee agitation. Many be- lieve that Pennefield unensumbered Dy an everything committee would have been more successful than he was as mere foreman in the execu- tion of plans that did not always meet with his whole-souled approval
 Kept Uncertain.
 The team as a unit, and as individ- uals. was kept uncertain and wavering by the changing opinions of the va rious coaches. The backfield combina- tion was not satisfactorily settled at any time during the season. Injuries and the super abundance of material of nearly equal powers is given as the excuse in defence of the coaches not knowing their own team, for no one attempts to claim that the coaches did know how to arrange their men, even for the last game of the season The team that lost to both Harvard and Yale was nothing more or less than an aggregation. of Individual player well above the average as players, but utterly lacking the pro- per equipment or inspiration for an effective machine.
 An example of seemingly unneces- sary and particularly costly eleventh hour change was the attempt to teach Driggs new method of bunting just three days before the Harvard game. It's result might at least have been feared by a far-Sighted coach; but whether it was or not, it succeeded in undoing the work of weeks of prac- tice in bunting and cut down the av- craze distance of Princeton punts by many a valuable yard.
 The heaviest indictment of the coaches of the season just closed is the last period of the Yale game, which redeemed Captain Ballin's team from utter disgrace. It is not gener- ally known. but it Is we'll established, that Click defied the coaches in his programme of the plays that he chose. He rejected all side line generalship and took matters into his own hands, with the result that will not be for gotten as long as examples of in- dominatable spirit are remembered.
 Fitzpatrick Steps In.
 A further indictment of the same coaches lies in the fact that 1t was only on the special intercession of Keene Fitzpatrick, the Princeton that Click and Moore, the men who scored Princeton's two touchdoWns aginst Yale. were allowed to enter the game in that last period. The men had pleaded in vain to be sent in until Fitzpatrick showed his knowledge of their character, by interceding for them.
 What Princeton men want, and will have sooner or later, is a permanent coach with a strong personality who can profit by the mistakes of his earlier years, and will at least have the courage to try his team on 2 real offence without returning timidly to the old kicking game. He must also learn to know his men thoroughly, for that is the chiew method used with such unchanging succes by Bill Clark who has put Princeton on the baseball map. The annual changes in the com nlittee system prevent such acquaint- ance and experience.
 Princeton would have to look far for a man who got splendid start as permanent coach and would know Princeton athletics and men from the bottom up. Keene Fitzpatrick physf- cal trainer of Princeton athletes for several years, has been suggested and agitation favors him with Tom Will son. guard on the 1911 championship team as his first assistant
 Fitzpatrick has virtually been an assistant coach for years, while at the same time proving himself unsur- passed as a trainer. He knows the Princeton men even better than the