The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-09-02
WHEAT Line HELD
Eastern Football Stars DOWned
in Kansas Fields.
No Rah-Rahs Encouraged
Them From Blue BIeacherS.
NO MORE GRIDIR0N OF GRAIN
Training Too Severe for Heroes
of College Days.
Worn and Defeated They TrOd
Back to the East.
NO MORE GRIDIRON OF GRAIN

Eastern football stars came to Kan
sas to buck the wheat harvest and
were downed in their tracks Pushing
a 100 million buShel wheat crop all
over the field isn't an easy proposition
and there are several dozen eastern
pigskin heroes who are not planning
a return game in the Kansas wheat
fields.
When the Kansas call for harvest
hands was sent east last spring, some
of the big colleges called together their
football teams and told them of the
excellent preseason training to be had
in a harvest field. Most of the east
erners We're as familiar with a Kansas
harvest field as a new study of the
details of a reform government on
Mars. But they heard the song of
the harvest, sent advance letters ask
ing for jobs. bought railroad tickets
and fastened to the big fields of yell
low grain.
A few weeks ago a weary, sad and
broken pilgrimage started for the
east. 1t was the rah, rah, boys going
back to schools. The college yells
were forgotten in a discussion of the
merits of homely remedies that re-
move Sunburns, restore lost flesh and
relieve mental anguish and distress.
For a month the collegians worked
in the wheat. They clawed and paved
at the wheat chaff that persistently
found way into their clothes. They
looked for the shower bath that was
not be found. They worked four
teen and fifteen hours day, ate on
the run, slept in a barn and spent
most of their nights rubbing sore and
aching limbs.
Learned a New Lesson.
One day recently a delegation of
twenty collegians went east over the
Union Pacific. They had worked in
the harvest fields near E;eIoit, Lincoln
and Salina. Most of the men in the
football TIaNGrc Pl
men, Among them were some of the
stars of the big eastern schools. Har-
ward, Yale, Cornell, Princeton and
other schools were represented. But
there was no singing on the train
that carried the athletes from the
state. They had learned a new and
serious lesson in the Kansas wheat
fields. They tried their rushes and
Kansas farmers and had been hurled
back for losses.
This week came a letter to J. c.
Mohler, secretary of the state board
of agriculture, which told the story
of the defeat of the pride of the big
eastern schools The letter was from
a relative in Boston. 1t told of the ar
rival of the rah rah boys in Boston
and their quiet admissions of defeat
on the Kansas gridiron of grain and
against the headers and threshing ma
chimes.
One of the men in the party from
the east was King, star backfield
player for Harvard. LOughlin of An
dover was also in the party. They
were sorry, worn, disappointed, de-
jected pilgrims.
II went for twelve days without a
bath and then 1 walked three miles
and washed in q muddy little river
one of the fasteners is quoted as say
ing. Another collegian admitted that
he had lost eleven pounds of flesh in
three days and that he preferred to
ierI,f hi hot oil
rather than in the kansas grain
fields.