South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-11-03
HINKEY SEEMS To
BE. FAILURE is
FOOTBALL COACH
Yale Director Has Had Plenty
of Material, But Team Has
Been Disappointment.
Friends Give AIibiS.
BY Frank G. Nienke.

NEW YORK, Nov. Frank Hin
key, as a football coach at Yale, seems
to be a failure.
No Blue elevens ever have been
humbled as have those Two that Hin
key has tutored- Yale never has been
plunged into such impenetrable gloom
as surrounds the sons of Eli now.
Hinkey took unto himself the coach
ms job in New Haven at the begin
ming of the 1914 season, and great
things were expected. lie was looked
upon as the Moses who was TO lead
Yale out of the vale Of defeat and
humiliation into the promised land
OF championship. But Hinkey has
fivvered
Friends of the Yale coach have
tried to alibi his failure with the ex-
PLANTATION that lack of material han
dicapped him. But that excuse lacks
Welght-and lacks II sadly
Probably no college coach in the
country has had more OF better ma
terial TO draw from than has Hinkey
The cream Of the prep school football
talent enters Yale. and the sophomore
classes OF 1919 and 1915 have given
10 Hinkey some OF the best raw ma
terial that ever hoofed a gridiron. 1t
needed only a bit Of developing by
Hinkey to bring II to championship
perfection,-and Hinkey failed.
Insists on System.
The trouble with EIinkey seems to
be that he tries 10 tit his men t. a
system instead Of making the system
1T the men. He tries to force them
10 do things that they cannot do nat
urally. He tries to get them TO play
along theoretical lines instead OF along
the practical
The Tack OF good maSerial'' excuse
in Hinkey's behalf is shot to pieces
when one recalls what Virginia ana
Washington and Jefferson did to Yale.
Hinkey has about 1900 eligible stu
dents 10 draw from each year TO make
up his varsity squad. while the Vir-
ginia coaches had to make up their
team from about 500 eligibles and
those at Washington and Jefferson
could call on only about 200 eligibles.
Yet Bob Folwell, coach of w and J.,
drawing upon only 200 men of foot
ball caliber, was able TO weld together
a team in 1914 that beat the pick OF
Yale's 1900 by the score of 13 to 7,
Yale 16 to Z. The Virginia coacheE
drawing on their 600 eligibles, were
able TO assemble q machine that wal
Hoped Yale 10 10 O.
Last year when w. and ]. beat Yale
the excuse was offered that Hinkey
had a green" team, while Folwell
had q veteran aggregation But the
case was q different one this year.
Yale lost but few Of its stars by grad
uation; w. and Us great 1914 team
was shot to smfthereens. It's backfield
was lost, its line weakened and il lost
Cruikshank. one of the greatest CEN
tiers that ever handled n ball.
FOlwelI Makes Good
II was up to FOlwell, with only n
handful Of material at his command,
to weld together an almost new team.
He did it. Bulk was lacking in his
1915 material so he developed its
speed-and he taught his men new
tricks TO Offset the weight handicap Of
w. and Us foes. The w. and y
team that we saw face Yale on the
23rd, was 10 pounds lighter TO a man,
yet 1t outclasses Yale to such an ex-
tent that Yale looked like a grammar
school eleven in comparison.
Can there be any better argument to
back UP a statement that Hinkey is a
failure at Yale than to point out what
Folwell, with a light green" eleven
did against Hinkey's bunch Of hus-
kies? Can there be any better pretense
of flivvering than to show that a col
lege with an enrolment Of about 400
twice beat a college with an eligible
enrolment of $500?
Or can there be any better example
Of failure than to point to the fact
that Harvard last year gave to Hin
key-coached Yale team the worst beat
ing Yale rs suffered in | its football
history
1t doesn't seem that lack OF ma
terial is the excuse. 1t seems lack Of
tutoring Hinkey has the material
He has had men with speed. with
brains, and with bulk. But he doesn't
seem able TO mold that into a machine
that can smash its way to real vic
tory.
The Yale team OF 1914 suffered two
beatings. The Hinkey supeTiors ex-
cused Hinkey and said: Wait until
next year" And 50 the pOpulace wait
ed. And what happened?
The Yale team this year in it's first
FIVE starts, suffered two wallopings.
narrowly escaped q third al the hands
Of I.ehigh. and still has to face Prince
ton and Harvard.
Frank Hinkey, IL seems TO US. was a
much better footbau player than he IS
q football coach