Norwich bulletin., 1917-11-06
win his varsity letter and go no fur

win his varsity letter and go no fur 1 tier. l With such advances in football and | with so many men playings this is l good year in which 10 make plans for | cleaning the game Of all unnecessary rOughness. The rules are about all ] that can be hoped for. but there re- I mains, in too many cases a desire to play the rules to the limit and to take advantage of them In short, there Is 1 still too much, unnecessary Toughness | il: the game. Likewise there is no doubt that the bigger men coaching are using every effort to eradicate 1t. one connected with football to bring | about this result.
 | The things tkat make football un- 1 necessarily rough are certain brutal | breaking up forward pass. Of course, there is a tendency to clip q l nan from behind, but the rules com
 mittee is getting after this sort of I have 1t eliminated. 1 The method of tackling which is ! 10th brutal and unnecessary is the 1 use of the knee in sliding into a rum 1 Ter who is being thrown or has been l thrown. While it is all we'll and good 1 to talk about the need of ground rules 1 ori some fields to prevent players from | being thrown irto fences and stands, there is infinitely more risk of injury Cn the field where the knee is being used to stop runners. We have nevGr had player hurt on our field in the former way. In one game this fall we had several hurt by knee tacklers. A rule preventing such a measure, which 1 has all the earmarks of German kultur, Is not only necessary but must be en- forced.
 There is another kind of unneces- sery roughnesS which must be eli1ni- mated. This is the method employed by too many teams in breaking up a forward pass. The back passing a ball is a s helpless wfen he delivers it as is 1 the punter, yet the latter is protected from even being touched by the oppo- sition, whereas the former is constant ] ly being run into and knocked down. TC be sure, such q scheme of defense will either put the player out of the game who makes the pass or so upset ] Tim that he cannot make good pass. fut team which practices sucn methods. as a way of winning games, si-ou1d not schedule contests with the 1 first team of rival college. If it depends upon the injury of opposing stars to win it's games, it should only schedule games with those weaker congregations it can win from without showing up the weaknesses and brutal
 methods of its coaching system.
 The unfortunate part about unneces-
 sary roughness is that it costs the
 team practicing it dearly even when i. officials are lax. Let me give an ex- ard actually succeeded in z. liking enough points in the first quarter to Win it in spite of much unnecessary i roughness in knee tackling which sent Cne of our best men to the sidelines. 1 The play of the opponents was so markedly rough in the first half that our manager went to them between l halves to inform them that unless they dropped that sort of football they would never be on our schedule in the future.
 For the remainder of the game this eleven played football and. played it with so much vim that we were most fortunate in winning. All of which goes to show that the slogan Of George Woodruff. the old Yale guard Who made Pennsylvania in football, and you do the scoring" has ever been the best policy. It is impossible for q football player to fight and play at the same time. As in all sports the player cannot do two things at the same time. In keeping with the spirit of the times we are glad to learn there will ] be no AH-American team, official, in- 1 formal military or otherwise, this sea- AH-American, teams are over for gori and all. They were all right in the: good old days when Harvard Prince
 ton ard Yale had ali the material and all the system there was in football hut now that the south and west and the other teams of the east are in the game with material and syste1as which rank seccnd to none it is idle to discuss such space consuming fam toms especially when so many All
 American players-never mentioned.
 are lover there Copyright. 1917, by Sol Metzger.) !