The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-12-15

(By Sol Metzger, Coach Washington and Jefferson Football Team)
 The average American sportsman believes in 1eadership-and American sport demands g leader. But in foot ball the rule rarely holds. My own limited. experience with the gridiron game leads me to believe that the leader of a teaIn-the captain-rarely is a leader and that the added respon- sibility often proves too much of load to carry. In other words the captain cracks under the strain, or the i load, or the added responsibility, whatever you wish to call it, and the result Is a team without leader, team that is not g. team for the good reason that good football eleven must have eleven players. It cannot be composed of ten players and a cap l tain.
 It is a difficult matter to prove why this is so. One naturally would con- clude a brilliant player, elected to the captaincy of an eleven, would play that much harder on account of the honor and responsibility. That is the assumption of brilliant players all IOfSA <AAAAO14Sos put III LAS 1ldJOT1Ly Ol cases in my own experience this has not proven the case. In short, the job of leadership evidently carries too much responsibility for the average American college athlete to stand up under. Yet the fact remains that a football team has little if any need for a captain. The honor is more social than athletic. The responsibility that goes with the captaincy is an assumed responsibility.
 Outside of the duty of being pres- ent at the toss of a coin before a game and choosing whether his team will kickoff or receive and of making that choice after his eleven has been scored upon, the captain of a football team has no official duties. True, he can argue with officials about the in- fterpretation of rules and call their at tention to error in judgment and exc cution, but he is helpless beyond that point and the official, if wrong, can l penaliZe captain, if right, if he per- sists in argument because of delay of the game. I have had officials theat- en to put captains out of the game when the captains were right, because they insisted upon a correct interpre- tation of the rules.
 One season when had 8 very good eleven I had very poor captain. He was much loved by all the supporters of the team because of the brilliant game he had played in former seasons But he was unable to make his eleven except as quarterback, where his l judgment was atrocious. I found my self in a fix r.
 It Is odd how the loyal supporters of college football team know the
 business of running a team far better than the coach. Many of men of sound business or professional sense ] who would resent any suggestions from outsiders relative to their day work have no hestitancy at all in at- tempting to both advise and dictate to a football coach about the most vii tal matters pertaining to the team. Tn tthe particular case with which I am
 dealing the supporters of the team the men who had it in their power to re-elect me as coach or cast me aside t-wanted the captain at quarterback. | But he was not the man.
 l. I got around this situation by form ing an alliance with the teams doc tor The captain had a strained ten
 don in his leg and we never let that tendon get well. We played through a season in fine shape-wfth the cap Itain on the side-lines, never aware o1 the scheme we had used in keeping him there.
 |, Gilmour Dobie, the present Navy coach, with a record of ten years of -tservice at the University of Washing ton without defeat, attributes much of his success in football to the fact that he believes in eleven men teams and not in elevens made up of ten players iand a captain. True, his Washington teams had captains but they were captains in name only and the team
 was run by the field general or quar- terback in every instance. Dobie re- gently gave me his views on this sub lject as follows:
 T always go to my captain at the start of the season and tell him that "a football team is composed of eleven
 players, not of ten players, and a captain. For some reason the cap-
 taincy is likely to bring with 1t toe
 much honor so that the recipient o1
 it gets 1t into his head he either does
 1AOl nave u P1eAy IAS 6dAAO OA 1AO IeSnOs lthe honor so seriously that he cannot lplay his game. The result, in either
 case is an eleven made up of ten play : CTS and a captain. That sort of a team
 is bound to lose.
 The captain of team, as I see it
 has no more right to a place on the
 eleven than any other candidate fol
 the team; and if he does win a posi- tion on the eleven he is in no respects its leader unless he is quarterback.
 insist on my quarterbacks running the : team on the field and if the captain
 interferes in any way with their work out comes the captain. In this way the responsibility rests on one mar
 and if he errors or fails know how to remedy the fault.
 "I have had excellent captains fol this reason. I have had captains who
 faltered, but a strict application O. my rNle has brought them around fl time. And I have watched this cap. taincy business. so closely that have ! been able to win some of the bis games when at Washington by direct ing our attack against opposing cap ltains. linemen. who, though though