The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-03-19
MULTIPLE KICK IN FOOTBALL BARRED
 OUT AS ILLEGAL

New York, March 19.-The football rules committee made several impor- tant changes in the playing rules at the annual meeting at the Hotel Bilt- more yesterday. No radical changes were made, but several corrective measures were adopted.
 The penalty for illegal interference with a man receiving a forward pass will be imposed at the point at which the foul is committed. Heretofore this same offence called for a penalty of fifteen yards, to be measured from the point at which the ball was put in play. The committee also ruled that except in incompleted forward passes, where the side making the called back, all penalties on forward passes may be declined.
 A change was made in Section 2 Of Rule 23. governing: the running into, or rougIing of a kicker. Formerly a team was penalized fifteen yards if
 man ran into the punter. The com mittee decided to reduce the penalty to five yards for running accidentally into the kicker, but for deliberate roughing the penalty of disqualified ton and loss of fifteen yards will stand. The penalty will be imposed in each instance from the spot at which the ball was put in play. The practice of sending in a substi- tute player for the express purpose of communicating some instruction from the coach, has been dealt body blow. No incoming player may com- municate with the other members of | the team until at le:lst one play has l been completed after his arrival. The l penalty. for doing so is the customary I fifteen yards.
 1 George Foster Sanfords famous
 multiple kick has been re1egated to the football scrap heap. The rules
 committee decided that goals from l placement may only be made by kick ing the ball from it's position while it
 Is resting on the ground. Earth may
 be scraped up, but no artificial tees { of any sort will be permitted.
 | No action was taken on the much
 mooted question of cutting men down
 from behind. George Foster Sanford urged that it be legislated out of foot
 ball. He aptly termed it at a knee-
 wrenching, ankle breaking, face l smashing play, that added nothing to the science of football and much to
 the brutal side of the game.
 | Penalizing interference with a man
 receiving a forward pass will be hail. ed by football enthusiasts. Instances have been called to the attention of l the rules committee time and again
 where teams deliberately picked off a man about to catch a pass, preferring 1 to lose fifteen yards on the penalty.
 where allowing the play to be com | pleted would have entailed loss of l twice that distance, and in some in-
 stances a touchdown. Giving the of | tended side possession of the ball at the point at which the foul occurred will do much to wipe out this prac- l tice.
 1 Another step in the right direction
 was made when the committee agreed
 upon allowing the option of declining l penalties on forward passes, except those legally fncompleted. A ball l passed forward from point not five i yards behind the line of scrimmage
 Is illegal. Several times last season
 the defending side intercepted such passes and advanced the ball some distance down the field. only to have ] the ball recalled and returned to the
 attacking side. Under the new rule, I vigilance in intercepting such passes
 will be properly rewarded.