The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-08
By SOL METZGER Coach Washington and Jefferson foot
 hall taurs,


 ball team
 ootoail is a strange game to many The average enthusiast enjoys the phys icai struggle above all else and Tor that reason the belief that weight is supreme has long. held with some. I doubt II many people recognize the finer points Of the game-morale and skill, each the result of long and special training. Dur Ing the early summer, when the now settled question of whether or not we were to have football this fall was up- permost, Dr. Harry Williams, the old Yale halfback now coaching Minnesota, brought out this point clearly when talk ing about the outlook. He was of the opinion that the elevens playing this tall would be made up for ti:e most part of new men, but that the crowds would still go to big games in spite of this, be- cause the game played would appear to them to be on par with former days.
 The beef" idea is uppermost in the minds of football followers even this fall. When we read about the outlook of va rious teams we see that the men of weight are headiners and that the pros poets are good or poor in proportion to the amount of avoirdupois per candidate. IT the squad is made up of lot of big fellows a certain spirit of optimism prevails.
 On the contrary, football is a game of skill and morale. Weight alone, as desirable as it is, cannot win the day. Aud this skill and morale are what make the game so popular, unrecognized as they are by it's followers Were it not fer them football would long ago have died a natural death. With them-skill and spirit-as prime requisites the mis- led academic cannot execute it, much as he desires. America, sound and bal anced, sees the need of such a game in connection with it's educational advance
 SPIRIT AND SKILL WIN
 To be sure there is not one of us in the coaching game who does not pre- fer big to small men, but everything else must be equal. Of two teams of like skill and spirit the heavier will win out just as a dollar has more purchasing value than six bits. But the more skilled and spirited elevens will defeat the heavier ones just as easily as Rocke- feller can get bigger results with less money than most of us System, skill and spirit. the latter nothing more than self-confidence and the nerve to try, are valuable assets and have been at tEs basis of most success in any line of endeavor.
 Big men, as rule, are not as adapt able to the game as smaller men, un- less they have been trained from boy hood in athletic exercises they are clumsy and often in their own way. An other point against them is that they have not had the uphill fight as boys that smaller ones have always had. s struggle which has resulted in giving the smaller toy a finer spirit and temper IF fact, tho big fellows who enter college with great reputations as preparatorJ school football players sometimes lack the grit and fighting spirit of the smaller boys They have had the advantage il physique in all athletic contests. Nov they find themselves fighting on ever terms and sometimes, unfortunate as I is, they lack the grit to give and take Then footbal either makes them o shows them up for what they are. In stiIling spirit and fight in boys of thi' type Is one of the biggest problems O football coaching, the solution of wficl has so much to do with the boys future The gridiron, not the classroom. offer the only refinery for such types of boy II, cur present scheme of higher educa ton.
 Unless a squad of big football player is carefully hand. ea. it is very likely t get the German military idea that it ! supreme This spirit of conceit will d. as much harm for the team as it ha done for Germany. The spirit of figh and confidence, which is a nobler spiTi by far, will, in the end, overcome tn spirit of conceit, and Humpty Dunlpt, will hava a great fall from which a ths coaches cannot hope to rescve hin ] The big man is the big problem of tn coach. He is easily made victirn c l his own best asset. soon thinks that rf newspaper articles and the talk about hir