Evening star., 1918-01-03
BY II. C. BYRD.

Tomorrow afternoon at o'clock the
Interscholastic Basket Ball League will
open its schedule. Business and Technf-
cal meet in the opening game Of the
double bill and Central and Western
play the second. All the teams have con-
tinued certain amount of practice
during the holidays and should be in
fairly good shape for the first contests.
Business and Central appear to be
the strongest of the fives booked to
contend in the opening. The former
ought to take the measure OF Tech and
the latter should dispose OF western.
More veteran players are on the Busi-
ness and Central qufnts than the other
schools have and both those teams al
ready have demonstrated considerable
strength. Before the holidays, Central
and Business took part in some very
creditabIe exhibitions. Central defeated
several quints and Bushes got very
one-sided victory over George Wash
ington's reserves.
Eastern, Western and Technical are
composed for the most part of mex
perienced material, though all have
men who will develop rapidly. Either
of these three schools. while apparent
ly not SO strong as either Business or
Central. is likely at any time to upset
the apple cart" Technical has been
hard hit. in the loss Of good men. Two
or three stars of the championship
quint of last year are gone, and the
team will have to be almost entirely
rebuilt Western and Eastern also
have lost good men. but both retain a
couple OF very capable players.
Scholastic basket ball followers are
looking forward to the opening OF the
season with a great deal of interest.
good crowds, and no diminution of in
terest in the contests Is expected this
season.
Jimmy Mulligan, former Georgetown
and Catholic University track coach.
will have charge of the cinder path
stars at the Naval Academy this year.
Mulligan is to start his men working
Immediately, with the idea Of getting
them in shape for two or three indoor
meets and having them in tip-top con-
dition to begin what is hoped will be a
strenuous outdoor schedule.
81 am not prepared to say much about
track prospects at the Navy just now"
says Mulligan, but suppose we will
have pretty good team. The Navy
usually possesses plenty of good ma
there is no reason why it should not
have capable men in track and field
work Several stars of last year have
been lost, but, all things considered,
see no reason why we should not de-
velop a team good enough to go
through successful season"
Bill Coney. member Of the Maryland
State College foot ball squad in 1915
and 1916. now Is gun pointer on one of
the merchant ships plying across the
Atlantic. Coney was too small and
light to make the State eleven. but he
has proved big enough to take part in
two scraps with submarines.
Yesterday a letter came to the writer
from Paris from Charley Wetzell. one
of the best basket ball players ever de-
veloped at Georgetown. In part, Wet
zell says:
"Whoever named. or nisnamed. this
country Sunny France made one aw-
full big blunder 1t is no more sunny
right now than Washington usually is
in winter. Our boys have caught it
once or twice up at the front, but from
what we hear have given mighty
good account of themselves.
"It is practically impossible to buy
good American tobacco over here. Peo-
p1e back home may be under the i'm
preston that the soldiers here are in a
position to buy practically all they
want. but that is far from true. No