The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-01-06
SPORTS

The average American sportsman De- lieves in leadership-and American sport demands leader. But in football the rule rarely holds. My own limited eX- .perience with the gridiron game leads me to believe that the leader of team the captain-rarely is a leader and that the added responsibility often proves too much of a load to carry In other words the captain cracks under the strain, or the load, or the added re- sponsibility, whatever you choose to call it, and the result is a team without leader, team that is not team for the good reason that a good football eleven must have Il players. It cannot be composed of 10 players and cap tain. F5s sv Y'. f 4 It is a difficult matter to prove why this is so. One naturally would con clude that 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 over America But in the majority of cases in my own experience this has not proven the case In short, the job or leader ship evidently carries too much responsl-
 
 athlete to stand up under. Yet the fact remains that a football team has little if any need for captain. The honor is more social than athletic. The re- sponsibility that goes with the captaincy is an assumed responsibility.
 FEW OFFICIAL DUTIES
 Outside of the duty of being present at the toss of coin before game ana choosing whether his team will kick-oft 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 interpretation of rules and call their attention to errors in judgment and execution, but he IS helpless beyond that point and the or ficial, if wrong, can penalize captain, if right if he persists in argument be- cause of delay of the game. l have had officials threaten to put captains out of the game when the captains were right, because they insisted upon a cor rect interpretation of the rules.
 One season when I had very good eleven l had a very poor captain. lie was much loved by all the supporters of the team because of the brilliant game he had played in former sea- sons. But he was unable to make his eleven except as a quarterback, where J myself in fix.
 It is odd how the loyal supporters of a college football team knew the busi- ness of running a team far better than the coach. Many men of sound business or professional sense who would resent any suggestions from outsiders rela- tive to their days work have no hesi- tancy at all in attempting to both ad- wise and dictate to football coach about the most vital matters pertaining to the team In the particular case with which I am dealing the supporters of the team-the men who had it in their power to re-elect men as coach or cast me aside-wanted the captain at quar- terback But he was not the man.
 COURTNEY'S POLICY
 I got around this situation by forming an alliance with the teams doctor. The captain had a strained tendon in his leg and we never let that tendon get well. We played through a season in fine shape with the captain on the side lines, new CT aware of the scheme we had used in keeping him there.
 Gilmour Dobie, the present navy coach, with record of ten years of Ser- vice at the University of Washington 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 and 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 quarterback In every in- stance. Dobie recently gave me his views on this subject as follows:
 q always go to my captain at the start of the season and tell him that football team is composed of eleven players, not of ten players, and captain. For some reason the captaincy is likely to bring with it too much honor, so that the recipient of it gets it into his head he either doesn't have to play the game or he takes the honor so seriously that he cannot play his game. The result, in either case, is an eleven made up of ten players and a captain. That sort of a team Is bound to lose.
 MUST HAVE ABILITY
 s"The captain of a team, as I see it, has no more right to place on the eleven than any other candidate for the team; and if he does win a position or the eleven he is in no respects it's leader unless he is quarterback. I insist on my quarterbacks running the team on the