Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1919-11-30
COACHES Of FOOTBALL AND BASEBALL
ARE GREAT BECAUSE Of INSTINCT, NOT
THROUGH INDIVIDUAL PLAYING ABILITY
Most Brilliant Mentors Grdiron Diamond Have Been
Mediocre Performers Themselves Says Harry Williams,
and Converse Is True-Athletic History From Caesar
and o. Cromwell to P. Moran Shows Paradoxes

Failure of brilliant football and base
ball players TO make good coaches and
the phenomenal success of other play
els not in the class of stars when they
took up coaching and handled great
teams are instances that dot the ath-
letic history of the country. Harry A.
Williams comments at length upon
them in the Los Angeles Times and
cites several examples.
Pat Moran, the 1919 miracle man of
baseball, he reminds us, was passed
from club to club as a second rate
catcher, and George Stallings, who took
out the first patent on diamond mir
acles, was by no means a star Of the
first magnitude in the baseball firma-
ment.
Even actual participation in a sport
Is not absolutely essential to success
in certain departments of 1t. Charley
Eyton, one of the best ring referees In
his athletic days, and Red Held, OF the
Coast League umpiring staff, was not
selected from the ranks of the players.
Per contra there have been cases of
boxers who held championships who
were completely at sea when they be-
came third man in the ring, while
cases of brilliant baseball players fail
ing utterly as umpires are by no means
uncommon.
These things, like coaching and man
aging teams, call for special qualities
which frequently are not to be found
in those who as athletes wrote brill
liant history on the gridiron. on the
diamond or in the ring.
JUST INSTINCT
Some of the best athletes are not
highly developed mentally. They may
have sort of sixth sense, or hair
trigger intelligently that is tantamount
to instinct-a sort of chain ightning
coordination between mind and muscle
but with little capacity for analysis
or observation or reasoning along lines
of cause and effect.
man may be a redoubtable fight
er in the trenches, with the courage OF
a lion, but he might wholly lack the
mental poise required of an officer
True, the ranks have produced some
real military leaders and yet ex-
perience in the ranks is not necessary
The biographers do tell us that Oliver
Cromwell and Julius Caesar had nc
previous training for their jobs And
vet the records show that Ollie and j
c. were some generals In their day
and generation.
When the American game was at Its
height at California and Stanford In
| the days before football revision q
number of gridiron stars were employed
with only moderate success. Califor.
mia brought Butterworth of Yale. who
! in his day was king of the kickers, oul
to whop the Bears into shape. He
proved almost helpless when 1t came te
coaching anything except the backfield
men, and even there his value was
limited largely to tutoring the full
back. True. he developed Ransom, who
has never been excelled in the west as
a punter, and this Influence reached or
| down into the days of Overall. but there
Butterworth's value practically ceased
Later, King" Kelly. the great Prince
ton line plunger was called in, but as
a coach he failed to even approx
mate his ability as player.
THREE CYLINDERS ONLY.
Hinkey, who when he tackled his
man usually finished him, and who was
one of the real Iron men" of football
failed iniserably as a coach. Ted Coy
Yale's 90-horse power line plunger. hi