Evening star., 1921-10-26

The game of that day resembled
the game of today far more than
either resembled the foot ball of the
intermediate period. The really great
backs OF the eighties were speed
merchants. as they are today. with
an additional threat, the ability to
klcE. Only, today, to the double
!4fea' u hlckIng and running must
be added the ability to forward pass.
During the period roughly from
1893 10 1906 foot ball was Il game in
which beef" played the most prom
inent part. Some relatively small
fast men played foot ball during
those years, men like Charlie Daily of
,."r siIu tnd west Point and Walter
f.ckersall of Chicago. These men
intuitiv" foot ball instinct They
stood out from their contemporaries
I like heaconS III storm sea. And,
'''" king "f beacons, the chief differ
ence, You know, between lighthouse
matter of brilliance in the upper
story.
and EckeEsall We're great foot
ball players, not because they were
ia"t and "luSIN" runners. hut also be-
cause they could and did use their
brains ON the neld. In addition 10
sessed the double threat. Daily was
the greatest kicker in the east, and
Eckersan on two separate occasions
kicked no less than tie field goals in a
single game. Yet. l feel sorry for
men like these, whose fate it was to
play the game at Il time when the
market WAS very bearish on brains,
but trading in beef was brisk in
deed.
Great as these men We're under the
unfavorable circumstances of the
'pushand pull game. they would
= lfa.F h..N.
playing today. Because one knows
inStinctivtly that they, and few
others of only slightly less ability.
would have taken to the forward pass
like !. duck to water. BY the addi-
tIOn Of Il triple threat this type of
player would have been just SO much
greater than he actually had a chance
10 become. And the measure of the
difference in relative individual abil-
ity would have been exactly the same
as the measure of the difference in
| interest 10 the general public of the
foot ball of today as compared with
the beef and Drawn" game of the
nineties and early nineteen hundreds.
Relatively New Feature.
The triple threat as such is relative
ly Il new feature of foot ball. Its in
PRODUCTION Was not coincident with
the introduction of the forward pass
For years after 1906, the year the for
NEiTu pass DtCdlllt Il part Ol 1OOt
coaches went on i'll much the same old
; way. The best punter did the punting
the best end runner was used to carry
/ the bali and the best passer habitual-
I ly did all the passing.
/ Look over the old files of your ia
| vorite foot ball writer and you viii
note that the phrase has only existed
| u very few years. AS a matter of fact
| in 1914 and 1915, during the closing
years of the Haughton regime al
| Harvard. Eddie Mahan was being
/ used as a triple threat a whole yeal
| or so before any one invented thu
phrase to describe Mahan's rar'
| threc-fold attacking ability, and Perc!
ing and thereby increasing the eff
| fctiyeness of Mahan's play.
This | want to impress on the read
er: The triple threat involves the pos
session by one man of the ability t
kick, to run and to pass. But also
and in addition, II implies scheme 0
attack worked out by the coach ant
| employed by the field general, whicl
| takes into account this concentration
, of the three-fold ability and make
the most of it to keep the defens
| guessing. 1 mean literally guessing
not knowing. And this raises tn
question of the relation of the tripl
threat to generalship, point almos
| invariably overlooked by foot bal
| writer's.
! A bonehead field general can dis
count the effectiveness of the bes
triple-threat back who ever lived
! If, for example, the defensive sid,
knows that the triple threat bach
| will never kick, except on fourtl
down, then it becomes obvious to