New Britain herald., 1922-12-23
SYSTEM IS WRONG, | NOT THE COACH
Yale Alumni Weekly Urges Re- turn of Old Plan of Development

New Haven, Dec. 2s.--In frank
 confession that 1t has little faith in
 the present Yale football coaching
 system, laying emhasis that the
 trouble lies with the plan and not the
 man, the Yale Alumni Weekly in its
 cunent Issue urges more work by the
 football committee, a return to the
 custom of calling In old players, a
 scheme whereby the head coach Is
 made to be responsible to the grad
 uate committee and less consideration to the salary question.
 In part the editorial says.
 The majority graduate opinion, as
 we sense 1t, Is that something has been radically wrong with our foot ball for dozen years, and to con- tinue practice that invites further dis appointments Is laissez faire policy that will not meet the situation.
 "As to the specific reasons for the downward trend in Yale football since 1910 we lay no claim to super- natural powers of diagnosis nor do we set Up our own opinions about 1t above those of others. We confess, however, to very little faith in the system which has been in vogue now for some years and by which a single coach (no matter who he is) conducts the season In full authority with a staff of recent players under him and hardly responsible himself to an ab- sentee committee with chairman having or exercising no real authority over the situation.
 We can say this frankly because we have no particular individuals in the mind. It is the system that we are considering. If every committee man and coach at Yale today were replaced by others and the present plan continued we should expect pre- cisely the same results next year and every year that this was the case
 ''The trouble Hes in the plan, not in the men who comprise 1t. For 1t Is plan that Is not building up a system of play extending from freshman to varsity teams, that has not yet settled on any one success full system of offense and held to it Iong enough for the players to know 1t so that they can handle the techni- que automatically and thus have the opportunity to use their heads in that has not brought in enough of the open play and reception of the new football or incorporated enough of the ideas of that very con- circle of other players out | side and at the field whose ideas would be worth having.
 It is far cry today from the old Yale system where the actual coach ng was a subordinate responsibility md the real generalship of the sea- son was in the hands of a group of | older graduates who gave their serv- | ces and who added each year to | what Yale had learned in previous l ,ears, and who thereby for decades aught a consistently successful game, reared to the possibilities that the ules permitted.
 We should much prefer to see Yale | 70 back to the old plan, which \ brought together all possible factors n combined effort of team, captain, Ield coach. advisers and tactical | lead coach to play the best game we have the material with which to recreate that remarkably | uccessful organization. It was suc- essful because in its best days 1t was .mateur, because the tactical policy vas the result of the most and the est advice that could be secured and 'ecause the final authority was the aptain. But if we are to have. the ommittee plan (and Yale sports are oday organized on that basis), in our pinion the football committee should ave more to do with the season and he preparation for it, it should com rise the best men available (men yho can give their time to the team I the old spirit) 1t should call in all ast players, who could contribute nything worth while and the coach imself should not be the single re- ponsible head, while the salary ele- 1ent should be a very small factor, it should exist at all. The opposite lethod is not working. It has natur- fly initiated to keep old players way, to bar sound advice, and to hrow away that fine cooperation and olidity of interest that was Yale's raafaef athletic aSsat in an older