The Washington herald., 1922-12-12
GOOD ELEVENS
=ATTRACT MANY
COLLEGE LADS
Menks Says Fully Fifty Per
Cent of Attendance Is Direct
: ly Due to Football.

Cent OF Httenoance lS UlreCt.
ly Due to Football.
By FRANK G. MENKE.
tcopyrisht, is33. By King Features
Syndicate. Inc-)
A TREMENDOUS increase in
"a college enrollments has been
- noted in the past few years! /!
What's done it?
Football!!!
There's the answer.
The bewhiskered ollege
prexies, as well as those with
unadorned chins, perhaps will
shrek to the highest heavens
that the gridiron game hasn't
been at all responsible; that it's
all due to the yearning of the
youth Of the nation to imbibe
higher learning. But those who
shrek such shrieks shrek that
which isn't true.
Football ever has been the out
standing college sport; 1t always
attracted throngs. But in the last
seven or eight years-and espe-
cially In the pest two or three-en-
thusiasm over It has reached a
point of frenzy. with the classes
and the masses.
The attendance at the stellar
combats In 1929 fractured all ex-
isting records. Everywhere-East,
South. North and west-the hoi
polloi battered down stadium bars
each and every week to get into
the arenas.
ALL WOULD BE HEROES.
What's the kick back on the
athletic kids Of the land?
Nothing more nor less than that
they have become fired by the wild
ambition to be collegiate gridiron
heroes. The only way they can
do It is to go to college. And
they've gone.
Countless thousands Of other boys,
not strong or powerful by nature.
who might have stopped imbibing
education with graduation day in
high schools, have decided that
they, too, wanted to become col
lsgians. They realized they could
not get into harness. couldn't fight
physically for any alma matters.
But they could belong to cheering
squads-join in tubilation over the
gridiron triumphs of their teams.
And SO they've gone to college.
THE REAL REASON.
OF course education-the higher
learning stuff-has been in their
minds. too. But it's the cinchiest
bet in the world that IL It weren't
for the football lure, close to fifty
Der cent Of the boys who have en-
rolled in colleges in the last three
years wouldn't have gone to col
lege at all.
So 1t can be seen that football
has a value beyond that of enthus-
ing and enthralling thousands Of
spectators: q value greater than that
OF bringing fame and glory to its
players For 1t has had the power
OF Turing to colleges and forcing into
a higher education tens of thousands
of boys who otherwise would have
halted their schooling at the end
OF high school days.
Football has done much. too, in
bringing certain colleges into the
spotlight - making them known
through the length and breadth of
the land.
The University of Pittsburgh and
Washington and Jefferson college
were early examples. Both were fine
institutions of learning but neither
had gained very much in enrolment
through the years because of that
fact
ALL WAS DIFFERENT.
But as soon as they began to
fash into football prominence-as
teams which swept everything be-
fore them-all was different. Young
sters who earlier had figured that
they'd have to go TO Yale. Prince
ton or Harvard to gain football
prominence, detoured.
The enrolment at Washin gton
and Jefferson has increased stead
ily. That at Pittsburgh has leaped
and bounded through six or seven
years to such an extent that Pitts
burgh, once only minor league"
college in the matter of enrolment,
now takes its place with the big
gest In the land.
The Georgia School of Technology
was unknown outside its own par
ticular neighborhood until Johnny
Heisman constructed the Golden
Tornado" squad. And overnight
Georgia Tech became known from
coast to coast-and back again.
The bulk Of folks in the East and
Middle West didn't know there was
such an institution as the Univer-
sity of California until California
produced a football eleven. But
since then California's fame has
been national.
CONSIDER CENTRE.
Then there's Centre College,
About 100 100000 OF the no 900 900
folks In these United States didn't
know three or four years ago that
such a place existed. But now, be-
cause of "Bo" Mcmillan and the
other brilliant praying coIonels."
Centre Is one of the best known COL
leges IN all the land.
The University OF Detroit has
existed for many. many years. But
It's presence was almost unknown
beyond the confines of the Michi-
gan city. Then Detroit got to-
gether a good football team and
met and whipped some Of the best
college outfits in the land. Today
Detroit is a college name that's
known from the Atlantic to the
Pacific slope.
What's true Of those colleges Is