The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-12-19

New Haven, Dec. 19.-The recent passing of Robert J. Cook has wildly recalled Ya1e's famous Big Four'' Mir Cook, Walter Camp, George Ade .hnd Julian W. Curtiss. Pioneers in the organization of sport at the uni terslty, they gave it more major ath- leIc victories than al%y Americans have beeen able bfeore since to contribute to their alma mater. Their competitive spor- conditions preclude
 a repetition of .-.eir achievements in
 the future.
 Account for IS Titles
 Of Cook and Camp, it has been claimed that each was responsible for fifteen intercollegiate championships
 for Yale in the leading departments
 ot university rivalry, rowing and foot- ball. while the organizing genius Of
 Adee and Curtiss, as pervasive leaven. cemented Yale teams together and the
 undergrad aduateS to the teams
 The Big Four" were the warp of
 Yale's athletic fabric in it's Golden Age, the teams them selves the wool.
 Former Two Branches.
 Cook and Camp were the founders Of the two greatest branches of col lege sport and their genius kept Yale
 at the forefront in the annual compe- tition for successive college genera
 tions until the youth of the founders had gone and they had reached rlpe middle age The Cook stroke was the first to be inverted by college crew cap ain.
 Bob Cook. a sophomore, left Yale and spent several months in I1ngland' thoroughly mastering the principles of rowing as taught at Oxford ana Cambridge, returned to Yale, coached l his crew the model, after adapting IL to Americas mode instead Of DnnQIy importing it, won the annual race from Harvard and finally took his Yale eight to the United States Cen
 tennial in Philadelphia in 1876, where it won Intercollegiate honors-
 Cook had then broken the long succession of Harvard river Vlctorles and had installed the first really sclen-
 titic stroke into American rowing. 6e, fore 1876 the Crimson had attained as long a list of rowing victories over
 the Blue as Harvard Football eIeVens
 have won over Yale's the past dozen years. With hardly a lapse, cook kept the Yale shells in front in the annual comp tition for two decades
 Annually he left his post as business manager of the Philadelphia Press, which he built from newspaper or secondary importance into an or gan of metropolitan rank, drilled the crew in its winter start at training. took charge of iC through the Easter vacation and finally went with It to historic Gales Ferry and remained until it rowed its races with Harvard
 annually sweeping the Thames
 Last Visit in 1920.
 In 1896, when he retired from the Press, Cook took the crew to Eng land where 1t rowed in the Henley winning it's preliminary, but losing it final competition.
 Leaving Yale after the Eli defeats by Cornell in 1897 and 1898 Cook went to Paris to reside. There he remained until few IT onths ago, eX cept for two or three visits when he was summoned to the Yale crew coaching headquarters to suraighten out a tangled rowing system or ad- just a new stroke model. His last visit of this kind was in 1912, when he helped Jim Rodgers. Yale's row ing head, to launch the program for that year.
 Two years ago Cook paid his last visit to the Yale crew camp on the Thames He witnessed the finished 1 product Of Guy sNickalls' coaching, l shook his head sadly, told the great English coach that he was on the wrong track and without waiting to see Yale lose its annual race, left the quarters.
 How to get back to the Cook stroke has been YaleS cry for two decades Perhaps Ed Leader. the former Uni versity of Washington coach. who has just taken charge of Yale rowing, will accomplish the feat. If he does Yale will begin winning again.
 What Camp Has Done.
 Camp founded American College football Adap:ing tn the II, English fhs d6t d1a tion of downs. field and place goals, with fivo yards to be gained in three downs. Camp placed the present American college public in 1883 and. when the criticism was advanced that 1t would be 1lnpOSSlDlS 10 keep lIdch Of the five yards gain Camp showed a diagram of the field, wi h the five yard lines stretched across it, and called it the gridiron,' a term which has since chung to it.
 Graduating from Yale in 1880, four years after Cook received his dip loma and established rowing Camp led successive football elevens to vic tory under the chaotic rules which scored nothing for a. touchdown. but allowed one point for the goal follow ing touchdown. Camp never played | the same which he invented in 1SS2 1 but he coached, practically unaided i Yale eleven which swept the Gridiron Thames during the eighties and early n1netleS.
 Adcc As CoadjutOr.
 Camps later services to recrea- tionaI sport and physical fitness em- l braCed in his work as commissioner of ahaItic-s for the United States Navy <, and Aviation Corps during the World i War and his Daily Dozen' exer- 1 cises. which have revolutionized set | tine-up exercises, are another story
 During the early period of the coaching of Cook and Camp, their 1 great coadjutor George Adee. headed alumni and undergraduate progress sive movements fin the developm ment l of college sport. Diplomat, builder l os Wales athletic growth and Yale's | representative in intercollegiate con- fe~e2ces, his services were invalua- 1 bIe
 it's work 20 years ago as head Of i the rowing committee was taken up | ..s-.".-.-.-.-'''-.-."'-