Douglas daily dispatch., 1926-12-12

I first became aware of the impor-
tant role of football in the psychol-
ogy of the American nation when
] heard the returning Americans on
the boat from Europe discuss with
i ardor the impending three great
games of the football season. They
i had ALL it appeared, bought seats
months ahead for these spectacles
and gathered that the European
! trip of some of my friends had even
/ been curtaied to allow them to wit
ness the closing scenes in the great
| American sporting drama. And thus
it happened that possessed of a
/ q r o.w ing curiosity, / accompanied
them to the game, and to my aston
ishment became, FOR the first time III
my life, football fan.
| 1t is ridiculous, of course, to pre-
tend that American football is a
game. 1t is a gladiatorial combat,
] an epic battle with some of the ply
steal consequences of battle, demand
| ing qualities of leadership, courage
and will not inferior in quality and
not far different in kind from those
which Foch and Ludendorff matched
In other battles not long since. IL J
the life of America, it's disciplined
concentration and boundless energy
! sometimes checked but never daunted
by an equal resistance, l could have
found no better instance than the
football game of the colleges. When
/ saw it played for the first time at
the Army -Notre Dame encounter two
weeks ago, I understood better than
4 Nd tn11n Frn
! of the new American cities, the sing
| ,ng towers Of the metropolis, the
4 scream of the steam crane and harsh
olank OF riveting, and the ceaseless
/ music. Of New York Harbor. In these
watchful figures, strange and even
grotesaue to European eyes in their
robot-lil1e battle-gear, I saw young
/ America like young Sparta girding
Itself for the fray, looking with
steady appraising eyes into it's own
mirrored face and rejoicing that the
game and the going were good.
English Rugby is fairly elastic,
/ fairly respectable mans game. A boy
who plays a good game of Rugby
can hold his own almost anywhere.
Played with violence and enthusiasm
/ as it is at the older schools in Eng
| land, it challenges the physical pow
| ers, the speed the vision and thei
stamina Of the fastest and strongest.
But it is mere childs play. geniai
/ and Intellectual, compared with thaC
! play Of the American children, the
/ iron-drilled, ru t h / e S $, operating |
/ theater football of the colleges here
i This surely is the most scientific
game in the world, more Intense
| more detailed, more precise, more
| cerebral, more logged and more com
! plicated than any I know. 1t is ex
/ hilarating to watch, like chess played
/ by masters, a chess vitalized anc
made violent.
If to an European the American
game, by its very austere, mechanical
4 precision, it's chess rules, seems UNI
necessarily Ito hang fire at moments
| in contrast to the running, leaping'
/ scrambling, all-over-the-field Rugby
game of the English schools, it more
/ than makes UP for this deficiency by
! it's intensity and it's dramatic silences
! The l5notted heap of grim players IN
/ the American game is truly gladia-
torial in its quality, its appeal to re-
| messed emotions The field and It's
mathematical divisions, at first as
tracing to strangers, count for noun
! mo Tjnesmen and referees are lost
| in a dim oblivion. Time ltselt LAS
/ ,uas evident at the end of the hard
fought Army-Notre Dame game) loses
its urgency and is forgotten The
rrotagonist alone remains IN the
| foreground of vision, and somewhere
in a blurred immensely the great Nv
i ine mass of the American football
crowd, exulting, urging, defiant chal-
1 longing, itself participant, ltseH IN
/ ternosed between the player and the
! ball.
! And such a crowd! No assembly OIL
! elderly English cricket fans at Loro s.
i leisurely and silk-hatted, langud
after tea; no French crowd at race
/ course jubilant when the favorlte
romps home; no German student rally
| at song festival; not even "a span
ssh crowd ardently sanguinaceous' az
bull-fight in Seville, has the IRE
Il sistible schoolboy elan, the exultant'
II exuberant urge of the American TOOL
ball crowd. At my first game hao
the rare gymnastic experience OF SIT
II ing behind a solid gray weoge u
| West Point boys, who rose ana zen
II rhythmically in their seats with llshI"
n.ng-like and disconcerting rapidity'
Yelling like demons and involving
considerable exercise of the calf anc
toe muscles on my part in vain en-
deavors to keep pace with their en-
thusiasm.
The crowds here are NOSE pictur-
esoue than, ours, have more gayety
and color. In England the loO,ooc
spectators who watch cup tie flhaA