Evening star., 1927-04-05
RY LAMRENCE PERRY.

NEW YORK, April 5.--Harvard has
retained Frank Shadghnessy, coach
of rugby foot ball at McGill UniVer-
sity, in Canada, to work with the
Crimson gridiron coaches this Spring
and next Fall.
Shaughnessy' function. obviously,
win be to inject the Rugger idea OF
lateral passing into foot ball at Cam
bridge. No doubt other universities
will follow what appears, on the face
at least, TO be a shrewd move.
SO far as McGill is concerned, the
Canadian institution has developed
teams that play American foot ball as
we'll as rugby, and these eleVens al
ways have carried the sideWise tend
ency into their games.
The fact that they never succeeded
in making so much as a dent in the
American gridiron situation was, ii
may be suspected, less the fault. of
lateral passing than superficial knowl-
edge of essential elements of foot ball
as played in this country-tacllling
interfering. blocking and strategy.
What Shaughnessy win do at Har-
ward will be to attach, or rather in.
corporate. the lateral idea into a
scheme of play the general effective
ness of which has been established in
the United States.
Hard TO Forecast Result.
No one can say what the result
will be. No one can do anything
more than guess as to the fate OF
the defensive tackle, end and wing
back when the attack is Juggling the
ball--assuming it is deftly juggled--
with the final ball carrier goind wide
or cutting in or through the ball to
an eligible forward pass receiver.
What, for example, is the wing
back going to do about forward
passes in the territory he normally
would guard, if he has to come in on
the lateral play? Maybe he won't
have to but it does seem as though
the tackle and end would have more
than they could do to handle them,
especially if it develops that the
requirements of defense must be
worked out on a man-to man basis.
The results of spring practice
when turned in Will afford some
light on the problem, but not a great
deal. The real answer will come
next Fall when highly geared elevens,
of approximately equal merit in the
way of material and coaching, takes
the field against each other.
The writer received today q letter
from a coach now engaged in Spring
practice, who ventures the prediction
that the rules as they will appear in
the 1927 book will not endure intact
for more than one season.
He says the changes which have
been made will give TO the game the
aspect of touch foot ball, which is
becoming popular as an intramural
sport throughout the country. in
which, if any man of the defense
misses the player he is assigned to
watch, a touchdown is pretty certain
to result
1t looks as though this particular
coach has succeeded in putting on a
lateral game which, even at this early
date, has teeth in it.
Well, in any event, prospects
opened up by the changes in the rules
will serve to give a certain thrill of
expectancy and uncertainty to the
coming foot ball season.
Charley Paddock, the great Pacific
Coast sprinter, is working on another
moving picture. This means, of
course, that his temperament, or his
desire for publicity, or both, increases
with each new film venture.
Paddock was one of the members
of the Los Angeles Athletic Club
team which went to Berkeley the
other day for a meet against the
University Of California track team.
When the gun went off for the
hundred, Charles refused to heed the
starting signal, and his teammates
stayed behind with him while the