The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-11-27
ALKING
IT OVER
BY JOE WILLIAMS
NEW YORK, Nov. 81.

NEW OFtrAs NOV. IL
VZOUNG ROBERT FLETCHER
i coach Of the Case team OF
Cleveland, resigns and announces
lugubriously that football is dying.
Fletcher's team did not have very
good season It lost a big percentage
Of its games. Such developments are
calculated to breed morbidity and
moroseness. To q coach, an alumnus
or an undergraduate there is no life
in defeat.
But Fletcher Is wrong. Football Is the
one sport that is indubitsbIy living. II
reveIs in a vitality that is robust, rugged
and respondent. 1t grows more vigorous
with each passing season.
From october to December foot
ball compels and commands more
concentrated interest than any other
sport in the world, and it is few
erish, hysterical almost spiritual in
terest, as distinguished from the
take-it-or- leave-.t attitude that IS
bestowed upon some Of the other
sports.
FLETCHER must have been spool
4 ing, and with this suspicion in
mind l shall not call his attention
TO the fact that in the recent week
end games 10000 persons saw Cali
fornia lose to Stanford. $4,000 saw
Harvard beat Yale and $4,000 saw
Notre Dame crush Northwestern.
Nor shall 1 mention the narrowing
fact that thousands of persons are
staggering through the streets Of
Nv York at this precise moment
offering any price for tickets to tl'e
Notre Dame-Army game which
closes the local season at Tie
stadium Saturday.
II Fletcher had said that some Of the
other sports were dying he might have
commanded the alert attentions of more
than a mere handful of listeners. There
is the professional fight business, for ex-
ample. Perhaps You would not say the
professional fight business Is dying, but
nevertheless there are symptoms present
which do not exactly argue for long
and unpIagued existence.
r
CERTAINLY there is not the
same sharp interest in the box
ing business that there was when
the Dempsey fellow was in there
knocking them loose from their
relatives, friends and acquaintance.
Nobody seems to care particularly
--,t-z - zV,t,r - xryhof &c xxybaf ~ the
heavyweight circle any more. When
the Dempsey fellow left he took a
lot with him, and the gents who
make a business Of promoting were
not long in finding this to be the
truth.
Gene Tunney, as substitute. was I'M
satisfactory on two counts: He was not
a thunderous puncher and he had no
interest in the business beyond getting
his million and departing therefrOm with
all haste. Still if Tunney had tarried
the business would have continued to
prosper after a fashion. Taking him by
and large he was splendid fighter and
Il would have taken might good man
TO beat him.
Fletcher might even have remarked that
baseball Is dying and found ready ear
here ard there. whether this be true
or not there are some who are inclined
% believe it, The two big leagues did
3ot have a very hattering season at the
frnstiles last summer. Only a few of
pc clubs made real money. and moro
han one of the clubs wound up in what
the boys call the red.
TITO be sure the world series still
L commands a tremendous ma
tion-wide interest, but this is SIM
ply a glorif1ed spectacle of the dia-
mond, a feveriShly ballyhooed pag-
cant, and its connection with the
day by day routine is only inciden-
tai, and in no way a true measure
of local enthusiasts.