The Washington times., 1931-12-16
MASTERS
SEE GAME
AS ILL
CHAPTER 1
BY HARRY COSTELLO
Georgetown Backfield Star, 1908

Ge0fgeLOWn bdCk1IClu ObdE' A01U-1O
A period of deflation has be-
gun for football.
Footballs best friends realize 1t.
They request naturalization i'm.
mediatelyg
One who searches for trends
and sentiments in football is al
ways treated to heated arguments
for and against any conclusion.
This writer has encountered
many persons who refused to
admit the truth of the first SEN
tence.
Peculiarly, perhaps. those most
insistent that the period Of de-
flation has not begun are those
not any too friendly to the game
of football; those most 1ns1stent
that the period of deflation has
already begun are the games
most ardent admirers.
Reforming football has been
and will always remain a matter
of decades of years.
Extreme Measures Futile
Rationalizing football should
prove comparatively simple.
Extreme measures in their re.
lationship to the game Of foot
ball must be classified as failures.
However, naturalization may
succeed where publication has
failed.
Extravaganza in football must
go.
In contemplation, it is bitter
medicine for football.
Even so, if the doctors decide
it is necessary medicine to pre-
vent or cure an illness, the dose
must be given a chance to prove
it's efficacy before the dose or
those responsible for its admins
trt.tion are condemned as ineffl-
cient and foolish.
Fear of Backfire
Present masters Of football
hesitate before dosing the game.
Their hesitancy is the result Of
fear of reverberationS sure to at
tend their doing so rather than
because of faulty diagnosis.
praise will not reward our
efforts to administer medicine,
even if the medicine we choose
is the best for all concerned"
is their attitude.
So think those controlling mod
ern football. They do not ex-
press themselves exactly that
way, but they mean what has
been conveyed by the sentence
employed.
There are complicated compli-
cations.
The pride of the patient, foot
ball, who does not deign to be
feeling badly, let alone i'll, must
be considered by the doctors.
There are plenty Of doctors.
Football is business enter
prise. 1t must be treated as such.
If there has been over capital
izatlon. if dividends to Stockhold-
ers have been unusually large, if
excessive executive salaries have
been paid, if expenditures have
been out of proportion, during
the boom days Of the game, it is
only common sense to meet new
conditions made by deflation.
All in Same Boat
call of us in football" states
one well-known football man,
ARE in the same boat, much the
same as all of us Americans are
in the same boat in relation to
the present economic depression.
I'VE all shared in the grand
orgy of football spending. big
salaries, huge expenditures. ex-
aggerated appraiSalS. If our col
legiate treasures contain worth
less second-trust notes, issued on
the strength of inflated apprais-
ais. it is only logic to assume
that we must simply take our
medicine"
Many persons contend that re-
ducing expenditures, cutting
wages, reducing investments in
raw materials and otherwise cur
failing all along the line may well
mean more employment and con.
t1nued work for laborers in the
field Ct football.
Educational leaders appear in.
clined to rationalize rather than
to undertake the altogether unde-
Slrable methods of sanctimonious
publication.
While naturalization is by no
means a football millennium, it GER
tainly should aid materially in
the self-preServation of individual
colleges.
The second chapter of Mr..
CoStellO's Football Rational.
ized," will appear in The Times
tomorrow.