The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-11-29

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W h om this wise-crack was
destined to become anything
but a joke. This was John
Law, center and captain of Rockne's
famous 1929 team Of undefeated ma
tlonal champions. When Johnny COM
pleted his brilliant athletic career at
Notre Dame he became head coach at
Manhattan College. His team, though,
laid an egg. Victories were few and
far between and these only against
the jerkwater colleges on the schedule.
They simply couldn't win a major VIC
tory, and Johnny soon had borne upon
him the full significance of what his
former coach had referred to as
alumni interference" After two
seasons on the job he got the gate.
That's only half the story. The
season after he left" Manhattan, Mr..
Law was up at Ossining, N. Y, coach
ing the inmates of Sing Sing - the
only professional coach of a prison
team in the country. The press made
quite joke of it at flrst-particularl
in view of his name. This is his third
season on the job, however, and from
the football point of view the things
no joke. Anybody who saw the Sing
Sing game at the end of last season
against the Port Jervis police depart
ment will readily attest to the fact
that the team up there compares more
favorably with the best among the
collegiates.
IN THE current issue of Liberty"
Law tells the world about the calibre
of men with whom he has been deal
ing. We don't have to take his word
for it, either, for there are countless
other reports which bear out every
thing he says. With some exceptions,
of course, they're really swell bunch
Of guys. He describes them as being
excellent sportsmen, clean-cut, sturdy,
self-reliant, dependable, naive forth
right. Anything In the world save the
common conception Of the criminal
the bad man, desperate type and all
that. II simply could not look upon
these men who we're serving time as
criminals, not even If ] tried to-"
writes Coach Law. II soon learned
that every conventional idea about
them is wrong. They are entirely
human and amazingly normal in their
mental processes, their opinions and
their judgments"
The case of Alabama" Pitts, cap
tain and star back OF the team, is
typical. He's a natural athlete, could
easily make good in professional base
ball, If given half chance, and a
peach of a fellow. Honorably dis
charged after a term Of enlistment
in the Navy, he found himself alone
and friendlesS in New York - cold,
hungry, discouraged. After long,
vain search for work, he did the natu-
raj thing for any virile human under
the circumstances. He went out to
take what he couldn't come by "legiti-
mately." Caught in the act Of holding
up a chain store, he was convicted of
robbery, and some righteous judge
handed him the rap to the tune of
eight to sixteen years. Society, after
all, must be protected from his ilk.
So 1t goes with virtually all of them.
Few really vicious individuals In the
entire aggregation. Cast adrift in a
society in which they must work in
order to live and then denied the
opportunity to work-where does the
guilt lie?
THESE men, isolated from the world
and carted off to the calaboose for
any of a series Of crimes" are in a
classic position to see clear through
the monumental insanity of it all.
And to understand why 1t is, for ex-
ample, that they find themselves play
ing halfback or guard-or just roofing
from the stands-for Sing Sing in
stead OF for Princeton or for Yale.
And why the cheering sections are
clad in multi instead of in raccoon.
In her book, Condemned to Devils