The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-10-30

WIIbCI, Vic SpOl Us CuaIOi VI All
paper, is disturbed by a con.
sideration of the terrific
amount of baloney that is sliced
in the press on football from Monday
to Friday"
He does not exclude present COM
pany because my young men car
write as much tripe as anybody be-
tween football games. I often ash
them why they do this and they eye
me reproachfully and say: Boss, you
should not talk like that about oui
art. You know that all we ever want
to do is follow the example of deal
teacher and be like you as much a;
possible. :. Sure, it's tripe, but that's
what we're all peddling, isn't it?"
at is all keeping up appear
ancess" runs this sane spell of the
saturnine satirist, and he gets
good and damn sick of it. / don't
mind writing ii, but it bores me to
read 1t. OF course 1t starts up on
the football field, where 1t is dished
out with shovels. The coaches give
it out in buckets, but it is all they
have to give. There is really moth
ing duiler than what goes on on
the practice fields between the
games. There is, at that-the stuff
written about the Players
He follows with two short ex-
afnples OF what football stories
should be to delight my eyes,
soothe my feelings and please the
rancor In my soul. I would, how
ever, not dare print 1t"
This Is the burden of the two
stories: Coaches are dumb. Players
are dumber, il possible.
DAUL CALICO is an essentially
honest writer. Time and again
his healthier reactions blossom forth
in such indigestion columns. He has
been successful enough in suberdin-
ating these reactions to an extent
sufficient to keep his job and he
doesn't seem to be having a difficult
time. Sensitive though he may be-
his is not the bitterness and penetra-
ton that was Ring Lardner's. Not
that Lardner exercised more pene-
tration about the case in point.
The columnist is puzzled and
panied. With a lack of perspective
that characterizes even the best of
non-revolutionary satirists he casts
about for goats, landing, this time
coaches and players.
rOACH CHILEAN appeared on
v the practice field in his usual
state of confusion and befuddlement
and proceeded to bawl hell out of
the boys for not carrying out plays
Matched, apparently, by the mind of
an eight-year-old child. He inter-
fered first with the smooth working
first team, which had been function
ing perfectly until he arrived, and,
after ten minutes of tagging the
players, had the varsity in such a
state Of nerves that the scrubs scored
four touchdowns on them and broke
the star halfbacks collarbone. He
then insulted three or four of the
players TO the point where they de-
cided not to try any more. Next
Coach Gilligan completed the Job by
working his entire squad to the point
OF exhaustion in preparation for the
game tomorrow"
About the players: Led by Big Boy
(StupiO Malciqhkiesko, the entire
squad of Bilgeuater University re-
ported for practice an ,our late at
3ilgeWeter Field yesterday afternoon
secause they could not find the en-
lance to the gridiron and ran
around and around outside the gate.
Big Boy explained to Coach Gcal-
post that scrz.cbody had shut the
doog. If the deer had bsen open,
we'd a found it all right, but the
door was slut. They oughta leave
the door open, coach; we mighta run
around the outside OF this place all
day. A lot of the fellows win net
be out today, boss, because they think
it is Sunday
And SO on.
THIS is what I mean by Lack of
l satifical rer-pc1tive. II is not
true that tire hcoay "all stct5g up on
The football field, Of ecurse." The
i'ooey can be traced back way beyond
that.
I haven't foiis1 that football
players are any G-Iiaber than the
genera. run CT undergraduates, al
though one s,souian't wonder IL
they were. Subsection to the re-
isnCcss grind of the practice SEES
sions. the destructive physical and
emotional wear proflltced by the