Evening star., 1938-10-16

his punter be ten yards
shorter with his boots, but
give them plenty of loft and
place them along the sidelines. Most long
runbacks of punts are the fault of the kicker
and not the ends who seemingly let the safety
man elude them. In nearly every case, the kick
has been low liner into the arms of the
safety who was able to get into full stride
before the ends got down to him. Your smart
kicker - and there's one on every good team
because team is as good as its kicker - boots
the ball outside or away from the potential
receiver nine times out of ten Indeed there
are some punters who can kick ball in such
spinning fashion that it is we'll nigh impossible.
to CATCH Don't ask me what these boys do to
the ball to make it act that way don't know
Nor does anybody else, otherwise we'd all
spend half our days teaching our kickers the
knack.
what's going to happen. Take the time that
Kent Ryan, Utah States great punter,
dropped back on his 40 yard line with stiff
wind whipping his face. The gale caught the
ball as it scared into the air off Ryans mighty
foot and swept the pigskin back over Ryan's
head - back behind Utah States own goal
line where the enemy recovered for a most
distressing and decisive score.
And there was the time that little Johnny
Scalzi, star of the Georgetown University
team, gave New York University a game
winning safety in their annual battle few
years ago. Scalzi, doing triple duty that day
with his quarterbacking, ball carrying and
kicking, had got off numerous booming
punts from beneath the shadows of his goal
posts; so when the Violets drove Georgetown
back to its one yard line the boys were con-
fident that Scalzi would come through again
And he did, swinging his stubby little leg in
sweeping arc to boot the ball out to midheld.
But the cheers of the Georgetown rooters
died in their throats. The referee called the
play back and gave NJ Y. U. safety: Scalzi
had stepped out of the end zone in making his
kick. 1t was great kick - but it lost the
game. That safety was the only score - and
the Violets won, 2toO
Elmer Layden. one of my teammates at
NOtre Dame, was one of the greatest of all
kickers in my opinion. He saved US in the
Rose Bowl game with Stanford back in 1925
with one of the longest and best boots that
| ever saw. Midway in the third quarter
Notre Dame, holding a narrow lead. began to
tire, and Stanford led by bruising Ernie
Nevers, drove down to our 1-yard line before
we were able to take the ball from them on
downs Nearly everybody in the huge stadium
thought that we were merely staving off the
inevitable and that when Layden kicked back
to Stanford they would come marching down
the field again. But Layden had other ideas
Tired as he was. he took the pass from center
and while the Stanford line swarmed in, he
let loose a mighty boot 1t scared far, wide.
and handsome over the Stanford safety mans
head, bounded past midfield and finally
bounced out of bounds on Stanford's l8-yard
line.
That 8l-yard kick took the steam out of
Stanford and fired us with new hope. We went
on to win, 27-lO.
OF course. sometimes your kickers work
goes for naught. In the Wisconsin Iowa game
last year, for instance, with the score tied,
GO. our kicker got off carefully aimed punt
that rolled out of bounds on the Iowa l-yard
line. 1t looked like the break we had been
(Casfisssd o. poos 13)