Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1940-01-18
Spotlight
By CrartlG,,d Rice
The Danger Zone :. Pay for
College Football Players De-
bated /. Reasonable Bounds
And the Commercial Side.

DaLcU ncdeOudD1C DOuiiu1
And the Commercial Side.
LOS ANGELES.-In the active
presence Of some 400 famous football
coaches and athletic directors from
all over the map. I have been trying
to get some group to answer one or
two questions-"Has football moved
into the danger zone Of PROSECUTING
and pay for athletes?" HAS the
commercial side grown too impor-
tant?"
Most Of them tell you their uni
versities give a certain number Of
athletic scholarships and try to pro-
vide jobs-but nothing more. Yet
1t is a well-known fact that any
number Of universities or their ath-
letic associations have from $4,000
to $4,000 to help roundup, corral and
capture star high school talent from
coast to coast.
The pursuit of the elusive ball car
rier, the crack forward passer or
the big linemen emerging from
school play is the keenest I've ever
seen.
There Is another school Of thought
that believes the football player
doesn't get nearly enough. They
tell you he furnishes the battered
body for the billion-dollar industry.
I've found no coach who believes
In paying any football player any
form Of salary. Yet in one way or
another, / know many are paid. 1t
is entirely too complicated for my
limited brain.
Maybe there isn't any real danger
zone. But football is too great a
game, it affects directly too many
American kids, including the high
schools, to move along unguarded.
The count goes into the millions.
One answer may be the different
conferences.
AS it is now the Ivy league has
gone into a covey of its own. 1t
rarely leaves the fold. Try to slip
some outsider into an Ivy league
contest. The Big Ten has done
about the same, outside of playing
Notre Dame, and members of the
Big Six.
AS one of the Ivy league coaches
told me, I'VE have Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, Cornell, Pennsylvania,
Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, Army
and Navy. Syracuse and Colgate
are o. K Who else do we need?
We can't play everybody"
The Pacific conference and the
Southwest are hanging together.
They play most of their games
among themselves.
In spite of all this, l have found
a strong feeling Of distrust when it
comes to the matter of PROSECUTING
and taking care of star players.
In the last few weeks I've COW
cred several thousands of square
miles through hot football territory.
Today almost all territory is football
hot.
I've heard over 40 stories of high
school stars offered board, lodging,
scholarships, and a fairly substan-
tial wage. / know part Of this is
bunk. ] also know part of it is true.
Almost every high school kid likes
to boast Of the offers he has had.
Most Of them are baloney. But not
all of them. A kid likes to brag.
! asked one veteran athletic di-
rector Just how much money he fig
ured colleges were putting out or
giving away for football talent, one
way or another.
There are only about 100 colleges
or universities" he said, (which can
afford to meet the competition.
Their funds range from $1,000 year
to $4,000 a year. My guess would
be around $1,000,O0O. This isn't so
much when you figure 10000, 900 peo-
pie look at football each fall-that
football is easily a billion-dollar
game for all observation-disclosures,
hotels, railroads, planes, tickets and
so on"
The main fault goes back to the
colleges and the universities. The
directing people are the ones who
have turned football into a billion
dollar industry. They are the ones
who have stood back of all the bowls
and stadia. They are the respon-
sible people. 1t is something border
ing on crime to start blaming the
coaches. q
''Pll give you one answer that will
help some, "a prominent athletic di-
rector said. pass a rule that no
team can play over two men who
live over 300 miles away from the
university they play for. Don't think
we get fooled when we see teams
with eight or ten players on The
squad who come from 300 to 1,5O0
miles away. And there are plenty
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