Evening star., 1941-08-28
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, Aug. 28.-This coun-
try's college football coaches are go
ing into the 1941 campaign with
their fingers crossed, and with a
manifest tendency to concentrate
only on the business at hand and
let the future take care of itself.
A Nation wide Associated Press
survey shows that so far neither the
original selective service draft nor
last months registration of 2l-year-
olds has made any appreciable in
road on the colleges football-play-
ing manpOWer. What's more, with
very few exceptions Big Ten teams
and Pacific Coast teams, Eastern Ivy
Leaguers and Southwest Conference
contenderS expect to retain through
out the season the personnel with
which they will go into their opening
games.
Here and there a key back or a
letter winning lineman has had his
number called or has enlisted in the
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their civilian schools to enroll at the
Naval Academy. Jobs in defense in
duStries have appealed to a number
of boys. Northwestern expects to
have it's star halfback, Bill De Cor
revont, when the season opens, but
isn't sure he'll be there for the final
games of the Big Ten campaign.
Most Players Too Young.
But as general rule the college
football players are too young to
have been registered for either draft
Jim Jurkovich, Californias star
halfback, won't be 81 until November
27, 1912, or they have been de-
ferred because they are enrolled in
R. o. T. c. courses Qike Princetons
captain, Bob Peters of Kingsport,
Tenn or their concentration on the
sciences and engineering has given
them occupational deferment.
The coaches, therefore, are finding
the Information far more of a 194l
mental hazard than selective service.
They expect to conduct their busi-
ness as usual. Graduate managers
of colleges in major industrial and
defense production areas are gleeful
at the prospect of seeing some of
this fresh money" finding its way
into their box-offices on Saturday
afternoons.
The general attitude is pretty well
expressed by Maj. John L. Griffith,
commissioner for the Western Con-
ference, though he was referring
only to the Big Ten:
"A relative few among prospective
members of football squads have
been called, primarily because the
average (conference) football man
is under the limit of 81 years. While
there are scattered individual losses,
the total effect is slight.
No Retrenchment Sought.
There has been no suggestion
that the one-year residence or fresh
man rule should be modified or
dropped. Neither have there been
suggestions for retrenchment or cur
tailment. Football schedules are un-
changed and ticket prices in general
the same as last year, neither higher
nor lower. Preseason ticket sales
indicate heightened interest"
Only in the Southeastern Confer
ence has there been much mention
of letting freshmen play varsity ball,
chiefly by Bernie Moore of Louisiana
State, who thinks 1t might be good
safety valve" But the suggestion.
which may come up at the annual
conference meeting in December,
has as many opponents as pro-
The countrywide reaction is that
losses have been too slight
to make necessary such a drastic
with its attendant danger
of encouraging use of, to quote
Coach Tom Lieb of Florida, football
buns who matriculate in September
and quit school in December"
The general belief is that. for this
season at least, college football will
run off according to plan and sched-
ule. AS to 1912 and beyond-college
football, like the rest of the world,
will take up problems when they
have been brought into the present.