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Show Military Service Has Depleted Grid Ranks of "Big Ten" Schools Only One Veteran Appears Certain for Chicago; Northwestern Loses Whole Group; Two Regulars Reg-ulars for Illini; Gophers Suffer Least; Coaches Will Be Compelled to Build Entire Teams This Season. 1 (Written Expressly for The Tribune.) C' HKJAOO, Sept. 1. In the fur-moil fur-moil over the finale of the the big league pennant races it seems I almost an intrusion to announce ; that the conference football season will I be formally opened this afternoon. To-! To-! day, which was set last winter for the beginning of gridiron practice, all of the members of the Big Ten, except ! Michigan, which re-entered the fold too late for schedule-making, and hence has no important early contests, gathered their several candidates on their respective respec-tive athletic fields and held them at attention at-tention for the first review by the mentors. men-tors. Strange groups these were that got together today. No one knows finite whnt Ihev will be like, ;-ave th;tt they will be without most of ihe !;tn:i!:;ir figures ol western football bal'le?. Tlic ! coaches ihetnsclves have no definite information in-formation as to the exact status of their 6quads. Most of the experienced men arc at war that is certain but. which of the less-trained men will be back is purely problematical. Outlook Uncertain. There is, in consequence, an unusual amount of interest attached to the first marshalling of forces this week-end. In years "one bv everyone has known for weehs in advance almost exactly who wonhl report, for opening practice; but this time nobody knows. The coaches have mr;de up, their- minds that they will have to earn their salaries in full this year if tliey expect to produce teams that are capable. They count on having to handle green men, and will undoubtedly start otf with a rush in order to create with hard work what they cannot have from previous training'. train-ing'. At the T'nivcrsity of Chicago, Coacb itagg had only one senior hack. With Frank Pershing, ca pta j n -elect and quar-1 quar-1 i-fhack. a top sergeant in the ordnancn dr'.;'rtnient. and Hans .orgren, halfback, half-back, a second lieuten&nt in infantry Carl T.relos. who has played end for (Continued Pafie Throe.) - MUM SERVICE CUTS CI RANKS t (Continued from Page One.) two years, is the only really experienced man 'to he relied on. Carl probably will be acting captain, although he has received re-ceived no formal notification of any filch arrangement. Parker, the other end, may be back later, but no one has heard definitely from him. Of last year's sophomore players, Dutch Gorges seems the only sure bet for a come-back. Dutch was not a full-fledged regular last year, but played in several games at guard. Charles Higgine, who played the other guard on defease and end on offense, will leave for Franco within a week with base hospital unit No. 13. Higgins was I - accounted one of the best pieces of foot- bail timber that Stagg has handled in several years and that after only one season of .play, lie is too young to be i drafted, and poor eyesight kept him out V of the regular army; but he refused to do nothing while everyone else was volunteering, vol-unteering, and signed up for the hospital hos-pital work. In Military Service. Red Graham, who is best remembered by Illinois rooters for his peculiar touchdown touch-down in the Maroon game at Urbana, is also under military age, but enlisted. Red is in an aviation unit. He was Pershing's altornato quarter, and with-out with-out him Stagg will have to develop a new pilot. Bondzinski, letter man at guard, has left with an ambulance corns. George .Sctzer, halfback, is a sec-oud sec-oud lieutenant in the regular army after af-ter bis training at Fort Sheridan. Bat Hanish, fullback, is in France with a base hospital unit. Andy MePherson, lackle, is doing Red Cross work. The captain of tho freshman eleven, Gene Rousch, will leave in the same hospital unit that harbors Higgins. Others of tho star yearlings dunked out of college and some have not been heard from. Jloff Elton, former Oak Parker, will bo back, and is counted on to till ono of the backricld berths. Fat Reber, ( .. all-Cook county center when at univer sity high, is in lino for Captain Fisher's pivotal position. Pig Grusch may be back, also. Of the rest there is no certainty. cer-tainty. At Other Schools. Northwestern will lose its entire group of veteran linemen, either by graduation or military call. Captain Paddy Driscoll is at Kockford, after a . short sojourn with the Cubs. Kohler may be back. Enlistments have depleted deplet-ed the freshman and second string material. ma-terial. Coach Zuppke at Illinois is sure nf having only two regulars back. The rest J are either at the Illinois aviation school j 0Kr or at tho various military camps. Ohio is slightly better fixed, with five regu-f regu-f lars back. But among the lost ones is two-thirds of last year's team Chick Parley, who has been drafted. Dr. YTilliams at. Minnesota is comparatively com-paratively w-ell off. His giant captain, C George Hauser, will surely be in harness, as will Con Eklund. Flynn and Schroe-der, Schroe-der, tlie former a regular, and the latter a second string end, are also available. There are enough sophomores left of an enormous yearling squad to promise a fair team.' Indiana, will not suffer very severely either, relatively. Michigan, which doe's not start practice until September 27, has a pretty dubious outlook, and Purdue and Wisconsin are similarly fixed. At Madison, Richards, Chicago's south side plavground director, will supplant Withirfgton as coach. REVISION OF GRID CODE CURBS COACH IN COMMUNICATION, The latest, revision of the football rules has one new-feature which will 'do away with one of the most objectionable objec-tionable features the game has developed devel-oped during the past few seasons. This is the new rule which prohibits an incoming in-coming substitute from communicating with his team on the field nntil after the first play. In many of the big gridiron games the Substitute subterfuge subter-fuge was carried on to unreasonable extremes. ex-tremes. Tt was no uncommon sight to see a substitute sent from the side lines with information at a critical point of a game. Side-line coaching has been a subject With which the rulema.kers have been grappling for the last three years. First, the side lines were cleared of the many-assistant many-assistant coaches and scouts, who used to crowd both sides of the field at the important games. The freedom of head coach was also restricted, and whon the new rules permitted frequent substitution substitu-tion these players were used as a means of conveying information from the coaches to the players on the field. Gradually the initiative was taken from the players until the game was rapidly becoming a contest of automatons, automa-tons, which moved only at the beck and call of the coach on the side lines. Checks Coach's Control. Prohibiting this objectionable feature will tend to throw the football players on their own resources and will develop de-velop strategy which heretofore has been dependent on side-line observation. There is but one" exception to this rule, and that is in the caso of the quarterback. quarter-back. If the substitute replaces the quarterback ho is permitted to give the signal, but in no other way is he permitted per-mitted to communicate with the players until after the first play. The new restriction which has been placed on the forward pass will increase in-crease the value of this important play. One of the dangerous features of the forward pass has been the liability of the receiver of the ball being roughed. A new rule this season provides that when a. player interferes with a player attempting to catch the farword pass the penalty will be the .loss of the ball to the offended side, at the spot where the foul was committed. The place kick has been more clearly defined in the new code, and the play must be maTie by kicking the ball from its position w-hen resting on the ground. This does away with the use of artificial artifi-cial tees, such as were used in some of the games last season. Tn one or two contests place kicks were made by-placing by-placing a head gear on the ground and kicking the ball while it rested on the head gear. Gradually the rules-makers are eliminating the objectionable features fea-tures of the gridiron game. In the present pres-ent edition of the rules the committee points out that tho rules as thov stand today should be allowed to crystallize as nearly as possible in their " present form A Continual Improvement. Each year new provisions have been made in the code to do away with sideline side-line coaching, beating the ball, roughing rough-ing the kicker and the receiver of the forward pass, talking to opponents, and disputing decisions of the officials. One by one these phases of tho game are disappearing, and the standard of sportsmanship is unquestionably higher than it was in former days of the gridiron grid-iron sport. While no new rule was inserted in the code this year concerning holding, there was so much discussion about this feature fea-ture of violation of the rules last season sea-son that officials this season will undoubtedly un-doubtedly be instructed to enforce the rules against it more closely than ever before. Holding is one violation- of the rules which has never been rigidly enforced. en-forced. There is no feature of the game which calls for more penalties during a came than holding. In pointing out the importance of eliminating this feature from the game the committee has incorporated in-corporated in the rule book, under the interpretation of the code, the following: follow-ing: ''Holding is prohibited by the rules because it does not belong in the game of football. Tt is an unfair plaj It eliminates skill. The slowest man in the world can make a forty-yard run in every play if the rest of his" teammates will hold their opponents long enough. The game is to advance the ball by strategy, skill and speed, without holding hold-ing your opponent. Perhaps a good panto could be invented the object of which wonld be to advance the ball a? far as possible with the assistance of holding your opponents, but it would not be football. "Tt vould probably become a team wrestling match and. unless drastic rules, rigidly enforced, prevented it, a free fight. If your coach cannot show yon how to gain distance without, holding hold-ing your opponents pet another coach." |
