Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-02-03 | Page 56 | "Sixth Sense" of College Athletes Makes Them Star Birdmen

"Sixth Sense" of College Athletes Makes Them Star Birdmen "lOLLEGE athletes ar proirng the "ace eagles" of the new air navy that Uncle Sam proposes to launch very shortly against the Hun on land and the U-boat at sea. The lad who can whisk along the cinder track' at ten-second speed and the youth of iron nerves who negotiates nego-tiates the Vincent Stevenson flying tackle on tho gridiron are the chaps who qualify for the aviation branch of our national service. There is a very good reason, too. Consider the agility and strength, the quick wit and steady nerve of the average aver-age college athlete and you have the real answer as to why the blue-ribbon . boy, fresh from the .athletic fields of his alma mater, makes the ideal sky pilot and Hun-hounder. Here are several - snapshots of the athlete in action that tell in their own way of the natural training that fits the boy for the daring adventures of the air: It is a football game. Our hero Is "playing back" on defense, according to ;igskin parlance. His job is to run back punts. Alone, 'he stands far down the field awaiting the ball. From the toe of an opponent it lifts high Into the sky. Eleven "enemies" charge clown the field intent upon tackling the man who catches the ball. Daring not to look at the approaching horde, the lone athlete keeps his eyes trained on the descending pigskin. If he fumbles, fum-bles, the enemy will fall upon it and gain a big advantage. He must catch It or all is lost. It is a moment to try tho most adamant nerve. But the clear-brained, nimble-fingered ; youth "gets away with the trick." Here 13 snapshot No. 2. It Is the baseball diamond. Our hero is catcher on the varsity. The bases are full. The man at the bat essays to bunt for the "squeeze play," and negotiates it successfully. The four runners are moving at once. From third base tiia first runner comes charging homeward intent on scoring a run. The bunted ball dribbles down the third-base line. It is a moment for quick action. But our hero does his bit in tine shape. What he does is to pounce upon the rolling baseball, touch out the runner sreeding home from third, whirl and snap the ball to first base, throwing cut another runner and completing a double play. Upon this reel could be painted many more athletic snapshots, pictures of basketball, the track, hockey and many other familiar games. The point, how ever, is made in the baseball and fool-ball fool-ball illustrations. Every one who has rend of the qualifications quali-fications a youth must have before he enters the aviation .service can well understand that the college athlete is well primed Irum a training- and ex- iky i jrfy " ; h ' "TED" MEREDITH, of Penn perience of this kind to soar aloft and offer hnttle to the boehe. it i3 a special "sense" in itself a sixth sense this peculiar gift of the college athlete. Every town has its athletic type the lad with the hair-trigger hair-trigger brain and the agile body, who .Mwnys stars in the home-town ath-U'Ui ath-U'Ui lie. is unM. t-hiick o Ujo feci- Baseball Players Make Good Bomb Throwers In appealing for recruits the British-Canadian mission in this country has sought' baseball players play-ers because of their natural adaptability adapta-bility to grenade throwing. "Baseball players can do better at grenade throwing than any. other men," say the recruiting officers. offi-cers. "We can train ordinary men for this service, but this Is an age of specialization, and ball players are better fitted to become grenade 1 . ; ball team, directing the play; he Is captain of the baseball team and the "brains" of the nine; on the basketball basket-ball team he is the fellow to whom the ball is -"fed" for shots at the basket. Transplanted from the earth to the sky this type of youth is the Ideal air cavalryman. In his tests preliminary to. enlistment and acceptance he must submit to being whirled around on a chair until he Is dizzy and then gain iiis poise in short c:der. When his machine plunges' into the filmy mists of skyland he must have that special sense of direction that enables him to tell whether tie Is going up or down. Unable to see the earth he must be able to tell whether he Is riding "upside "up-side down" or volplaning to earth. These faculties are possessed by the lype of "star athlete" described above. Ic is such qualification that makes men like "Hubey" Baker, of Princeton, and "Ted" Meredith, of Pennsylvania, the aces of the new air fleets. In college each was a star. At Princeton Baker throwers than any other class of men." As a further example of the close connection between athletics and modern warfare, General Pershing announced soon after the mobilization mobiliza-tion of an army In France that he intended his army to be like one ' big football team a million men welded together In a system of attack at-tack and defense along the same lines followed out by the average crack American varsity football eleven. was captain of Jhe football team and a crack hockey player. Now he is gaining new laurels with the American Amer-ican flying corps and already has brought down his first German plane. At the University of Pennsylvania "Ted" Meredith gained his laurels on the track. Hard pressed many times on the track by his opponents, young Meredith had the stamina and nerve in the pinch. Now he has finished his course of training, has qualified as an expert air pilot and Is "over there" somewhere and soon will be heard from. The list Is long. From all over the United States the colleges and universities univer-sities have sent their athletic prodigies to the aviation service. When our air t navy gets rightly going over In France i there will be mobilized in the airdromes ; a galaxy of the world's most versatile athletes talented young men gifted ; to a superlative degree. Keep your eye on tho "rah-rah" boys from the colleges of the United States who are to be turned loose with ' 4 - - J 4 I v ' t - ; ; i - . y V "HOBEY" BAITER, ol Princeton -h0 n(,w American air navy. They are ;oing to make good in a way that will startle their admiring friends at home md cause some very wry necks and ivry faces to those unhappy and misguided mis-guided folks v,ho arc soon to desert their beloved Unter der Linden before the menace of the attacking allied sky pIloU and take up their abode in the safe- retreat of their catacombs.