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Show THE top word and the most misused mis-used word and what should be the rarest word in the language is the word "best." This is a word that covers more ground than we can follow, using an airplane and a telescope. By this we mean such phrases as "the best team" "the best passer" "the best receiver" "tho best kicker" "the best line" referring here to football. For example, some days ago Major Jablonski, one of the leading Army coaches, rated Angelo Bertelll of Notre Dame as "the best passer." Lou Little naturally countered with Paul Governall of Columbia. rtlh nr fin ft DOSS. crs. But what about Frankie Sinkwich of Georgia or Eddie Prokop of Georgia Tech? Or Glenn Dobbs of Tulsa? They all work under un-der different conditions, condi-tions, with varying support, through widely different schedules. Of the lot, Cover- Lou Little " nail, Columbia's able sniper, has the hardest handicap to overcome so far as team protection j Is concerned. Most of the better passers work on teams that also , can run. Columbia's only scoring passage Is through the air, and every ev-ery opponent knows it. The Top Man Football's three best passers are Sammy Baugh, Cecil Isbell and Sid Luckman. You can have them in any order so long as Baugh is No. 1. Taking a crack at our earlier angle about the word "best," football foot-ball haa never known a pass receiver receiv-er close to Don Hutson. Hutson has grappling hooks for banda and the speed of a cheetah. He also has a deceptive method of faking the enemy en-emy oat of position. Baugh is an amazing athlete. "I weighed 180 pounds when I played with Texas Christian several years ago," he told me recently. "I still weigh exactly 180 pounds. I don't figure I've changed as much as two pounds In any recent year." I can recall few athletes who have kept In such fine physical shape for so long a time. Back to the Collegians How many would run far and pass well against such teams as Minnesota, Minne-sota, Alabama,; Wisconsin, Ohio State, Georgia, Georgia Tech or Notre Dame? For example, Wisconsin has two of the star backs of the year, but look at that Badger schedule! It included Notre Dame, Missouri, Great Lakes, Purdue, Marquette, Northwestern, Ohio State, Iowa and Minnesota. How many new records could the best of backs set up against this opposition? The caliber and quality of opposing oppos-ing teams too often la overlooked. And there ta many a potential star who la also overlooked on some of the poorer teams, with which he has little chance to operate. Hard to Compare It takes no starry-eyed expert to announce that Boston College and Alabama have two of the country's greatest lines, including depth of material. They can't be stormed along the ground just too many big, fast men. But it is harder to compare such passers as Governall, Sinkwich, Prokop, Dobbs and others. Governall Gover-nall hasn't anything like the manpower man-power support the others have. There is a large difference between working or playing with Columbia and playing with Georgia or Notre Dame. A good running game can be a big help to any passing game. After Aft-er all, Baugh has Dick Todd, and yon may recall the time he had Cliff Battles two of the best runners run-ners working with a great passer. And Luckman has had some of the greatest backs In football history with the Chicago Bears Standlee, McAfee, Osmanskl, Nolting and others. oth-ers. Sinkwich has his own running ability to call on in addition to other fast backs. Bertelll has all the running run-ning help he needs. The best single exhibition I've seen this year came from Sinkwich In his two-touchdown march against Alabama's strong defense something some-thing like 11 passes completed out of 13 tossed in that final period. Apparently no set of adverse figures fig-ures ever can prove to the racing bettor that he is up against a bit more than he can digest. For example, the case of Whirl-away Whirl-away serves our point. Long Tail is the biggest money winner of all time. He has had an amazing record rec-ord of running and winning. let, if someone had bet $5 on Whirlaway in every race of his career, said bettor would be behind financially. The answer is that Whirly has lost too many races when he was an odds-on choice. After his first few races there was little chance to make any money backing Man o' War. There were times when he was l-to-100 or Vto-80. |