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Show '"pHE toughest job In sport isn't sinking a six-foot putt in a pinch or emerging from a heel print in the sand. It isn't throwing a 40-yard pass or pitching to a clutch hitter with the bases full. It isn't umpiring a baseball game. If you care to hear the correct answer It is working as n football r iiJSSiA. ttAsfiBQttsiifyKB UULl I'll, me unac ball umpire has a setup la compart son. Hurry-up Yost of Michigan told me once that he doubted doubt-ed that any play was ever run off in football that was completely minus! some form of pen- alty off side, start-! ing too quickly,1 GrantlandRlce holding, illegal Interference, In-terference, pass in-1 terference, illegal use of hands or other infractions. Here you have 22 keen, active, overeager young men scattered over la good part of the field in a game that is packed with penalties. No four sets of eyes can follow every Infraction, especially on the part of those who know how, when and where to slide by a rule. I'd like to say here that no set of officials work harder, train harder or try harder than 90 per cent of all football officials. They are honest, Intelligent, well-selected, and they usually take a deep pride In their work. But they are up against an impos-1 impos-1 sible job. Having worked five years as a football official In the South, before groping later for the older age of hazy reason, I have found it somewhat difficult to ride officials 1 who have impossible jobs to handle. There is holding, of one sort or another, an-other, on almost every play. Ask some of the players in the line who have been jerked off balance by a quick hand, a movement that took less than a split second. Or this matter of pass interference In the rush and jump for the bailor bail-or the split second start of the backs or the smart ones who know how to time and beat off side by half a ! stride. It isn't too easy to say which penalties pen-alties affect a play and which don't. But this Is where the smarter officials come in where in other j years, Ed and Tom Thorpe were supremetwo su-premetwo of the best football ever j has known. Certainly too much wnisne and horn blowing can wreck any game, coming from too many over-conscientious callers, who now and then have the idea they are the afternoon's main attractions. attrac-tions. But this doesn't happen often. An official with sound, sane judgment judg-ment in handling a game, where one close decision can make or break either team, is football's major asset. But don't let anyone tell you j it isn't a tough assignment the toughest one I know in sport. j The horn is certainly no instru- ' ment of merriment or melody. ! All Boivled Over Old King Cole now has more I bowls than he ever dreamed about I as he called for his Fiddlers Three and proceeded to get pie-eyed. But the two big money bowls are the Rose and the Sugar, where the two capacities are 93,000 and 73,000 at $4 a crack. Not a bad financial goal for those lucky enough to crowd into the final j picture, although this cash is scattered scat-tered around as far as the Rose Bowl is concerned. Here, no one makes any big killing. Which is the way it should be. College football still has a long way to go in getting 1 away from too much finance. I New Golf Champion More than a few followers of the ancient and well-trapped green want to know more about Skee Riegel, : the new amateur golf champion of the U. S. Skee is much better known in the Far West than he is throughout the rest of our bunkered domain. The impression seems to b that some rank outsider has taken over the amateur throne of golf. This idea is strictly incorrect. in-correct. Only a fine golfer could have won over the Pebble Beach test, one of the toughest in golf. What sort of a golfer and what brand of a fellow is the new cham- pion meaning Mr. Riegel? We took this problem to Al Ciucl, i one of the best golf instructors in the country, now in charge at Lake-ville. Lake-ville. Long Island. "I can tell you this," Ciuci told me. "A worthy champion and a fine fellow now wears the crown. Craig Wood and I worked with Skee in 1941, when he had been playing golf only three years. He was then in the high 70s. He had come along in a hurry because he wanted to learn, and he was willing to practice all day. "Here's an odd angle on Skee. They call Frank Stranahan 'Muscle' Stranahan or 'Mr. Muscle.' Mus-cle.' But in my opinion Riegel is much stronger than Stranahan. Strana-han. They ought to call Skee, 'Double Muscle.' I've never seen anyone close to his weight, 185 pounds, with such powerful upper up-per and forearms. Skee is what I'd call a power hitter, or smash hitter. |