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Show FRANK K. BAKER ' TELEGRAM tPORTi IDITOA. If there is really a ptace for night football in the state, it is at Provo, where the Cougars face a big problem In building up their home attendance. Saturday'i situation alone in which an interactional fray t Provo between the Cougars and California Aggies was virtually vir-tually obscured by the inlrrmountain "natural" here at Salt Lake City between Utah and Idaho universities is proof enough that a Provo game is a losing proposition if it comrs on the same afternoon after-noon the Utes arc at home here in the capital city. As an interscctional attraction, the Provo encounter deserved de-served a lot more attention than it got. Had it been played Friday flight instead of Saturday afternoon, it would have drawn greater recognition and perhaps three or four times more than it did in the way of customers. Th Cougars, it appears, rnuld pioneer a fertile field by Installing lights at their stadium. The weather, even at this altitude, normally is favorable to the September and early October games at night, and the Garden City is ideally enough located to draw well for nocturnal competition. So long as Utah is not In the night field and it appear that tha university has no Intention of Installing lights tha B. Y. U. could promote itself a profitable monopoly. Admittedly, night football has some disadvantages. But it comes at a highly convenient time for a great many folks who find it difficult to take in the afternoon games. This enlargement of the group of potential customers plus the early season urge of the gridiron faithful to see tome football brings out some surprisingly large crowds wherever the lights are in use. Take Denver, for example. It opens its campaign each season against Colorado Mines, usually on the last Friday of September. Mines hasn't won a game from the Pioneers since prohibition. A D. U.-Mines game on a I Saturday afternoon in midscaton wouldn't draw enough fans to pay the ushers. Start the season, though, with that game, when the dyed-in-the-wool customers are impa-tently impa-tently waiting for the campaign to get under way; make it further convenient by playing it on a Friday night when a great share of the public is kicking for some weekend week-end entertainment, and you're bound to draw a good crowd. see The Cougars could do much the same thing with lights her In Utah. Utah county can turn o'ut some extremely large - crowds at night The Garden section of the state kept proving that all summer long with tha great crowds drawn for the Softball activities at Spanish Fork. Add to the Utah county throng all those people who would make the hour's trip there from Salt Lake City, and you have a profitable gathering. e The press would also have a much easier time trying to give the Cougars a break on their homegames. A Friday j night game at Provo would not be in direct competition with a game here in Salt Lake City, or vice versa. In , other words, the press would not be called upon either by implication or judgment of news importance to influence in-fluence the football bug to choose between one game or the other. If the fan had sufficient time and affluence, he could take thera both in, making a leisurely trip to Provo Friday night and still having Saturday afternoon for a game here in the Ute stadium. One might argue that the Utes ought to do as much as the Cougars to avoid conflict in dates, and morally there is foundation to that contention. conten-tion. Utah, however, is in the state's most heavily populated popu-lated area. Its crowd possibilities are always greater than what they are at Provo. It can therefore get by a little more serenely on staid traditional custom, whereas the Cougars need a little more promotional work. If the lights will help fatten the Y' pocketbook, it's high time the lights were installed if the Cougars hope to continue to grow and develop in their football stature. |