OCR Text |
Show "X7"HAT is the ruling factor in ' sport? There can be only one answer. It isn't the manager or the coach, who too often picks up entirely too much credit. It is always al-ways the material. It is the fighter the football player the baseball player. It is the fellow up front on the firing line. During the recent winter season, football went on a wild rampage in the shift of coaches. There were shifts all over the map Navy, Michigan, Harvard, Yale, Washington Washing-ton and Kansas. Then, in the middle of the baseball base-ball season, there was another wild upheaval with v J Durocher going to the Giants, Shotton back to the Dodgers, Dod-gers, Dusty Cooke to the Philliesthe earlier rumors thai Joe McCarthy was through reports of a family friction fric-tion with the Ath- letics trouble in LEAHY st- Louis trouble trou-ble in Chicago too many reports to follow. What too many people overlook over-look is this: It is the material, not the coach or the manager, that has the final say. Certainly, Cer-tainly, the manager and coach have roles to play often Important Impor-tant roles. . Bnt not even a Frank Leahy or a Fritz Crisler was ever as Important as the material. No Leahy, a great coach, was ever up to a Lnjack, a Connor, a Fischer, or a Cza-robski. Cza-robski. Of course, a big part of a manager's man-ager's job is to get the best material. materi-al. That is also a big part of the coach's job in football and thl goes for the colleges as well as the pros. A winning baseball team needs that pitcher or that hitter more than one of them. A winning college football team needs that passer, ball carrier and blocker. The coach gets far too much credit cred-it for victory and far too much blame for defeat. The same is true of a pennant race. They pile too many olive blossoms on the winner and too many strands of poison ivy on the loser. Many, a big league manager has been made and many a one wrecked by the material he had. Don't forget this in the build-up and the knock-over. Start of Passing The passing game in college reached its peak last fall. The colleges col-leges had Bobby Layne of Texas, Chuck Conerly of Mississippi, Harry Gilmer of Alabama, Johnny Lujack of Notre Dame, Tony Minisl of Perm, Ray Evans of Kansas, Bob Chappius of Michigan and many others. These have all moved over into the pro group. With Paul Governali, Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman, Otto Graham, Glenn Dobbs and others at work, the passing game will reach another peak this fall Who started the passing game? Here's a contribution from Buck O'Neil, a lusty old-timer: "Dear Grant: "I was interested in your column on Merrilat, end at West Point in the decades purpled by time. You spoke of Chicago and Michigan using the forward pass back in 1906, the year that the play was introduced intro-duced into football. "Chicago had a pretty fair sort of quarterback that year, fellow named Walter Eckersall. lie was 145 pounds of wildcat, and he Is the man I believe who caught Willie Heston from behind in one game between Chicago and Michigan. "No matter about that, but Eckie threw passes to Fred Walker, a fine end of the Maroon, and beat the vaunted Minnesota team through the air. Eckersall to Walker was one of the great pass combinations of their day and time. Ahead of His Time "Glenn Warner had some great pass experts at Carlisle, and one of the earliest combinations was Mt. Pleasant to Exendine and Gardner. Warner, always ahead of his time in coaching, developed the technique tech-nique of sending linemen down the field with his ends to block out the halfbacks. The Indians were terrific ter-rific in the air and, of course, their skill was attributed to some romantic roman-tic bridge between the Indian and the occult. "There was nothing mystlo about the skill of the Indians, although guys like Exendine and Gardner, and that great lineman of the era, Newashe, who played end and tackle with equal skill and aboriginal ferocity, fero-city, were really out of this world. The foundation of Carlisle's Car-lisle's success was laid on blocking block-ing the halfback. "Navy used the forward pass in 1913, but it was a haphazard thing. Harry Blodgett, a Middle halfback, told me that his orders were to fade five yards and throw the ball hard.' " |