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Show THERE are now thousands of college col-lege football players, not overlooking over-looking 148 National leaguers, on active ac-tive service in the army, navy and marines. This is an underestimate. And there are many more on their Jay. 'fa. the face of this we have been aijfd far and wide what will become be-come of football this next fall. As far as one can offer a guess on a June date, football will keep under steam with the men that are left. This goes for both the colleges col-leges and the pros. It has been the wish of both army and navy that football be carried on, even with an increased number of players. Army and navy teams will be at full speed. Above all other games, this is a football nation. I am referring to high school, college and professional players, plus the many millions who make up the camp followers. So you can figure it out that football 11 be the last game to go, if it Aes at all. Which it won't. Typical Case In the matter of college play we can take Minnesota as a typical case along the upper plateau. In this connection, George Barton, the sage of Gopher football, writes, "I am afraid Minnesota's national championship days are over for the duration, but the Gopher will do pretty well in Big Ten competition. "Six regulars are gone from the great line of the past two years Fitch and Ringer, ends; Odson, tackle; Levy and Pukema, guards; i " V 4 r ' - BERNIE BIERMAN Flick, center. And, of course, Bruce Smith and Bob Sweiger from the backfield. Gone also is Bernie Bier-man Bier-man and three of his coaching staff." But it might be mentioned here that as long as Minnesota has a back named Bill Daley and a tackle named Dick Wildung, the Gopher has something more than a mere nucleus on hand. Daley is a big part of any backfield and Wildung is a big part of any good line. And there i 'Ow re others around in Norsemen gold. Two Others From this crow's nest two of the best-looking college squads will belong be-long to Georgia and Texas A. and M. And you can add Texas. Of course, you must remember that more than one or two things may happen between now and late September. Sep-tember. The strength of the different service serv-ice teams is still a summer guess, but judging from most of their schedules they will have something more than tackling dummies on guard. It might be noted here that foot-Jt foot-Jt ball is only a part of these cadet training centers. Football will be but one-fifth or one-sixth part of the 10 or 12-hour conditioning drills, at which boxing, wrestling, hurdling, etc., will keep them spinning like human tops from 'lawn to dark. The added rivalry between college and service teams will add to the general interest of the game, despite de-spite the fact that 40,000 or 80.000 crowds might pot be on hand when the whistle blows. L Pro Football There are now 148 National league Ljt football players in active service, with others on their way soon. Twenty-eight of these players hold commissions. com-missions. Eighty-three joined up with the army, 56 with the navy, and nine with the marines. Each year the pros draft some 200 top-rank players. They will get few from the draft list this fall. But as Steve Owen of the Giants puts it, "While we've all lost good men and key men, we'll have enough left to carry the game along until more men are called. This will make it a closer race a better race. "We won't have those Chicago Bears of last season to look at," Big Steve said. "Halas has lost his share of stars, and he had more stars to lose. At this spot I can't see any standout team. But I'm sure we'll have an interesting sea-son sea-son with enough material left to go around." All of which, with the colleges, the navy and army teams, plus the pros, should find the American landscape land-scape and atmosphere packed with more flying footballs than any past season ever knew. |