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Show COME short while back, one cf the leaders in college football asked your correspondent to name the 15 leading coaches in the country. The only answer we could think ot in a given time limit was this: "The 15 coaches who have the best ma-! terial." j There is little questioning the fact ; that for the season of 1946, Red Blaik of Army deserved his award, due largely to the fact that Red and his stall carried Army three years without a defeat. Time and again we have been asked to rank the coaches in order, ' This Is an Inipossl-II'"-11"1 b,c Jb. Look over ! i J Just a few from the I 1 list Neyland of j jp - , j Tennessee, Walk of I 1 Arm'r "ar'ow of rLoB- wrl Harvard. Little of j U "1 Columbia, Crialer ! I N C of Mlt h'Kan. Thorn-1 I 2!J of Alabama,! I . Leahy of Notre I X v- Dame, McMillin of Indiana, Neely of Bicrman Hire, Butts of Georgia, Geor-gia, McKeever of Cornell, Wade of Duke, Snavely of North Carolina. Odell or Yale, Le-Brucherle Le-Brucherle of U.C.L.A., Bicrman of Minnesota but why keep on? This Is only a partial list, where, if given the game material and the same schedules, luck would have to write the story. I can say this. There is no bunch connected with sport that gives as much time, thought, worry and com-plete com-plete concentration as football coaches give. They brood by day and night. An ankle, a shoulder, a knee or a bock can make all the difference in the world. Those in front figure they must stay there. The losers must win a game or two. There is a big difference in material from time to time but the old grads and the public at large never consider consid-er this. They look only to the final scores. Such coaches as Red Drew of Mississippi, Red Sanders of Van-derbilt Van-derbilt and Paul Bryant of Kentucky may be unknown nationally, but they are as good as the best with what they have. A Coaches Coach There may be a better coach than Dick Harlow of Harvard but who Is he? Neyland of Tennessee can keep pace with anyone. Jock Sutherland Suth-erland was the coaches' coach in college col-lege until he came over to pro ranks. Spend a few days with Steve Owen and Greasy Neale, in or out of season, sea-son, and you get part of the answer fall, winter, spring and summer they're always talking and thinking football, still playing over games they lost. Lonnic Stagg at 84 was still in harness this last season, reluctant reluc-tant to retire. Lonnie was a star at Yale, 60 years ago. With all the tears they shed and all the moaning they give the world, it is almosl impossible to shake them loose without with-out using a grenade. Your correspondent more than once has ducked the opportunity of picking or trying to pick the 10 best coaches of all time. Looking back to something over 40 years we'd say that four of the best were Pop Warner, Knute Rorkne, Ilurrr-uo Yost and Percy liaughton. Pop Warner gave football more on the technical side than anyone else, Including the single and double wing, a system still just as effective as the T. Colorful Yost Yost gave football its first flare of coaching color and Michigan its first great college football record 56 victories In five years, blemished only by a tie with Minnesota, before Chicago broke the string In 1905. Knute Rockne brought to football its greatest combination of coaching ability, human interest and personality. person-ality. Rock, in addition to being a great coach, was also the game's star personal contribution when it came to human contact. Bob Zuppke of Illinois brought to football coaching the added gifts of philosophy and humor. Zup had more color than two rainbows. One of his best friends wss the late How. ard Jones of Yale and Southern California. Cal-ifornia. No two men were ever further fur-ther apart as human brings. But they were fine roaches and close pals. Haughton ot Harvard today Is a greatly underrated coach. Cold, hard, austere, he was one of the greatest. A star tactician and technician. tech-nician. Houghton wos probably the i best of all In dixciplinc. As Tack H.irdwlck told me once, "If Hnugh- i ton told Harvard to Jump off a 100 foot cliff and he would catch us 1 we'd all jump. And Percy would catch us." Character lluihlcrs The thousund, at least a thousand, football coaches we've met and known in the last 40 odd years, have made an almost unbelievable contribution, con-tribution, not only to sport, but a'.so to the good of the nation at large. Not nil ot thrm, of course. Hut the big majority have turned out a great Job In the way of training, Instruction, Instruc-tion, discipline and. if y u'll pordon the phrase, "character building." Did you evrr know Dn McGugin or tannte Stagg? Ask their players, play-ers, many of them now gray or rl I j |
