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Show SPORT LIGHT : Foes Again Fear Fordham Pitt By GRANTLAND RICE I SOME YEARS ago football had three big teams marching under winning banners. They were Pittsburgh, coached by late Jock Sutherland, Fordham, directed by Jimmy Crowley, and New York university, handled by Chick Mee-han. Mee-han. They formed a rugged triumvirate, triumvir-ate, directed by three line coaches, willing to play any- body, and usually successful. Then they all decided to give big-time football the Arctic air. They turned their coaches loose to graze In foreign pastures or to make up some the best in the country. The Tribe of Murphy Many years ago, probably the greatest of all trainers and coaches combined worked, at Yale and Pennsylvania. His time goes back more than 40 years. His name was Mike Murphy. Mur-phy. There is no one living today whether he be a Yaleman or a Pennsylvania man, a football player play-er or a track man who worked under Mike Murphy who won't tell you that here was the all-time tops. Mike was something more than a star trainer and a fine coach. He was an inspiration to all who knew him. His grandson, Bill Murphy, Is now one of the coming stars at Dartmouth. Young Bill may be one of the best men on Tuss McLaughry's Green squad that won't be so green. A few days ago I met another Mike Murphy, the son of Thorne Murphy and grandson of old Mike. Young Mike is now in a western prep school but he, also, will be heard from before too long. He is a good-looking, well built kid who is a promising football player and a first-rate track man. His father played at Yale well over 20 years ago. His uncle is George Murphy, the famous motion picture star. Young Mike wasn't quite sure what his destination would be later on but he gave me the impression that he was looking at Yale and Dartmouth. The chances are he'll head for Dartmouth as Yale isn't getting its share of young star football foot-ball players the way old Eli once did. Grantland Rice other occupation. All of the schools went downhill at a dizzy clip. Now in the case of two of these umversities there has been a turn to the past. Old ghosts are back again. Pittsburgh grew extremely weary of playing a schedule no one could face. Pitt apparently wanted to break into the Big Ten. At any rate, the Panther decided o be a wolf in Panther clothing. Pittsburgh had a lucky break in 3eing able to get Captain Tom Ham-Iton Ham-Iton from Navy. Tom was both a ;ood coach and a fine athletic director di-rector at the academy. He was given the job of rebuilding Pitts-jurgh, Pitts-jurgh, with the aid of Walter Mil-lgan, Mil-lgan, the Panther coach. Pitt began Improving last fall. This season the Panther schedule includes William and Mary, Northwestern, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio State, Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania and Penn State. This is a big-time schedule, and Hamilton is trying to field a big-time team, good enough to hold its own. Starting in 1950 Pitt will play Notre Dame for four consecutive years. The same change of mind has struck the Fordham Ram. Fordham Ford-ham doesn't meet all comers, east and west, north and south as Fordham Ford-ham and Pitt once did. Years ago, Pittsburgh was even too hardy for Notre Dame, who left the Panther alone for a while. But Fordham is moving out again. This season the improved Rams meet Yale, Army, Boston College, Syracuse, Georgetown, Rutgers and N.Y.U. This is a good schedule possibly pos-sibly a trifle more than the Ram can digest at this spot in his return to old-fashioned years when Fordham picked Ranking Ray Robinson It has been the general opinion of those who follow the ring game closely that Ray Robinson has been the world's best all-around fighter for some years. Certainly since Joe Louis moved over the hill quite a while back. If you start comparing Robinson with Stanley Ketchel you immediately immedia-tely wade into the middle of a verbal ver-bal typhoon. The" old Ketchel rooters, root-ers, those who saw him fight, won't tolerate any comparison with anyone. any-one. Ketchel died at the age of 24, just when he was on his way up. Harry Greb was wrecking heavyweights heavy-weights before he began to lose his eyesight. Any middleweight good enough to trim Gene Tunney and Tommy Gibbons, one after the other, had to be good. Later on Tunney got his revenge. For all of that Greb was a great fighter. |
