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Show SPORT LIGHT . Football Hall of Fame Missed Two Bv GRANTLAND RICE NEW YORK It was generally understood by everyone concerned or interested that football's Hall of Fame Honor Court was bound to make a few mistakes getting underway. under-way. Oversights were sure to occur in trying to name the first group of All-America entries. The selecting select-ing committee, headed by Bill Cunningham, Cun-ningham, did a first-class job. It made errors of omission. The two notable mistakes were leaving h if i v i Charley Brickley off and not entering enter-ing Jock Sutherland as one of the great coaches of all time. It w a s ridiculous, of course, to say that Dr. Sutherland didn't belong in the first 20 named. The good Doctor belonged be-longed in the first of the basketball innovation. He was a master of precision. , Too Many Stars The group selected to name the first Hall of Fame list was certain to blow more than one great star. This couldn't be helped with so many hundreds waiting to be called. As my friend Dan Parker suggested suggest-ed "What about Elmer Oliphant probably Army's greatest player?" 1 Elmer was also Purdue's greatest star. Football has ten stars to basketball's one. I mean college col-lege football. The pros are not listed In this College Hall of Fame scramble. Let the pros set up a Hall of Fame of their own. For example. Otto Graham of Northwestern and the Browns would never have made a college Hall of Fame. Yet he is one of the greatest when you take in his pro career. I would rate Baugh, Graham and Luckman as the greatest of all passers. Bob Waterfield isn't far away. As Al Smith kept saying "Look at the record." I have forgotten the exact number num-ber named for the first All-Time All-America squad from the Hall of Fame. But don't forget there have been at least 500 or more great football players. Baugh was also a great kicker along with Strong, Kercheval, Mooney and one or two others. The Hall of Fame All-America Committee has a big job left In correcting Its early mistakes. Especially Es-pecially in regard to Charley Brick-ley Brick-ley and Jock Sutherland, who should have been high In the first group. The Hotter Sectors Today there are just two hot football sections left. One Is the Midwest the other the Southwest. No matter what teams meet in the Cotton Bowl at Dallas, you'll generally find some 75,000 spectators specta-tors on hand, afternoon or night. Texas, SMU, TCU, Rice, Baylor and Texas A. and M. rarely miss capacity crowds. There are sure signs now that the once tidal-wave interest in the East and South is fading. I asked one well-known director what the reason for this was. "Many reasons," he said. "The game has become too commercialized. commercial-ized. The two-platoon system has undoubtedly driven thousands away from the game. The sight of forty-four forty-four men romping back and forth on play after play has become a boring sight. The crowds don't like it at all. Granted Rice ve; hea by Rockne and Haugh- ton. He was one of the best. Rockne and Haughton were the two tops. Unless you bring in Pop Warner who Invented more plays than all the others put together. Pop happens to . be the author of the single and "double wing that is now knocking knock-ing the T cockeyed. "How I'd like to have a sock at that 'T,' " Pop told me last fall. "It would be murder!" You don't think so? How about Princeton, Tennessee, Southern California, Kentucky, Texas, UCLA (the team that wrecked California), Michigan, Illinois in fact all of the good teams in the game all single wing. Or nearly all. It must prove' something. Yes, Rockne, Haughton and Pop Warner would have to head the list. They are the Big Three of the coaches. They gave football more than anyone else. No one can dispute their positions. But I still say Jock Sutherland Suther-land belongs in the first five. Perhaps yon don't remember the time Jock made Notre Dame break off her schedule with Pittsburgh after Pittsburgh had almost wrecked the South ' Bend Irish through six years? Jock was wrecking most of them at that time. His one mistake was trying to overpower Fordham's great line without a pass. Jock failed to score in three consecutive years. But he was one of the best a master of the running attack. He never liked the pass. That was Jock's weakness. It was the way Howard Jonei wrecked him-through the air. But Jock was thinking in terms of older and better football of running, run-ning, tackling, timing, kicking not |