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Show Things 1 Never Knew 'Til Now I About K. limine & Football) The reason most football players wear silk trousers is because it's hard for an opponent to get a grip on them . . Twenty-five years ago, football was considered so "brutal" that the legislatures of half a dozen states passed a law making it a penal offense to play the game . . "Old Siuash" isn't something the radio gagmen thought up it's actually actu-ally a college. (It's square monicker Is Knox college, and it's in Gales- burg. III.) ., . . When Knute Rockne was captain of the Notre Dame football foot-ball team, he invited his mother to j ee him play against University of , Chicago. Rockne played more brilli- ; antly than ever, making long runs and spectacular pass catches. After the game Knute proudly asked what j she thought of the spectacle. "It ' was marvelous!" she said breath- ' lessly. "That cheer-leader who , turned the pinwheels was wonder- I full" I As a tribute to Red Grange, the Illinois football team has never reissued re-issued his number, the famous "77," to any of its players . . . The winner win-ner of the Minnesota-Michigan game each year gets possession of a little brown jug which cost 18 cents! (Imagine 22 grown boys fighting over that!) . . . Will Rogers once kiddingly asked Rockne if he thought his son could make the "Fighting Irish" team if he went to Notre Dame. "No doubt he could." replied Rockne, "but he might have to change his name to Rogerski or Eogeoli." j South Bend, Indiana, the home of Notre Dame, is the only town in the country with a statue honoring a football player. The player honored Isn't the great Knute Rockne, as you'd suppose, but George Gipp (his tv nimiU T I I " . . xuctuie nas a more practical memorial. Twenty-two head coaches around the nation are men who were taught their football A, B, Cs by him . . . Rockne's big ambition was to have his son, (Knute Jr., follow in his footsteps. Last year, the lad became a candidate candi-date for halfback on the Notre Dame ,team. During a scrimmage, his leg was fractured and it's been so weakened that he may never be able to play football. Rockne, who knew every trick in the book of psychology, could turn defeat into victory between halves In the locker room almost every time. During the first half of one game, the Notre Dame team played very poorly, and the half ended with a score of 70 in favor of their opponent. op-ponent. In the locker room, the Notre Dame lads burst into a cold sweat, fearing what Rockne would say. He said nothing during the entire rest period. When the second half was called, he got up and merely mere-ly said, "Let's go, girls!" Rockne, who played the flute, always al-ways insisted on taking the instrument instru-ment with him to every Notre Dame game. (He had a superstition that it brought the team hick.) . . . The Navy mascot goat inherits the job, which is passed down from father to son . . . President Woodrow Wilson Wil-son was once Princeton university's football coach. (He also coached at Wesleyan.) K. R., who had a nimble wit, was at a loss for words only once in his life, according to Warren Brown me, according to Warren Brown. After the Southern California game in 1930, J. P. McEvoy, the humorist, and several newspaper men gathered gath-ered in Rockne's dressing room and got into a discussion of art and literature lit-erature with him. Rockne took exception ex-ception to one of McEvoy's arguments. argu-ments. "That's just as silly as my setting out to imitate Mencken " said Rockne. "Can you imagine me trying to imitate Mencken?" . . . "Why, yes," replied McEvoy. Notes of a Newsboy America now realizes that the roao. 10 isolation ends where it always al-ways ends, with the enemy on your doorstep. Ironically, the only way to get into this kind of trouble is to run from it . . . Czecho-Slovakia thought she had isolated herself from Austria . . . Poland thought she had isolated herself from Czecho-Slovakia . . . Norway thought she had isolated herself from Finland . . . Holland thought she had isolated herself from Norway and Denmark ... But each had merely isolated herself from the ' help that would have saved her ... I European advocates of isolation tol ' day wear the medals of the dicta- 1 tors. Their own countries have dis- ! appeared. i The newsstand owner at 49th and I Broadway with a sensayuma: He I pinned an FDR button on Willkie's '' picture on Life's current cover but i right on Wendell's Upell . . Irving i Edelson. the cab oriver, who dashed into a flaming building the other day and saved two colored children, will be honored by the mayor and police commissioner with The Valorous Deed Medal . Comforting Thought: The world'wili never belong to the Axis-because each member of the Axis thinks the world belongs to him I I |