OCR Text |
Show I SPORTLIGHT . Hickman Puts Fun into the Game I By GRANTLAND RICE A PLANK has only two sides but there are many sides to coaching coach-ing a football team. The sere facts are that it is nrnbahlv the most-sided of all sports. For example, you may have noticed no-ticed how the Yale football squad reported for fall practice. Some 75 of them were on hand at 6 a.m. Many were ready and dressed its full share of change. There was never so much sheer waste in any sport as pro football knew In Its wrecking war years. But that's all over now and there seems to be quite enough talent on hand to supply the 13 teams all set to go.' It would take a Delphic oracla, super-charged, to pick the two S'-ss vivors from the two circuits. Tbe.i"-. have been too many shifts back and forth, too many exchanges, too many bolstered teams from last fall. Among those you can gamble will be up around the front are Greasy Neale's Eagles and Paul Brown's Browns. Other to be watched include George Halas and his Chicago Bears, plus Steve Owen's Giants and Red Strader's Yankees. Chicago's Cardinals, Green Bay's Packers, Baltimore's Colts and Los Angeles' Rams are still doubtful quantities. So are Detroit's De-troit's Lions. But Sammy Baugh and an improved line still keeps Washington's Redskins dangerous always hard to beat. This Is sure a season of many sudden npsets and one thing is dead sure you are seeing greater passing this fall than you ever saw before. I'm not going to try to run np any completed com-pleted list, but a season that has Baugh, Luckman, Lujack, Con-erly, Con-erly, Graham, Albert, Tittle, Tidwell, Waterfield and Ratter- v man should find the atmosphere packed with footballs headed for extended hands and arms. The exhibition attendance was extremely good and when the real shooting gets farther under way, it should hold up for a while at least. There will be the usual decline or crash for the steady losers. You can judge this by the number of patrons the Browns, Athletics,. Reds and a few others have been drawing in baseball. Closing Attendancce Drop It is about time that cIud owners were giving some attention to the terrific attendance flop through September. The rapid city of Brooklyn, Brook-lyn, for example, was playing to some 2,000 souls only two weeks before the steamy pennant race to the wire. Attendance figures from 1,100 to 1,900 were far from uncommon. uncom-mon. They were often the order of the week. This big crash was not due to any runaway races. There seems to be two reasons for this big slump. One is television. The other is a season that is far too long. Baseball breaks into the sporting pages - in late February and is still hanging around until October Seven months is too long to keep drama or melodrama sustained. sus-tained. You just naturally gft worn out witn seven months of anything. Grantland Rice by 4:30 or 5 and they found a smiling fat man waiting. wait-ing. His name was Herman Hickman, Hick-man, 300 or 320 rounds of pure ability at all the turns needed to handle a football squad. Herman Her-man Is a very fine coach. He is also a philosopher. Sometimes, known as the Smoky Mountain Homei, he Is also a poet. The main point is that this Yale squad in the daybreak grayness knew that win, lose or draw it was going to have a lot of fun playing under the mountainous Herman. Which is supposed to be the main idea of football. At least that was the original idea, since badly distorted dis-torted and twisted out of shape on too many occasions., Hickman hasn't the best material In the country this season. He hasn't the best material in the Ivy league. But they will win a few games here and there they'll always be giving the best they have, partly because they have a coach who knows the complicated all-around business of coaching a football team which includes many more things than sheer expertness in devising de-vising plays or teaching fundamentals. funda-mentals. Football has made a forward leap in this direction in late years. It has a far greater number num-ber who also understand the idea that football should also include some fun. Meet such coaches as Red Blaik, Red Sanders, San-ders, Marchy Schwartz, Lefty James, Wes Fesler, etc., and you'll get the idea. But in this respect no one will have anything on Herman Hickman who also happens to be one of the hardest losers in the game. He expresses ex-presses the idea in a brief message, just received i "When Homer smote the rival spine, He made his rival quit or faint. He socked them hard by jlank and line j And what has Homer got that I ain't?" Pro Football's Setup j After a matter of some 25 or 30 years, pro football is getting its best chance this season to collect |