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Show rSPORTUGHT 1 Old Guard Liked Rugged Matches By GRANTLAND RICE 1 NO ONE CAN QUESTION the fact that football's big argument argu-ment this winter will concern the two-platoon system. This correspondent, opposed at first to the double-platoon idea, must admit in talk- t Grantland Rici Ing with F r i t 2 Crisler of Michigan Michi-gan and Red Blaik of Army one gets a far better picture of what the two-platoon two-platoon game means. Crisler and Blaik must be listed among the top foot-! foot-! ball coaches of all time. I mean up with Kockne and Haughton and Sutherland, to mention men-tion only 1 a few. Both are smart, subtle talkers. They know their subject. On this day, Red Blaik stood for nearly two hours, challenging chal-lenging a long list of doubters answering every charge. "Of course," he said, "the old guard is against it. The old guard in anything is against every form of change. This is new football football that is faster, keener, more exciting, less punishing on the player." I thought about the old guard. I've heard them grumbling for over 40 years about the modern players of the 20's and 30's. They couldn't understand why a fellow couldn't play 60 minutes min-utes of every game. Shep Hom-ans Hom-ans of Princeton was Snake Ames' substitute. Homans never nev-er got to play a minute until Ames graduated. Homans, weighing 165 pounds, was Princeton's fullback in 1890 and 1891. Sheps' substitute never got to play a minute. Homans ' played the full 60 minutes for 22 games. But the game was different In 1925 and 1930. It is the contention of Crisler, Oosterbaan and Red Blaik that the game is still different. dif-ferent. Today's demand is for speed. They prove to you that it is faster, fast-er, keener and more exciting because be-cause it is played with fresh men, with rested athletes. And if you tell Fritz Crisler the public doesn't like it, he points to Michigan's attendance attend-ance record 97,500 a game for either five or six games plus television tele-vision in Detroit. Important Point It has always seemed to us that in any football problem there should be only one angle to con- ' sider what is the player's viewpoint? view-point? I have never been interested in what the coaches or what the public might think. The player is the one who takes most of the beating who makes most of the sacrifices. The coach is certain to be biased and selfish. Nearly always. The public pays but it doesn't have to pay unless it wants to, and its viewpoint is usually warped. But the player should know. To get this slant I had a long talk with Arnold Galiffa, , Army's leading star. Red Blaik had just said that Galiffa, his offensive spark, was also the best defensive player on the Army team. Galiffa played entirely en-tirely on offense this fall. "Don't you like defensive play?" I asked Galiffa. "Oh, I like it very much," he said. "Do you like to tackle?" I asked him. "I sure do," he said. "Then you don't like the two-platoon two-platoon system?" I Inquired. "I certainly do," Galiffa said. . "I'll tell you why. My job is to try to run the Army team on offense. To call the plays to pass to run with the ball to block. Scoring Is the big factor in football. Under our two-platoon system I am always fresh. I am never tired or battered. I can do a far better offensive job for the team. We are out to win games. Galiffa doesn't count. Cain doesn't count, John Trent, our captain, doesn't count. No one counts but the Army team. Individuals are out. "To show you what I mean, we have very good men on our defensive defen-sive squad. They know they won't be picked on any All-America. They don't give a rap about All-American All-American mention. They are out to help win games for Army. Isn't that the way it should be?" Official Has Say "Suppose," an official said, "you were working a game and you saw a player holdingsuppose you saw him palpably offside suppose sup-pose you saw backs distinctly in motion before the ball was snapped suppose you saw every form of rule breaking taking place under your nose code infractions that definitely affected the play. "Tne officials are taking all the blame," he said, "while the full blame belongs to the players and their coaches. |