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Show W J l GAWrLAND I MORE than a few words have been written about the performances per-formances of American athletes on various battle fronts. But the administrative branch of athletics at both West Point and Annapolis have ' i : 41 m "X " "I ' ' '"'-4 -1 ' I set up a record that has been overlooked. Since we moved into the war picture, pic-ture, West Point, for example, has had three such officers of-ficers moved into front rank Lieutenant Lieu-tenant General Jake Devers, Major - Generals MaJ.-Gcn. phil Fleming Fleming and Liis HiDbs. "General Fleming, Flem-ing, when I first knew him in 1926 was then Major Fleming." Ray McCarthy, Mc-Carthy, co-ordinator of sports for the war department, said recently, in discussing the trio. "He assumed as-sumed office as graduate manager of athletics succeeding Colonel Koehler. Fleming was the dreamer; dream-er; the visualizer. He planned and carried out the first expansive program pro-gram of athletics and athletic facilities fa-cilities ever arranged for any institution insti-tution of learning. He insisted that every cadet participate in some kind of athletics and he planned accordingly. accord-ingly. General Fleming built the new beautiful ice rink at West Point; he planned and built the picturesque pic-turesque Michle stadium; he provided pro-vided a magnificent polo field; a golf course, tennis courts, handball courts, basketball courts, etc. And he would have been building to this day at the Point but General Fleming went on to bigger things to the building of levees on the Mississippi, Mis-sissippi, to the Passamaquoddy, and the highway to Alaska. About Devers "When General Devers, a colonel then, took over at West Point he had been away from athletics for many years. During his cadet days at West Point, 1910, he was a good athlete, especially in baseball, and played shortstop on the varsity nine. "He developed the vast new athletic ath-letic field on the Hudson below the cliffs at West Point. General Devers Dev-ers constructed a tremendously big field house where the Dodgers trained last year. He built new baseball diamonds. He went beyond even what General Fleming had done and he too, insisted that every cadet participate in athletics, but aggressively aggres-sively so. "Then came the rumblings of war and late in 1938, General Devers bade good-by to athletics at West Point and embarked on a meteoric career. He went first to Panama to build our defenses in Central America. Amer-ica. Next to Trinidad; thence to Bermuda; back to Washington and then he went into the field to train soldiers, and to build camps. On my way north from Florida in 1940, I stopped by Fort Bragg to visit General Devers. He had actually performed wonders within three months time in enlarging this camp to accommodate some 50,000 soldiers sol-diers where previously it had accommodated ac-commodated 5,000. General Devers next went to Fort Knox to develop our armored tank forces and his work in this field is now known everywhere. Upon the death of General Gen-eral Andrews this spring, General Devers was named to succeed him in directing our armies in Europe. Next in Line "Succeeding General Devers at West Point was the mild-mannered Colonel Hibbs, one of the most charming and gracious personalities I have ever met Hibbs was the ideal public relations man. He made friends for the army and for West Point especially, wherever he went Nothing was too good for the army as far as General or Colonel Hibbs was concerned, but also nothing was too good for the opponents who visited vis-ited the Point. Colonel Hibbs was tremendously proud of being an Army man, a West Point graduate, and he endeavored always and earnestly ear-nestly to register that thought, not through any bearing on his part but by his many generous and thoughtful thought-ful deeds. "Many men who have gone out from West Point are doing wonderfully wonder-fully well on the battleground today but it must be remembered that all of those who have gone forth from the Academy on the Hudson in the past generation, were influenced and developed by their participation in the athletio programs conceived and developed by these three generals Fleming, Devers and Bibbs 1925-1943." 1925-1943." Patty and Babe "Now that boxing has lost Louis and Conn now that we can't find anyone to run with Gunder Hagg, would you like to know the best contest con-test left?" The speaker was Bob Harlow, once touring manager of the PGA. "I'll give yon their names a meeting between Patty Berg and Babe Didrikson, best two out of three on three different courses. Here's the chance for some war fund to pick up plenty. I'd go a long way to see that." |