Football

(See front cover)

Harvard v. Yale is not the oldest football rivalry in the U. S.* nor the most important. But few footballers would deny that its tradition outweighs that of any other game. This year the importance of Harvard v. Yale will be more genuine than usual. Both Yale and Harvard have teams which are almost as good as those which, last week, seemed to be the best in the country--Northwestern, Notre Dame, Southern California, Tulane. Yale has been beaten once, by Georgia; tied twice, by Dartmouth, Army. Harvard, unbeaten, last fortnight defeated Dartmouth 7 to 6 in a game which was almost as exciting as Dartmouth's 33-to-33 tie with Yale, a gane of which the reverberations continued last week.

This year Michigan's famed forward-passing quarterback, Benny Friedman, has been a Yale coach, showed Yale backs how to throw short, quick, flat passes. Yale has a heavy, inexperienced line and almost a plethora of seasoned, versatile backs. Best back and captain is 144-lb. Albert J. ("Albie") Booth Jr. whose father works in a New Haven gun factory.

Harvard, coached this year by one-time (1916, 1919) Halfback Eddie Casey, has a different sort of team, a team that has won most of its games by a conservative, powerful ground attack, supplemented by passes which were more popular a few years ago than they are now-- long, risky forwards which need an expert passer at one end, an expert receiver at the other. Harvard's best running backs are Crickard and Schereschewsky; Nazro and Hageman are brilliant ends. But the essence of Harvard football this year, as Booth has been the essence of Yale football since his sophomore year, is William Barry Wood Jr., called "Barry" by sportswriters and "Bill" by friends.

Booth made his football reputation in the Yale-Army game of 1929. Wood made his in the Harvard-Army game a week earlier. The passes he threw at the end of that game made the score Harvard 19, Army 20. His drop kick tied the score. Michigan's Fielding Yost, onetime coach of Benny Friedman, called Wood that year the greatest passer he had ever seen. Since then Wood has often 'justified the compliment. A mediocre runner, at times an uninspired field-general, Harvard's captain has taken longer than it took Booth to achieve the status of a No. i college football hero. But now his fame and popularity are such that even the South Boston "townies," whose custom it has long been to cheer for Harvard's opponents, fill the bowl end of Soldiers Field to whoop for Harvard. Even Boston and Cambridge police are on Harvard's side.

The sports-page public of the U. S. knows by this time that Harvard's Barry Wood is tall (6 ft. 1 in.), slim (173 lb.), a Phi Beta Kappa. He has dark hair, dark eyes, looks like his father, a Harvard 1902 Boston cotton broker and Harvard trustee who likes squash, tennis, golf. Like many of Harvard's famed athletes--Ben and Bill Ticknor, Charlie Cunningham, recent Hallowells and Saltonstalls--Barry Wood was schooled at Milton, where his football coach was onetime Harvard Quarterback Charlie Buell. A year out West made him rugged enough for college football, which he says he plays because enough hard exercise makes it easier to study. Other games which he plays for the same reason are tennis, baseball, hockey. In tennis, he was good enough to play No. 1 on the Harvard team, to run John Doeg to five sets in the 1930 National Championship tournament. Baseball he plays less expertly than his other games but Harvard's Coach Fred Mitchell, when told last year that Wood might not have time to practice with the team, said: "Tell him just to come down for the games. . . . He doesn't need to practice." Wood has a chance this year to pass one record for Harvard athletes-- for collecting more major sport letters (13) than any other Harvard athlete in history, and to tie another--for finishing his course (if he gets four A's this year) with a record of 16 A's, one B. This year he won the $750 Francis Burr scholarship which goes to Harvard's best student athlete. He tried to persuade authorities to give the money to someone else. When they refused, Wood took the scholarship, gave it to a student athlete who needed it.

No college socialite, Wood's best friends are other Harvard athletes--Mays, Record, Crickard and Charles Cunningham, his roommate, who is the football centre and hockey captain. A conscientious rather than brilliant student, Wood has a schedule that allows him no time for campus "activities." Nonetheless, he is president of the Student Council. Quiet and solemnly modest, he has no fondness for newspaper publicity. Particularly embarrassing to him was last week's sequel to the Harvard-Dartmouth game.

Radio announcer of that game for Columbia Broadcasting Co. was staccato Edward ("Ted") Husing. Sharing with many football experts an impression that Wood's strategies were not such as could be expected from a Phi Beta Kappa quarterback, Announcer Husing described his play as "putrid." Harvard men wrote letters of protest. Other listeners thought it a particularly flagrant example of two failings common among sports announcers --using words without knowing what they mean, criticizing instead of reporting. Harvard's Athletic Director William Bingham wrote to President William Paley of Columbia Broadcasting Co. to say that Announcer Husing might never again broadcast games at Soldiers Field. Announcer Husing's account of the Harvard-Army game had sounded crabbed to Harvardmen. Coach Casey had refused to show Husing diagrams of Harvard plays or let him watch practice. The Harvard-Yale game will be broadcast by Ralph ("Gil") Gilroy, a South Bostonian whom Harvardmen well remember as a hard- boiled Princeton halfback (1921-22).

Yale, after an easy game last fortnight, had none scheduled last week. Coaches & captain repaired to Cambridge to watch Harvard's big line stand off the assaults of a game Holy Cross backfield while Crickard plunged for touchdown, Wood kicked goal. The Yalemen went back to New Haven surer than ever this year's Harvard game would be terrific.

Northwestern, Conference leader, expecting an easy workout against Indiana, was lucky to win, 7 to 6. Jesse Babb's 51-yd. run paved the way for an Indiana touchdown in the second period; Vic Dauer's kick for the extra point hit an upright and bounced down. In the third quarter Saluski fumbled deep in Indiana territory, Northwestern recovered. Reb Russell made Northwestern's touchdown five plays later and Engebretsen made the placement kick that won the game.

In Athens, where Tulane played Georgia, fistfights among 36,000 spectators developed into incipient riots, caused disorder along the edge of the field, delayed the game. The delay made little difference. Tulane's quick kicks, supplemented by Don Zimmerman's long passes, won 20 to 7, kept Tulane at the top of the Southern Conference, a candidate for what sportwriters call the ''national championship."

Against a Navy team coached by Rip Miller, Notre Dame graduate, Notre Dame tried not to roll up a big score. But its three touchdowns that won, 20 to 0, were made so easily, and the team wasted so much time that 58,000 spectators found Notre Dame's courtesy ostentatious enough to be rude.

Playing Amherst for the Little Three championship, Williams scored in every known way except one--four touchdowns, four points-after-touchdown, field goal, safety--won, 33 to 7, for the fourth year in a row.

Princeton was beaten as usual, this time by little Washington & Lee, 6 to 0. Princeton's 150-lb. team lost to Hill School, taught by Princeton's onetime Coach Bill Roper, 63 to .

Notre Dame's passes had fooled Pitt but Pitt fooled Army. All four Pitt touchdowns--26 to 0--were made on passes. The cadets paraded to the game through a rain of scrap paper. Secretary of War Hurley and Governor of Pennsylvania Pinchot sat together in a box.

Oldest prep school football rivalry in the U. S. (1877)13 Exeter v. Andover. Kim Whitehead made two touchdowns for Andover, forward passes made two for Exeter. In the last quarter, Kenneth Willis, substitute Exeter halfback, dropped back to the 17-yd. line, toward the side of the field, made a placement kick that won the game, 15 to 12.

*Oldest is Princeton v. Rutgers (1869).

*One point for a forfeited game.

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