Football Payroll

With the football season in full swing (see p. 53), Ohio's Governor Martin Luther Davey last week managed to catapult himself into the headlines by contributing a few notes on how footballers are financially coddled at Ohio State University. The Tree-Surgeon Governor was not concerned with the purification of Amateur Sport. His prime purpose was to embarrass politically the University, of which he is no alumnus.*

Since last spring Governor Davey has been wrangling with Ohio State's President George Washington Rightmire over the size of the University's legislative appropriation. The Governor had lopped off $1,266,500 and last week it looked as if it might take months to get any of it restored.

Ohio State officials inspected the Uni-versity coal bins, found 700 tons of fuel on hand. They inspected the maintenance fund, found only $505.23. Unless students were to catch pneumonia, they figured, the University would have to close in ten days. For half a year they had been trying vainly to arouse the public to the predicament of a cashless University. A new tack was clearly indicated. Presently in the Ohio State Journal appeared a doleful story pointing out that if the Uni-versity stopped functioning, so would the football team.

Although well calculated to arouse alumni, who with reason hope to see Ohio State win the Big Ten championship, this clarification of issues gave Governor Davey his opening. He disposed of the coal crisis quickly: "On Oct. 8 the unencumbered balances of the University amounted to $1,023,172.26. Why are they unwilling to transfer some of this surplus to necessary items of maintenance?" Warming up, he continued: "As far as the football season is concerned, we are all extremely interested in its success. We recognize the fact that football has become the supreme purpose of higher education. We have certainly done our part, because we have most of the football squad on the State payroll."

Newshawks scurried to the University, which readily admitted that 13 out of 57 footballers actually hold State jobs. Typical were John Kabealo, first-string fullback, receiving $1,040 per year as a part-time employe in the Sales Tax Division, and John Bettridge, first-string halfback, drawing $3 per day as a page in the State Legislature.

Footballers in colleges of the Western ("Big Ten'') Conference are allowed to nestle on State payrolls if they work for their salaries. Just how hard Ohio State athletes work for their stipends was debatable. Governor Davey followed up his blast with a pious assurance that all were usefully employed. But Ohioans recalled that after Ohio State's great Negro sprinter, Jesse Owens, broke three world records, the House of Representatives quietly changed his status from page to honorary page at $3 per day in session & out.

*Martin Davey attended Oberlin College (1904-07).

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