Football

Sad by temperament, few football coaches have developed the technique of taciturn uncertainty to the point reached by Dana X. Bible of the University of Nebraska. President of the American Football Coaches' Association, athletic director at Nebraska, with a lifetime record of 124 games won, 30 lost, 12 tied and a salary of at least $10,000 a year. Coach Bible's career has been a model of its kind. It seems to give him little satisfaction. A pot-bellied little man, whose brown, bald, elliptical head has developed an unmistakable resemblance to a football, he is the 44-year-old son of Jonathan Bible, Greek professor at Carson Newman College, who hopefully gave his son the middle name of Xenophon. Dana Xenophon Bible graduated from Carson Newman, did post-graduate work at Centre and North Carolina University, and then, in 1916, abruptly deserted an academic career to become football coach at Texas Agricultural & Mechanical College. In 1917 he joined the Air Corps, served as an instructor. He still flies occasionally but dislikes it. After the War. he went back to Texas A. & M., won the Southwest Conference title five times in eleven years, joined Nebraska in 1929.

Since then, Nebraska has won four Big Six championships. Coach Bible says that winning games gives him less satisfaction than it used to but losing them is more painful. At Nebraska, his football squads usually contain a plethora of oversized Nordic farm boys. Most Midwestern teams enjoy elaborate junkets lasting from two days to a week. Coach Bible's squads rarely play far from Lincoln, arrive only a few hours before the game. A large source of income to his colleagues of comparable distinction comes from newspaper writing. Coach Bible rejects offers of this kind on the ground that it would be "chiseling" sportswriters. He seems to enjoy golf, which he plays badly. He discusses football with his wife at the dinner table, carefully avoids football jargon in talking to his players.

That Coach Bible does no newspaper writing is perhaps as well for all concerned. A sample of his Delphic style is his pronouncement in the Nebraska Alumnus: "In brief, Nebraska stands to win every game on its schedule and on the other hand the Cornhuskers stand to lose each contest."

Nebraska, fresh from victories over Iowa State and Chicago, last week played Minnesota, undefeated since 1932, in what experts expected might be a game to determine the Midwest's candidate for best team in the U. S. Minnesota got a touchdown after a 74-yd. run on the first kickoff, bottled up Nebraska's Lloyd Cardwell for three periods, staved off two last-quarter charges inside the 10-yard line, caused Coach Bible excessive pain by winning 12-to-7.

Exhilarated by publication of the fact that 13 members of the squad were on State payrolls (see p. 32), Ohio State, a Big Ten favorite along with Minnesota, took a holiday against Drake, 85-10-7.

Five years ago. intersectional games were the football fashion. This season, collegiate publicists have taken to ballyhooing revivals of "old rivalries," as cheaper and more interesting. Major revival of last week, Yale's first visit to Philadelphia since 1889, started out as a runaway for Penn, 20-to-12 at the half; ended 31-to-20 for Yale.

The question of whether Cornell will lose all its games this season was almost answered when it tied the score in the third quarter against Syracuse, again became an interesting problem when Syracuse made one more touchdown in a hurry, 21-to-14.

Trying for a comeback alter the worst season in ten years. Southern California ran into the efficient snag of Illinois' brilliant overhead game, 19-to-0.

No team has ever won the championship of the Southwest Conference (Arkansas, Baylor. Rice. Southern Methodist. Texas, Texas A. & M., Texas Christian) two successive years. Out to do it this year. Rice used no more plays and no more players than it needed to run through Creighton, 14-to-0.

Said Louisiana State's mournful Tackle Justin Rukas: "I reckon we would have played a better game with Huey out there. . . ." He and his mates played well enough to beat Manhattan, 32-to-0.

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