Gaels Gloom

Two special Pullmans full of muscular young men rolled out of Oakland, Calif, three weeks ago to show the East once more how to play football. But though their pants were the boldest green of the season and their scarlet jerseys were blazoned with brave green harps, the "Galloping Gaels" of St. Mary's College showed the East little this year. They were squeezed out 7-to-6 by Jesuit Fordham fortnight ago, trounced 20-to-6 by Jesuit Marquette last week in Chicago. Meanwhile, back home in Oakland things were going even worse. Representing $819,000 worth of defaulted bonds, a committee of five investment bankers moved to foreclose every avail able scrap of St. Mary's property, including the funds accruing to the Galloping Gaels, who are their college's soundest asset.

St. Mary's has not always been the most famous little (enrollment: 380) football college on the West Coast. An old diocesan institution which was handed over in 1868 to the Brothers of the Christian Schools (a teaching body of monastic laymen), St. Mary's slowly declined, was on its last legs when the War emptied its classrooms. In 1920 the University of California overwhelmed its puny football team 127-to-0. Smarting, little St. Mary's next year hired a young Notre Dame graduate, Edward Patrick ("Slip") Madian, as football coach. Slip Madigan began to turn out teams which, since 1924, have won 86 and tied seven of their 114 games against some of the best football brains & brawn in the U. S. In 1928 the Brothers felt so good they sold the College's old Oakland site for $750,000, borrowed $1,500,000 on a bond issue to ld a big new plant in nearby Moraga Valley. On July 1, 1934 St. Mary's bond holders missed their interest on $1,370,500 worth of bonds not yet retired, have received none since.

What spurred the bondholders' committee to act last week was the failure of the college authorities to live up to a re-organization agreement made last year. Enriched by the proceeds of their 1935 Eastern tour, the Galloping Gaels took in $140,680 in gate receipts last season. The gross income from football amounted to 37% of all the money the college received during the fiscal year. Athletic expenses, however, including a $7,000 salary plus 10% of the gate for Coach Slip Madigan, somehow mounted to $139,862. Skeptical, the bondholders' committee demanded the right to examine all the college accounts, installed a Roman Catholic accountant named James Everett Butler as comptroller. In February the college treasurer, Brother Josephus, informed Comptroller Butler that supervision of athletic accounts was not included in the agreement. When the Brothers persistently refused to discuss their football business, the committee last week asked bondholders permission to have the Central Bank of Oakland declare the bonds in default, institute foreclosure proceedings.

In Manhattan, after the Fordham game, this news was conveyed to Coach Madigan. Snorted Slip Madigan: "I'll never work for a banker."

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