Football Heretic

When the National Collegiate Athletic Association voted (161 to 7) to ration football telecasts this fall, it proposed a diet of one game a week for each television area. This lean fare, the N.C.A.A. hoped, would get the football public out of its armchair and back into the stands again. But last week, tempted by an offer of some $250,000 from ABC for the right to televise its eight home games, the University of Pennsylvania plunked the public back in its armchair by announcing it intended to defy the N.C.A.A. ruling.

Penn's revolt, particularly if such heavyweights as Notre Dame and Army should jump on the bandwagon, seemed calculated to wreck the whole N.C.A.A. effort to work out a TV compromise. But the N.C.A.A. cracked down fast. It declared that Penn is "a member not in good standing," hence subject to expulsion (by a two-thirds vote) at the next N.C.A.A. convention in January.

One by one, most of Penn's rivals indicated that they would be reluctant to honor the 1951 schedule unless Penn got back in step. Athletic Director Bob Kane of Cornell, Penn's biggest rival, announced "it could very well mean that" Cornell will not play Penn. Columbia, California, Dartmouth, Princeton and Navy figured they would stick by the N.C.A.A. By this week it began to look as if Penn was rapidly losing friends and influencing practically no one.

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