The White Falcon - 08.11.1941, Blaðsíða 8

PAGE 8
THE WHITE FALCON
SPORTS - - SCORES
Pappy Guy Stuff
Hear For Football
By Drew Middleton.
Around the end of the foot-
ball season you always hear
some pappy guy sounding off
on how so and so the current
hero isn’t anywhere near us
good as Johnny Maultbesch of
Michigan. The chances are the
old guy wouldn’t recognize
Maultbesch if he came up and
bit him, but is always makes
a good argument.
What with an old man who
was crazy about the game and
some sports writing I saw a
mess of football players for a
number of years. I am not in
the pappy guy class yet, but I
watched one or two pretty fair
hands out there. It’s funny how
few retain their original stat-
ure.
Of all the backs I’ve seen the
only one I remember as a re-
ally great football player was
Jim Thorpe, the Indian, who
played for Carlisle and later
in the modified murder known
as professional football.
By all standards Thorpe was
probably the most remarkable
athlete America ever produc-
ed. In football he was three
times an All American half-
back. He won the Olympic
championship in Pentathlon
and Decathlon. He was a great
lacrosse and hockey player. He
played six years of big league
baseball with the New York
Giants and the Boston Braves.
When I saw Thorpe in 1926
he was close to 40 and had a
rubber tire of fat around his
middle. He was captain, star
and manager of “Jim Thorpe’s
All Stars”, a motley group, and
they were playing a local pro
team in Orange, N.J. Thorpe
was the game.
The old guy tore the local
line apart. Wheezing loudly he
ran 83 yards for a touchdown
the first time he got the ball
from center. He punted 78
yards and this on a windless
day. He drop kicked a 38 yard
field goal from a difficult ang-
le. He nearly killed our star
halfback with a bone ■wrench-
ing tackle. In short he was
good.
Later my old man took me
around to the dressing room
to see Thorpe. The great man’s
ageing frame was being rub-
bed down with alcohol while he
applied more of the same in-
ternally. Thorpe was a great
hand at putting away a dram
or two, which should prove
something or other about
physical fitness.
In fact Steve Owen once told
me he saw Thorpe knock back
a pint between halves of a
football game with no visible
effect.
Aynway that was Thorpe
nearing 40. Can you imagine
what he was like in his prime
at Carlisle. The little Indian
school once played Cornell,
Syracuse and Yale within two
weeks and Thorpe scored eight
touchdowns, four field goals
and seven conversions.
Years later I saw Chris Cagle
of Army, who was the closest
Approach to Thorpe as a one
man team. Cagle couldn’t kick
much, but he could do every-
thing else well; run like a fiend
and pass like a bullet.- The Ar-
my ends, Carlmark and Mess-
inger, were very fair receivers
and the trio saved many a
game for Army.
The best day Cagle ever had
was against Notre Dame in
1928. He ran and‘passed one
of Rockne’s best teams silly.
«Late in the game he threw one
last desperate pass and Jack
Elder, a sprinter, intercepted
it and raced up the side line
for a touchdown.
When they finally look Cagle
out, dead beat and hobbling,
Hie had completed 13 passes
^and gained over 200 yards.
ven the Notre Dame stands
^gave him a hand.
I reckon Cagle was the best
’oasser I ever saw. He threw
the old egg shaped ball, too.
Give him the new ball that was
introduced in the spring of
1932 and he’d be better than
Baugh Qr O'Brien.
Another back I saw a lot of
was Bob Monnett of Michigan
State. He isn’t as well known
as Cagle and Thorpe but he
was plenty of football player.
He bad one peculiarity. He
could break equally fast to
either his left or right. After he
played pro ball and he was
FOOTBALL
RESULTS
Alabama ... 30 Kentucky ... 0
Boston Coll.. 31 Temple 0
Columbia .. 7 Cornell 0
Duke 14 - Georgia Tech. 0
Georgia .... 7 Auburn 0
Illinois 0 Michigan ... 20
Missouri ... 19 Mich. State . 0
Syracuse ... 27 Wisconsin .. 20
Mississippi . 12 Marquette .. 6
Kansas State 12 Nebraska ... 6
Ohio State .. 21 Pittsburgh .. 14
Army 0 Notre Dame . 0
Colgate 6 Holy Cross . 6
Dartmouth . 0 Will. & Marys 3
Fordham ... 17 Purdue 0
Harvard .... 6 Princeton .. 4
Northwestern 7 Minnesota .. 8
Iowa 13 Indiana 7
Brown 7 Yale 0
Navy 13 Pennsylvania 6
N. Carol. St.. 13 N. Carolina . 7
Tennessee .. 13 Louisiana St. 6
Tulane 34 Vanderbilt .. 14
California .. 27 U.C.L.A 7
Iowa State .. 27 South Dakota 0
Oklahoma .. 38 Kansas 0
Wash. State . 13 Oregon 0
Oregon State 33 Idaho 0
Stanford ... 27 Santa Clara . 7
Texas 34 S.M.U 0
Texas A. & M. 7 Arkansas ... 0
Texas Chr. . 23 Baylor 12
Washington . 21 Montana .... 0
plenty good there, too.
The best backfield I ever
saw played for Colgate in 1932.
That was the team that was
untied, unscored upon, un-
beaten and subsequently un-
invited to the Rose Bowl. The
main reason was the backfield
of Soleau, Samuel, Ask and
Irwin.
The best blocker I ever re-
member, that is open field
blocker, was Marty Brill of
Notre Dame. He used to get
on long runs and he was a ti-
ger as a defensive halfback.
Brill and Rockne developed j
the angle blocking that a lot |
of guys now claim they in-
vented. Like everything in
football no one invented it, it
just grew.
Brill went to Penn first. He
got kicked around there and
transferred to Notre Dame. His
big day came in 1929 when he
led the Irish to a 60 to 20 vic-
tory over Penn.
That same Notre Dame team
had two of the best fullbacks
in the country playing for it.
One was Moon Mullins, a whale
of a back, whose right knee
gave way half through the sea-
son. He gave wray to Joe Sa-
voldi. Savoldi wasn’t as good
a hall handler or faker as
SPORTS
CHATTER
By MACY
The smart boys are waiting
around till Saturday night to
lay big money on the Army-
Navv game. The real compari-
son comes up after the Navy-
Notre Dame game. The Army
pulled an upset last week,
threw in a few new defensive
tricks, and held the Irish the
full sixty minutes. Navy took
Penn last Saturday and has a
few torpedoes to launch at the
Irish this weekend.
Down in the Southwest old
Dana Bible has come up this
year with that team he’s been
talking about so long. Six years
ago Bible went down to Texas
with a $15,000 a year contract,
and Texas welcomed his pro-
mise of producing a Southwest
Conference winner of simon-
pures within five years. Last
year it looked like he had fail-
ed. He did not win the title,
after losing to Rice and S.M.U.
came up with a 7—0 upset of
the mighty A. & M. team, which
satisfied most everyone. Those
fellows who stopped Kim-
brough were Sophs, and they
are back this year with a team
which most sports writers rate
first in the nation. For five
straight weeks the Longhorns
have turned in a weekly quota
of five touchdowns. Today they
meet the Baylor Bears —
coached by Frank Kimbrough,
Big Jawn’s big brother, one of
the finest exponents of Razzle
Dazzle in any league. Kim-
brough is doing his first term
at Baylor after losing six ga-
mes in seven years at Hardin-
Simmons.
The Longhorns are most
probably Rose-Bowl bound if
they can get over the jinx
which stopped A. & M. last
year. The two senior state
schools in the Lone Star range
have successfully defended
their respective home fields
with but two exceptions in 27
years.
Mullins, but if you had lined
up all the fullbacks in the
world and told then to crack
a cement wall Savoldi would
have made the biggest dent.