About seven years ago Charles Daly, the old Army coach, formed the nucleus of a Football Coaches Association. Its object was to promote the best interests of football and of football coaches, as well as the welfare of the boys playing the game.

As an organization the coaches began petitioning for certain rights from faculty committees and for recognition of the Football Rules Committee. As an organization they finally began to look for respect — but found little or none coming their way.

The powers that ruled football paid no attention to the Coaches Association. It soon became evident that the game was getting more and more into the hands of the officials and faculties, with the coaches having less and less to say, even about the rules.

The coaches decided something had to be done.

At the December, 1927, meeting it became known that the coaches intended to petition the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Football Rules Committee for direct representation upon the latter body.

There was much grumbling and querying as to why the coaches dared to think of such a thing. Chairman E. K. Hall, with fine discretion and a broad attitude, smoothed what might have been a serious rupture by inviting three representatives of the Football Coaches Association to sit at the next meeting of the Rules Committee — but without voting power. Hugo Bezdek of Penn State, W. H. Spaulding of the University of California, Southern Branch, and I were selected.

The grumbling and lifting of eyebrows continued. These manifestations came from snobs of the "gentleman class," dilettantes, educated derelicts, other parasites on the game, and some faculty men. They declared that there were already some football coaches on the committee and asked by what right the association demanded further representation.

It is my purpose to answer this question by stating the position of the Coaches Association with regard to the game, the players, the faculties, the press, the public, and the Rules Committee.

The modern game of football can truly be said to have begun in 1906, when — mainly through the initiative and resourcefulness of the late Walter Camp — the forward pass was introduced and skill and speed began to supplant brawn.

During the next twenty years the sport showed some changes. But all of these were offense and defense had been achieved. All undesirable features and most causes of injury had been eliminated.

By 1926 moat of us felt that football had reached a high state of complication, where tactics and strategy could be superbly employed by either team, with possibilities in lines of attack and defense that were as yet unplumbed by any of the coaches.

At the meeting of the Coaches Association that winter, the only recommended change in the rules was that the shift should be standardized. The Rules Committee met the following March and settled the troublesome shift problem by requiring a one second stop and increasing the penalty for violation from five to fifteen yards. No rule change has ever been obeyed more heartily. There was no objection to the shift attacks last year, and the momen-hobbies. Rules were introduced to protect the safety man while catching punts and to subsidize the lateral pass. Under these rules, if a safety man fumbled a punt after having had it in his possession and control, an opponent could recover it and run for a touchdown, as formerly. But if it were muffed before the receiver had possession and control, an opponent could recover the ball, but could not run with it.

The lateral pass, under the old rules, was a free ball when fumbled — which made it a very dangerous play; but after the subsidy, a fumbled lateral pass was dead at the spot where it was dropped and still belonged to the side which made the play, with only the loss of a down as a penalty.

The direct result of these changes last season was to make officiating much more difficult and impossible for an official to distinguish between a muff and a fumble in the case of a punt, and equally difficult to draw the line between a fumble and an incompleted backward pass.

Coaches who used dangerous reverses and double reverses were elated because the subsidy of the lateral pass made fumbling on such plays almost impossible. If the ball was dropped, the captain merely claimed that every play was a lateral pass. There was no particular virtue in the lateral pass as a ground gainer; its net result was trouble for the officials.

The last campaign was marred by frequent protests against officiating, and the objections came from the coaches and players as well as the public and press. Nobody has yet requested that an umpire be killed, but we seem to be proceeding in that general direction.

The disputed decision of the Notre Dame 7-6 victory over Southern California is a classic example. Riley, Notre Dame safety man, got his hands on a California forward pass very near his own goal line. He was tackled and the ball went off into space. It hit in the end zone and rolled on past the end line out of the field of play. It was either a safety or a touchback.

If he had possession and control before losing the ball, the play would have been scored as a safety and California would have received two points. If Riley did not have possession and control before the ball left his hands, the play was an incompleted pass over the goal line, and an automatic touchback without a score. The officials made this ruling.

Captain Drury of the Trojans afterward told his student body that their team had been robbed of the game by that decision. He was supported by several newspaper men from Los Angeles, who sat in the press box behind dirty windows and were almost 100 yards from the play. There was a nasty debate in the newspapers.

It has always been my practice, almost without exception, to accept the judgment of officials without comment — whether the decision is favorable or unfavorable to our squad. John Schommer, a former University of Chicago player, who was responsible for the decision, is one of the best officials in the game. Four members of the coaching staff of one of the Big Ten schools sat behind the goal posts and were in a position to see clearly just what happened. Two of them thought it was a touchback and the other two thought it was a safety.

Minnesota was leading Indiana by a score of 14-7 when Indiana punted to Nydahl, the Gopher safety man. He fumbled, and an Indiana end, coming down for the tackle, retrieved the ball and ran for a touchdown. Indiana kicked goal and the score was tied. The game ended that way. The vital question was that of possession and control. In this case, the official ruled that Nydahl did have possession and control and that the ball was fumbled. The spectators disagreed about evenly on the play, even though the home team had been benefited.

Under the 1926 rules every dropped punt was a fumble and a run for touchdown was allowed. Had these rules been in effect last season there would have been no taint upon the tie score, which was considered a moral victory for Indiana.

In the 13-7 victory of Ohio State over Chicago, the Maroons made another touchdown with a forward pass. The officials ruled that one Chicago man was in motion toward the Ohio goal line when the ball was passed. The play was called back. Had the score been allowed, the game would have been tied and Chicago might have won by making the extra point after the touchdown. Coach Stagg, one of the finest characters in the sport, charged the loss of the game to an honest mistake of judgment on the part of the officials.

Hamilton defeated Middlebury 13-12. During the contest Middle-bury tried to punt from back of its goal line. Hamilton blocked the ball, which rolled out of bounds. The officials ruled a touchdown for Hamilton. Middlebury announced that it would protest the game on the claim that the play was a safety (if it had been ruled as a safety Middlebury would have won). However, no official protest was made.

In the Harvard-Yale contest the Crimson fumbled back of its line and Yale recovered. The officials ruled an incomplete lateral pass and gave the ball to Harvard at the spot where it was fumbled. One or two sections of the stands booed the decision. It had no direct bearing upon the final score, as in the other instances.

Glenn Warner uses reverse, double reverse, and spinner plays consistently. Such formations require nifty handling of the ball back of the line. In the past they have been dangerous because of the possibility of fumbling. Last season, whenever such a play resulted in a fumble, Stanford insisted it was an incompleted lateral pass and a dead ball at the spot where it was fumbled — which kept the ball in Stanford's possession, with only the loss of a down as a penalty for clumsy handling of the ball.

Such instances can be multiplied indefinitely during the course of a campaign. In addition to these troublesome decisions of judgment, there were the conflicting interpretations of ambiguous passages. Lacking interpretation by the Rules Committee, there were numerous sectional interpretations. Teams which played intersectional contests found that on one Saturday the goal posts were in the field of play; on the next weekend they were not in the field of play. There were about twenty-five such ambiguities. Among the points which most bothered players, officials, and coaches were these:

What was close line play as regards the clipping rule?

How about purposely grounding a backward pass?

Did the new shift rule nullify Rule IX, Section 5, which covers the "one man in motion" situation?

When was a substitution completed?

Did a forward pass receiver who had gone out of bounds — therefore making himself ineligible for a pass — become eligible when a defensive player touched the pass?

What was it when a defensive player batted a ball on a backward pass over the opposing goal line on third down? On fourth down?

The coaches also felt that the subsidizing of the lateral pass was a mistake, as there was no reward for defensive linesmen charging through. They could not recover the ball on an incompleted backward pass, so what was the use of their breaking through the offensive line? This was against the fundamental principle of football itself.

At the meeting of the Coaches Association last December, it was decided to suggest to the Rules Committee that the code be clarified, that the committee hold its own interpretation meeting this fall, to prevent the conflicting sectional interpretation meetings, and that the 1926 rules affecting the fumbled punt and the lateral pass be restored.

In recommending these changes, the coaches had no axes to grind. They conscientiously believed that a reversion to the 1926 rules would improve the game. They believed that questions of judgment should be avoided as much as possible.

The Rules Committee met in February and did a mighty fine job. Most of the suggestions of the Coaches Association were adopted, or compromise changes were put into the rules. The distinction between a muffed and a fumbled punt was éliminated, and the distinction between a fumble and an incompleted lateral pass was made. The protected lateral pass this fall must travel two yards through the air. After it hits the ground it can be recovered by either side, though no run can ensue. Both are compromises — under the old rules a player could run; now all he can do is recover the ball.

This puts football back on its old basis, as there will be reward for charging linesmen coming through, reward consisting of recovery of the ball being possible by the defensive players as well as the offensive. The various ambiguities were cleared up.

The Rules Committee has held its own interpretation meeting, which makes it unnecessary for any sectional meetings in the various parts of the country.

Why, then, are the coaches not entirely satisfied? They are of the opinion that they can best present their ideas to the Rules Committee through voting members of the committee who will be responsible to the Coaches Association. It must be remembered that the football coaches who now hold voting power — fine a group of men as they are — do not represent the association. The Football Coaches Association believes that direct representation, the right of franchise, the right of self expression, are inherent rights of every American citizen and of the profession which is most intimately concerned with the game of football.

For years the coaches in America have been trying to organize properly so that they might develop professional consciousness, ethics, and standards. Petty jealousies and unnecessarily keen rivalries kept them apart and they had been targets for alumni, faculties, students, townspeople, the press, and one another.

Most coaches have little authority. Faculty men arrange schedules, buy equipment, and hire assistants for them. If the faculty men do a poor job the coaches must make the best of things or get out.

If a professor of English makes a botch of his athletic side line, he continues to hold his job indefinitely without a severe test of his efficiency as an instructor and no scrutiny whatever of his athletic stewardship. His coach may have an impossible schedule, poor equipment, mediocre material, disloyal assistants, and be embarrassed by discomforts on trips which seriously affect the team; but that, it seems, along with making the rules, is none of the coach's business. Yet he is tested publicly every week.

A winning coach is lauded out of all proportion to his worth. But the losing coach? Ah!

First come the squawking five dollar betters among the alumni. The big guns of the press lay down a barrage for the snipers, machine gunners, and bayonet men, the faculties, townspeople, and plain darn fools among the coaches. The smoke clears — revealing the losing coach in open light before the victorious rebel.

The coaches have wearied of that sort of thing. They seek stability and respect. They believe that their profession is worth while and far more useful than that of the educated derelicts, dilettantes, and parasites on the game who would put the American coach on the same level as the coach in England and Canada.

In England games are handled entirely by a committee of gentlemen who make rules, assisted by the officials. The coach has about the same social status in dear old Britain as a bar fly or a horse groom. It isn't much better in Canada. An American who had been coaching in Canada recently returned to the States to take a position at half his former salary. In Canada his wife could not mix socially with a lot of people because her husband was "just a football coach." Dear me!

Almost every college or prep school football coach in the United States is a college graduate. He feels that he serves a useful purpose in polishing youth and rounding out men. He believes that football, with proper influence and pressure on his part, has its part in education through developing youthful character in an age when young men need rugged sport to keep them from becoming "softies."

Organized athletics act as an antidote for our modern comforts and refinements, the temptations of the automobile, the hysteria over the Vol-stead Act, and the looseness of our literature and stage.

One of the sad sights in any city is the educated derelict — the college man with something to sell, but lacking the aggressiveness to put himself over; the capable personality dead with fear. The coach believes that responsibility, fair play, courage, and perseverance are necessarily developed in such a complicated game as football, which also demands intelligence of a high order. The coach believes that the game is no better than the men officiating, and co-operates with the officials.

The coach keeps in mind the point of view of spectator's interest. Football must be kept popular at the gate in order to maintain the expensive Physical Education Department.

The coach believes that the right type of newspaper publicity is a big help to the game, the players, and himself; but he believes that the press puts too much stress upon the winning coach and the star player — and neglects the other factors on the squad. The coach welcomes intelligent criticism, but gets much that is not.

The coach realizes that the faculty must exercise its prerogative in allowing only those boys to play who are amateurs and who carry on their class work satisfactorily.

No one appreciates better than the coaches the fine constructive work of the teaching profession in the high schools and colleges. They realize that the public does not appreciate the teaching profession as it should. This, however, is not the fault of the coaches.

Football mentors feel that their best results can be achieved when co-operating with the faculties. However, the coaches do not consider that the technical rules of football belong to the faculties any more than that the technique of medicine or of engineering belongs within the province of the State Legislature.

The coaches believe that, inasmuch as they are in direct contact with the players, responsible for the teaching of strategy, the duty of training and conditioning, they — who will put the boys on the field prepared to play — should also have a voice in making the rules they teach.

The coaches feel that the game has become bigger than any one man or group of men. They insist that the professors of football are better equipped to theorize about football than are professors of English or finance. They seek to place some men on the Rules Committee who will be directly responsible to the coaching profession.

The coaches feel grateful to General Palmer Pierce and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. They feel grateful to them for saving the game of football in 1906 and for eliminating many of the early evils of the sport.

Muckerism in football is almost extinct. The seasonal coach is fast disappearing. The tramp athlete has virtually been eliminated. We still have some proselyting and recruiting of preparatory school athletes, but these problems are being handled constructively and intelligently and in due time will also be stamped out.

Hatred between competing institutions is being cut to a minimum. Human nature being what it is, we shall always have some hatred between some of the alumni — unhealthy rivalries and bitterness. But all agencies of education, including the coaches, should substitute the emotion "exhilaration," in so far as they are able, for the negative and debasing emotion "hatred."

All of these the National Collegiate-Athletic Association has done for the game of football, and the coaches feel grateful to General Pierce and his associates for the stabilizing influence they exert and for the constructive remedies they apply to all problems in sport as these present themselves.

The coaches believe that they are in a worthwhile profession, but a profession which has lacked stability in the past because no coach could hold his job unless he won; and a profession which, if it is to achieve proper stability, respect, and influence, must be recognized as such by the public and the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

The coaches do not want to run the game of football, but they will not be satisfied until they are given some direct representation upon the Football Rules Committee; until they receive the right to franchise and self expression.

"If this be treason, make the most of it."

Publication Date: September 29, 1928