Sport: Football, Oct. 26, 1931

• Share

The move to make football combat Depression reached official status last week when Owen D. Young, chairman of the President's committee to mobilize relief resources, asked all U. S. football-playing colleges to devote the receipts of one game, regular or postseason, to unemployment relief. In the East, two football "tournaments" were organized.

Said Owen D. Young: "This is about the only kind of thing which the students of our schools and colleges can do to aid in the work. . . . The precedent of responding to . . . a national emergency is a good one, and ordinary rules should give way in the face of it. . . ."

Most notable opposition to the Young Plan for football came from Harvard, where the undergraduate Crimson congratulated President Abbot Lawrence Lowell on his refusal to have a Harvard team participate in a round-robin tournament. Countered the Yale Daily News: "Harvard's refusal . . . although defensible, is not understandable. It is certainly a great shame. . . ."

The Yale varsity, generally considered to be suffering from too many coaches, journeyed to Chicago, a record distance for Yale. There they played one of the week's biggest games against a Chicago team coached by grizzled, 69-year-old Amos Alonzo Stagg, who was Yale All-American end in 1888 and whose son Paul was in the Chicago lineup. Yale's famed little Albie Booth played only two quarters but gave Midwestern Yale men their money's worth by gaining 37 yd. in scrimmage, running punts back 20 yd., intercepting two passes, dropkicking with precision. He let burly Tommy Taylor carry the ball on power plays but did most of Yale's passing with the clipped, short-arm motion and long follow-through taught Yale backs this year by Benny Friedman. One of Booth's passes sailed 35 yd., was caught by Herster Barres for a touchdown. Another pass and two long marches made the other three touchdowns that gave Yale the game, 27 to o. Between the halves, Chicago alumni gave Coach Stagg a "C" blanket with 40 stars because he has been Chicago's football coach for 40 years.

In Los Angeles, 50,000 people saw an extraordinarily powerful Southern California attack, headed by Gaius Shaver and Orv Mohler who made two touchdowns each, mow and shave Oregon, 53 to o.

The biggest game crowd of the week-end—70,000—was at the Ohio State- Michigan game. Michigan was good enough to tie the score at one touchdown each in the second period. But after the half, Carroll and Cramer of Ohio State were good enough to score twice against Michigan. The ball was back on the Michigan 13-yd. line when the game ended, 20 to 7.