ROOT OF DIFFERENCE IN EASTERN WESTERN FOOTBALL ELUCIDATED

The following discussion of Eastern and Western football was written by R. L. Dunne, line coach of the University football team. It is reprinted in part from the current issue of the Advocate.

Football today depends in large measure on the size of the institution where it is played and on the population from which it draws its student body. Football is a game which requires a keen mind as well as a strong body. It is a game of punishment, mental and physical, with restrictions that are found in no other sport; and it is a game that, like no other, develops the competitive spirit of both player and spectator. Football material is usually made up of so-called "he-men," and the small, light man is the exception. The success of football is entirely dependent on its status as a sport", and as soon as it becomes drudgery and a business proposition its whole foundation will give way and the game will cease to exist.

East vs. West

Why is it that one hears of the wonderful material that the Western colleges are able to get and that one equally often hears the wail of the Eastern colleges because of the lack of "huskies?" What is it that causes this unceasing discussion? Is there really a difference among the squads East and West?

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From my observations in the East, it seems that the type of boy that plays football on the Atlantic seaboard is of a high intellect, with a physical frame that is well-proportioned but not well-knit. They are unable to stand tremendous physical punishment or hardships because they are too highly strung, and their nervous makeup requires an entirely different type of handling than does the Western "husky." The Eastern athlete with his superior reasoning power is a harder man to arouse into a fighting pitch, but when it is accomplished there is no one in the country that can stop him. The Easterner one must reason with the Westerner one must handle. There must be a reason for this which goes further than just the college stage. In the East the boys come from the thickly populated urban sections of the country where physical labor is not as prevalent as it is in the smaller Western communities. I notice that most boys on Eastern football tear have had previous preparatory school football training, and I am wondering if this intensive and supervised training does not tend to break down the youthful body before it is ready for the rigours of football. The Easterner is trained early and is content to let himself slide accordingly. This combination of urban heritage and early football training tends to produce smaller men, who are not used to hard physical labour, who reason too much, and therefore are comparatively harder to handle. The job of an Eastern football coach is accordingly difficult.

Farm Sends Material

Our Western schools are full of boys just off the farm and from small country towns where physical labour is a common daily part of their lives. They come to the college anxious to show the "folks back home" their prowess on the athletic field, and football is the quickest way to do this. They have the physical makeup to take tremendous punishment, they are easily aroused, and they make football their main occupation because for them it is fun, and a method to demonstrate their physical power. The open ranges, the mines, and the forests produce the Western football player, the city the Eastern.

I believe, if statistics were made up, the large majority of successful football players would be found to come from places where they have had to come in contact with physical hardships all their life and where physical strain is not to be reasoned with but to be taken as a matter of fact.

Requirements Differ

Eastern colleges have requirements for entrance which Western schools do not have. Not that these entrance requirements prevent many Westerners from entering, but they scare them off. The examination system scarces them off because they can get into college in the West on just a certificate, whereas at Harvard it takes much more mental effort. This is not a condemnation, in fact I think it is a credit to the eastern institutions becauses it increases the mental calibre of the student body, but this does not make a football team and here we are discussing straight football material.

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In closing I may add that in most cases the great football players in the East do come from smaller communities, where much of their life is spent in the open. More Westerners will come to the Eastern colleges when they realize in the early stages of high school that it takes more work to get into the Eastern institutions, and when they do not forget to study until their last year of secondary school. Many Westerners would flock to Eastern colleges if they were prepared to meet the examinations, and if they knew early enough that special work must be done all through secondary school to do this.

Football systems East and West are the same. Football is as good here as in the West, but the Western coaches have better and easier tools to handle in the production of football machines.