THE FOOTBALL SITUATION

The December number of the Monthly, which is issued today, contains an article by Dudley S. Dean '91, on "The Football Coaching System," which deserves the notice of all men interested in Harvard football. Mr. Dean was a member of the University eleven while in College, playing, against Yale in 1889 and 1890, and was all-America quarter-back in 1890. The opportunities he has had for observing the development of our teams and his knowledge of practical football makes his article particularly important in the football crisis which confronts Harvard today. His sane and conservative advocacy of a better system in our athletics is in marked contrast to the destructive and for the most part unhelpful criticisms which have been appearing in the press. Some of the paragraphs quoted below may further a better understanding of the present situation and may serve as a foundation for beneficial discussion, aimed at improving conditions.

After calling attention to the fact that Harvard has failed to profit by her "almost constant defeats" and that the coaching system in use during the season just closed was practically the same as that which has caused failure before, he remarks:

"As a Harvard graduate truly said in a Boston paper recently: There is no criticism to make of the honesty and conscientiousness of this or any year's coaching--but there is fault in the system, or rather there is a lack of system.

"The fault spoken of has been lack of continuity and building for the future as well as for the year, lack of responsibility, lack of breadth, lack of discipline and the failure to bring to the running of a big amateur sport the same systematization and common sense that would have been evident at once in any business in which the same men or body of men were engaged. This fault has not been in any one year. It has been almost annual."

The question of coaches he regards as one of great importance, and in emphasizing his views discusses the subject somewhat at length:

"With the facilities to produce the best coaching staff of any university in the country. Harvard in the past has obtained little but a chaotic result. There are so many football men of worth around Boston, who are eager to be of aid to Harvard football, that the coaching force has simply been swamped with men, and the results to the player and to discipline have been to say the least, unfortunate. We do not want to return to the days of two men coaching by themselves, nor does Harvard want to get along, as some universities do, with a limited coaching staff, but there must be order and system, and the coaching of an individual player, or an individual attainment, like tackling, or punting, must be through one man who is responsible for that result, and for whom the head coach is responsible to the Harvard world. Many minds are better than one, but disorganization must be eliminated, and those not responsible directly to the head coach must view the practice from the Stadium seats; and in meeting after practice, or otherwise, have their opinions expressed, weighed and adopted, as may seem best to those actively responsible.

"Publicity should be given by a head coach to the men he has selected as responsible sub-heads, and if the man of his first choice will not come, it should be known in a sufficiently public way why he will not come, and thereafter he should be allowed to assist from the Stadium seats and in meeting only as a coach who will observe and will give the benefit of his advice through the responsible, chosen head.

"The above, of course, is the broad way of putting it, but the fundamental rule is absolutely necessary. Let Harvard football be unafraid of hurting some one's feelings. Our chief opponent, Yale, has gone through exactly the same experience in football that Harvard has encountered, but her eyes have been opened quicker, and her visiting coaches, and her coaches that are not directly responsible through the head coach have come in ample numbers to New Haven, have been rightly welcomed, and have done a lot of good.

"This statement about our New Haven opponent is a well-known fact, and proven history. It is absolutely impossible for non-responsible coaches, who are not in daily attendance, and who are not familiar with the scope of a planned development, to otherwise accomplish, save by luck, anything toward the general result."

In regard to the training and the physical care of candidates for the eleven he states that "there has not been the proper responsibility between the head coach, the trainer, and the head medical adviser. Harvard has had too many injuries, and it would not be unwise to, find out how other universities handle this question."

Concerning the policy of developing the team, he says:

"A football eleven cannot be developed by playing them for a week at a time on the bench. It is not necessary to drive men against a second eleven of twenty players; but consistent with physical condition, and consistent with common-sense practice, second choice men should be played against first choice men, and there is ample room, and there are ample coaches, if common-sense is directed toward the result, to have daily play on Soldiers Field between not only first and second choice men but third and fourth choice men. Harvard does not always have exceptional material, but she will never know what she has until she gives it regular, daily practice. Football is not learned on the bench to any extent. One remembers the saying of an old Harvard man, who as first substitute lingered many weary days consecutively on the bench, that he wished the management would change the padding in his uniform so that it would be of more service and comfort in a sitting capacity.

"Harvard is not the only university which has encountered a series of defeats that are without excuse. Yale has an equally dismal record in baseball. Harvard's baseball record is as bright of late years as Yale's football record is. In this locality we hear little of Harvard's baseball success because it is taken for granted. But that Yale is considering her own failures is evidenced by the fact that she is putting in charge of her baseball organization the man and the policy that have brought success to her football. Nor was Harvard winning her baseball victories by luck while Yale was losing. Every graduate and undergraduate knows that Harvard has not won by luck, that she has won not infrequently with poorer teams, and that she has won because at the head of her baseball was an older head and practically the same directing hand year by year, and because under this head Harvard baseball had a continuous, business-like and intelligent policy.

"Why, therefore, not adopt in football a policy which has brought success to our chief opponent in that same game, and a policy and a sort of head which has brought Harvard success in baseball? Harvard has surely had enough experience to finally profit. She must have some settled head in football, she must select him carefully and with a view not to next year alone but to last at least two years thereafter; and she must take time to make this selection. There has been no head coach of Harvard football in the last ten years who if given an opportunity to coach the following year and the year after that as head would not have improved upon his previous record. But in settling upon a head for three or five years there is no reason why Harvard should not select the best man available among her graduates, a man who has made success in other athletic lines or in football, and a man who has the age and the acumen to work with boys and to know boys. This selected head must have the undivided responsibility of the entire football policy, and once selected with care and thought he must have the undivided support of graduates and undergraduates. Harvard wants to try no more experiments."