FOOTBALL ETHIOS DEFINED

The Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee has drawn up a code for college football teams. This consists of a series of suggestions to players, and is not intended to be enforced by officials, being supplementary to the existing official rules. The spirit of the code is expressed in a quotation from it: ". . . no rules can make a gentleman out of a 'mucker.'"

Dean Briggs, when interviewed yesterday by a representative of the CRIMSON, said that the code was "highly commendable" and that he heartily approved of its purpose and wording. The effect of the expressed official opinion of the various colleges against unsportsmanlike evasion of the rules, he said, should do much to improve college football.

The code begins by stating that football, as a distinctly academic game, should be especially free from all bad sportsmanship. It is impossible for officials to notice all violations of rules, and proper play must be the result of the determination of coaches and players to eliminate all unfairness. There has been "a rapid improvement of the standards of play in the last ten years," but there is still something to be done.

Holding Worst Offence.

The Rules Committee next points out that holding must be absolutely eliminated. Its effects are very great--"the slowest man in the world could make a 40-yard run in every play if the rest of his team would hold their opponents long enough." And it is a very easy thing to conceal. Coaching from the side lines, beating the ball by unfair use of a starting signal, talking to opponents (which is prohibited by rules only if abusive or insulting), and arguing with officials, are in the same class; they all have an important result on the outcome of the game, and they can only be stopped by voluntary abstention. "The football player who intentionally violates the rules is guilty of unfair play and unsportsmanlike tactics and whether or not he expects to be penalized, he brings discredit to the good name of the game, which it is his duty to uphold.