COACH KNOX DEFENDS HARVARD SYSTEM OF SCOUTING

Coach James L. Knox '98, second team football coach at the University, speaking at the fifteenth annual convention of the National Collegiate Athlete Association, held in Chicago last week, defended scouting as practiced at Eastern universities, particularly Harvard, on the grounds that it promoted the scientific development of football. He also spoke about proselyting, stating that "reports and insinuations to the contrary notwithstanding, Harvard does not engage in it."

"I am going to take the liberty to approach my subject from the negative side and will first tell you what scouting is not,"--Coach Knox began. "I appreciate that there may be exceptions, but the big eastern universities, I am sure, adhere strictly to the following fundamentals of good sportsmanship:--

Three "Don'ts" for Scouts

(1) A qualified scout never attempts to see a future opponent, except when playing in a game open to the public;

(2) He never seeks information by underhanded or surreptitious means;

(3) He never seeks to obtain the signals of an opponent and, even if he learns some of them inadvertently through the carelessness or constant repetition of a thoughtless quarterback, he never gives them to his own team. As a matter of fact and pride from a question of sportsmanship, signals are changeable even in the course of a game and information about them may be a boomerang.

"I must, perforce, treat this subject from a Harvard, as well as from a personal standpoint. For our preliminary games, the assigned scouts send in as complete reports as possible from seeing an opponent in one or possibly two games. The scouting department adds to these reports such accumulated information as may be on hand from previous years. The amount of information, however, has no bearing per so on the amount given to the players.

"If the scouting department has proved its efficiency over a period, of years or even on successive Saturdays of a season, the players place such reliance on it that they devote, except for the last two or three days, hardly any more time in preparation for the big game of the year than for the lesser ones. The player does not have to work out 50 mathematical problems--he is merely given the answer.