PROPER SUBSTITUTION IS NOT "BEATING THE RULES"

"To send the Harvard coaches into the stands would be to shift the entire responsibility of the conduct of the game onto the shoulders of the captain. It is for that reason that I am opposed to any such action," said a member of the Harvard coaching staff yesterday when asked to discuss the charges made recently that sideline coaching had been carried to an unreasonable extreme in college football.

"In a recent article in a Boston newspaper," he continued, "purporting to be an exposition of how football coaches violate the rules of 'sideline coaching' the writer stated that Harvard coaches among others were 'beating the rules' and proved his case, to his own satisfaction at least, by citing specific instances.

"The rule which he quoted deals with sideline coaching and is headed, 'Conduct of persons other than players', the purpose of which is to prevent coaching from the sidelines. The case in point is specifically covered in the rules under 'Substitutions' which states, 'An incoming substitute shall not communicate in any way with any of the players upon the field until after the ball has been put in play---. In case the substitute sent in is to take the place of the man who had regularly been giving signals previous to his removal from the game, the man sent in may give the signal, but without consultation with the players until after the ball is put in play'. This rule was never intended to prevent the proper direction of the game by the coach.

"It is one thing to say that a coach should not direct the team by proper substitution and another to accuse him of 'beating the rules" by communicating with his team from the sidelines.

"If the coach is to be relegated to the status of a spectator, the tremendous responsibility of directing the team would fall upon the captain's shoulders and this would be palpably unfair under present conditions.

"Rightly or wrongly, football has become a matter of immense inportance to all college men. Its growth has been accompanied by the evil of over-emphasis of the individual, undying glory for the successful player, and censure, sometimes disgracefully severe, for the man who errs. Among the graduates of both Harvard and Yale there are men whose happiness has been seriously affected for a time as the result of mistakes made in a Harvard-Yale game. More than one player has gone down in college history as 'the man who fumbled the punt' or 'the man who missed the tackle'.

"To add to the captain's already great responsibilities the duty of supervising the performance of other men on his team, of analyzing all the opposing plays and players, of substituting and what not--all in addition to carrying out his own assignments and acting as leader of the team--would be adding a burden far too great for any undergraduate to bear.