BOOLA BLUES

Yale and Princeton may have been at swords' points last Saturday in the Bowl, but during the pat week they have been brothers in misfortune. The small turnout for the game-about 32,000-has sent up in smoke not only most of the athletic associations profits but even a measure of the prestige their game has always had. Harvard extends its deepest sympathy-rather absent minded sympathy because here the situation is considerably different. With 50,000 tickets already sold, and the usual activities around the Square promising a sell-out by Saturday, the H.A.A. doesn't have to worry just a present where its next athletic dollar is coming from. The reason for the ticket-scramble is obvious: the prospect of a hard-fought, even-terms game with plenty of color added. This difference in game forecasts is adequate to explain the difference in turnstile revolutions.

The Yale News ascribes the poor showing of Saturday to the Price of the tickets: $3.85 for every seat in the Bowl. Calling for an H-Y-P conference to revise the price scale, the News is rooting for a double rate-$3.50 for seats between the goal lines, and $2.20 for the end zones, on the ground that "the days when crowds flocked to games at $3.85 a head are gone, never to return." In Cambridge, however, those days are only a little less alive than they were in the twenties, and there is no real reason why they should be given up for dead in New Haven. New York may blossom with big rival games every Saturday that cut into the Bowl trade, but Boston provides stiff competition too.

"If the present trend continues, it is quite possible that amateur football will be as dead as a dodo in a few years." Thus mourns the Daily Princetonian over the scanty attendance at the Bowl. The editors feel that soon even the Big Three will catch the Chicago disease, and either give up their amateurism or forget about big-time football. From Harvard's experience, there is no such "trend" in evidence. As a matter of fact, every Harvard game this fall has drawn a somewhat bigger crowd than the H.A.A. expected. Princeton may be having a lean year, but there is no widespread dissatisfaction among amateur football teams which could satisfy Nassau's prophecy of doom.

Both the News and the Prince are making the mistake of generalizing on the basis of one single game. The most logical explanation for the meager 32,000 at the Bowl last Saturday is simply the one-sidedness of the predictions of the game. It is ironical that after this playing down in the papers the game turned out to be a genuine Big Three thriller. The football public from now on may believe the tradition that a Big Three game is always exciting enough for anybody's $3.85. At least, the Harvard-Yale fans seem to believe it.