Egg In Your Beer

Somewhere in one of West Point's official poop-sheets there are a few lucid paragraphs about the purposes of athletics. The gist of the idea is that it develops leadership and character, and building these two features is the Academy's raison d'etre.

This observer would like to give notice that he will not show up for the next war if he has to serve under any of the young leaders on the 1948 Army football squad. There were more clipping specialists, first-blocking artists, and post-whistle blockers on that outfit than you would expect to find on a commando-base pickup team.

It is a tribute to Harvard that it did not retaliate in kind to this brand of play, and still managed to perform as effectively as they did. The lowly civilans from Cambridge never resorted to anything but football, and by keeping it clean they only added that much more to the already great credit they deserve.

The officiating of Saturday's contest only aided and abetted the already dubious ethics of the Cadets. One of these hawk-eyed aces, who goes under the improbable name of Phillip E. Genthner, should be spending his Saturday afternoons at home in an easy chair lisetning ever a radio rather than taking the taxpayer's money to act as lineman for the U.S. Army.

It is undoubtedly mere coincidence that Harvard came out on the short end of these myopic lapses, but nevertheless such events have the worst possible effect on amateur athletics. It was lax officiating that led to the unpleasant and bloody Moher incident in the Harvard-Yale hockey game in February, and there is still a good deal of bad feeling about some of the calls in the Yale football game last year.

And in Georgia last Saturday, 300 players and spectators became involved in a riot during the Georgia Tech-Auburn game. A questionable decision seems to have been the cause of the fracas. This sort of thing is great for the newsreels but bodes ill for the cause of sport.