Alumni Honor Coaches, Players Now in Football's Hall of Fame

The Varsity Club last night paid its homage to seven of Harvard's greatest players and coaches, all of whom have been elected to the National Football Hall of Fame.

Some 300 former athletic stars and their guests jammed the Club to hear eulogies given to the following "greats": Former coach Percy D. Haughton '99, Charles D. Daley '01, Hamilton Fish '10, Huntington D. Hardwick '15, Stanley B. Pennock '15, Edward W. Mahan '16, and Benjamin H. Ticknor '31.

Only three of the Hall of Famers were able to receive their awards in person--Fish, Mahan, and Ticknor. The others have all died, except for Daley, who is living on the West Coast and was unable to attend.

Talks were given by N. V. (Swede) Nelson '18, Massachusetts Chairman, Hall of Fame; George E. Little, Executive Secretary, Hall of Fame; and E. W. (Bill) Cunningham, National Chairman, Honors Court and Boston Herald columnist, but it was an unscheduled speech by former Congressman Hamilton Fish that drew the most attention.

Fish, who in his tenure of office in Congress during Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency was a strong advocate of isolationism, spoke strongly for football.

"I state without reservation," Fish said, "that the football players receive during the fall months more mental development under a good coach than in any single liberal arts course in college."

He added that a "good coach must be a mastermind of football and be able not only to outguess and outsmart his opponents, but above all, he must qualify as the very best type of instructor, able to impart his knowledge of all phases of the game to the eager beavers who make up his squad."

"One thing is certain," Fish said, "there are no communists or subversives among the football players, nor any pansies or homosexuals."