Eastern Colleges Urge End of Platooning

The Athletic director of Eastern colleges still can't make up their minds about football substitution rules.

The Eastern Intercollegiate Footbal Association voted Wednesday, 19-13, to recommend that the NCAA eliminate two-platoon football and go back to the old system of limited substitution, with nearly all players going both ways.

Adolph M. Samborski '25, Harvard's representative to the EIFA conference in New York, did not vote. Samborski was in Boston attending a dinner in honor of Bobby Leo.

Samborski said last night that he would have voted against the proposal. "On the basis of the last two years, I think I would have gone along with the present rule," he said.

Surprise

"Frankly, it was a surprise to me," he added. "I thought this [platooning] was what the coaches wanted. But now I just don't knoy."

The vote was also a surprise to coach Dave Nelson of Delaware, the pererbial backer of limited substitution. Nelson said he was amazed that big schools like Syracuse and Penn State backed the proposal.

Nelson is a member of the NCAA rules committee which will consider the question in January.

He said the high cost of two-platoon football was the reason the measure got broad backing. Teams are now forced to carry and equip more players than they would with limited substitution, he said.

Ivy Split

The Ivy League is split on the matter. Yale and Columbia voted for limited substitution. Dartmouth and Princeton voted to keep platooning.

The vght over substitution has bounced around for years. Colleges changed to unlimited subs in the late 1940's, then changed back to restrictions in 1952. Since then, the NCAA has been switching back and forth.