Football

Like his confreres in the Northwestern backfield (Meenan, Potter, Olson, Rus-sell), big, blond Ernest ("Pugger") Rent-ner affects a nonchalance which some-times discourages Coach Dick Hanley. He lounges about the field at practice, bestirring himself less when he carries the ball than when he has a chance to perform a chore many footballers hate-- blocking. After practice, he jumps a high wire fence at one end of the practice field at Evanston, a feat so precarious that Coach Hanley has considered making it impossible by topping the fence with barbed wire. On the field, his number--23 --is blazoned on a jersey that has usually escaped out of his trousers. On the campus, he appears in yellow corduroys, a virile sweater. Twenty years old, one-time star athlete of the Joliet (111.) High School, he belongs to Sigma Nu, studies in the School of Education, plans to make dentistry his hobby, because he enjoys pulling teeth. In important games, Rentner loses his elaborate carelessness, tries furiously to justify the pseudonym he likes best: "Flying Dutchman.'' Last year he was noted mainly as a passer. This year his open field running against Ohio State and Illinois made him star of the best backfield in the Big Ten, perhaps the best in the country. His favorite play is a sweeping left end run. He follows his interference closely till he passes the line of scrimmage, pauses to elude tacklers in the secondary defense, then breaks away in a burst of the unexpected speed which has won many a game for Northwestern and which, against Minnesota last week, helped clinch Northwestern's Big Ten championship. Minnesota, leading 14 to o in the first half, was still ahead, 14 to 7, when the half ended. Rentner caught the kick-off on his 5-yd. line, streaked the length of the field for a touchdown that did not quite tie the score. The second play of the fourth period, a lateral pass to Sullivan, was good for 40 yd. and another touchdown. Minnesota's defense, strong for three periods, crumbled suddenly. Oliver Olson, who punted a water-soaked ball 70 yd. in the Notre Dame game, intercepted a pass, scuttled 55 yd. for a touchdown. Then Rentner got his huge hands on a Minnesota punt and made Northwestern's last long touchdown run, making the score 32 to 14, making spectators feel sure that in its remaining games against Iowa and Indiana, Northwestern could score almost at will or at the whim of its capricious, brilliant backs. A half-million people watched the dozen biggest games of the week. Largest crowd of the year--100,000--saw Southern California's Mohler, Shaver, Pinckert and Musick, the best backfield on the Pacific Coast, smother Stanford at Los Angeles, 19 to o. With 4! min. left to play. Harvard's Phi Beta Kappa Quarterback Barry Wood, who had been playing dunderhead foot- ball all afternoon, threw a 40-yd. pass to a point 4 yd. from the Dartmouth goal line. Harvard's Hageman and Dartmouth's Morton both jumped for the ball. Hageman caught it. Wood kicked the goal that gave Harvard the game, 7 to 6. Hugh Rhea, Nebraska's Ail-American tackle, received a letter signed "Heifer Bovine" offering him "big money" to let Iowa's halfback Hickman through the line for a touchdown. Hugh Rhea snorted indignantly. A 62-yd. march in the third quarter gave Nebraska a touchdown and the game, 7 to o. Intersectional games are unreasonably expensive, often meaningless, frequently unpopular. There have been more of them than ever this season. With more traditions than most such contests, N. Y. U. i). Georgia last week drew 65,000 spectators, ended much the same way as last year's game and by the same score (7 to 6) after Mott had run back the second-half kickoff for a touchdown and after Vernon ("Catfish") Smith had place-kicked the winning point and made the tackle, on fourth down with a few minutes to play, stopping N. Y. U.'s Bill Abee a foot from Georgia's goal line. Penn's unbeaten team went to South Bend to play an intersectional game against Notre Dame, came back bruised, beaten and bewildered. 49 to o. Princetonians, who are unlikely this year to have an opportunity to tear up any goal posts, considered tearing up the team (see p. 52) after it had lost, 19 to 7, to Lehigh. Princeton's 150-lb. team was soundly thrashed by some Choate schoolboys, 46 to o. Florida, heavily penalized for unneces- sary roughness in the second quarter, took an unnecessarily rough beating from Ala bama, 41 to o. The Hill School, drilled by Princeton's longtime coach, Councilman William Winton ("Bill") Roper, ran up five touch downs in the second half to beat Gilman. 32 to o. Tulsa beat Mexico City 89 to o. Mex ico City's coach. Fred Linehan, Yale guard in 1930, explained the mishap: "The Mexican linemen would not think of try ing to hit an opponent hard. They're just too darned polite. They're great boys, and smart, but I must not let them get into a huddle. If I do, they get so excited every thing goes wrong."

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