Football

At the season's peak, more than 1,000,000 spectators watch U. S. football games every Saturday. Last week's 15 most interesting games drew 450,000. In New York City four football crowds added up to 115,000. Biggest single bowlful of spectators (65,000) was at Pittsburgh.

The attraction at the Pitt Stadium was Minnesota and a game that seemed more likely than any other to have important consequence next month when experts begin the fantastic business of picking a U. S. champion. Minnesota's star halfback, Francis ("Pug") Lund, last season played 460 out of a possible 480 minutes.

He gained a total of 682 yd. compared to 639 for all his opponents. Last spring he had his left little finger amputated because he had broken it so many times that it would no longer bend. For the first three periods Pitt not only bottled up Lund, working behind

a line which averaged 200 lb., but also protected a 7-point lead, gained when a lateral pass from Weinstock to Nicksick resulted in a touchdown. Before leaving Minneapolis, the 36 members of the Minnesota squad were presented with rabbits' feet by Mayor Bainbridge. They did no good at all until the last quarter when a Minnesota back named Julius Alphonse shook loose 22 yd. from the Pitt goal-line and sprinted across for the tying touchdown.

A few minutes later, after a 40-yd. march to Pitt's 18-yd. line, Minnesota sprang the "Sunday play"--a double lateral pass followed by a forward. Lund to Tenner--that it had saved for just such a crisis. The touchdown won the game, 13-to-7.

Fifteen hundred Michigan students and faculty members signed a petition asking that the team's star end, Negro Willis Ward, be allowed to play against Georgia Tech. At a mass meeting, athletic authorities insisted that he should not play because 1) it would be discourteous to Georgia Tech; 2) he might be injured. Two hundred campus radicals threatened to prevent the game by standing in the middle of the field. The Ann Arbor Ministerial Association drew up a protest. Said the Michigan Daily: ". . . If the athletic department forgot it had Ward on its football team when it scheduled a game with Georgia Tech, it was astonishingly forgetful; ... if it was conscious of Ward's being on the team but scheduled the game anyway, it was extraordinarily stupid. . . . The line-up of the team, regardless of what motivation there was, is the concern of the coach. . ..."

Ward, son of a Ford factory worker, an A student in political science who is even more famed as a trackman than footballer, sat calmly in a radio booth, watched his teammates defeat the Southerners, 9-to-2.

Bookmakers in Manhattan reported that $100,000 had been wagered on Fordham v. St. Mary's. Beaten by Nevada in last fortnight's most surprising upset, St. Mary's started off badly when Fordham's Maniaci intercepted a pass, made a mad 80-yd. dash for a touchdown in the first quarter. Harry ("The Horse'') Mattos tied the score with a touchdown in the next quarter, threw a pass to Erdelatz for another in the last. St. Mary's 14, Fordham 9.

Navy had a new coach, a new "system" and a crack back named "Buzz" Borries. Columbia had last year's Rose Bowl champions, weak line reserves, a crack back named Al Barabas. Barabas reeled, wriggled, ran for a touchdown four minutes after the game started. It was the last Columbia got. Borries made two, and most of the gains that led to the third. Navy 18, Columbia 7. On the strength of his name, Notre Dame's William Shakespeare got into the papers last year when he flunked an English course.

He got into them again last week on the strength of a 56-yd. run for the first of the two touchdowns that beat Carnegie Tech, 13-to-0.

On a sultry afternoon at Birmingham. Alabama outguessed Tennessee in the game that may settle the Southeastern Conference title, 13-to-6.

A "promotion" editor of the Daily Bruin at the University of California at Los Angeles set up an agency to arrange ''blind dates" for the football game with the University of California at Berkeley. His clients saw University of California win a tight, well-played game, on Halfback Williams' place-kick in the last quarter, 3-to-0. Yale, considered quite likely to lose, smashed Brown to bits, 37-to-0.

Harvard, considered quite likely to win, collapsed against Holy Cross. 6-to-26. Princeton, overwhelming favorite to thrash Washington & Lee, squeaked through with a touchdown in the last minute of play, 14-12. When he contemplated attending University of Iowa, Negro Oze Edward Simmons, son of a Fort Worth janitor, wrote Football Coach Ossie Solem to make sure there was no prejudice against his race. Assured that there was none, he boarded a freight train, enrolled in the class of 1937, worked his way by washing cars. Last year, he drew attention to himself by running through the entire Iowa varsity six times in a single practice scrimmage. Last week, Oze Simmons was on the freight again against Iowa State which kept him carefully covered, piled up four touchdowns and a field goal, 31-to-6. Southern California almost won a game, before Oregon State scored in the last quarter. 6-to-6. Michigan State, starting a 6,000 mi. jaunt to Syracuse, N. Y., Detroit, Mich., Lawrence, Kans., and San Antonio, Tex., stopped at Brooklyn to polish off Manhattan College. 39-to-0.

With 45 seconds left to play, Centenary's Parker kicked a field goal through University of Texas' ambitions for an undefeated season, 9-to-6.

Longest run of the week in a major game: 97 yd., by Chicago's Jay Berwanger, for the last of three touchdowns that beat Indiana 21-to-0.

Schoolboys: Taft 47, Hotchkiss 0; St. Mark's 13. Middlesex 6. Professionals: New York Giants 17, Pittsburgh Pirates 7. Chicago Bears 41, Cincinnati Reds 7. Convicts: Sing Sing, 41, Port Jervis Police, 0.

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