Saints Without Angel

For three-quarters of a century St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Tex. was content to educate a handful of local Catholics who were unable to attend larger and better colleges. Then along came John Clark ("Mose") Simms, an engaging spieler with a big idea.

Mose Simms had played football at four colleges, had coached a local high-school team, had more recently promoted a few oil schemes. He persuaded the Brothers of the Society of Mary to let him sponsor a football team for them. St. Mary's had once tried to finance an athletic program but found the money wanting. Mose presented himself as a football angel. The Brothers turned over the college's athletics to him as a sort of concession.

Before long, Promoter Simms, by radio appeals and cross-country combing, had rounded up a squad of players good enough to beat many a rival second-class team. But press agentry, more than prowess, put St. Mary's on the map. Coach Simms sent out elaborate brochures telling sportswriters about the "most colorful college football team" in the U.S. He succeeded in getting games with reputable colleges from coast to coast and border to border, took his players on their crisscross-country tours in a $27,000 bus, "the biggest bus in the world."

His Saints wore star-spangled, red-white-&-blue uniforms (which made Showman Slip Madigan's St. Mary's-of-California gang look like dun-quiet Quakers), went in for fancy formations like the Suzy-Q shift. Coach Simms got front-page publicity by telling big-name colleges that they were hypocrites, that his team was frankly professional (though he gave them nothing but "room, education, travel and all the food they can eat").

St. Mary's enrollment increased to 992 students. (In 1934 it was 412.) But the Brothers at St. Mary's felt that Mr. Simms's promotion stunts had hurt the college's good name. Mose was displeased too. After six years, he said he was $40,000 in the hole. Last week Mose Simms resigned as St. Mary's athletic director, football, basketball and golf coach, trainer, press agent and bus driver. Said St. Mary's president, the Very Rev. Walter F. Golatka: "The University must have full control of the details of its athletic program." Said Angel Simms: "I'm out but I still own the athletic department--and it's for sale."

At week's end Mose's lawyers and accountants were checking up on his belongings, ready to sell them to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, the disillusioned Brothers at St. Mary's were trying to raise enough money to carry out the ambitious football schedule Promoter Simms had contracted for next fall. As for the players, it looked as if they would string along with Mose. "I'm no Hitler to make them go or stay in any one place," said Promoter Simms, "but I talked them into coming here and I might be able to persuade them to follow me if I should make connections with another school."

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