Evasive Action?

The college football market was wide open again. West Point and Annapolis no longer had their wartime corner on talent. Back to Mississippi State went Army's Shorty McWilliams, back to Notre Dame went Navy's Bob Kelly, back to Penn went Navy's Tony Minisi (TIME, Sept. 9). Last week the authorities of the service academies, who had viewed the trend with dignified alarm, got support from a high quarter, Harry Truman's military aide.

Said Major General Harry Vaughan (no West Pointer but a 1916 All-Missouri center at Westminster College): "I got a lot of letters from some proud mamas who wanted to know why their Johnny was being drafted and these football players were not. . . . My reply was . . . that they certainly look like draft dodgers. . . . They have spent two or three years being educated at Government expense at the academies; now, when the shooting is over, they resign. . . ."

Nevertheless few of these ex-service-academy footballers are likely to be drafted this fall. Kelly, having served 22 months as a gob before he went to Annapolis, is exempt. So are McWilliams and Arkansas' Clyde Scott (ex-Annapolis)--thanks to being enrolled in advanced R.O.T.C. Most vulnerable: Penn's Minisi.

Last week Minisi told why he quit Annapolis: "I wasn't going to follow a Navy career. I don't think it would have been right to get my college education at the Government's expense." Mississippi State Coach Allyn McKeen had an equally ingratiating explanation of McWilliams' decision to leave West Point: "He found it unpleasant there. He didn't like the discipline."

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