Bible's Handbook

Back in 1913, a prematurely bald young man of 22 became football coach of Mississippi College--mostly on the say-so of his parson. Dana Xenophon Bible was good at quoting Scripture, conducting chapel and teaching Latin. The qualifications were not much for football, but Bible was willing to learn.

He sought out such scholars of the game as Michigan's late Fielding Yost and Chicago's Amos Alonzo Stagg. The knowledge he gradually soaked up he applied so shrewdly that Bible's bare head came to symbolize football prosperity at three big colleges (Texas A. & M., Nebraska and University of Texas). His 34-year coaching record: 209 victories, 19 ties, 64 defeats. A dignified, eloquent man, he liked to hang up locker-room signs like "They shall not score!"

His talk was usually more like a professor's than a football coach's, except for the week before his toughest game, when he was capable of at least one white rage. Last winter he quit coaching and sat down to write what he knew about it.

This week his 275-page book (Championship Football; Prentice Hall; $3) is on the bookstands. As a handbook on the fundamentals of the game, it belongs on every high-school coach's shelf. In a chatty style, D.X. talks with a craftsman's plain sense about everything from fake & break passes to a recommended list of training-room supplies (headed by 500 aspirins). It is Bible's conviction that good kickers, blockers and tacklers can be made, but that great forward-passers are born. In one chapter, D.X. gives the spectator some pointers on how to watch a football game. Some of them:

P: Watch the guards on offense. They are the surest tipoff of a play. "You can see them block straight ahead, drop out to protect the passer [or] pull out to lead a play--and still have time to pick up the ball-carrier."

P: "On a punt, take your eye off the kicker and watch the efforts of defensive linemen to break through the protecting ring and block the punt. You can still see the kick and the run-back."

P: "As a back ... fades to throw a forward pass, switch over and watch the ends and wingbacks going down the field. Observe the pattern of their deployment [and the way they] fake, wheel, cut or pivot ... to shake the defending backs. You'll still see the catch, if one is made, or at least have the thrill of turning to your friends and remarking wisely: 'Smith was wide open that time, but Jones didn't see him.' "

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