On the other hand should the field coach be an old-timer he may he in reality a trifle unprogressive, as was the case in many of the larger institutions at the time the first radical changes were made in the rules, and he also may be quite as apt to gather around him men of his own time as the younger man. Somewhere, then, the link between the older and the younger coaches must be found, and when such a man is discovered it usually happens that his personal business is in that stage that requires all his time, and he has fewer spare days at hand than either the younger or the older man. What happens then? The man in question either lets his business go to pieces, or seeks indirectly to make money out of his connection with the eleven. No matter how it may be glossed over this latter move is always discovered sooner or later, and it leads to a state of unrest that eventuates in open mutiny. It is this more than anything else that has made it necessary to make football coaching a business, as at Yale, Harvard, and many other institutions where a salary is paid, and to leave no stone unturned in the effort to dignify that business.

When it is remembered that the head coach has a tremendous influence over the characters of the youngsters under him it will readily be seen that any steps to dignify his salaried position are well worth while. Complaint has been made by the well-meaning gentlemen who occupy the sheltered situations of editorial writers that the football coach draws a larger salary than the learned professor. But the coach is giving some of the best years of his life to coaching with the certainty that after a little time he will have to abandon it and go back to some other business, whereas the professor is already settled into his life work. I have no desire here to revive an ancient controversy but merely to emphasize the difficulty of finding the right man, and to explain why he earns what he receives, and to drive home my belief that it is an honorable profession.

There are instances in which it has been possible to combine coaching with faculty duties, and this is an excellent system, one, indeed, that seems to have worked superlatively well at Andover. In any case it must be remembered that the field coach is in closer contact with a larger section of the undergraduates than the non-coaching member of the faculty, and I know any number of instances in which he has helped mould the character of the young undergraduate for the better. He is teaching a game that should bring out the finest qualities in a young man, and has an opportunity enjoyed by few other educators. A coach of high character, and there are many in the field to-day, wil go a long way in patching up the old feud between the faculty and the undergraduate athlete.

The Defensive Line In Action

The picture shows an Exeter-Andover game. Exeter has the ball and has started a run. Andover's line (on the right), has charged to meet the play. The line, as far as it has gone, has done its work well. The Andover backs are closer to the scrimmage than is usually the case.

The permanent field coach usually requires about a year in which to get rid of the old methods, and by the end of that time is able to coagulate the best graduate coaching around himself, not barring the apparently useless old-timer entirely, or treating him with scant courtesy, but giving him a chance to help in one way or another without actually getting in the way, while binding the really useful veteran and the best of the younger men to him with hoops of steel.

If this head coach of whom I am speaking is wary, he will see to it that there is enough of the younger element on his coaching staff to keep the undergraduate body closely in touch with the squad, for it is fatal to have the team "get away from" the students, for whose benefit, after all, the game is played.

The "bleacher" coaches and the scouts need not feel that they are any the less valuable if they are not called upon for active work on the field, for the work of two of these "bleacher" coaches had a great deal to do in winning a game against Harvard for Yale not so many years ago. The "bleacher" coach sits in the stand, pretty well up toward the top, at his own field, and as a scout, occupies the same position at other fields. Of course a Harvard captain and head coach will go together at least once in the fall to see a Yale team play, and vice versa, but there are usually enough capable volunteer scouts to keep an eye on the most prominent rival throughout the season.

This is by no means a case of secret espionage - scouts and coaches of the big elevens no longer stoop to that sort of thing - but open visiting, and as a rule the visitors are quite welcome. Apropos of this a good and a true story is told of the visit of the head coach of an Army eleven to nnapolis the week before the annual game. The Army man had hoped to get one last look at the Navy team in action against Pennsylvania State College. His disgust was great when, from the side lines, he saw the Navy sending an entire eleven of substitutes against the visiting team. After the game, at the officers' club, the Navy coaches welcomed their rival strategist and asked, "Well, what did you think of it?"

"Think of it," retorted the deeply pained visitor, "why I came down to see this team of yours that they tell us is such a wonder and you send out the second eleven. Is that what you call Southern hospitality?"

The capable scout watches not only elevens that his own university is to meet, but also has a look at other elevens that seem to be doing promising work. He turns in all the information, or "dope," he can get, good, bad and indifferent, and it is weeded out by the head coach and his assistants. But of course the principal excuse for his existence is keeping an eye on the most important rival.

A few years ago two Yale scouts sat in the Harvard stadium watching game after game played by the Crimson. The active Yale coaches had seen the Harvard team, but these scouts picked up some valuable points that had "been overlooked by their superiors. Minot was doing the kicking that year for Harvard, and he was kicking well. The Yale men made a study of his work, and after a time became so expert that they could tell nearly every time just about where the ball would land. Minot had a "drift" in direction, to be compared with the drift of a rifled gun, something that in shooting is corrected by the rear sight. The scouts went back to New Haven and found that in Yale's system of defense against the kicking game, Philbin, the strongest runner back of kicks that year on any eleven, was so placed that Minot would be kicking away from him much of the time. In consequence of this scouting a change was made, and Philbin was so placed that Minot's punts would practically come to him. Philbin's running back of kicks in the Harvard-Yale game that year was a tremendous factor in Yale's victory.