Sport: Army Again

At West Point, the brass-buttoned chests had not been so puffed up and proud since the great Davis & Blanchard graduated. Army’s football team, unbeaten in its first four games, was rated among the “big four” of the nation (the others: North Carolina, Notre Dame and Michigan). What’s more, it was waist deep in sophomores who are good now and almost certain to get much better.

Is there a Davis or a Blanchard hidden among them? Coach Earl (“Red”) Blaik says emphatically, “Those days are gone forever”—but as he says it he gazes blandly at the ceiling, like a boy with his hand in the cookie jar. Blaik and everybody else at the Point feel that, in a pair of sophomores from the South, they have the makings of another Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside.

Stephenson & Cain. At the moment, both are having some rough edges sanded down. The new Mr. Outside is deerfooted, 170-lb. Halfback Jim Cain, 19, a North Carolina lad with a receding hairline. In high school, Jim Cain was state champion quarter-miler and runs almost as fast in a football suit. Says Blaik: “Yes, he’s as fast as Junior Davis, but he can’t shift gears as well.”

The other half of Army’s new “one-two” punch is Georgia-bred Gil Stephenson. As fullbacks go, he is hardly in the heavyweight class (at 183 lbs.), but makes up for weight with his explosive getaway and skill at picking openings. And when he wants to put his head down and charge, he is an effective battering-ram, too.

Under Blaik’s new two-platoon system, Cain & Stephenson operate only on offense. They trot out on the field when the Cadets have the ball, trot off when the enemy has it.

Tidying & Tackling. At 5:50 a.m. the day they played Harvard last week, Army’s footballers rolled out of bed. Like the other 2,377 cadets, they made their beds and tidied up. At 8, they attended classes, and then had a combined breakfast-lunch (honey, whole wheat toast, steak and milk).

That afternoon, Cain didn’t show the promise expected of him, but Stephenson did. Ripping Harvard’s line to shreds, he gained the impressive total of 170 yards in 21 tries, scored three Army touchdowns (Army won 20-7). This week Army faces one of its toughest tests: unbeaten Cornell.