Sport: Different Game

West Point’s Coach Earl Blaik, boss of the best college football team in the U.S., has long had views of his own about the game as played by the professional football teams. Last week he tucked his views under his arm and rammed the pros’ line head on.

In an interview published in Collier’s, Blaik blasted the “showmanship” and the “big fat men” in professional football. Said he: “If a pro team were put into a league with good college teams it would have … to play the way the colleges do, or it wouldn’t stand a chance.”* Blaik churned on: “I don’t learn anything from pro football. I know that if I could not develop a team which would play harder, faster and with greater coordination than the pros, my career as a college coach would be limited.”

Tacklers reached out on all sides before “Red” Blaik had passed the line of scrimmage. Said Pro Coach Earle (“Greasy”) Neale of the champion Philadelphia Eagles: “Blaik’s a fine one to talk about pro football. Almost everything he uses is copied from us. Why, I helped install the T at West Point [as an imported adviser, in 1942].”

George Marshall, laundryman-owner of the Washington Redskins, got in on the play. Said Marshall: “It’s hard to understand why Blaik would make such comments when he coaches one of the few thoroughly professional teams in existence. Mr. Blaik’s references about football would carry greater weight if Army hadn’t run out on its traditional rival, Notre Dame.”

Glenn Davis, “Mr. Outside” on Blaik’s great wartime teams and now, after resigning his commission,* a halfback for the Los Angeles Rams, added the crusher to the pileup. Said Halfback Davis: “In pro ball you meet a great team composed of 33 great players each week. Since the pros take the cream of the crop each year from the college ranks, it is only natural to find much better teams in pro ball.”

Blaik staggered lamely to his feet, explained: “I have no quarrel with pro ball. I merely think it is an entirely different game from college football, and that’s what I said.” Then Red Blaik went back to his regular business of coaching and saying very little. His all-winning (24 straight) Army team did his talking for him. At week’s end they crushed all-losing (six straight) Harvard, 49-0.

* A safe prediction, as a college team could not play a pro club without endangering its amateur standing. Closest thing to a test: annual games between picked college seniors and top pro clubs. The college All-Stars have won ten, pros 19.

* Doc Blanchard, “Mr. Inside,” kept his commission, is a jet pilot in the U.S. Air Force.