_TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1944

DENVER A

ne Second
Guess

 

 

 

ee a Cor

SEE by the paper where Ned Irish, promoter of basketball
in Madison Square Garden, expresses his “personal wish’
that the charges brought last week by Dr. Forrest C. (Phog)

Allen, famed basketball authority, coach and director of physical
education at the University of Kansas, “be dropped.” Mr. Irish
is amazingly frank. He, if quoted correctly, wants to forget |
the whole matter so that Allen be silenced—that he (Allen) be

given no further opportunity to talk.

But what is Mr. Irish going to do about Sergt. Lou Gisconere of
the United States army, former manager of the Syracuse (N, Y.) Reds
of the professional basketball league—Sergeant Greenberg who says
players TOLD HIM how they, as he puts it, “CO-OPERATED” with
New York gamblers in having the point scores of their COLLEGE
GAMES fit the gambling odds.

Perhaps Mr. Irish shouldn’t do anything about it at all.

In truth, this is the business of the National Collegiate Athletic
association, the ruling and governing body of all college athletics—
the men who, after all, must give their sanction before college
players can participate in big money tournaments, or go on barn-
storming tours under private promotion.

From where we sit it looks like “Phog” Allen has the whole college
athletic structure sitting on the hot seat.

When he made his original charge, thru THE DENVER POST
last Friday, Irish, from his Madison Square Garden office, demanded
that Allen supply him with a bill of particulars, including names of
player®, New York writers, who, Allen said in his original charge, had
“kept the matter quiet, or fairly quiet,” bristled with indignation. Never,
they wrote, had they heard of any such thing. Allen supplied the-
particulars. Irish now states that both he and the newspapers long.
since “investigated”. the matters and the names laid before him By
Allen, and that he “feels moved to say there was nothing to it.”

From this corner it looks like “Phog” Allen has won round pre aia | |
by a very, very wide. margin. |

_Now comes the question, and round two: What about Sergeant |
Greenberg’s charges?
Pee ae ae 1 %

LL THIS talk about what player took what money in the past is |

beside the point. Itwould do no good whatever now to say Joe)
Smith of Middle State, either “threw” or “co-operated” on the point!
margin in return for such-and-such a sum.

The need—the immediate need—is for the college people to make it |
impossible for future Joe Smiths to do likewise.

_., Now none can object to college clubs taking trips. Goodness
knows the college athlete gets little else in a material way out of
all the time and effort and sweat and sacrifice he puts into his
game. What else he gets must be an inner satisfaction in playing a
game he loves, and in representing his school in competition with
other schools. Intersectional competition, whether it be in baseball,
football, tennis, basketball or what. have you, is good. It should
be encouraged and expanded. But this competition in the college
world should be between colleges, and staged under college pro-
motion and sponsorship.

Surely no college man can defend the use of college players, and
college teams, in private promotion. They cannot, unless they are|
willing to admit that what they seek is hard, cold cash and not the
fostering of athletics for the sake of the participants.