CHAMBERS OF

WILLIAM A. SMITH THE SUPREME COURT
JUSTICE OF THE
STATE OF KANSAS

 

TOPEKA

November 24, 1944

Dr. F. G. Allen,
c/o Kansas University,
Lawrence, Kansas.

Dear Doctor:

We had a letter from Donald, our
eighteen-year-old boy, who is in France with
the 82nd Airborne Division, which pleased us
very mich indeed. There is a reference to you in
it - hence this letter.

Our boy was quite a basketball star
in high school but didn't get to play in college
because the war interferred. From the letter we
received this morning he is talking about finish-
ing school and being a coach. Here is the part
which I think might interest you - A year before
he finished school we gave him your book on
Basketball for a Christmas present. He said in
his letter this morning "In my spare time I am
going to jot down my ideas about coaching - T
wish you would send me my copy of Phog Allen's
book on Basketball right away."

You may be sure we will get this book
on the way to him at once.

I thought you might get a kick out of
the fact that a boy in a fox hole in France was
thinking about your book. It gives me quite a
kick too to learn that the lad's ideas are fixed
on completing his college course. That's one thing
that has worried me. Don wants us to send him a
book on Football coaching too. I don't lmow what
a good book would be. I wish you would give me some
suggestions as to a good book to send him. He wants
a book that will give him some ideas about the funda-
mentals of coachinge