12

PM, SUNDAY. FEBRUARY 4,

1945

 

NEW YORK

Gamblers Menace All College Sports
Kansas Coach Asks Czar
For Campus Athletics

Dr. Forrest C. (Phog) Allen,

University of Kansas basketball

coach, for several years has been a prophet without honor in his

business. He had been tactless enou

h to warn about the menace

of professional gambling in intercollegiate sports. The “fix” scan-
dal which broke last week and which caused the expulsion of
five Brooklyn College basketball players has proven him right

and his booers wrong.

PM asked Allen to tell us what he thinks is wrong with inter-

collegiate sports and what
This is his story.

By Forrest C.

University

ought to be done to remedy the evils.

(PHoc) “ALLEN

of Kansas Dept. of Physical Education

It is now high time for the college presidents of America
to drop their academic mantles and get realistic about
college athletics, At the present time is is definitely known
that on some of our college campuses:

{| Gamblers hire, clandestinely, a member of the football

squad to give them confidential in-
formation on the esprit de corps
and the physical condition of the
players on the varsity team;

The gamblers are hiring, clan-
destinely, sports editors or writers
on college papers to give them ad-
ditional valuable inside informa-
tion; 3
€ Gamblers now have a central
clearing house working through
professional agents or dope col-
lectors. They issue weekly form
sheets which are synciironous with
race forms. They set prices on
wholesale information on college
sports events throughout the Na-
tion. : .
With the race tracks of Amer-
ica now closed there will be thou-

 

 

to another institution where the
subsidy is much larger. Big time
football teams have liaison or con-
tact men throughout the country,
and when a star player appears on
a college team whose subsidy is
smaller than the big time team,
agents contact this star player and
offer him a ‘scholarship of much
larger dimension if he will transfer.

Baseball: In many _ institutions
the head baseball coach is a scout
for one of the major baseball clubs
of the country. This is generally a
sub rosa agreement. The coach is
either paid a salary by ‘the big
league team or he is paid from $300
to $3000 for the signing of a star

“Phog” Allen

made a bonanza for the big-time
gamblers.

Some contend that the appoint-
ment of an intercollegiate high
commissioner with the powers of a
Judge Landis would tend not only
to separate the athletics from the
colleges more than ever but would
require a huge enforcement agency
to orevent cheatin, by those
schools or athletic departments
that wanted to cheat. Doubt
is expressed also that colleges
would give any one man the unlim-
ited power that baseball gave
Judge Landis. Fear of expulsion by
the czar of some college or uni-
versity from a conference after suf-
ficient evidence of guilt by the

 

 

 

os representative is another
ear.

The high commissioner would

have under him the conference
commissioners of the different
areas. The conference commission-
ers would be the deputies to en-
force the law of the high commis-
sioner. Instead of a school being
expelled from a conference, the
commissioners would fire the
coaches or the law-breakers.
- Judge Landis actually never put
a club out of business but he tossed
out club. owners. Neither would an
intelligent high commissioner expel
a school. He would dismiss the
guilty individuals. The state bank
examiner does not close a bank
when some president or cashie~ ab-
seconds with bank funds. The indi-
vidual is brought to justice. So it
should be with athletic malfea-
sance. :

In the late ’20s and early ‘30s
the University of Iowa was expelled
from the Western Conference and
the University of Kansas was ex-
pelled from the Big Six Conference,
because of alleged irregularities.
Both Iowa and Kansas were the
victims of athletic politicians. Had
a Landis been operating in these
conferences, he would have brought
individuals to justice rather than
expel a school which had done no
harm in itself. ©

Certainly this job of high com-
missioner is one of dignity and
could attract a Supreme Court Jus-
tice or a personality of the type of
Gen. Douglas MacArthur (after the

war), or J. Edgar Hoover. This
high commissioner should have a
sympathy, a fondness, and a belief
in the educational value of college
sports rightly conducted.

Carte blanche authority should
be given this man to devise a work-
able system whereby colleges could
be brought into a scheme that
would prove a mighty force in strik-
ing out against gambling, proselyt-
ing, illegal subsidizing and rank
professionalism in college sport,
and at the same time restoring the
integrity of college athletics. The
salary and tenure of such a man
should be commensurate with that
of Judge Landis.

This high commissioner should,
of necessity, be legally trained for
the purpose of writing the consti-
tution and by-laws under which the
conference would operate. Conf-
dence in his administration of col-
lege athletics should become simi-
lar to that in the administration
of Judge Landis’s regime. The gam-
blers would get a mortal body Blow
because the united efforts together
with the power of this organization
would be working against them,
whereas now the gambling mob
has a free hand since there is no
one in the college organizations
who is capable of opposing them.

Horse-and-Buggy
The National Collegiate Athletic
Assn. is still in the horse-and-buggy
days, so far as the present status

of college athletics is concerned.
Faculty representatives were

 

named years ago to make and ad-