jn ee. ‘FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1944 THE DENVER P coe Pamy ST—FIRST IN EVERYTH -C. €. MEET FRIDA E, IN THIS basketball capital of the world, where year-in-and-year-out the fans see the finest the cage gamé offers, do not take Mr. ‘‘Phog’’ Allen too seriously, The Kansan is a great coach, jealous of Colorado’s ‘‘Frosty’’ Cox, among others, and given to getting his name in large type when- ever and wherever possible. ‘“Phog’s” latest, set forth in another column, is, more or less, just some new words to an old tune of his—the commis- sioner-to-be-named-by-the-president being the new motif to his song. Fundamentally, ‘“Phog” Allen is dead right. His fears relative to the @angers besetting college youths engaged in games which command betting in figures almost. beyond belief have been shared by many, espe- cially coaches who lead clubs into New York’s Madison Square Garden during the winter basketball season. The dangers found wide publicity last year, and the vider before. The stories were told how the gambling fraternity around New York haunted the hotels where the visiting cagers stayed, and how coaches, could not let their charges out of their sight for even a minute Pere é * * NE paragraph of Allen’s charge is funny. He suggests. that “the gentlemen running the A. A. U.” call in the colleges and, in effect, tell: them how they (the A. A. U.) keep their house clean. Is Allen kidding? He must be. Surely no man who has been in athletics as long as Allen could say that without putting his tongue very deep into his eheek. games without having the boys approached for “information.” oe A. A. U. until Bob Russell took the helm—lent itself to probably the rottenest “racket” of all time—the amateur boxing racket. Surely men who stood by while lice, in the guise of “sponsors,” not | permitted little kids to drink liquor, but actually supplied the drink before sending them into the ring, are not the people to tell the colleges how to conduct their athletic programs. COLLEGE BETTING SCANDAL BREWS, SAYS “PHOG’ ALLEN Famed Kansan Wants High Commissioner Named By President; Says Grid and Cage Players Face Dangerous Temptations to Toss Games. (By SAM SMITH.) AWRENCE, Kan., Oct. 13—Dr. Forest C. (Phog) Allen, basketball mentor at the University of Kansas and self- styled sage of middle-western coaches, suggested Friday that colleges employ a national high commissioner to rule in the manner of Judge Kenesaw M. Landis in baseball to “save the decency of collegiate athletics after the war.” Allen, critic of proselyting in col- lege athletics, said that unless such an office was created there would be a postwar scandal in football and basketball that would overshadow any similar incident since baseball’s The national A. A. U., under a long-decayed leadership—and the local “Black Sox” World Series dea] of 1919. Allen, whose cage thea are prac- tically the perennial champions of the Big Six, predicted a postwar golden age of sports. “It will have to be golden,” he said. “There won’t be. enough silver to hire the big boys.” Allen suggested that “college ad- ministrators should see to it that the office of the president of the United States should nominate the commissioner. “Something is going io hap- pen,” he said. “If educational in- stitutions are efficient, they will set up some machinery that will protect them from a ‘national scandal. As sure as you live, the thing is going to erack wide open sometime when they lay bare an incident where some group of col- lege boys have thrown a game for a tidy sum. That will happen be- cause there is more money being bet on football and basketball games in America today, than is bet on all the horse races pons run. ” Allen said “The fellows who run the Amateur Athletic Union should invite the highly proficient baseball and fvcotball executives into their fold to teach them how to run their professional (sic) athletics.” The Jayhawker coach pointed out that the American Association of University and College Presidents has failed to do anything about ath- letics from a postwar angle: except to acknowledge Hat they eee gone professional. “Now,” he said, “the scramble is on to get big name coaches to man the guns and fill the stadia to dripping capacity. They will be out after the returning stars, when they doff their uniforms and campaign ribbons and will use “the G. I, bill of rights to help them lure the boys inte the fold. “Along with the goverriment they (the coaches and schools) will be of- fering bonus dough for playing on their particular team.” Allen said he had no objection to scholarships, openly arrived at and lived up to. “But what we are facing today,” he said, “is that some schools pay $45 a month, some $75, some pay beard and room, tuition, books and on up. A commissioner would sta- bilize these things and this hypoc- risy that is practiced now would be dealt with summarily.”