“ Editorial Comment |

GAMBLERS MOVE IN ON CGLLEGE SPORT
From Saturday Evening Post: The Post does not |

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often poke its editorial nose into the conduct of inter- |
collegiate athletics because, by and large, the con-

troversies that rage over campus sports ate of some-
thing less than earth-shattering importance. We are
moved to comment now only because it seems to us
that a good guy with a good idea-has taken a kicking
around from people who, in their own interests, ought
to. know better. The man is Dr. Forrest C. (“Phog”)
Allen, head basketball coach at the University of Kan-
sas; his idea, that basketball, which has become a big,
business, is also becoming a ‘dirty business,

Specifically, as you may recall, Doctor ‘Alien
charged several weeks ago:

1, That gamblers. have become a threat to college
‘athleties;  -:

2. That Vadal’ Peterson, “Utah University * ‘coach,
Hales the door. inthe face ofa gambler who came: to

is hotel room.in New York last spring and asked

cet ‘much. ‘tt ‘would cost to have Utah lose to Dart-'|
molith. in the finals of the National Collegiate Athletic |

Association: ‘basketball tournament;

3.That professional gamblers have already caused
two: “boys ito “throw” college basketball games;

4. That a.“scandal that would stink to high heaven”
is in. the.making.

What happened when this story, “filed by Sam
Smith, of the United Press, hit the sports pages was
astonishing. Dozens of college basketball’ coaches and
directors of athletics hastened to give the lie to the
Allen charges, In one way or another, they accuséd
him of (a) lack of faith in American youth, and (b)
Seeing things under the bed.

Simultaneously, Ned Irish, who rose from relative
obscurity as a sports-writer to the acting presidency
of Madison Square Garden on the strength of his flair

for basketball promotion, was doing his best to make

Phog look like the heel of the month. According to}

Irish, the Garden emplys so many cops that a gambler
can’t get closer to the playing court than Times
Square and, if he could, the players and coaches are
such sterling characters that a gambler would be wast-
ing his time. The result of all this sugar-coated
double-talk was that Phog Allen’s charges disappeared

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from the sports pages within a week, simply because |
sports editors tired of printing rebuttals that: sounded

like quotations from a high-school principal’s com- |
mencement address.‘And Phog, after shooting the’
works.on his. first announcement, did not have enough |

additional libel-proof information. to keep his one-man
crusade alive. .

Perhaps there is no reason for exhuming the story
now, but we. think there is. Amateur athletics have
lost much of their luster in the last ten years. We
have learned to sneer at “tennis bums” and “golf-
course insurance men”; we have learned to accept the
overt professionalization, of college football players. In-
deed, we have come so far that ‘the very word
“amateur” now means “tyro” or “beginner’’* rather
than a person who does something: Just because he
likes to do- it.

Somehow we feel that Phog: Allen, sentimentalist
and pop-off guy that he is, hod something like that in
mind when he cut loose with his barrage against Gar-
|den gambling. He must also have been thinking of
the millions that change hands each Saturday on
| college football pools, where the professional gamblers
| are now brazen enough to get their information from
the players themselves and from . undergraduates
| working on campus newspapers, He must have been

thinking of the fact that in Miami this last fall, extra |

police were assigned to quell gamblers working ‘high
school.football games. And he must have been think-
ing of the millions of kids who want to play ball, either
at..the: ort or at Goose Crick Corners Gym,
the odds are 6-5, 100-1 or even money, give

take three points.

No matter what the AHen episode proved, it did
suggest to a lot of people that their estimate of col-
lege athletics ought to be revised. again—and down-
ward, And it did make a lot of good cash eustomers
“wonder why professional wbaseball, under the late
Judge Landis;:,has been able to deal with its problems
more forthrightly, and to police itself more effectively,
‘than. have intercollegiate sports under the loose po-
litical associations which seem to divide their time
evenly : between. eating the . ay ane counting the
ti house :

2 hobher: Garden basketball Sees ds now in full

‘swing. | «For the sake of a lot of kids who enjoy a trip |

to. New York; and for the sake of American sports, we
hope -thait Doctor Allen’s prediction of another and
bigger: gambling “scandal” will prove false. In the
‘meantime, it would seem only routine good sense for
college associations to learn to meet their problems
ares on and not merely to hush up the critics.,

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