WISE OWL

By GENE SULLIVAN
News-Press Sports Editor

 

 

GWINN HENRY’S SUCCESSOR

We have the perfect successor to Gwinn
Henry as the head football coach at the ‘Uni- |
versity of Kansas. He is Dr, F. GC, (Phog) |
Allen, | who needs no introduction to readers of
sports pages. Doctor Allen is eminently qualified for the position.
We mean it. In the rather dim and distant past Doctor Allen proved |
his ability as a football coach at Kansas. In the pulsating present
he has shown a.knack of attracting young men of marked basketball
talent to Mount Oread, The same talent-getting flair has been dem- |
onstrated by few football coaches in the entire history of the gridiron |
sport up at Lawrence on the Kaw.

 

 

 

Yes, sir, Phog Allen is the man who should have the job.
Phog Allen would get Kansas a winner in football just as
he has given the Jayhawks a long succession of champions
in basketball. Phog is that kind of coach. To be a success
in the peculiar profession of preparing young men for athletic
combat you have to be a crank for perfection, a practical
psychologist, a politician, a father confessor, and a showman
who combines the better theories of P. T, Barnum and Billy
Rose with a touch of mortgage-holding villain of the old
mellerdrammers. And that, ladies and gen- ‘
tlemen, is Phog Allen, the maker of bas-
ketball champions,

It would be no trick for Phog to transfer these
talents to the football department. He knows the
gundamentals of that game almost. as well as he
understands the basic principles of basketball. Giv-
ing the grid sport his full time and attention, he'd
be a wow. Of course he’d have to do this in season
because no school would be silly enough to suggest
that a Phog Allen give up basketball coaching.
That would be like asking MacArthur to become
R. O. T, C. instructor at Paducah High School. z ee
But Phog could find the time for both jobs. Didn’t Phog Allen |
he only recently say that the era of the two-hour-a-day coach was |
Passing?