Mre HePe Johnson Fuge 8 a Dee 12, 1940

_ send them a check for $100.00 so that they might have a better football team
and I feel that since you want a better football team and are loyal to the

_ State and the University that you would like to make a contributions You will
understand that I am not asking you for a contributions in fact, I have only
a Century Clube None of this money of the Century Club goes to

 . There is also a Kansas Rela Club here in lewrence in whicha mn
ean contribute $10.00 and receives two tickets per man for the years The tickets
are $4.50, and the other $5.50 goes to help the football players So if you do
not want to join the Century Club I kmow that they would be glad to have you

_ Join the Relaya Clube

| I have a feeling that you would get a much greater wallop out of coming
to Lawrence if you would feel that you were making a definite contribution to the
upebuilding of the football teams |

When you come to Lawrence I would be very happy to have you as my guest
_ @t any one of the games that you desire to attends It would be a pleasure to meet
you and tell you of my struggles and desires to build up a great athletic plant here a
at the Universitys

| I coached football ten years and I want to tell you that I would much
rather coach football than basketball. It is much easier coached, but I would
not want my players to be played wiless the University and the people connected
with it would openly give a certain stipend or scholarship, the same as they give
& scholarship for dramatics or voices ‘This would not be detrimental to our
promotional life as it now is where there is so much hypocrisy and up\andeup
professionalism, it is the professionalism that is killing the cameo

©. ‘My notion is that you can look at the roster of the professional teams
of America and trace them back to their Alma later, and you will see where the
most professionalism exists and where proselyting is donee ‘These boys who are
proselyted make more money than they can eam when they graduate, with the exception
of their playing professional football. That is why they turn to pro-football
because they have not mstered their academic subjects sufficiently to give them
courage to face a cold world where increases come slowly and only when the worker
has proved himself, After a few years of proefootball they may get into business,
but too many of them are disillusioned and lack the courage to begin at the bottan

in my office, as I dictate this letter to you, I am looking into a
life-sized photograph of Tom We "Tommy" Johnson, Kansas’ Greatest Athlete. We
were very close friends and I thought he was one of the grandest characters that
I have ever lmovme He died two years from the day he was injured in the Missourie
Kansas game at the Bell Memorial Hospital in Kansas City, Kansas. Richt up to
the last he stated that he had had a swell time all of his life and that he
was not whining when fate turned against hime ee