STANFORD UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Division of Physical Education (Including Athletics) Men Students’ Health Service
Division of Informational Hygiene University Health Service

STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA

March 19, 1934

Dr. Forrest ©. Allen, Director

Division of Physical Education and
Intercollegiate Athletics

University of Kansas

Lawrence, Kansas

Dear Doctor Allens

I have just learned that it will be impossible for me to attend the
Coaches! meeting at Atlanta. Sentiment seems to be crystallizing against
the voting of funds for meetings of this kind. Personally, I feel that this
is very much to the detriment of our school and the Pacific Coast, but I have
not yet been able to get this idea across.

I note from the newspapers that you are again advocating the twelve
foot basket. I am sorry, but I do not share your point of view. There are
just any number of courts that would find it impossible to install these
baskets. The expense to many others would make it prohibitive, and I feel
very definitely that it would retard the action of the game because it
would reduce scoring, encourage long shooting altogether, make set-up shots
as doubtful as long shots, and therefore discowage all maneuvers that would
aid in working the ball in close to the basket. It seems to me that these
facts overbalance all the disadvantages that the present arrangement causes.

With respect to the report of the research work for the year, as
chairman I have written to all of the members of the Research Committee,
asking them for reports of any investigations that they may have carried out
during the past season. As yet I have had no replies from them. Our own
work out here consists of four projects. The most important to me is fatigue,
or rather the recovery from fatigue after exercise. I am hoping sometime to
get comparisons between the strenuousness of basketball and other sports. This
is a long, tedious job, and while t have been working periodically at it, I
still do not have anything that I can report at the present time. I shall be
here all this summer and expect to do a great deal of work then. The results
of this work will constitute my thesis for my Master's Degree at Kansas, so I
am hoping to finish it up within the near future. The second point that has
been drawing my attention during the prst two years is a method of rating
players. It has always appealed to me that one of the most difficult problems
that a coach must face is that of chogsing the players for his team. I have
been attempting to get some tangible basis by which one may be governed in the
selection of his team. You may recall that Bill Chandler has done some work
along this line. I have been using a little different method of attack. I am
enclosing for your information the chart which I have used for the past two years.