2-14-40

ATLANTA JOURNAL

PAI\

 

 

Cameron Advocates
Convex Backboard

By JOHN MARTIN

The new-fangled ideas being proposed for basketball
are just a lot of poppycot and should be treated as such
in the opinion of Eddie Cameron, coach of’ Duke’s Southern
‘Conference leaders.
In a radio interview here Tues- }

day night (6:15) Cameron indi-

cated he was willing to “let well

enough alone” and keep on shoot-
ing for the hoops = a backboard.

‘HOWEVER, ” be aimed, “I would
not object at all to a change to
conyex backboards. In fact, I’m
in favor of them, and hope to see
their introduction before many

‘more seasons.”

But Columbia Maloney’s back-
boardless idea won’t answer the
cause for which it’s intended, Cam-
eron argued in a Sports News and
Views pow-wow.

Most of the new suggestions are
designed to minimize the superior-
ity the tall player has over a man

,|of ordinary height.
Backboardless basketball won’t.

do it, but the. convex boards. will,
Cameron explained.

“You see,” he experted, “it’s the
control of the rebound that has
the boys stymied. As it is, with
the straight boards, the tallest
man has the big advantage. A
curved bank would keep the ball
in a more definite groove and
smaller players would be better
prepared to recover or capture it.”

 

 

 

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CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
2-5-40

 

 

Th he Score Card--

A Day with the Hoosiers

 

 

BY JAMES 8S. KEARNS.
RANCH M’CRACKEN of Indiana University was in our
town with his Hoosier basketball team Saturday. Mr.
McCracken, a former great cager with I. U. quintets of
other years, is a large, peaceful young coach. Peaceful,
that is, except at courtside when his team is in a close one.

Accompanying Branch were George Gardner, the Indiana pub-
licist, and “Fergy”—Jessie Ferguson—who has been trainer of Indi-
ana’s athletes since the last Monday in Feb- _
ruary, 1913.

“And if you think I’m bad at a basket-
ball game,” allowed Coach McCracken,
“you should see that Fergy. He packs up
his kit and goes down to the dressing room
about five minutes before the end of a
game if the score is at all close.” —

“Yes,” agreed Fergy, “and at the rate
basketball is going now, I’m thinking of
staying in the dressing room for the whole
second half. It will get a man—that crazy
game.”

: a * *

McCracken smiled a little grimly and
nodded at Fergy’s estimate of basketball.
On the side one of his companions reported
that in a game at Philadelphia Coach Mc-
Cracken punched his hand through the seat
of a folding chair in a moment of excite-
ment. And that brought on a discussion of
the nervous, pressure-laden breed of men
in the basketball coaching profession—
Piggy Lambert of Purdue who holds the world’s basketball coaches’
record for the broad jump from the bench to the middle of the floor;
Tony Hinkle of Butler who suffers audibly for 40 minutes in each
game, and George Keogan of Notre Dame who has mellowed some
but who used to be one of the best hair-tearers in. the business.

We asked McCracken what he thought about the present game
of basketball, with special emphasis on the clamor that has arisen
this winter to have the rules altered.

“It’s all right the way it is,’ he said, “though possibly they
might cut down the size of the backboards a little and round off
the corners so that a shot which is completely wild wouldn’t rebound
for a possible tip-in. But generally it’s a swell game, but tough on
coaches.”

 

BRANCH MC CRACKEN.

 

 

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