8 December, 1940

Of course, I have heard tales of coaches who asked the other team what color
shirts they were going to wear and then proceeded to dress up their own team in ex-
actly the same kind so as to make it more confusing for everyone, I have seen
teams come into New York wearing off-color yellow jersies having three-inch high
numbers of the same material and the same shade as the jersies, so that nobody in
the place, even the other players or officials, could tell who the devil the play-
ers were, Of course, that is specifically forbidden by the rules, but nobody pays
any attention to it, There are a lot of other minor gripes that a sports writer
runs into in the course of his career, but the biggest gripe that I have came to a
head this year as a result of this wave or deluge of suggestions for changing the
complexion and the fundamental structure of this game of basketball,

As I said to you earlier, I cannot see anything wrong with this game of bas-
ketball, From the point of view of entertainment, from the point of view of fun or
sport or competition, it will outdraw every sport in the land except soft ball as
regards spectators and competitors, and when it will draw crowds into places of
such proportions that the basketball coach can not get a little of his salary in-
stead of something that he can squeeze along on and has to work out with another
job, I think that if I may be so bold I should like to make the suggestion that the
Coaches! Association instruct its members to declare a moratorium on ideas,

There is nothing that arouses more ridicule, I think, for your profession
than for some coach to go to bed ainight, suffer from a terrific nightmare, wake up
in the morning and accidentally mix a little powdered opium with his bicarbonate of
soda, and then sit down and write out a new plan for saving basketball and call up
the nearest newspaper man whom he knows and get it into print, Newspapers, my own
included, I think have been over-ridden this year with these cockeyed and utterly
whacky suggestions for changing basketball, I do not know any way that you can
break down public confidence in yourselves and your game any faster than that, con-
stantly reiterating in the newspapers week after week that the same needs changing.

Some fellows say that the game is too fast. Well, who coaches the boys to
play fast? They do not have to play fast. They are taught to play that way, You
people teach them to play that way. I see some teams come out and play so slowly
you could go out and talk to all your pals and come back and not have missed a bas-
ket, I wish to state right now that that doesn't apply to Rhode Island State,

I think that the Program Committee was a little remiss in not having besides
Mr. Holman's talk on man for man defense and Dr. Allen's talk on zone defense and
anterior-posterior positions one on the type of defense employed at Rhode Island
State, I think that Keaney should really tell us whether or not it is true that he
tells his boys that if they hold the opposition at 80 points they are in,

I want to leave this thought with you, that I think that you will find all
over the country now the situation that a greater number of men are covering bas-
ketball than ever before anda larger percentage of those men are doing an intelli-
gent job of covering the sport, There are places where the technique involved is
not as good as it is in other sections and that is a situation which you yourselves
can help and profit by it. Your game has reached proportions now where no one will
deny that it is our greatest winter sport, and you can help it along in the weak
places by making the newspaper men there your confidants, making them your friends
and helping yourselves to educate those who do not have a good basketball back-
ground, We try to do that in New York and I know that they have done the same
thing around San Francisco through the medium of local writers! associations, and
you can do the same thing in your own particular sections,