Page 15

ONE MAN'S OPINION
Hank Crisp, Veteran Tutor, Avers South Backward in Basketball
Needs Better Shows, Larger Gyms
By Raymond Johnson

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, Jan, 31, 1941,--Hank Crisp, who has been turning out first
rate cage teams at the University of Alabama for 17 years, readily admits bas=
ketball in the South is far behind that of the East,

He thinks something should be done to revive the spectator interest, but he
doesn't know the solution for Dixie's problems,

Basketball in this section, with few exceptions, is tossed in during the
winter to give the athletes and student body a little entertainment, In most of
the Southeastern Conference schools, the basketball coach is one who has’ other
duties which are more important and on which their jobs depend. The cage sport
is a losing proposition at all but two of the Big 12 members,

"The East has double headers and they have proven highly popular," Crisp
said yesterday afternoon as he awaited time for last night's game with Vanderbilt
"They give the fans a good evening's entertainment, It takes only a few mmtes
over an hour for a game, and when a person turns out for a game, it kills the
evening for him,

"In football, you have the half-time festivities and the bands playing.
But basketball doesn't have anything,

"Up at Maryland and Virginia, they put on boxing matches and then their
basketball sames, This gives the spectators a pretty full evening's entertain-
ment,

"Some of the Southeastern schools have tried freshmen games with the var-
sity contests, but they didn't draw, Quite often season ticket holders wouldn *%
even come out, They didn't care for the freshman games,

STAGE TWIN-BILLS,

'Twe thought of having, say Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky and Vanderbilt, meet
in the Birmingham auditorium in a double header, That might be the solution, but
the auditorium will hold only about 5,000 for basketball, The expenses of put-
ting it on probably would be too great.

"Tf there were auditoriums which would hold around 10,000 spectators, then
we could have double headers in the South, That would give us enough revenue to
come out a little ahead, As it is now, we are lucky if we take in enough to pay
the officials, I feel confident double-headers in the South would revive specta-
tor interest and bring basketball back to the place it once occupied in this sec-
tion,

Vanderbilt basketball has drawn practically nothing the past few years, The
average crowd is only a little over 1,000 and 90 per cent of those are students,

VOLS. LEADING FOR,

fennessee is the best team Alabama has faced this winter, Crisp believes,

Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida appear to be the better teams, the Ala-
bama tutor says. He looks for Mississippi State to be a threat by tournament
time, Tulane is a little better than usual and Georgia is not as good, Auburn
must not be overlooked, warns Hank,

As for his own team, he doesn't talk much about it, except to say that his
first six men on last year's squad are all gone,

BEST QUINT IN 1930,
In his 17 years at the Capstone, Crisp has turned out many crack teams,
two of which captured conference crowns, Two others were runnersup.