COPY

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
Columbus

November 14, 1939

Dre Forrest C,. Allen
Basketball Coach
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas

Dear “Phog"s

I am in receipt of a letter from President Owens of the N.C.AA.
in which he has enclosed a letter from a Mre Gilmore, Secretary of the Rocky
Mountain Faculty Athletic Conference.

Gilmore has suggested in this letter to Major Griffith that
District 7 has its own elected executive committee which would be enpowered
to cooperate in making the district selection. Gilmore said in his letter,
"We feel that this committee might be the logical group either to make the
selection or to designate the persons who shoulde The basketball ruties Z
member for district 7 is coach of the team which is likely to be an important |
contenders

Presijent Owens, in his letter, says this = "If it is possible to
cooperate with this group in sane way with selections in this district, I feel that
it would be well to do so as we need all the support we can get in the various
districts in the building up of this tourmement. I do not think it would be
necessary to designate this committee as the final selecting authority but if,
without serious interference with your plans, they could be asked to cooperate

it might prove helpful."

I am writing to you to get your reaction to Owens’ suggestion and
also to ask if you won't take a major part in the making up of all ow com=
mitteese You know as well as anybody else what we were trying to do last year -
maybe we were following the correct procedure, in your judgment, and maybe note
At any rate, the time is here when we should be setting up definitely the sel-
ection committees in all our districts, and what I am trying to tell you is that
I am going to lean on you rather heavily in this comection. In the first place,
you have both the Western play-off and the final game on your handse Seconfly,

I know there is nobody in the whole business more interested in seeing this tourna=
ment blossom out in a real way this seasons 7

I have written "Jue" Salmon several times in connection with tourna-=
ment business but so far I have not been able to get a reply from hime

There was ome thought expressed in the N.CeAsA. Executive Comittee
meeting in New York early this sumer and that was, generally speaking, committees
which operate tournaments such as ours might well have in its make-up more men
of the “director" or "faculty" type rather than active coaches. The thought was