New Deal Includes Freshmen

Freshman football, which is once more under the direction of Sid Hazelton, has been transformed into an important part of the general organization under Earl Blaik. The yearling gridmen have been learning Harvard plays since the opening of College, and with their Crimson attack have defeated Clark School and Roxbury. The junior varsity in the meantime is working on Yale plays, and between the freshman and jay-vee squads the business of putting on opponents' formations is taken entirely out of the hands of varsity scrubs. After the Harvard game, Coach Blaik explains, the freshmen will start to work on Cornell's attack; and when the Yale game has been written into the season's record, the jayvees will turn their attention to Princeton plays. "With so many injuries, this arrangement is proving a life-saver," he avers, "but under any circumstances we probably should have adopted it."

Coach Blaik is a firm believer in the advantages of having all hands, including the freshmen, working toward the good of the varsity. The playing of a freshman schedule is unnecessary, he holds, when scrimmages with the varsity will give the yearling gridmen far better experience and will also give them an early acquaintance with the type of football they will be playing from sophomore year on. It is entirely possible that the next few years will see the dropping at Dartmouth of freshman teams as they have been known in the past and the adoption of the mid-western system of preparing first-year men for varsity play. As it is, the freshman club is now getting the bulk of its training against the varsity, and it certainly appears to be thriving on it.

While discussing the place of the freshmen in the general football set-up, Coach Blaik announced for the first time that he expects to do special work with them next spring before calling out the remainder of the varsity squad. "As soon as the indoor cage is available," the Green coach explained, "we will take all the freshmen who want to report and work with them until it is time to move practice outdoors. In this way we hope to teach the new men enough fundamentals so that they will be ready to work with those who have had the benefit of practice this fall."