FOOTBALL.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 31, 5 February 1916, Page 16

FOOTBALL.

BUGBY. A candid opinion pf the Amer/can code of football is thus given expression to in a New York journal: —

Frank Moran, tlio forempst ccntender for the heavy-weight title by virtue of his knock-out pf Ireland's pride, Jim Coffey, was perusing tie fpotball results. The football columns receive Frank's attention first in any newspaper. "Ah, that's the game for youl" enthused Mpran. "Football is the greatest game In the world —and the toughest! Boxing is a cinch when compared with football. I know. I have played at both games. I played football regularly' fpr three years, and pardon mc if I 6ay I was a pretty fair player. In 190S I studied dentistry at the University of Pittsburg and played with their football team. After that I played left tackle on the Pittsburg Lyceums, a high-class professional team that toured the surrounding country and met the best* pro. teams to be had. We beat such teams as the Easton Supcrbas, Canton Tigers, and tho Columbas Panhandle Eleven. So.you sec 1 know what I am talking about.

"Yes, 6ir, fighting is supposed to be a brutal sport, and is being legislated against in some parts of the country, but let mc tell you that I have been battered and banged more in one football game than during all my career in the ring. In the ring you light one man. on the gridiron you have 11 to battle. The worst boating I ever received as a boxer was a pleasant dream compared with the rough handling I have been showered with on the football field. Once Jim Savage gave mc two black eyes, and they stopped the fight because I looked bad, and once Gunboat Smith knocked mc down. That is all the damage I ever suffered in the ring. But on the gridiron —Whe-e-c!" laughed Moran. "Them was the rough days. I was laid out more than once and suffered bruises and bumps galore, and a broken rib, too.

"And they call fighting brutal," went on the blond Pittsburgh boy. "Well, do you imagine for an instant that a chap could play in 200 football games! Many of our boxers, past and present, have engaged in over 200 fight*. Gans, Dixon, Baldwin, Attcll, and others have done co. .No football player could play 200 games unless he poescsses a feline number of lives.

"Boxing is a large and successful profession. Professional football is a failure. Why? Because football is the tougher of the two."