 This is Jimmy Powers coming your way with another Grantland Rice story. Oh there, once again this is yours truly, Jimmy Powers. Football has come a long way since the days of Granny Rice's youth, when as a 138 pound half-back he was all but massacred as a member of the Vanderbilt University 11 back in 1899. But Granny never lost the spirit behind college football, and through his eyes the football coaches, the men who taught and teach the game to the youngsters of our land, constitute a vital cornerstone of a sports happy America. And so, with a warm salute to the every young spirit of Granny Rice, I take up his narrative in first person. Asa Bushnell, guiding hand of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, a federation which includes all colleges with a registration of more than 25 football players, recently asked me to rate the top 15 or 20 coaches I've known through the years. I couldn't do it. There are too many friends I'd have to leave out. However, for about 25 years from 1904 through the late 1920s, I kept running into a group of the most colorful coaches football has ever known. Most of them were great coaches because they were strong personalities. Their won and lost records had little to do with my affection and respect for them. I've learned more from a coach talking with them after a losing game than I ever did in discussing the play that won for them. Lou Little remarked on this one evening after Columbia had been dumped by a mid-season foe. I wandered into the Columbia dressing room after this particular game and found Lou practically alone. Granny, he chuckled, Why is it that you always show up after we lose, but I seldom see you when we win one? It's this way, Lou, I said. After you've won, I've got to buck a subway rush even to get a glimpse of you. But on afternoons like this, well, it gives us a chance to get together for a nice chat. That I like. These were the zealots. Then there followed such men as Newt Rockney, Lou Little, Earl Blake, Fritz Kreisler, Howard and Tad Jones, Percy Houghton, Chick Meehan, Bernie Bierman, Biff Jones and John McEwen, Bill Alexander, Frank Kavanaugh and many others who were just as able but lacked the flaming color of the earlier group. For example, after an Illinois-Michigan game, Yost and Zupke were discovered still on the field in a violent argument at 10 o'clock that night. It was Zupke who invented and first used the huddle. It was Stagg who used the direct pass from center to the ball carrier with the quarterback eliminated. I can't find out who invented the tee, but it was used as early as 1908. These earlier coaches were largely fanatics of fantastic types. Yost was the most serious man I ever knew. I was hunting wild turkey and quail with him in the East Tennessee mountains one year. I think it was 1908. We started home after dark. We had to forward a shallow, swift-running river. About halfway across, I slipped on a rock and was dumped into the river. I kept yelling, but he never heard me. He was clear across, driving for home when he first missed me, still unable to make headway against the rocks and the current. He came back, picked me up, and then went on talking as if nothing had ever happened. Yost and his brother-in-law, Dan McGuggan of Michigan, were exact opposites. Dan had a keen sense of humor. A great coach, he refused to criticize his men on the field in any way. He waited until after the game. Yet he had a deep respect for Yost's football judgment, for Yost knew football. I asked Pop Warner once in Yost's presence who invented the spiral pass. Yost, Warner said, looking directly at him. He also invented everything else in the game. Yost seriously thanked Pop for the admission. Yost had a great fire in his gaunt system that he passed on to his team. He came to Michigan in 1901 and was undefeated in 56 games before being beaten 2-0 by Stag and Chicago in 1905. Ring Lardner was traveling with Yost in the early 20s when some argument came up about the Michigan-Pennsylvania game of 1906. Penn won that one 17-0, Ring said. No, Michigan won it, Yost said. That was the year we had Garrels a great fullback. Penn won it, Ring repeated. That was the year they had Scarlett and Green. Finally, Yost bet Ring $5, a tremendous bet for Yost. They looked it up in the record book. Score, Pennsylvania 17, Michigan nothing. Yost refused to take any money, but he'd beamed in the thought that he was right. The reason I knew he was wrong, Ring said, was a verse I remembered from FPA following that 1906 game. Oh, East is East and West West, and when the twain shall meet, the red and blue is the real who's who in the land of the flying feet. Franklin P. Adams, being the best writer of light verse this country ever knew, registered more with Ring than Yost did. Those earlier coaches were brilliant. I recall Illinois and Zupke in 1916. Illinois was playing Minnesota. Minnesota that year had an all-powerful team. They were beating Big Ten teams 50-0, teams that had whipped Illinois badly. I know Lardner and the Chicago Tribune had picked Minnesota 50 or 60-0 over Illinois. No experts figured Illinois better than a 40-0 defeat. The day of the game came on. Zupke called his Illinois squad headed by 139-pound Ed Sterneman together. His address to the team remains a classic. I am Louis XIV, he said, and you are my court. After us, the deluge. The team didn't exactly know what Zupke was talking about, but they cheered. Today, Zupke said, I want you to have some fun. Get beaten 100-0 if you want to, but have fun. But I want to tell you something. I've had this great team scouted. On the first play, Galloping's Sprafka will take the ball. I want 11 of my men to tackle Sprafka. On the next play, Big Anderson will take the ball. I want all 11 of you guys to tackle Anderson. But suppose, one of his men said, suppose somebody else takes the ball, what then? I'll tackle him, Zupke said. According to rumor, Minnesota had built a special box for Walter Camp, the famous All-America picker. Camp is supposed to pick seven All-Americans from Minnesota today, Zupke said. Just then, a loud cheer was heard. Zupke took young Sterneman aside to watch the gophers run onto the field to warm up. As Minnesota came on the field, continued Zupke, Anderson threw a 50-yard pass that practically stuck in Baston's right ear. I don't see an elephant on that squad, said Sterneman. Illinois stopped Minnesota dead in three plays. Illinois got the ball and scored on the first play, one of Zupke's weird inventions. And those big Swedes stood and hung their heads below the goal after the touchdown, Zupke recalled. They were so ashamed. Illinois beat Minnesota that day 14-9 for one of the greatest upsets in football history. I recall the trip Frank Craven, the actor, and I made Illinois to see Red Grange at work. It was 1925, Grange's last year, and Illinois was opening against Nebraska. When we arrived, Zupke looked at us and said, I'm sorry you came to see this game. Why? asked Craven. I'll tell you, replied Zupke, my team has got away from me. They think they're unbeatable even before their first game. I can't wake them up. So I've given them only four plays against Nebraska. Grange won't make a first down. Nebraska won 14-0, and Grange didn't make a first down. For all that, I got to know Zupke in a different and deeper light, so it was all worthwhile. It was during that trip that Zup remarked to me, Grant, all I ask is for my team and myself to be respected. Nothing more. Both Zupke and Illinois were always respected. You can gamble on that. I respected Zupke for losing that game, more than I respected Frank Lay for tying Iowa 14-14 in 1953. But Zupke was the toughest of all coaches to beat when he pointed for a certain game, especially if he could find some psychological wedge to use against the enemy. For example, Fritz Kreisler, Michigan's able coach, once made an important mistake. It was when Tom Harmon was at the height of his brilliant career and Michigan, with Eveshevsky blocking for Harmon, was all powerful. Kreisler made few mistakes in his coaching career. He was one of the ablest of them all, especially as an offensive coach. His mistake was in giving out an interview before the 39 game with Illinois, stating that Harmon was a better back than Red Grange. Zupke saw his chance. So, Harmon is better than Grange, Zupke said to everyone he could reach. That is about all he told his team that week. Kreisler says Harmon is better than Grange. He even got the professor of psychology interested. Yes, Zupke told me, and he was the professor of pragmatic psychology. When Illinois, an inferior team with a far inferior record, met mighty Michigan, Tommy Harmon thought he was playing against 20 or 30 men. Every time he took the ball, he was tackled by 8 or 9 men. He was hit so hard and so often by so many wearers of the orange and blue that he practically gained no ground at all. He no longer made long runs or even first downs. Well, Illinois won 16-7, and Zupke went back to his study of philosophy and painting, which he likes as much as football. And that's it for today. In another installment of the Grantland-Rice story, adapted from Granny's best-selling autobiography, The Tumul and the Shouting, we're going to meet such famed coaches as Harvard's Percy Houghton, Pittsburgh's Jock Sutherland, Gloomy Gildoby, Alonzo Stag, and others who stamped their crest on football. Until then, this is Jimmy Powers' transcribe saying, So long for now.