Oklahoma's new football staff Left to right, Tom Stidham, head coach, Dale Arbuckle, assistant coach ;Robert "Doc" Erskine, backfield coach; Stanley Williamson, line coach, and Pete Smith end coach .

WITH the engagement of Stan-ley Williamson as line coach and DaleArbuckle as assistant coach, Tom Stidham, Big Chief of Sooner football, quick-ly put his University of Oklahoma foot-ball house in order late in February andat this writing the green but potentiallypowerful Sooner spring practice squad isbusily working at Owen field .

Williamson, a big, graying 200-pounderpossessing excellent personality and a fineknowledge of line tactics, captained andplayed center for Howard Jones' strongSouthern California eleven of 1931 thatstopped a Notre Dame winning streak of24 consecutive games at South Bend thatyear. After his graduation from the Tro-jan institution, Williamson coached at Ok-lahoma City university and later at Kans-as State college .Arbuckle, whose undergraduate football

was played at Enid High School and hiscollege football from 1923 through 1926(he missed the 1924 season because of aninjury on Bennie Owen's Sooner elevens,tutored at both Duncan and OklahomaCity Central high schools prior to hiscoming here and developed outstandingteams.

Stidham reorganized his staff, movingRobert "Doc" Erskine, freshman coach,

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Sports ReviewBy Harold Keith

to the backfield coaching slot vacated byDewey "Snorter" Luster's recent resigna-tion, and shifting Lawrence "Jap" Has-kell, efficient Sooner line coach the pastthree years, to the freshman coaching job.Pete Smith, end coach, stays on in hiscapacity .

Haskell's switch to the freshman coach-ing job was particularly welcomed byHaskell himself since it released him fromfootball spring practice duties which badlyhampered his baseball coaching . Afterthis season Haskell loses off his Big Sixchampionship baseball team such out-standing players as Roy Myers, PopeyeLasater, Jack Riley, Herb Schefer, CarolBerryman and Jimmy Pope, not to men-tion Infielders Joe Gulledge and JerryCrosby who just recently passed up furtherSooner competition by signing with theBoston Bees of the National league andthe Tulsa Oilers of the Texas league re-spectively . The loss of all this playingtalent necessitates the development of al-most an entirely new team and will re-quire all of Haskell's expert coachingtime in the spring, hence Coach Stidham'sdecision to release him from his line-coaching duties and switch him to an-other staff position .Tragedy struck the Sooner football

squad February 28 when Justin Bowers,Oklahoma's All-Big Six right tackle fromWaukegan, Illinois, was accidentallykilled in an automobile wreck near thelittle Negro town of Boley. Bowers andJack Steele, sophomore fullback fromLone Wolf, were driving back from analumni banquet at Muskogee where theyhad been guests . Steele was driving,Bowers asleep in the back seat, when thecar struck a bridge abutment and was prac-tically demolished . Steele was uninjuredsave for severe shock but Bower's neckwas broken and he died instantly, in spiteof the ministrations of a Negro physicianwho soon happened by the scene. Ashort funeral service was held for thepopular tackle at the Catholic chapel inNorman with Father Joseph Hallisey incharge and hundreds of students attend-ing the sad event. Coaches Stidham andErskine then accompanied the body toWaukegan, Illinois, Bowers' home, wherefinal services were held and burial made .

Bowers' death not only shocked andsaddened the whole squad but left the Ok-lahoma football problem more acute thanever . Gone are nine starters of last fall'seleven : Ends Frank Ivy and John Shirk,Tackles Bowers and Gilford "CactusFace" Duggan, guards Ralph Stevenson

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and J . R. Manley, and backs Bob Sey-mour, Dick Favor and Beryl Clark . Alsolost are such valuable reserves as ends Al-ton Coppage and Charles Starr, tackleGeorge Wilhelm, guards Jerry Bolton andCapt . Norval Locke and fullback Byron"Ten Yards" Potter .

Besides, back J . S. Munsey's shoulderhad to be re-operated which means hecannot participate in the spring exercises .Neither can L. G . Fricdrichs, anotherhack, nor lZay Mullen, end, both of whomunderwent knee cartilage operations, al-though all three will be available nextfall .

In spite of these exceedingly gloomytidings, there is some fine football ma-terial available at Norman even thoughmost of it is green as an engineer'sshirt . Stidham's move to offset the al-most irreparable loss of All-American Ivy,Shirk, Coppage and Starr at end was toshift center Cliff Speegle and right halfBill Jennings to that position . Louis"Tree Top" Sharpe, 210-pound, 6-foot 5-inch junior from Checotah and LyleSmith, 200-pound junior from Fairview,are returning along with half a dozenhusky sophomores .Take out Roger Eason, Duggan's al-

ternate, and Howard Teeter, lettermanfrom 1937 who is trying a comeback inspite of the handicap of weak underpin-ning, and the tackles will all be green asemerald. But they are big and willing,particularly four sophomores, 215-poundJohn Funk of Okmulgee, 225-pound JoeAllton of Claremore, 230-pound HomerSimmons of Seminole and 215-poundLaddie Birge of Duncan, and ClovisPierce, last year's squad man, and theoutlook at tackle is at least hopeful.

Stidham has shifted Harold Lahar,senior right tackle, to guard this springto capitalize Lahar's speed and down-field and weakside blocking skill . Al-so returning at that position areOlin Keith, Hollis junior who be-came a real hand last year, and Ralph"Fats" Harris, 240-pound Stroud juniorwho missed most of the 1939 games be-cause of a leg injury, and also AllanFender and Willie Wick, two 1939 squadmen who saw no competition, and suchsophomores as Sammy Stephens andMitch Shadid .Novel Wood, up to 202 pounds, will

handle the center position with Jack Mar-see, his and Speegle's alternate last au-tumn, right behind him, followed bysophomores Bill Roberts of Seminole andClare Monford of Lawton .

Favor's competent substitute at theblocking back position last year, MarvinWhited of Hollis, is looking great at thatjob with sophomores Bill Campbell ofPawhuska, Dene "Pug" Harp of Fair-view and Roy Cagle of Oklahoma Cityall battling for the right to play behindhits .

Beryl Clark's loss at left half hurt but

APRIL, 1940

The five seniors who graduated from the Sooner basketball team this spring . Left toright, Herb Scheffler, Marvin Mesch, Gene Roop, Marvin Snodgrass and Jimmie McNatt

juniors Jack Jacobs, Orv . Mathews andFriedrichs are still on hand and also soph-omores Lindell Hayes of Wagoner andBoyd Bibb of Sayre. Although Munsey,smartest signal-caller of last fall's team,is out of the spring drill, he will be readythis September at right half and so willGus Kitchens, his alternate, and sopho-mores Bill Mattox of Meridan, Mississippi,and Tom Rousey of Quincy, Illinois,while the versatile Jennings can be shiftedback to that spot if necessary . Stidhamalso plans to try speedy Orville Mathewsthere as well as at left half .Seymour and Potter will be hard to re-

place at fullback, yet two big, fast sopho-mores, Jack Steele, 194, of Lone Wolfand Huel Hamm, 200, Oklahoma City,are running and blocking viciously inscrimmage while Pat Shanks, Drumrightsophomore, and Johnny Martin, BrokenBow senior who played next to Seymourlast year, should strike their stride soonas they recover from petty scrimmagehurts.Although Oklahoma must concede a

great deal to experienced teams like Ne-braska, Texas, and Santa Clara, the Soon-er football situation is far from hopelessin spite of the tremendous casualties . Al-though some lickings are in store this fallfor Stidham's young squad, Oklahomashould be a power in 1941 with a junior-senior team . Next season's losses-backsJennings, and Martin and forwards Wood,Speegle, and Lahar-total only aboutone-third of the veteran talent flown fromthis year's club .

Tie for basketball titleThe tipsy-turvcy Big Six basketball

race ended in a triple tie between Mis-souri, Kansas, and Oklahoma as CoachBruce Drake's senior team drubbed IowaState at Ames March 2, 51 to 42, and

closed the home season with a decisive47-36 spanking of Dr . F. C. "Phog" Al-len's Kansas Jayhawkers .The Sooners were a consistently formi-

dable aggregration in the closing weeksof the 1940 campaign, winning eight oftheir last eleven games . Drake, theyouthful Sooner coach who always has hisboys clicking their finest down the homestretch in March, cannily accomplishedit by shifting Herb Scheffler, 6-foot3-inch center, to a position in the outsideline on attack where Scheffler's cool gen-cralship, skillful spot passing and deadlylong shooting could be utilized (Schefllerscored 55 points in his last five games),and also by introducing a new star inHugh "Flyrod" Ford, 6-foot 6-inch center,from Billings, and so eternally polishinghis bewildering offensive system of singleand double screens that it shone with in-creasing lustre in each game, introducingthe deadliest Sooner set shooting sinceHugh McDermott turned out his greatOklahoma teams of 1928 and 1929 .Ford demoralized Kansas at Norman

March 8 with his leaping larceny off thelip of the Jayhawk goal and also someelegant pivot post shooting . Nearly everytime Kansas tried for a goal, Ford simplytook the heart out of Doctor Allen's fineteam by jack-knifing spectacularly abovethe ring to pick the well-aimed Kansasshots right out of the hoop, and his un-guardable turn shooting, in which hedunked the ball after a giant body swingthat looked like the slow revolution of ahorse-drawn hay boom, helped swell theOklahoma score . The popular SoonerIrishman, Jimmy McNatt, hit seven fieldgoals that night to give a gorgeous shoot-ing exhibition and win the Big Six in-dividual scoring championship for theseason by ten points while Marvin Snod

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Sports Review(CONTINU ED FROM PAGE 15)

grass, the "Human Handcuff," whosebristly blond hair stands straight up as hedogs great enemy scorers, slipped the steelbracelets on both Ralph Miller and How-ard Engleman, Kansas' great scorers, whowere permitted only one field goal each .

All this made Oklahoma look very goodin the Big Six playoff for representationin the National Collegiate tournamentand the Sooners justified this rating onthe small, exceedingly slippery neutralfloor of the Forum at Wichita, Kansas,on March 11 by defeating Missouri 52 to41 in their first round game .With seven minutes to go, the score

was tied 39 to 39, thanks to Missouri'sgreat spree of one-hand°_d shooting . HereCoach Drake sent Ford, his slim giantwho had been resting, back into actionand the Billings rookie broke up the ballgame . First he leaped his length to stealtwo Missouri shots out of the hoop . Thenhe was fouled by Blaine Currcnce, Tigercenter, which proved a four point mistakeas Ford not only canned the field goalCurrence sought to prevent, but also coollypocketed both free throws .However Ford's next goal completely

fractured the Missouri morale . Standingwith his back to the basket although hehad its location nicely gauged by the po-sition of his feet, Ford suddenly and au-daciously flipped the ball back over hishead in a totally "blind" shot that toeverybody's amazement swished throughcleanly . That was the play the big crowdtalked about as it filed from the Forum.Incidentally, big Schefflcr's excellent spotpassing and point-blank gunnery fromsemi-long set positions, and Captain Mar-vin Mesch's accurate long shooting frombehind Drake's cleverly conceived screens,not to mention Ford's feat of scoring 19points and doing some very telling de-fensive rebounding, also were factors .Oklahoma lost the finale the following

night to the fresh Kansas team, which haddrawn a bye and had the additional ad-vantage of thoroughly scouting the Soon-er tactics during the Missouri battle . Kans-as won 45 to 39 . The Missouri victory the,night before while the Kansas playerswere resting and studying the Sooner at-tack, had taken a costly toll of speed andstamina from Oklahoma although Kans-as's spirited rebound play which nettedher 25 more shots than Oklahoma got,and her aggressive throttling of Ford de-serve credit .

Doctor Allen's Jayhawks won the gamein the closing ten minutes of the firsthalf when they whirled into a 27 to 16lead that tired Oklahoma could neverquite overcome .The dogged rally of the exhausted Ok-

lahomans in the second half, as Drake'sseniors, realizing it was their last game

38

together if they lost, gamely resolved tosell themselves as dearly as possible, wasa beautiful and thrilling sight to thehundreds of Sooner alumni and well-wishers present among the noisy throngof 3,500 that packed the Formn .

Captain Mesch launched it on a fastbreak by feeding the speeding McNattfor a setup. Then Schefller dodged alunge by John Kline, burly Kansas guard,and banked in a long goal . Don Eblingcountered for the Jayhawkers with a fol-low-in after a missed Kansas free throwbut the red-clad Sooners, cool opportun-ists now where they had seemed slow andlethargic in the opening half, scored threemore field baskets in a row to cut theKansas lead to 29 to 26 and force the rat-tled Jayhawkers to sue for time out.The third of these quickly manu-

factured Oklahoma goals was the mostspectacular play of the night. Howard"Rope" Engleman, Kansas forward,had the ball in Kansas's outside lineof offense . Suddenly McNatt, who wascoiled in front of Engleman watchinghim like a cat does a bird, hurled himselfupon the Jayhawker, wrested the bulbfrom him, sprawled to the floor andsprang up in one continuous motion, andspanking the leather into a fast bounce,wove like a snake between JayhawkersAllen and Harp and fled dribbling to thedistant goal, gaining ground on his threeKansas pursuers with every stride untilhe doubled his lithe body into theair beneath the Kansas basket to de-liver the ball hoopward and then hurtleon into the crowd. But behind him thesphere lay safely in the meshes .

Kansas braced, forced big Ford's c1cc-tion from the clash because of personalfouls, and stretched her lead only to haveCaptain Mesch, who was shooting stun-ningly, deposit his sixth, seventh andeighth field goals of the evening to cutthe Kansas lead to 37 to 35 with threeminutes left to play .Then pandemonium reigned. Oklaho-

ma got the ball and rushed it to the Kans-as goal while the crowd, on its feet roar-ing, threatened to go mad. But everytime a Sooner raised his arms to shoot thetying basket, some Jayhawker threw him-self upon him. The turning point of thegame occurred when Bobby Allen, alertson of the Kansas coach, wrenched theball away from the heroic but totallytuckered Mesch and Kansas didn't sur-render it thereafter until she had scoredanother goal, then froze the ball just in-side the center line, spreading and weak-ening the Sooner defense and drivingthrough its thinned salient for two moregoals.The game was the last for five Okla-

homa seniors, Captain Mesch, McNatt,Snodgrass, Schcfcr and Reserve GeneRoop who made glorious basketball his-tory for Oklahoma the past three years.It was also the finish of young Drakes

second season as Sooner coach, in each ofwhich Oklahoma has won a Big Six CO_hampionship.

Faculty

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Art work praisedWoodrow Crumbo, '39cx, Indian artist,

was interviewed last month for the Eve-ning Star in Washington, D.C ., where hewas painting Indian murals in the newDepartment of Interior Building .Mr . Crumbo is head of the art depart-

incur at Bacone College, near Muskogee ."Young Woodrow Crumbo waved a

paint brush at a reporter today," the in-terview began, "and announced that he isgoing to give the District its first taste ofAmerican art." He declared, "There's notan American painting in any of your fam-ous galleries here-every last picture isEuropean . The true `American' art is In-dian art."The article was generous with praise

for the "warm, subdued earth colors per-fected before the white men knew theworld was round ; for the dignity andpride which characterize the symbolismwhich the red-skinned painter creates intwo dimensions ."

(GOVnNULD FROM PAGE 8)

Dr . Charles E. Decker, professor ofpaleontology, headed a geological fieldtrip last month which was sponsored bythe Oklahoma City Geological Society .

At the request of President W. B. Biz-zell, Dean S. W. Reaves has appointed acommittee of thirteen from the Collegeof Arts and Science to study the cur-riculum of the college and to make rec-ommendations for its revision in the in-terest of economy, efficiency, and scholar-ship .

For the regular Thursday afternoon teaat the Faculty Club March 14, the com-mittee was as follows: Mrs. B. J . Heinrich,Mrs. A. B. Sears, Mrs . Leroy Smith, Mrs.A . K . Christian, Mrs. Cecil Britc, MissLaura Miller .

A faculty luncheon for the Junior Hon-ors Group was held in the ballroom ofthe Union Building March 14 . Highscholarship was recognized . PresidentBizzell was the principal speaker.

Three faculty members participated ina regional conference on citizenship andgovernment at Dallas, Texas, last month.The three and their subjects are Dr . H.V. Thornton, "The Manitowoc Plan of aCitizenship Day ;" Dr . Cortez A . M . Ew-ing, "Training for Competent Citizen-ship ;" and Dr . Joseph C. Pray, "Tax Jus-ticc---flow It Can Be Achieved?"

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