In the Spring . . .

"Newspaper men," says Art Valpey, "never seem to understand the great gap between playing and observing the game--the team is never as bad as the press makes it out when it is losing and it is never as good as the newspapers say when it is winning." Well, his boys are neither winning nor losing games this spring, but already the sportswriters are dusting off the crystal ball.

Here's what one leading New York football columnist saw last week: "Harvard should stage a strong comeback ... the Johnnies figure to blast Yale and perhaps upset Princeton... Jim Kenary, a needle-point passer, will be cast for the role of Chappuis in Art Valpey's version of the Michigan offense. .. Hal Moffie, Harvard's seatback, can ontrun anybody on the Yale squad... Chip Gannon is due for a big year at Cambridge. .. Bob DlBiasio is the lad Yard birds tout as a 'second Mahan'... Tom Guthrie will be eligible next fall..."

As for the Yalies, they're on the skids, according to the New York scribe. He thinks Furse is a much better passer than Gallffa or Gustafson of Army, white Jackson and Nadherney are potentially superior to the present crop of Cadet ball carriers, but he wonders how they can gain "behind a small, weak line." Where will the Elis finish in the Ivy League? "It's quite possible that Yale will lose seven out of nine games next fall and wind up in the league celler ... why the Elis over scheduled Vanderbilt and Wisconsin is a mystery..."

Taking one last look into his crystal ball, he finds that, "Harvard and Princeton are rounding up most of the schoolboy talent, while Yale sits by, dreaming of the days when the Marine Corps shipped in ready-made players to New Haven..." He is, by the way, a Yale alumnus.