Pother
Harvard 19, Yale 6.
Princeton 27, Yale 2.
Such were the scores of the two games that ended Yale's unsuccessful 1933 football season during which a Yale graduate (26) named Reginald Root coached the team.
One week after the season ended, the New York Herald Tribune carried a story by Sportswriter Stanley Woodward to the effect that Coach Root might be replaced at Yale in 1934. Barflies in Manhattan's Yale Club, it appeared, had suggested as his successor Michigan's young Harry Kipke. The Tribune's story was picked up the same night by the New York Times. Next day. United Press sent out of Chicago a story that Coach Kipke had been approached by Yale with a job offer. Because Yale football policy has always been against non-graduate coaches, the New York Times sent a reporter to interview Yale's Director of Athletics. Malcolm Farmer. Mr. Farmer said there was no truth in the Kipke report.
Next day the Yale coach story gathered speed. The New York Evening Post printed two columns by Harry Nash who said that Dartmouth hoped to hire Coach Kipke, that some Yale footballers hoped Coach Root would be re-engaged. George Trevor (Yale '15) came out in the New
York Sun with a story that not Kipke but Earle Blaik, assistant coach at Army, should he made Yale's new football coach. Other papers continued to ballyhoo Kipke. Finally Coach Kipke gave an interview to the Associated Press at Ann Arbor in which he said he had definitely decided to stay at Michigan. This report served to quiet the story for three weeks. But right after the Christmas holidays it started again, more noisily than ever.
International News Service carried a scoop by Sports Editor Davis J. Walsh who had made a special trip to Ann Arbor to get the latest information. The information was that Coach Kipke had not talked to Malcolm Farmer about coaching the Yale football team. The Walsh story caused a nation-wide sports page panic. The Chicago Tribune ran a banner headline on an A. P. story which contained the first news about an alumni committee appointed to find a new football coach. Five of the committee apparently favored hiring Kipke. The Tribune brought the name of Yale's famed Benefactor Edward S. Harkness into the controversy but failed to give his opinions on Coach Kipke. In Boston. Sports Columnist Bill Cunningham sagely decided that Coach Kipke would find Yale material feebler than that to which he had been accustomed at Michigan. The New Haven Journal-Courier revealed that one Ivan Williamson, Michigan end in 1932, had signed a contract to coach Yale's freshman team in 1934 to pave the way for Kipke. The New York American discovered that it would cost Yale $27,000 to hire Coach Kipke and assistants for one year. Malcolm Fanner once more denied that Kipke had been asked to coach the Yale football team in 1934. Next day the Kipke story really began to break. All Manhattan papers carried advance notices about a luncheon at the Yale Club to be attended by both Mal colm Farmer and President James Rowland Angell at which, "an official Yale spokesman" predicted, the new coach would be named. The failure of the prophecy to come true caused more banner headlines: YALE STILL UNDECIDED ABOUT FOOTBALL COACH. This news was important enough to last for two days. Then sportswriters tossed into the pot the names of seven more coaches in addition to Kipke who might be hired by Yale. To the Associated Press, Michigan's assistant Athletic Director Franklin C. Cappon denied that he planned to transfer to Yale. In Iowa City Coach Ossie Solem of Iowa denied the same thing. New Haven belched forth a torrent of contradictory rumors: Yale's one-time Coach T. A. D. ("Tad") Jones might be re-engaged; the members of the secret committee would ask for the resignation of Athletic Director Farmer unless he hired Coach Kipke; Footballer Clare Curtiri, 1934 Yale captain, was conferring with President Angell about a new coach; a petition signed by the 1933 squad, for an "outside" coach (i. e. Kipke) had been sent to Dr. Angell.
Last week came two more developments in the Kipke story which seemed enough to cause it to obliterate all other news from U. S. sports pages. In New Haven, Malcolm Farmer announced that the Yale Athletic Association would not announce the name of next year's coach until Feb ruary. In South Bend, Ind., where he was reported to be conferring with "representatives of Yale," famed Coach Kipke made one more statement: "I am not considering any offer at Yale. I do not know where all the stories come from. . . ."
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