American football . he wear and tear of a season. Almost equally to be deprecated is thewaste of time often devoted to makinghalf-backs of slow heavy weights. Only 96 AMERICAN FOOTBALL. a quick man can perform a half-backsduties successfully; and although muchcan be left to practice, there must besome natural quickness to build men can be improved far morerapidly in the forward line than amongthe halves. All this regarding theweight of half-backs applies not onlyto Varsity teams, but school teams aswell, if one will make the proper pro-portional changes in weight. That is, aVarsity p
American football . he wear and tear of a season. Almost equally to be deprecated is thewaste of time often devoted to makinghalf-backs of slow heavy weights. Only 96 AMERICAN FOOTBALL. a quick man can perform a half-backsduties successfully; and although muchcan be left to practice, there must besome natural quickness to build men can be improved far morerapidly in the forward line than amongthe halves. All this regarding theweight of half-backs applies not onlyto Varsity teams, but school teams aswell, if one will make the proper pro-portional changes in weight. That is, aVarsity player will be called upon toface a forward line averaging one hun-dred and seventy-five or thereabouts,and men of less than one hundred andthirty-five to one hundred and forty aretoo light to meet that weight. In schoolteams the rush line some twentypounds lighter, and the halves can there-fore be selected from even one-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound men, if well other words, a half-back ought not to. JOHN THE HALF-BACK AND BACK. 97 face over twenty-five pounds differencein weight; and the more that differenceis reduced, supposing that speed andagiHty be retained, the more chancethere is of turning out a thoroughlysuccessful player. It is worth while tobe thus particular upon the point of theearly selection of candidates for theposition of half-back, because, while nomore work is demanded of them in agame than of others of their side, thequality of that work must be more uni-formly good. When a half-back has totackle, he must be as sure as a steel-trap ; when a half-back has to catch, hemust be a man to be relied upon ; whena half-back is called upon for a kick,it must be no fluke; and, although noone expects a half-back to always makeon his run the five yards, he must bea man who will not be denied whenhe is called upon for that last yard7 98 AMERICAN FOOTBALL. which will enable his side to retain theball. Almost the first thing to be criticall
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