Greater Than Grange

Michigan won the toss. Tom Harmon caught the kickoff, ran the ball back to Michigan's 30-yard line. In three plays, he and Bob Westfall made first down. Westfall drove through left tackle for 20 yards to put the ball on Illinois's 34. Two more first downs and the ball was on Illinois's 12. Then, while Coach Zuppke's boys scrambled to cover Harmon, Little Dave Nelson scooted around right end on a double reverse, ran twelve yards for a touchdown.

Illinois took Harmon's kickoff but punted after two plays. From Michigan's 32, Harmon and Nelson advanced the ball to Illinois's 23. Then Harmon, on a lateral from Nelson, slithered around left end for 20 yards. On third down, Harmon cut back through right tackle for Michigan's second touchdown. The game was less than ten minutes old.

Michigan rooters yelled till their cheeks cracked. This was the game they had been waiting for since last year, when Bob Zuppke's inspired Illinois beat Michigan, 16-to-7 This year's Tom Harmon is better than last year's. Toughened by a summer of lifeguarding the municipal beach of his home town, Gary, Ind. (and punting up & down the sand for at least an hour a day), Senior Harmon has been a one-man gang. Practically singlehanded, he mowed down California, Michigan State and Harvard, scoring a total of 69 points. It annoyed Illinois last year to hear him ballyhooed as a "second Red Grange." But now he was called "greater than Grange," "greater than Willie Heston" "greater than Jim Thorpe." Wags dubbed Michigan "Thomas Harmon University."

A natural athlete, Harmon was a 14-letter man (football, baseball, basketball, track) at high school, was Indiana State champion at the 100-yd. dash and 220-yd low hurdles. On the football field, he is fast as a jack rabbit. His speed, and his uncanny sense of anticipation, a formidable straight arm, powerful leg drive that shakes off tacklers like tenpins, a confounding change of pace and rumba hips, make a Harmon touchdown run a memorable performance. In addition to his ball-carrying talents, he is a better-than-average blocker, passer, punter, placekicker, quick-kicker and kickoff man.

Like most superathletes, Terrible Tommy is always on the spot. Just as baseball fans expected Babe Ruth to hit a home run every time he went to bat and fight fans expect Joe Louis to knock out every opponent in one minute flat, football fans want Harmon to run 95 yards at least once in every game. In Michigan's first game of the season (against California), Harmon ran back the opening kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown, wriggled 72 yards for another, 86 for a third. Against Michigan State and Harvard he was less spectacular, but ran up the score. Last week Bob Zuppke's boys, pledged to do or die for 34 the ghost of old Red Grange, ganged up on Harmon just as they did a year ago. Though he never got loose for a long run, he scored one touchdown, kicked a field goal and helped his teammates to whitewash Illinois, 28-to-0.

While jubilant Michigan alumni monopolized dinner conversation wherever they happened to be, 2,000 homecoming grads gathered at Ann Arbor that night for a farewell banquet to 69-year-old Fielding H. ("Hurry-Up") Yost, Michigan's Grand Old Man, who will retire next spring after 40 years as football coach and athletic director. Through tear-dimmed eyes, they reminisced about Yost's immortal point-a-minute footballers who, during the first five years of the century, lost only one game out of 57, rolled up 2,821 points to their opponents' 42; the 13 All-Americans he turned out in 25 years; how he was ridiculed in 1927 when he built Michigan's magnificent stadium and field house.

During Yost's 40 years at Ann Arbor, Michigan football teams have played 308 games, won 237, lost 54, tied 17. Yet Fielding Yost last week remembered not only the full name and graduation year of all his stars (37 of Michigan's 40 captains were at his farewell dinner), but also some definite play that immortalized each one. He even recalled the exact spot on which each play was started--and no one challenged his memory.

Looking back, Michiganders had reason to hip-hip-hooray. Looking forward was not so rosy. Next week Michigan will play Pennsylvania, a powerhouse that bears a terrifying resemblance to Yost's point-a-minute men. In three games this season, George Munger's Quakers have amassed 147 points: 51-to-0 against Maryland, 50-to-7 against Yale, 46-to-28 against Princeton. What they will do when they meet Tom Harmon U is something Michiganders look forward to with mixed emotions. Francis X. Reagan, star of the Penn squad, has scored ten touchdowns in three games. In four games Harmon has scored eleven.

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