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College Paper Burns Players
Charges Southern California Squad "Playthings of Movie Hearts"
LOS ANGELES. Oct. 11 [1934] AP — The charge that University of Southern California football players had become "toys to some henna-haired beauty" or playthings of movie magnates, in sad contrast with members of the once famous "Thundering Herd" was made today by the Daily Trojan, student publication.
Jack Frankish, editor of the campus paper, explained quickly, however, that the statement was made in an attempt to spur the Trojans who were defeated 19 to 0 last week by Washington State College, to better results in their clash next Saturday with the University of Pittsburgh.
The article charged the Trojans had been "wined and dined" by mercenary interests in the film colony for a long time and that the 19-0 defeat could be traced right back to Hollywood.
"The student body is 100 per cent for the team," Frankish said. "I think the team realizes that after the sendoff it received just before the departure for Pittsburgh. "What we object to is the business of movie interests getting the players to appear at various events and present trophies. They toss in a $5 watch as reward. We don't object to the men working part-time at the studios either. I believe that if the players will forget all about Hollywood they can beat Pittsburgh and that's what we all want them to do."
The editorial follows in part:
"Saturday's football game marked more than a mere victory for Washington State over Southern California. It marked, instead, the defeat of a team which plays football for the game's sake over a team of Hollywood-struck boys who once knew how to play football, but having been persuaded that they are already all-Americans, now only go through the motions.
"For several years Trojan football players have been the idols in the eyes of the mercenary populatlon of Hollywood. Rather the Trojans thought they were idols, though actually they were as toys to some henna-haired beauty or film magnate. - They were made to feel the world was theirs, when they were really just pawns in the grip of those wishing to further their own interests.
"Now that victory is no longer theirs, the Trojan grid men are going to discover that their real boosters are not the selfishly interested.
  L-R: Howard Jones, Cotton Warburton FILM BEAUTIES DEFENDED
By ROBERT STROTHER United Press Staff Correspondent KANSAS CITY, Mo., Oct. 11 — (UP) — The "henna-haired film beauties" of Hollywood, accused of diverting the minds of the University of Southern California football players from their gridiron duties, were warmly defended by the Trojan squad today. An editorial in the Daily Trojan, student publication, blaming the Trojans' defeat last week on the Hollywood influence, was read to the squad by Coach Howard Jones just before the men left their special train here to go through a stiff dummy scrimmage. They play Pittsburgh Saturday. Jones added a few blistering comments of his own and put the squad of 43 men through a workout looking like almost anything else but movie lounge lizards. They toiled under a glaring sun and were not cheered upon being informed the weather here was very unusual.
"Maybe it's true," said headman Jones in an interview after he read excerpts from the student newspaper at Los Angeles. "That ought to burn them up and if it doesn't they're not the kind of men I want playing for me.
"But they can't laugh at any Trojan football team. We're not going to play any movie game against Pittsburgh Saturday, and you can bet on that."
The team had little to say on the charges they were largely a group of "Hollywood struck boys who were as toys" in the clutches of the film queens and the movie magnates. But the editorial prediction that the Hollywood colony would now forget its loyalty to the Trojan team drew fire. The boys said Hollywood would not throw them over for losing a game and that, besides, they were out to win from the Pitt Panthers Saturday.
"Some of the boys were pretty sore," Cotton Warburton, all-American quarterback, who was specifically mentioned in the editorial, said. Warburton worked this summer in the camera department of a studio.
HOLLYWOOD BACKS TROJANS
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11.—(UP)— Hollywood "quarterbacks" and Trojan alumni assaulted mythical walls of the University of Southern California today in a spritely battle over charges in the Daily Trojan, university paper, that the grid team now en route to Pittsburgh had "gone Hollywood."
The campus was filled with garbled ire as "synthetic alumni," who adopted the school as an alma mater, protested their good intentions, and genuine graduates voiced heavy objections to the editorial blasting "Hollywood's influence" over the team.
Charges Confirmed
Meantime, the Daily Trojan's student editor, Jack Prankish, found welcome confirmation of the paper's charges in an article published in Variety, movie trade journal." U.S.C. grid coaches have had to combat the Hollywood problem for several years," Variety said. "Stars of the team have jobs opened for them in the studios during vacation periods by execs, department heads and directors, who have adopted the U.S.C. team as their own while winning."
The Trojans lost to Pittsburgh 20-6 and won only one more game all season to finish 4-6-1. |
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