NUMBER SYSTEM IN FOOTBALL

Princeton football authorities are this year trying out for the first time the scheme of numbering the players. Each player has a number sewed to the back of his jersey to correspond with a list which is handed to each spectator before the game. In this way recognition of the players is possible by merely glancing at the card. The numbers were used for the first time in the Bucknell game last Saturday.

The scheme of numbering the players was much discussed last year, but no decision was reached as to its adoption. This year, however, the management has decided that the plan is worth giving a fair trial. It is now fairly started, and if it proves a success it will be used throughout the season. Last year the Navy team numbered their players, but Princeton has never tried it before.

Added to this comes the announcement that the committee on football at Yale is now considering the adoption of this same scheme of numbering the players. Pressure has been brought to bear upon the Yale coaches from many spectators urging the move in the interest of intelligence by the football crowds. Princeton's action in ordering numbering has established a precedent which will be taken up soon. As the Yale track athletic teams have always been numbered, it is urged that there seems no valid reason why the football players should object.

The Transcript comments on Coach Hinkey's innovations as follows:

"A novelty that has been added to the Hinkey innovations is that of moving pictures, showing football plays. Many of the plays which Coach Hinkey aims to emphasize either analytically or correctively will be shown for the benefit of the squad, while the coaches draw the moral in an accompanying lecture. This is the third novelty Hinkey has injected into the football studies of the members of the squad. The first was heaving forward passes by electric light, the second the importation of three or four Canadian players to exhibit quick dodging, criss-cross running and passing."