FREE FUMBLES RULED OUT BY COMMITTEE'S DECISION

Continuing its effort of the last few years to eliminate the element of chance in gridiron contests, the national football rules committee announced yesterday that the chief result of a three-day secret session in Atlantic City was the adoption of a radical new rule making fumbled balls dead at the point of recovery, when recovered by the defensive team.

The general opinion among football coaches, it was said, was entirely favorable to the committee's decision. "The new rule," it was explained in a statement issued by the secretary, "will not apply in case of forward passing nor to backward passes which are intercepted before striking the ground, nor will it apply to blocked kicks, which will be played as heretofore."

A. E. French '29, captain of last fall's Crimson team, was not enthusiastic over the change. "It is unquestionably good," he remarked, "in that it will make the game a great deal fairer. Our team last season can recall occasions when an unfortunate fumble changed the whole score. The best team in the world is apt to lose through some unlucky break. The new rule will lessen such occurrences. But," he added, "it does so by sacrificing excitement. It seems to me that the present tendency calls for an excessive removal of chance. Breaks have a real place in a football game; they certainly give it a healthy tenseness; and I don't think any one of us is so afraid of them that he'd want them all eliminated."