v' ll * ♦ » 0 V • i 11# Picking Arkansas to Take Basketball Crown; TCU Second; A. & M. Fourth Oh me, oh me! Prediction time is just around the corner and we may as well get it over with. This time it’s basketball and although this comer is still patting itself on the back for picking the South west Conference football champ ion, we’re kind of leary on these basketball selections. In the first place, very little, if any, is known about the South west Conference teams. I have seen but two teams in action— Rice and the Aggies—and neither have impressed me as having a good first division entry. Mostly, I’m basing my selections on the Oklahoma tournament where six of the seven conference teams took part, but, at that, it’s not much to base a selection. It looks as if the tree-top lads from the hills of Arkansas will be the team to beat with Coach Hub McQuillen’s TCU Horned Frogs only a notch behind. Ar kansas has impressed me very deeply. In the first place, the boys from the Ozarks always have a good team and it’s not such a dumb thing to place your purse on them. The Razorbacks are bas ketball conscious and even as far back as September when the foot ball season is just getting under way, the cage game is already on the scene up at Arkansas Univer sity. Just before Marty Karow, the Aggie cage mentor last year, left for the Navy he definitely stated that Arkansas would be the team to beat in 1942-43. He based that statement primarily on the fact that Arkansas would be getting the best freshman team in their history for the coming campaign. And so far, in exhibition games, the freshmen, plus a couple of over-sized lettermen, Gordon Car penter and W. Wynn, have done rather well, winning seven con secutive games before entering the Oklahoma tournament. So, it’s Arkansas in our books for the Southwest Conference bas ketball crown in 1942-43. However, I do predict taht the TCU Horned Frogs will be the surprise of the league. They have the advantage of playing Arkan sas twice on their home court and may prove to be a hard nut to crack. Coach McMillen has a vet eran outfit, comprised of quite a number of lettermen, and undoubt edly will be in the thick of the race. For No. 3 team, I’ll take the Longhorns of Texas University, who have shown quite a lot of ability in recent tilts. Their main problem is capable reserves and the loss of a number of key men through graduation, etc. They did hold the powerful Corpus Christi quintet to a five-point victory and that’s quite a feat in itself con sidering the number of All-Amer ican and All-Conference players that grace the Sailor squad. Rice Institute should be a notch behind. I saw them play in a two- game series against LSU which convinced me right then and there that they were of no championship caliber. Of course, Coach Joe Da vis’ five could make me eat all of those words but I don’t think so. And besides, their dismal show ing in the Oklahoma tournament further convinced me that I was right. A fast-breaking team easily would top the Owls and I do mean easily. Well, now we come to the Ag gies. I admit this may be too low a spot to place Coach Manning Smith’s crew for I’m sure they’ll upset one or two of the favorites. But the primary lack of a few capable reserves and the lack of height will tell on the Cadets. Mind you, I don’t mean to say that the Maroon cagers do not have any reserves at all. They do—and good ones at that—but I don’t think there’s enough to hold down the job. The other two spots should be shared almost equally by SMU and Baylor. I don’t know much about either of the teams but from re ports coming out from Waco and Dallas, respectively, state that these teams are very weak, in deed. There you have it. It’s a pre diction purely on the early sea son records of the respective teams and may be thorouhly wrong but that’s the way it looks now. You may take it or leave it, but don't say we didn’t warn ya! Georgia Over UCLA; Tennessee Over Tulsa; Texas To Take Tech In Friday Bowl Games Repeating this corner’s Bowl predictions for January 1 . . . Rose Bowl-Georgia 14 UCLA (I fear we may get stung on this); Sugar Bowl-Tennessee 20 Tulsa 13; Cot ton Bowl-Texas 13 Georgia 7; Or ange Bowl-Alabama 7 Boston Col lege 0; Sun Bowl-Hardin Simmons 13 Second Army 6; and West 12 East 6 (a surprise) ... I really am pessimistic on Georgia after re ports emanating from Hollywood state that the Bulldog stars are really enjoying themselves, going Indians Send 11,000 Men Into U S Armed Formes American Indians have sent 11,- 000 men to war out of a total pop ulation of 400,000 according to a report by Indian Commissioner John Collier, and additional thou sands into war work. Indian wo men are driving tractors and trucks, repairing automotive equip ment, working in laundries and power plants and rounding up cat tle and sheep in the West. Indian tribes have subscribed to nearly $2,000,000 in War Bonds and stamps. New students at Bluff ton college include a graduate of the Univer sity of Paris and a Japanese trans fer student from the University of Washington. out with the stars, ect . . . That stuff just doesn’t go when you’re after a foot ball victory . . . Most of the experts are going for Tulsa, Georgia Tech, Second Army and the East but I believe that many of these are going to be surprised . . . . Coach Homer Norton is in New Orleans upon the invitation of the mid-winter sports committee . . . this corner reported Norton to be in Dallas and I acknowledge the er ror . . . sports activities at A. & M. at present are confined to bas ketball and intramurals . . . this is a much different period than was the case last year when the Texas Aggies were making final preparation for the New Year’s football tussle with Alabama . . . However, if you do drop down to the DeWare Field House anytime from 4 to 7 p.m., you’ll note quite a lot of action from the basketball teams . . . Coach Manning Smith’s crew experience rough and tumble scrimmage sessions each evening and many of these prove to be quite interesting ... it seems that most of the boys not on the starting lineup on the Aggie cage team took an offense on the article published by the writer stating that the Ag gies lacked reserves ... So what did the boys do. ... Not much, they only trounced the regulars and by a healthy margin in a recent scrimmage session . . . Oh, well, that’s life, I guess . . . World premiere of the two-piano adaptation of “Piano Concerto in A Minor” by Edward Grieg was presented recently at George State Woman’s college by Jacques Fray and Mario Graggiotti. START THE NEW YEAR RIGHT WITH A NEW HAIRCUT SEE US AT THE OLD AND NEW Y BUILDINGS Y.M.C.A. BARBER SHOP BATTALION, Thursday Mornin, December 31, 1942 Page 3 x HIGHLITES* bi/^TTlike TJJann—— Local TU Student Gives Dope On Cotton Bowl Game Jan 1 Cagers Work Hard in Prep For Game Sat Reserves Surprise Regulars With Win In Scrimmage Tilt The Texas Aggie basketeers re sume their home season here Satur day night when they play host to the hustling Duncan Field quintet from San Antonio. The game is slated to get under way at eight p.m. at De Ware Field House. The Aggies under the leader ship of Coach Manning Smith have just completed one of their most successful Christmas trips in re cent years throughout the army camp area at San Antonio. They won three o ftheir five games which coupled with their previous victory over Randolph Field gives them a season standing of four games won and two games lost. Perhaps one of the most inter esting and certainly one of the most important facts about this year’s edition of the Aggies is the ability of every member of the team to score his share of the points. One night it’s one member of the quint who leads the scoring, and the next night it’s still an other member. All five starters of this year’s aggregation have looked especially good so far this season. Coach Manning Smith sent his charges through a stiff workout last night in preparation for Sat urday’s game concentrating on the team’s offensive game; free throws were also stressed during the pract ice. In a regulation game the re serves defeated the versity. Coach Smith has indicated that his usual starters will be seen in action at the start of Saturday night’s game also. They are Mike Cokinos, Leland Huffman, Les Pe- den, Pete Watkins, and Jamis Dawson. Student “heat cops” police dor mitories to hold down fuel con sumption at Mount Holyoke col lege. A CWS and E Eng advanced to the semi-finals in Class A hand ball by defeating B CAC and C Inf, respectively, by identically the same score of 2-1 in both matches. F. C. Keeney and E. E. Baker took the first match for A CWS, with N. N. Miertschin and J. C. Haral son taking the other. W. S. Potter and H. C. King took the lone match for the losing B Coast. In the E Eng’s 2-1 victory over C Inf, J. P. Hampton and H. F. Olexa took o»e match for the En- By Mike Mann Once again the old nemesis of intramural sports is coming into the foreground. The officials re port that the forfeit situation is going from bad to worse. In a number of the sports the number of games forfeited daily greatly exceeds the games actually played. great number of games were not played a few weeks ago when the motion picture company was on the campus. The intramural of ficial however, made allowances for these unavoidable delays and expected the turnout for the re mainder of the semester to be more normal. As a result of the movie delays, the program has had to be crowded into the last few weeks of the term. Many vital and deciding games are yet to come and, from present indications, more than a few teams will be dropped from the compe tition merely because of a forfeit ed game. No recreational officer or group of Aggies want their out fit to miss a championship just by fault of a single forfeited game. This is exactly what has happened to some teams and will happen to many more if a little care is not exercised. Nicky Ponthieux, intramural di rector, urges all recreational offi cers and their junior assistants to keep in close contact with their first sergeants in order to receive any notices coming from the In tramural office. All notices of re scheduled and postpoined games gineers while B. T. Flowers and R. B. Huff won the other. Win ning the lone match for the losing team was W. V. Crozier and E. M. Cumbie. Class B’s intramural races surged toward the finish as C Re placement Center advanced to the semi-finals in Class B volleyball race when they defeated 3rd Hdq. F. A. 2-0 and D F. A. reached the quarter-finals in Class B volleyball by downing I Field 2-0. are sent out at least one day in advance. This gives the recreation al officers ample time to make plans for the game in question. If it is seen that there will be dif ficulty in keeping the schedule the Intramural office should be con tacted at once. The sports in which forfeits have been unusually high this w;eek are Class A football and Class B ping pong with the latter sport taking the lead. Cold weather can not be blamed for failure to play the ping pong games. All of these matches are played in the YMCA and a comfortable playing area is provided. Tuesday night a forfeit took place in a quarter-final match of the Class A handball championship race. Here we have concrete evi dence of a forfeit costing an or ganization a chance at a sports crown and a point in the college race. With only about three weeks of Intramural activity remaining in the current semester, each and every outfit should make a real attempt to play all the games on its schedule. Many important games are yet to be played and a number of sport championships are still at stake—waiting for the best team to pull them in. Does your outfit have the best team? Only three games were played in Class A football during the middle of this week. Two of these bouts ended in scoreless ties with penetrations being the deciding factor. • 3rd Headquarters Field Artillery and D Coast Artillery played to a 0-0 tie with the Field boys win ning the game by virtue of a 20- yard line penetration while the best the Coast squad could do was to chalk up a lone 40-yard cross ing. A Signal Corps fought hard but could not keep the E Field Artil lery gridsters from entering the danger zones. The score was 0-0 but one 20-yard and two 40-yard penetrations won the game for the Artillery-men. The other grid en counter found American Legion meeting H Infantry in hard-fought battle which ended in a 6-0 score with the Legion team on top. By Dillard Spriggs Tomorrow, New Year’s Day, marks the seventh annual playing of the Cotton Bowl in Dallas with Texas University representing the Southwest conference against the rambling Wreck of Georgia Tech. This year’s game promises to be a thriller from start to finish; Georgia Tech has long been known for its razzle-dazzle type of play and especially so this year, and the Longhorns boost of a fine squad of scat backs and a fair to mid dlin’ passing attack. Season’s Records Right now lets dig down into the season’s records of these two teams, and we find that the yellow- jackets from Tech possesses by for the better one. First of all, there’s their victory over Notre Dame, which is always one of the strong est teams in the nation: then there’s the Navy, who had a better than average team on the field every He’s Done It Again! Loupot to Sponsor Top Notch Basketball Team Loupot’s done it again! After sponsoring an A-l soft- ball club this summer, J. E. Lou pot, prosperous local business man, is now planning to sponsor a top- notch basketball team, headed by such former Aggie stars as Bill (Jitterbug) Henderson, former two-time all-conference ace; Char lie Stevenson, ace baseball hurler as well as exceptional basketball player; and Weldon Maples, Cul len Rogers, Boots Simmons, Pete Slaughter, footballers, but all ca pable cage hands, plus many other prospective stars. Loupot stated that the team has a game scheduled in Houston and that it will play all comers. There is. a distinct possibility that the team will take on Coach Manning Smith’s Texas Aggie crew in an exhibition game in the very near future. Bowling Costs Are Coming Down The cost of bowling is coming down. The Office of Price Ad ministration has cut back charges to the September, 1941, levels, plus an allowance for recent increases in costs, for the benefit of 16,- 000,000 patrons of the alleys. The regulations bring about a national i average reduction of one cent for every three games of league bowl ings and one-half cent a game in open bowling. Each proprietor must post his ceiling prices be ginning January 22. At the same time, maximum charges for pool and billiards were fixed at the highest levels existing in March, 1942. game, and not to be forgotten is the Alabama Crimson Tide, the team that plays Boston College in the Orange Bowl at Miami. All of these teams went down in defeat as Georgia Tech rambled on its way. Then came the last game of the season against Georgia U. to decide the parcipant in the Rose Bowl. Of course, that game is his tory by now, but by way of clari fication Georgia Tech rambled down hill to defeat for the first time by the lopsided score of 34-0. That’s why Georgia Tech is play ing in the Cotton Bowl instead of the Rose Bowl. The story of Texas University’s climb to the Cotton Bowl is far dif ferent than that of the wreck from Georgia Tech, but nevertheless it is as interesting. The Longhorns had an up and down season with the Thanksgiving game being their crowning glory. The Steers started their season off strong with lop sided victories over Corpus Christi and Kansas State, and then jour neyed to the mid-west only to be defeated by the weak Northwest ern Wildcats, which incidentally was the only victory the Wildcats won all season. The Longhorns seemed on their way to an unde feated season until they ran up against the Horned Frogs from T. C. U. at Fort Worth and were adminstered a 13-7 upset licking. However, the Steers showed they were of championship material when they defeated a determined and high spirited Aggie team, 12-6. Tech Has Advantage By comparative records Georgia Tech holds the distinct advantage over the Longhorns, but somehow such comparisons won’t always work out when the respective teams meet. The Longhorns finished their season with a blaze of glory, and they have no reason to quit now. They have everything to win and nothing* to lose; that’s the spirit which is very likely to carry them through to victory. The Longhorns were bothered all season by the in ability to find someone capable of I holding down a starting position for the whole season. This was especially true in the backfield, but now Coach D. X. Bible has found two men who can hold their jobs down—Max Minor and Spot Collins. It was Tviinor who scored the first touchdown against the Aggies, and who played a magnificent game all day long. On the other hand, Georgia Tech should be very much ready for the Longhorns because they will be on the rebound from that de cisive defeat handed out to them by Georgia University’s Sinkwich and Co. Also one cannot forget Clint # Castleberry, the freshman ace who received much mention for All-America, nor can one forget the line which held Notre Dame to six points and Alabama score less. Picks Texas U However, yours truly believes that “everything to win and nothing to lose” spirit will carry the Long horns through to an upset victory in a game which is rated as a toss-up by most experts. The score should be 12-7 with the tea-sippers on top. Whew! And the Aggies Say They’re Short of Coaches Who Said Something About o Four Sports Letterman? Dimmitt's o Four Sports Coach A CWS and E Engineers Advance To Class A Handball Semi-Finals By Mike Haikin Your writer harped quite a bit on the 1942 season in last Tues day’s edition, but one thing I did forget to mention, even casually, was Lilburn (Lil) Dimmitt, the all-around Aggie coach and train er, who certainly deserves much mention when you talk of the Cadet fortunes throughout the 1942 season. Responsible for Success Certainly, he of all the coaches, had as much to do with the success of the A&M athletic program this year. In the first place when the fortunes of war engulfed Marty Karow and Dough Rollins, some one had to take their place. Head Coach Homer Norton didn’t have very far to look for their right behind him was the always ambi tious Lil Dimmitt. So Norton shoved the job of pi loting the baseball team right in Lil’s lap. Oh, sure Lil did have some experience with baseball here and there, but the 1942 edition of the Aggie baseball team had but three regulars returning. Now, what in the world could any coach, especially one who has not worked with the diamond game for quite a while, do with such scant ma terial. But, fans, Lil did IT! He not only developed a champion ship nine but he was responsible for turning one of the best base ball teams in the history of the conference—and with only three regulars serving as nucleus. Oh, yes, it was all Lil Dimmitt. I know. I made every trip with the team last spring and made it a point to watch how Lil works. He continually worked with the youngsters, corrected their mis takes, and gave them pointers that had plenty to do with their fine showing. Also Trainer And Coach And if you think that’s all the round-faced Beaumont product con tributed to athletics here, why, you’re off the beam. In the first place, Dimmitt was still the A&M trainer, a job he has had since he came here in 1935. But again Nor ton had to go to Lil for help. The A&M varsity eleven was in dire need of coaches since the departure of Karow and Rollins had filled a noticeable gap in the coaching ranks. So Norton took Manning Smith, coach of the freshman foot ball team, and added the former Centenary All-American and pres ent cage mentor to his staff. Now, the big question was: Who was going to handle the freshmen? That was a silly question to ask, someone mused. Just look around. What’s Lil Dimmitt for? Coach Norton snapped his fingers as if he had forgotten something and turned around and looked straight at Lil. Dimmitt sort of smiled as if to say, “ok, ok, I getcha, coach- er. When do I start?” Takes Over Fish Gridsters So Lil Dimmitt took over a bulky freshman squad which he himself had gathered from high schools all over the state. Along with his assistants, Euel Wesson and Bill Buchanan, former Aggie grid stars, Dimmitt,' who turned out quite a few high school grid champs back in the good ole days at Beaumont, he developed the strongest freshman team since drainer jDtPwntf John Kimbrough and Co. ran wild back in 1937. It won three games while losing one. Their only loss was to Texas Yearlings in Austin, played in rain and mud, which made the chief Dimmitt weapon— the pass—very ineffective. That was quite a record, consid ering Lil hasn’t coached football since 1935. But the former Georgetown ma yor, banker rancher and potential movie star (oh yes, Universal did give him a good looking over) wasn’t through. No sooner had the clamor of the football year (See DIMMITT, page 4) Dr. N. B. McNutt DENTIST Office in Parker Building Over Canady’s Pharmacy Phone 2-1457 Bryan. Texas WELCOME AGGIES We Are Glad to See You Back BEST WISHES FOR A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR AGGIELAND BARBER & BEAUTY SHOP North Gate Your Friends and Loved Ones Will Think of You More Often If They Have YOUR PHOTOGRAPH BE SURE THEY ALL GET ONE “Photographs of Distinction” AGGIELAND STUDIO North Gate