age 2 THE BATTALION
THURSDAY, MAR. 4, 1976
1913; Aggies begin to dribble into history
By DON MIDDLETON
and
JOHN ADAMS '
j The year is 1913. It’s winter and
! he weather in College Station is typ-
cally foul. The cadets fill their free
ime with bull sessions around the
vood-burning stoves, longing for
warmer days.
Frank D. Steger, General Secret
ly of the College YMCA and a close
riend of the cadets, is worried that
he winter inactivity may be harmful
o the boys’ constitutions. With the
lelp of Lt. Chauncey Fenton,
Commandant of the Corps, he or
ganizes a new athletic team. It’s his
lope that an indoor sport will help
ill the students’ idle hours and keep
hem out of trouble.
The game had been invented in
1.891 by James Naismith at the
fMCA College at Springfield, Mas-
;achusetts. No doubt the game had
:ome to the attention of Steger
hrough a “Y” publication or by word
>f mouth from other acquaintances of
iteger’s affiliated with the organiza-
ion.
The object of the game was to
jounce a ball around a wooden court
md eventually try to throw it
:hrough a woooden basket, sus-
jended ten feet above the floor, with
he bottom cut out of the basket,
;uspended ten feet above the floor,
t was played by two opposing teams
)f five members each. Oddly enough
t was called “basketball.’’
With Steger as head coach and
Fenton as a sort of public relations
man, the game quickly grew in popu
larity. The newly-formed team drib
bled their way to a creditable record
of four wins and two losses. The de
feats came at the hands of the Galves
ton YMCA and Houston High
School, both by the margin of two
points.
The next season Steger’s round-
ballers improved their record to 5-2,
and in 1915 they posted a remarkable
15-2 mark.
The Aggies thought so much of
Steger that they dedicated the 1915
Longhorn to him. In it they said: “He
was the man to start the game of
basketball at the College. If ever a
coach had the true sportsmanship
and honor, Coach Steger had it.”
Like so many others at Aggieland,
Steger left College Station when
World War I came along to serve in
France. After the armistice the In
ternational Committee of the YMCA
sent him to Egypt, Syria and Pales
tine to aid in the demobilization of
British units.
Frank Decatur Steger, the
“Father of Basketball at
A&M” and coach from 1913
to 1915. Courtesy University
Archives.
1922 Southwest Conference champions. Standing at the far left
is coach Dana X. Bible. Seated at the far right is E. King Gill,
the original “Twelfth Man.” Courtesy University Archives.
years^
which is not likely to be forgotten for
quite awhile. Hundreds of thousands
of fans have delighted in Shelby’s
court antics and his meticulous bas
ketball tactics.
Out of all the boys who have
John Beasley, holder of ten
school and three SWC basket
ball scoring records.
He also saw duty in Constan
tinople with 40 other Americans, in
cooperation with the Red Cross, tak
ing care of 130,000 Russians fleeing
from the Bolsheviks.
It seems odd that a man who did so
much for his school and his fellow
man has gone virtually unrecognized
this many years.
After Steger left, the Aggie bas
ketball team kept improving. In
1920, under the direction of Coach
Bill Driver, the team won its first
Southwest Conference Champion
ship. Driver has the distinction of
being the only basketball coach in
the history of A&M to post an unde
feated season, going 19-0 in that
championship year.
The next year saw the triumphiant
return to Aggieland of the incompar
able Dana X. Bible, a name you are
hopefully familiar with. When
Driver gave up the position of bas
ketball coach the student body in
sisted that Bible take command of
the team.
Dana X. coached the cagers from
1921 until 1927, compiling a career
record of 91 wins against 46 losses.
He won three conference champion
ships and suffered only one losing
season.
Of course, every school has
coaches who can be characterized as
mediocre at best’, lousy at worst.
A&M’s losingest coach is one John
Floyd, who coached from 1951 to
1955. Floyd has the dubious distinc
tion of being the only coach to ever
lose 20 games in a single season, a
feat which he accomplished two
years in a row. In five seasons he lost
105 games, winning only 51.
pounded the court for the Maroon
and White, five stand out as super
performers.
All-time-great-player honors un
doubtedly belong to John Beasle
(’64-’66) who holds 10 out of 18 indi-
However, it would only be fair to
mention that during his first season
the Aggies went 17-12 and tied with
Texas and Texas Christian for the
conference championship. That was
Floyd’s only winning season.
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vidual scoring records, including
most career points (1,594), and three
SWC records.
Bennie Lenox (’62-’64) holds three
school marks, Carroll Broussard
(’60-’62) and Cedric Joseph (’73-’75)
each own two, and Randy Knowles
(’72-’74) holds one. Broussard,
Lenox and Knowles rank2-3-4on4
all-time scoring list behind Beat J
Even though there are veryi
names in the record books, eve!
Aggie who ever dribbled a 1
a layup, fouled out or just suitedupL
a special part of the story ofbaslt® ni
ball at Texas A&M. im 1 '
B of
be rev
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That more or less brings us to a
gentleman who holds several coach
ing records himself. Among his
laurels are most victories (197), most
losses (132), most seasons coached
(13), most seasons over 20 victories
(2) , most victories in a single season
(21), most conference champion
ships (4) and most academic degrees
(3) . Of course, the man is Dr
Metcalf, Ph. D.
. It’s time to
celebrate!
In the past thirteen years, Shelby
Metcalf has been the last word in
Aggie basketball. He has left a mark
on the school and the conference
Time
_ „ .sToiil/e/ ^ -i -i
to uelebrate
House seeks leak source,
Schorr doubtful witness
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Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The House
Ethics Committee is attempting to
focus its investigation not on CBS
correspondent Daniel Schorr but on
hunting down the person who leaked
a secret intelligence report to him.
In the next few days, the House is
expected to give the Ethics Commit
tee broad subpoena power to force
individuals outside Congress to tes
tify in the investigation. It already
has the authority to question mem
bers of Congress and House
employes.
Schorr has acknowledged he ar
ranged publication of the House in
telligence committee’s classified re
port in the Village Voice, a New York
weekly newspaper.
On Tuesday, the House Buies
Committee cleared for floor action
the resolution which would give the
ethics probers the power to sub
poena any person or document “it
deems necessary.”
Anderson, noting his bill to pro
tect newsmen against prosecution
for refusing to reveal sources, said he
believes the investigators should
look into how the intelligence com
mittee operated. He said the probe
should go into whether the panel
carried out a mandate to protect con
fidentiality of the material it hand
led.
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But Ethics Committee Chairman
John J. Flynt Jr., D-Ga., said, “I
want to emphasize . . . that our
committee, despite widespread mis
conceptions of our instructions from
the House, is not investigating any
particular person. The committee
was directed to find out how the
select committee report was leaked
and who leaked it.”
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Later, Flynt told reporters that he
had “no idea whether we will call
Mr. Schorr or not. I am not ruling it
out or ruling it in.”
At the Rules Committee hearing,
Rep. John B. Anderson, R-Ill., told
Flynt, “I hope you are not planning
to use the subpoena power to compel
an individual to reveal his sources.”
r DoesnjT HwYoiue '
HPPRfcClATS, R6AU
COLTURe ftWYHORe?;
-iDAemSy-^
Che Battalion
WEEKLY
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