Atlanta Daily World

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - (SNS) - The crystal ball gazers who envision a post-season meeting of Florida A&M and Tennessee State will before long find their peer-into-the-future object a bowling ball. This is neither meant to be sly nor subtle but a confession of fact that those astute pigskin tutors A. S. (Jake) Gaither and Henry Arthur Kean won't meet on common ground in the Miami Orange Blossom Classic because of an agreement between the Midwestern Athletic Conference and the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association to put their champions into a classic at Greensboro, N. C., the same weekend.

This late season drama was concocted last Spring during the Midwestern Track and Field meet at Jackson College, in Mississippi, when Harry (Big Jeff) Jefferson and William (Bill) Bell telephoned Coach Kean to seek his co-operation in setting up the December game at Greensboro. Kean readily accepted and a committee of Kean, Jefferson and Bell working with CIAA president T. H Henderson of Virginia Union and George David, Midwestern president of Central State set up the game for the week following Thanksgiving which apparently thoughtlessly did not take into consideration the Orange Blossom Classic and the possibility that the top team from one of these two conferences would be summoned to play in it.

Coach Gaither is naturally incensed over this turn of events. He has already played Texas College and Prairie View and Southern University is on his regular schedule. The aforementioned teams are the top competitors in the Southwest and is thereby barren of prospects for the Miami bowl deal. Florida A&M is committed to play the Orange Bowl on the first weekend of December and any prospects of postponement is dim indeed. Thus Gaither and the Miami Orange Bowl are caught in a crossfire. It is a "squeeze play" that will be the test of the Rattlers skill and diplomacy to nip in the bud.

What has happened wasn't obvious to the public eye. The CIAA and the Midwestern merely committed their top teams to the Greensboro bowl. They did not necessarily bar their remaining members but there was a limitation placed upon the number of games in which member institutions could schedule and this was inclusive of post-season contests.

Monday, Gaither put out a feeler via telephone to Coach Kean to play in the Orange Blossom Classic. Kean reminded Gaither of the agreement existing between the CIAA and the Midwestern on the post-season encounter in Greensboro. Kean told Gaither he could not accept since the conference pattern was not clear in view of remaining conference tests against Texas Southern and Kentucky State regardless to the outcome of the game with North Carolina College next Friday night.

Knowledge of this agreement riled Gaither no little. This was understandable since the Greensboro game puts a formidable barrier on securing a truly standout foe out of either of the circuits. It will no doubt dampen the promotional aspects of the Miami game since Florida A&M will be forced to accept a second-rate opponent if it continues in effect.

All of the politicking behind-the-scenes was obvious to the scent of dollars which might accrue from the Orange Blossom game but the circumstances of something far more precious. There has been an obvious defection of national championships in the CIAA since the giant-killing days of Morgan State and a somewhat synthetic bid by North Carolina A&T College in 1951, when Morris Brown was universally knighted despite a spurious bid of the Aggies via the Associated Negro Press.