Atlanta Daily World

MARION JACKSON'S
SPORTS
NEWS
REEL

The action-packed, rip-roaring, and power-laden giants of SIAC football are marking time until the 1947 editions of their football power-houses are fully blue-printed.

Top conference and intersectional tilts point to the banner year for the warring pigskin factions, who will wage do-or-die campaigns for an assortment of alma maters.

Veteran football campaigners will be launching a fight to stay in effulgence-effervescence of pigskin's bigtime spotlight. The bright hopefuls, as represented by the newcomers, will be seeking a berth in football's fastest company.

Many of the top-ranking colleges will have only a brief period of practice and scrimmage. Alabama State, who'll jump the pigskin gun, by playing the Pensacola Naval Air Base, Sept. 19, will have to perfect its experimental T-formation in two weeks or 17 days to be exact.

Morris Brown, due for a date at Hornet Stadium, Friday night, Sept. 26, will have had several weeks of practice, but the excessive heat retarded the effectiveness, to a large extent, of their 90-degree heat-sizzling drills.

Morehouse College begins practice Sept. 15. The starting date is identical with their "Freshman Week" celebration. The Maroon Tigers must be ready for a Columbia, S. C. date with Benedict, which stunned the Tigers last season with an upset.

New coaches will greet players at Xavier University, LeMoyne College and Clark College.

Other changes are listed by these non-conference schools, Albany State and Georgia State.

All SIAC colleges are primed to play except Talladega. The Alabama college dropped competition even before World War II and has not seen fit to resume play. Yet, the following highly-geared elevens will uphold the banner of the SIAC. They're Ft. Valley State College, Xavier University, Florida A. and M., Alabama A. and M., Fisk University, Clark College, Morehouse, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama State, Benedict, LeMoyne College, S. C. State, Lane College and Morris Brown.

There will be some pressure on the SCIA to admit some additional colleges to the SIAC at Jacksonville, September 5, but the move is generally conceded to fail. It is highly improbable that any colleges, now outside the "sweet circle," will find the inside track to SIAC competition for sometime even if Talladega College drops its membership.

There are few intersectional tilts that have already captured the fancy of the football addicts.

Among them are the Clark-Wiley mayhem mixer, the Morehouse-Virginia Union turf tussle, the Wilberforce-Tuskegee cleat caper, the Morris Brown-Kentucky State jumbo-julep, the Morris Brown-Shaw University flareup and the Tuskegee-Hampton block buster.

Inter-conference squabbles include the classics which are nationally-famous for no-hold barred competition.

These gridiron grudges are Morehouse-Morris Brown, Tuskegee-Morehouse at Columbus, Alabama State-Morehouse billed for Atlanta, Clark-Morehouse billed for Atlanta, and Florida-Tuskegee.

The South's largest sepia crowd will view Tuskegee Institute and Alabama State renew their Thanksgiving Day feud at Crampton Bowl, Montgomery, Ala. A similar all-SIAC affair will be the Morris Brown-Clark College tussle at Ponce De Leon Park. Tennessee State will throw fireworks at Fisk in Nashville, Tenn. At the same time other less important elevens will be in Turkey Day tilts.

Players at Clark College will greet Coach Marion J. Curry, who was a sensational Panther-player during the thirties. His ambition is that of every football-playing alumni-to return to coach his Alma Mater to a winning season.

He has a MA from Ohio State.

In Memphis, LeMoyne will have as its coach All-American Charles "Bo" Spearman, who returns to his old haunts, where he starred with the famed masters of the razzle-dazzle, the Mad Magicians.

Spearman has just received the MA degree from Columbia University. He starts practice September 2.

In New Orleans, La., Alfred Priestly is the new head coach.

Priestly before making his debut in the SIAC, turned out prep power houses for years at Xavier Prep.

The new coach will see what he can do to revive the doddering Gold Rush of Xavier. Xavier long a SIAC giant has folded in SIAC competition in recent years, but the Catholic Fathers of Xavier, like the peers at Notre Dame, love a winner.

Ted Wright moves over to Georgia State. Albany State gets Chris Rhoulac. These are not changes in the SIAC, but deserve mentioning.

SPORTS NEWSREEL

Woody Strode of the Los Angeles Rams commenting on the Rams training camp: "Jimcrow? Tension? Trouble? Hell, no, it doesn't exist here among the men and never did. The only time you ever have to have any racial trouble is when somebody in command sets it off-but it never begins with the men. Look around and see for yourself."

Florida A and M is negotiating with a nationally-known tennis player to teach this sport and serve as varsity coach for a year-round program in tennis, according to A. S. Gaither.

Wendell Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier is doing a series of sports articles for the Chicago Herald-American. He spends four days of each week in the Windy City, working on Hearst sports staff.

Sugar Ray Robinson's first-round beak-busting of Flashy Sebastian put a chill on the idea of the welterweight crown going to the orient, 16,000 Legionaires watched the "Sugar" crush Sebastian in 1:02 of the first round.