Albuquerque Morning Journal

SUSPENSION OF
FOOTBALL GAMES
IS POSSIBILITY

War Department
Requests
That No Schedules Be Ar-
ranged By Colleges Having
Student Army Corps.

[BY MORNING JOURNAL SPECIAL LEASED WIRE]

Chicago, Sept. 12.—The possibility of the complete suspension of football in all important colleges and universities in the country as a war measure loomed up strongly tonight as a result of the war department's request that no fall gridiron schedules be arranged by the 400 educational institutions having student army training corps.

All of the big universities in the middle west had already made plans for carrying out the 1918 schedules, and the request for the abandonment of the intercollegiate sport came as a distinct surprise. Practice was to have started in the "Big Ten" conference next Monday and similar plans for the practice season are under way in the Missouri conference.

Whether the war department request will result in ringing down the curtain on football for the duration of the war probably will not be definitely established until it is more fully explained. Officials of the University of Chicago said the request undoubtedly means that all spare time of the students will be devoted to military instruction instead of athletics and that under the war department program there would be no time for the development of football.

"Every able-bodied student will be required to devote fourteen hours weekly to military drill and forty-two hours weekly to academic studies on military problems," said David A. Robertson, secretary to President Judson of the University of Chicago. "Under that program there will be no time for football."

A. A. Stagg, the veteran coach at the university, pointed to the fact that at West Point the players devoted less than an hour a day to practice and said that he would attempt to build a team under the same circumstances.

"If the game is stopped, it will mean a loss of $15,000 to us," Stagg said.

The abandonment of the game will result in heavy financial loss at all institutions, as the proceeds of the sport usually met the deficit faced in baseball and other college games.