Miscellaneous

Topekan Crowns E-State Queen
Capital's News Service

     EMPORIA—H. W. "Bill" Hargiss of Topeka was extended the privilege of crowning the queen Saturday at Emporia State College's homecoming.
     Traditionally, the president of the college does the crowning, but Pres. John E. King turned the job over to Hargiss, a member of the school's 1905 football team and a former coach here.
     At halftime of the game with Pittsburg State College, Hargiss placed a crown on the head of Mary Jo Armsby of Emporia, the "Miss Peggy Pedagog" of 1955.  W. S. Knox of Russell, alumni president, presented flowers to Miss Armsby.

Just As It Seems to Me 
by Stu Dunbar, State Journal Sport Editor

     CHANCED ACROSS Bill Hargiss, who spent 30-plus seasons in the football coaching business, and found in him an avid believer that the game has been improved for the boy, the spectator and eventually the coach in a return to one platoon.
     "I kept track in one game at Kansas last fall, and my best count was 976 football players on the field during the afternoon," said Bill.
     In case you're wanting to divide by 22 that's 44 1/2 complete changes of teams.
     Bill, who in his Emporia State and Kansas U. coaching days, was a double-wing man, played T for four years in high school, four in college and then coached the T seven seasons.
     He'll insist today that Art Schabinger, his C. of E. quarterback, later to play at Springfield YMCA college, and then to coach basketball with great success at Ottawa U. and Creighton, "is the finest T quarterback I've ever seen."
     Bill believes there will be a drifting back toward power football of the single and double- wing varieties; that massed lines —7, 8 and 9-man—will eventually stop T. It was concerted defenses, he said, which made the T decline in popularity 30 years ago.
     Concerning the pressure-to-win which has grown and grown, Bill offered this thought, "We're offering what is supposed to be an amateur game at professional prices ... and that tends to give the spectator a professional slant on the game."

E. T. Lowther of The Emporia Gazette

     Last evening at the Broadview Emporia's football teams were honored by the town. The High School the College of Emporia and the Teachers College squads, with their coaches and trainers — and with many players' wives — were guests of the two Chambers of Commerce and the Quarterback club in the first town wide football dinner since away back before the war. It was a happy occasion.
     And it was a different kind of football dinner. It was different because it marked a kind of a homecoming for a man who has meant much and given much to athletics In this town for more than 40 years. Last evening former coach, H. W. "Bill" Hargiss, the "Old Bald Eagle of Emporia," was the speaker and he not only talked football, he performed a duty efficiently and eloquently by bringing to the present generation of Emporia youth, high school and college, something of the tradition and the lore and the meaning of the sport as it has lived through more than four decades or the playing fields of Emporia. He unfurled the old battle flags in all their glory.
     And Bill had a gorgeous time doing it. He told of the time he first came to Emporia, a green freshman at the old Normal; of the crowds—the Normal crowd and the College crowd and, of course, of the south-end crowd, and the town fights which made football seem tame, and of Mit Wilhite and his everlasting peace-making. He told his young listeners about Hensley and Priest and Dingman and Sampson, of the Normal; about Billy Culbertson and Edson and Brock Pemberton, of the College. And of course, about the battle of the hymn books and the paint pots and the ultimate "severance of relations" between the schools, and the resumption of a rivalry that lifted the annual Teachers College-C. of E. Thanksgiving game to the top in Kansas sports.
     Then Bill Hargiss reminisced about his coaching years at the College and the Teachers College. He reeled off names that younger players should know about, and games long forgotten. But in the telling of his story, Bill revealed to this present generation of young students the rich tradition of sports that has long been Emporia's. As he outlined the changes in the game—he didn't fail to mention his old "regular" formation introduced at C. of E. which was the "T" formation of today—he also traced the evolution of intercollegiate sports in the past 40 years up to this postwar boom year. And he warned that the great college game may tumble from the heights unless some fair, honest middle course of action is worked out on a national basis, to eliminate the evils of subsidization and proselytizing and hypocrisy.
     And so it was a felicitous occasion, this homecoming of Bill Hargiss. May he come back again, and often.—E. T. L.

—Daily Capital Staff Photo
EAGLE EYES—Judges at the Kansas University Relays yesterday formed this stair-step pattern for the cameraman as they clocked various events. Standing is Head Judge Bill Hargiss of Topeka and former K. U. track coach. Up the stairs from left to right are Frank Guenple, Robert Armour, Harvey Selvidge, R. E. Peters and C. E. Woodard.