10-04-1984

Page 1

Volume 97, Number 5

Hope College Anchor

October 4, 1984

One, Two, Three, Four, What the Heck We pulling For?

ope college

olland, michigan

Dutchmen Fly to Victory by William DeBilder and Martin J. Hill Hope College launches its bid to regain the M1AA football title Saturday when the Flying Dutchmen host Albion College at Holland Municipal Stadium. Kickoff for the Youth Day game will be 1:30 P.M. Off to their best start since 1975 with a 4-0 record against nonleague opponents, the Dutchmen will be trying to show they are worthy of the pre-season poll of M1AA coaches who picked them to win the league's football crown. Their opponents, the Albion Britons, have been Hope's most spirited competitor. The Dutch hold a slim on victory advantage in a rivalry that extends back to 1926. Albion will bring a 2-2 record into the game. The Britons will be trying to snap a two-game losing streak while the Dutchmen will be out to win their seventh ina-row extending back into the

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1983 season. The teams rank one-two in the MIAA in passing offense. Hope is the league leader with an average of 233.5 yards a game in the air while the Britons' passing attack has averaged 230 yards a contest. Last Saturday, in their final non-league game, Hope defeated the Little Giants of Wabash College by a score of 34-24. Hope survived a fourth quarter surge by Wabash to stay perfect going into the league. Wabash was the first to get on the board by capitalizing on a Hope turnover, but Hope soon retaliated with a four yard run by Mike Sturm which tied the score at 7 apiece. Mid-way through the second quarter Hope got on the board again. Senior Running-back Tom VanHeest ran 44 yards and Kraig Jansen made good on the extra point to bring the score to 14-7. The defense held as the Little Giants were unable to score during that stanza. Hope had another opportunity

to score when Mitch VanPutten intercepted a Wabash pass to set up a Kraig Jansen field goal. Unfortunately, the Little Giants 1 defense blocked the punt and at the half the score stood at 14-7 The second half opened with a Greg Heeres to Sturm 10 yard pass for another touchdown. Later in the third, VanHeest broke open for a 56 yard run to put the Dutchmen up by a score of 28-7. Wabash got its act together in the fourth quarter, and threatened to take the lead. Thanks to two passes by Giant quarterback Steve Hoffman and a field goal, the Little Giants were able to pull w i t h i n f o u r , 28-24. H o p e , however, wasn't quite finished. Heeres threw a 16 yard pass to Brian Oosterhouse to put the game on ice. Greg Heeres performance Saturday put him into the record books by setting the school's total passing yards record at 3,963, breaking Mark Spencer's record of 3848.

Dr. Kraft Has Book Published

'I enjoy writing," says Hope Head coach Ray Smith refers College offensive line coach to Kraft as the football proGeorge Kraft, 44 and I enjoy foot- gram's 44author in residence." ball, so I combined them. That is Over the years he has written the main reason why I wrote my • nearly 15 articles on different book." aspects of coaching football. Kraft's book. Coaching the ''We certainly do not have any Fundamentals of Football, is due secrets because George has for release by Allyn and Bacon in documented in writing our mid-October. philosophy of the game," says Kraft is uniquely qualified to Smith. 4 Tin sure his book will be write a book of football. He has on our opposing teams' best been Hope's offensive line coach seller list." since 1967, an era considered to About four years ago Kraft be the most successful period in decided to bring everything the history of Flying Dutchmen together and write a book. He football. started on it during an academic He was also an outstanding sabbatical leave. Kraft feels the layer for a nationally ranked most crucial part of writing is heaton College team. As an getting away from the normal associate professor of physical routine. So he picked London, education at Hope, he teaches England to start writing. The book runs about 280 pages biomechanics and in addition serves as program director for and is diyeded into five sections. • The first two. •entitlfid.'iBersonal the Dow Center.

Considerations" and "Practical Considerations," aim. at the coach and what decisions he has to make concerning the personnel and p r o g r a m - p l a n n i n g aspects of coaching. The other three, however, deal with the part of the game we fans see. In "Building an Offense" Kraft outlines all aspects of the o f f e n s i v e g a m e f r o m terminology ("The most complete chapter on the terminolgy of offensive . football you'll find anywhere.") and position requirements to the whole sweep of offensive systems. The chapter on offensive systems presented a problem. Whole books have been written on every system and he could only allow a few pages for each. "I try to historically cover how these offenses came to be and whv thev came to bfr-from rupby

by Matthew AndersonIt was that time of year again-Pull season. And this year, as every year, I made the usual journey down to the Black River to watch the annual tradition which has drawn the Hope community together for ninety years. And, as always, I was very intrigued with the effort and teamwork I saw being practiced by the Pullers, Morale Girls, and Coaches alike. I want to congratulate both sides for their hard work and participation. Both teams gave an awesome performance. For the most part, as I have said, I was very impressed with what I witnessed last Friday. However, while I viewed the Pull, I realized that there were certain aspects of the tradition which I found to be unhealthy, unnecessary, and downright unacceptable. Although I am not by any means among those who think that the Pull should be done away with because of "sexism" or for whatever reason, I was strongly disturbed by what I perceived to be attitudes of viciousness, belligerence, and a preoccupation with beating the other team which I saw being displayed before and during the event, and which I think are detrimental to the spirit of healthy competition. Some of the signs on Pullers' doors demonstrated these attitudes very plainly, some comm u n i c a t i n g m e s s a g e s like "Napalm the Opposition," "Kill, Kill, Kill," while others resorted to personally graphic crudities, as in one that read "Don't forget to get your b—s into the rope." During the competition itself, I could hear some of the Morale Girls and Coaches screaming to their Pullers at the top of their lungs, telling them, in effect, that if they showed the least evidence of weakness or resignation, they'd be "losers" both to themselves and in the eyes of the team for which they pulled. Many members of the audience, most of whom were standing comfortably outside the pits, and conveniently not experiencing the physical stress which the central participants were undergoing, hurled similar forms of "encouragement" at the Pullers. How many of these expressions were genuine, and how many and soccer to today's pro attack." He admits it was tough to do. Defense is similarly treated in the next section "Building a Defense," but with a twist. Most books treat offensive and defensive systems as if they were isolated. Kraft, however, shows how offensive systems Influence defensive systems and vice versa. "what happens defensively dictates the offense; what happens on offense dictates defense. I've tried to develop it that way," he says. "I think it's the first book I've read that has done that." Closing the book Is a section on the kicking game. Here, kickoffs, punts, field goals, defenslng the kick-off, all aspects of that facet of the ^ame are discussed.

were simply traditional rhetoric, I am not qualified to say, but it appeared to me that the idea behind such exhibitions is that the Puller is not thought of as a human being, but rather as a piece of machine equipment with a limitless capacity to endure, and even relish, physical pain, for the purpose of satisfying the obsessive drive to 44 massacre" the opposition, which, for some at least, has become the allimportant goal of the Pull. Strangely enough, during the Nykerk contest, another one of Hope's special traditions, such belligerence is almost completely absent; one rarely sees signs outside participants' doors saying "Massacre Freshman Play," "Mutilate Sophomore song," or "Nuke the Other Orator." And why? Because in Nykerk, though it is certainly a competitive event, the basic emphasis is on learning to work together in a team effort which stresses mutual caring and support b e t w e e n p a r t i c i p a n t s regardless of the outcome. The Pull also has this supportive, "togetherness" spirit. I've noticed many posters outside pullers' doors which are clearly intended to inspire the puller with a genuine confidence in his own abilities, and which anyone setting out to accomplish something would certianly find uplifting. But, unfortunately, I've also seen the less appealing elements of hostility and pugnacity being manifested as well, and these characteristics, I think, not only fall to foster a spirit of healthy competition, but they also do very little to enhance Hope's reputation as a Christian college, for obvious reasons. Again, let me empahsize that I am not suggesting that the Pull be scrapped because of "sexism". The Pull is an important and even essential tradition here, without which Hope College would not be the same. Nor am I saying that the Pull be exactly like Nykerk, with Pullers wearing blue gowns and white gloves. What I am saying Is that the negative aspects which it contains need to be reconsidered, so that the positive a s p e c t s togetherness, teamwork, honest effort, and pride in accomplishment, can develop to a greater degree. •

Kraft has geared his book so that anyone can r e a d it. Realistically, however, he would like to attract the college student taking a football coaching coarse. "I think It's uniquely designed to be a textbook." Another group he would like to reach would be the young coaches just entering the profession. they could use it as a mlnlencyclopedla. Covering all the bases in his book Is something he set out to do. "I think there's been a need for an all-encompassing book that Isn't written by some bigname head coach who's telling the public what he does. I think I wrote a book that has a little more integrity to it in terms of covering all aspects of football.


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