Most All-America and All-League athletic selections are phony. Determined largely by press releases rather than personal observation, and by statistics instead of the intangible, unstatistical excellences that can often mean the difference between a good player and a great one, the All-League listings tend to be approximations of talent.
This year's "official" All-Ivy team follows the pattern. The fact that it was determined by coaches, rather than sportswriters and publicitymen, leads one to believe the whole ritual is a study in futility. The coaches should be in a better position than anyone to pick a "dream" team, but the All-Ivy list announced this week seems to indicate that even they cannot do a rational job.
The most glaring absurdity is the presence of three quarterbacks (Dartmouth's Bill King, Cornell's Gary Wood, and Columbia's Archie Roberts) in the first string backfield, and none in the second. If there is to be any pretense to choosing by position, then these selections are unreasonable. To be consistent, the coaches should have just chosen the best 11 players in the League regardless of position. The current system has coaches vote for linemen by position, and for four backs.
Placing three quarterbacks on the first string conceivably could be defended if there was a great dearth of talent at other backfield positions. There wasn't this year, and this resulted in another mistake-the omission of Harvard's halfback Bill Taylor.
Taylor "Most Valuable"
By practically any standard one would care to choose. Taylor deserves to be honored as one of the best in the League. His teammates had no doubts about voting him the most valuable player on the squad, and that squad did take second place. Taylor's running abilities rank with those of any back in the Ivies. Further-more, he was one of the League's most versatile performers, excelling in running, receiving, punting, punt returning, blocking, defense, and scoring. Just on merit alone-without the consideration of position-he certainly is ahead of Columbia's Roberts, and quite the equal of Dartmouth's Tom Spangenberg, the only non-quarterback on the first string.
Taylor lacked only one "asset" that all the others had in abundance-a concentrated publicity barrage. Few people wrote about what a nice guy he was, and no one discussed his personal problems. Harvard's office of sports information didn't prepare a weekly release on what an indispensable player he was, primarily because he wasn't: no one is.
Grana Passed Over
There were other significant omissions. As long as players are to be selected by position, Bill Grana, Harvard's fine fullback, should have been on the first 11. Grana, however, in addition to lacking excessive press releases, did not have flashy statistics. Unfortunately, no count was made of how many yards Harvard backs gained as a result of his blocks. Rick Beizer, the Crimson's corner man on defense, also missed out in the voting. Beizer had no opportunity to make statistics. All he did was win football games with alert defensive play. It is hard to say how many other fine men were passed over for the same reasons.
I suppose All-American and All-League teams are almost as much a part of our society as girls, though, and it's hard to make a rational choice in either category. The important thing is not to take them seriously.
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