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Keeping Posted _With Bill Reddy_(Sports fans must be distressed, from time to time, by the injection of incomprehensible jargon into the discussion of various maneuvers. It seems to me that every year or so there’s a new wrinkle to be ironed out in football. The latest bit of folderol in football slang* has - to do with “belly” plays, or a “belly series.”This is a descriptive bit, because nearly everybody knows that bellies exist, but 'it seems that hardly anybody has found out what bellies have to do with football.Football coaches seem to delight particularly in making a mystery of their art or science or whatever it is, so that if they can come up with a new expression that Bill Reddy hardly anybody understands they presum ably are as happy as these gloomy characters ever can be.The “belly” affair used to come under the head of '‘options,” which means that a quarterback is given a choice, or option as to what he’ll do on « particular play. But with the development of the Split-T, in which the quarterback moves laterally behind the line of scrimmage, he gets a greater variety of choices.So now, you’ll find that instead of merely faking the ball in the. direction of a passing halfback or j I fullback, the quarterback often!! stuffs it into his teammate's mid-j riff, or belly. That doesn’t end] I the maneuver, however. Sometimes. after pushing the ball into the teammate’s middle, the quarterback takes it back. Then he ■ can even, if he has time, thrust itjj into another friendly belly, withi( the same option of leaving it or1, taking it away. * I'After some cf this sort of, j sleight-of-hand, the quarterback j still may wind up running with ft the ball himself, and anyway he'll pretend to do so.They used to call it a fake. Then they called it an option. Now they make it more of a fake, and it becomes a belly'' play.I ask you. is this progress, except perhaps in deluding the opposition? Is It scholarly, or collegiate? Maybe next year, just to heighten the confusion, the term will be dressed up. If they call it a “stomach” play, it probably will be the same thing.:]One surprising thing about the! new 24-second rule, in its first 1 professional basketball unveiling . here, was that not once, during., the 48 minutes of play, did either -team need more than 24 seconds., to get a shot away. Closest call ] was when Bonnie Costello, the, Niagara marksman, got the ball , 30 feet away, with only a second ( left, and fired a two-point bulls-eye.It speeded up play, unquestion-; j ably, but the players seemed oblivious to the clicking numerals.j It will mean higher and highers, point production, and it will elimi-j! nate stalling as nothing else could.!, Maurice Podoloff, happy about k the new NBA talent repre- L Muted In the College All-Stars ! array, said that players will continue to play the game without worrying too much about the time. It’s like driving a car,” he said. “Once you get in the habit of driving, you can judge your speed p r e 11 y well. If you're going about 50 miles an hour, you don't have to look at the speedometer to know it.” “When the 10-second rule went into effect, it speeded up basketball a lot. But players don't even think about getting the ball past midcourt within 10 seconds. They’re just in the habit of doing it.”It seemed to most observers that the principal other new pro rule, limiting each team to six personal fouls per period, may have to be relaxed a bit. But they’ll try it thjs way for a while before making any change.nn.ii.
Newspaper Details
Syracuse Post Standard
Syracuse, New York, US
Tue, Oct 26, 1954
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Sarah K.
NA, 30 Apr 2024
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