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Show Foot Ball 1916-17 Coach Norgren FOOTBALL, has had its fling- and held the stage for its brief hour but in that time it has, like all true blue and basic things, contributed unto the general scheme of college life and colored it so that when the picture of this closing year is held up to view it will be altogether more pleasing and more permanent with than lacking the gridiron touch. A coach flushed with the spirit of youth and ambition, not daunted by previous reverses or made a G'od-like ego through a national championship prestige but withal more solid and sincere issued the early call for material in the latter part of October and with the meager showing started to mould a championship team. "Lack of material," was a constant cry but never was there a stopping in the firm established resolve, never a halting to breathe self-pitying jeremaids. There was work to do-stern and exacting- and only men could stand the pace. Laggards fell like chaff by the way side and were forgotten. A team of championship propensities was surely formed. The first game with South California gladdened the heart of every loyal Utahn. When Boulder came and saw and was conquered, there was no gloating but a deep healthful satisfaction permeating every nook and cranny in the Bee Hive state. Utah Aggies "were the next to fall in the whole souled effort to reach the ladder's top. Then came the first reverse with Colorado Aggies at Port Collins. Crushed were the hopes for a championship but not crushed was the loyal growing, living, student body spirit as was shown by the welcome given the team on its return home. Hope was not dead in the minds of the student body. Faith, life, energy, all were directed toward a goal, the goal of second place in the Rocky Mountain Conference. But it was not to be. As if a mighty army, to all appearances welded so strongly by common purpose that life itself was mere bagatelle when "weighed on honors beam at side of it, had, through a slight reverse been torn apart and scattered like pygmies before giants, the 1916-17 University of Utah football team ended its career and went to pieces before the apparent attack of Colorado College but in truth it died, suicide-a violent death, unhallowed and unmourned so startled were the students and the people of Utah. And although the end was not all that could be desired and stood out probably too much through its uniqueness the mind reverted soon to more pleasant things and optimistic as the University student is he began to see the lining of the distant cloud. It "was silver and so he looks now into the future and waits for next year to reveal the whole of its splendid interior. 115 | |