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This articles is a portion of the Article published in the February 1924 Purple, Green and Gold.

Lam Chis starred on Many 1923 Football Teams

Jack Blott, Michigan Selected as Walter Camps First All-American Center, Fraternity’s Outstanding Gridiron Performer; Zetas at Wabash and Alabama Poly with Six Letter Men Each, Led Other Units; Few Zetas without Football Representatives.

By Augustus Beall, Jr., Cincinnati

A TEAM of veteran stars greets the picker of this year's All-Lambda Chi Alpha football team. With a single exception the members of the first team shown above were chosen last year for either the first or second All-Fraternity team. In addition a majority of the members of the second team are Lam Chis who have shown well in gridiron activities before.

With one or two exceptions the members of this year's team have far outshone their previous performances, and the 1923 team is fully up to the high standard set by the team of the year before. As was the case last year, the forward line is somewhat superior to the back field, at least in respect to the prominence accorded its members in the press. The backfield, nevertheless, comprises a quartet of stellar performers, able to carry on any sort of offensive in a manner far above the average.

The representation of the Fraternity as a whole also kept pace with that of recent years, showing perhaps a slight improvement in the number of letters awarded to the members of the various Zetas. As in previous years, it has not been possible to obtain an absolutely complete report of all Lam Chis participating in college
football, but it is certain that the total reached at least HO, possibly a few more, with about half of these men winning letters.

JACK BLOTT LEADS

Without doubt the outstanding gridiron performer among the wearers of the Crescent as far as the matter of prominence, ability, and improvement over previous performances was Jack Blott, '24, All-American center from Michigan. Blott has risen in two short years from a newcomer on the Michigan football squad, who had not even thought it worth his while to report for football in his sophomore year, to the greatest center and one of the outstanding linemen of the country. Blott had the job of tilling UK- hole in the-Michigan line left by the graduation of "Ernie" Vick, another All-American center. So well did he do the job that this fall "Hurry-up" Yost, his coach declared: "He is the greatest (renter that the West has seen in years—since the days of 'Germany' Schulz, in fact."

Blott went to Michigan from Girard. Ohio, where he played football and baseball with the high school team. Strangely enough, his football experience in those days was gained as a fullback and as an end, not as a center. Baseball was his favorite sport. In his freshman year at Michigan he reported for football, bill left the squad after two nights, deciding that he would never make « college football player and that he would do better to devote his time to studies and baseball. It was not until he made the varsity baseball team as a catcher in his sophomore year that he attracted the attention of the football coaches and was persuaded to report for football.

SUCCESS IMMEDIATE

Blott's success was immediate. He started his junior year us regular center on the varsity squad and played through the year without missing a minute of play. At the end of the year he was chosen for second All-Western center by Walter Eckersall, noted gridiron official, and was given honorable mention for the All-American team by Walter Camp.

At the start of the football season last fall Blott was recognized as the main-stay of the Michigan line, and, with Kipke and Uteritz, backfield men, formed the basis of Michigan's hopes for another championship team. Early in the season he demonstrated his all-round value to his team when he place-kicked a goal against Vanderbilt for the only-three points of the game. Again in the Iowa game, one of the most important contests on the Michigan schedule, he was solely responsible for his team's victory when, after passing the ball to Kipke, he recovered a partially blocked dropkick over the Iowa goal-line for a touchdown, the only one scored by his team.

These achievements outside the line of duties of an ordinary center, combined with exceptional .strength in the line, both on offense and defense, marked him before half the season was over as one of the outstanding centers in the country. From then on Lam Chis all over the nation watched his progress with interest, pulling for his selection on the All-American team. Thus it was that Michigan men were not the only ones who felt the sinking sensations of despair when news dispatches from Madison, Wis., told of the breaking of Blott's leg in the first half of the Michigan-Wisconsin game. His necessary absence from the Minnesota game the following week, the last one on the Michigan schedule, endangered not only Michigan's championship but also his own selection for national honors.

WINS PLACE ON CAMP'S TEAM

Michigan, however, rose to the occasion and tied for her championship, and Blott, though sitting on the sidelines in the climax of his team's season, was accorded the honor that comes to very, very few men even once in a life-time—a place on Walter Camp's first All-American team. Camp was not the only man who recognized his ability. 'Practically every other selection of importance including his name either as first or second center, and in the majority of occasions, as first center. The composite selection of five hundred sports writers, coaches, and officials included him on the first team. His closest rival was Garbisch of the Army and formerly of Washington and Jefferson, who was playing his seventh year of college football. Brother Blott was also a unanimous choice among critics and coaches for All-Western honors. It is almost wasting space to say that he has been selected as center and captain of the first All-Lambda Chi Alpha team. The guard positions on our team are filled by men not far short of Blott in ability, although they have not received

Notes:
Blott led Michigan to a record of 8-0-0 and a National Championship in 1923. After graduation, he played one season for the Cincinnati Reds before left professional baseball to coach lines lines on Kipke's championship teams and later served in the same capacity on Michigan's Rose Bowl teams of 1947 and 1950 and on the national championship staff of 1948. Among players he developed were All-American centers Maynard Morrison and Chuck Bernard.