‘ The French called it la savate and boxers used -their feet in the ring around the turn of the century. Today boxers in Thailand fight with their feet as well as their fists, and this picture shows how it’s done. Gert Whyte 's SPORTLIGHT HIS feat of Tell, the archer, will be told ; While yonder mountains stand upon their base. By Heaven! the apple’s cleft right through the core. Schiller’s William Tell. Speak of archery and most Englishmen think of 1066 And All That. But archery was a science and an art long before the Battle of Hastings. Watching a man and woman demonstrate how to use a bow and arrow on TV recently, it eecurred to me that the an- cient and honorable sport had . been completely neglected in this column. I don’t know if many (or any) of my readers are archers, but here goes. * Modern man usually shoots arrows at a target with a var- iety of circles — a sort of darts at long range. But for 30 centuries man shot arrows at man, for archery was a means of making war most effectively, up until the advent of gunfire a few hundred years ago. The arrow took ‘over where the slingshot. and the spear left off, and history * records that the Egyptians won the first great battle against the Persians with the use of the new weapon. The vanquished Persians had put their trust in slingshots and javelins. The early Egyptian bow was about five feet tall and the arrows were 24 to 32 inches in length tipped with bronze Modern bows are six feet for men, six inches less for women, and modern arrows are 28 inches for men, 25 for women. The average man’s bow re- quires a pull of about 25 pounds; women’s about 30 pounds. You can see field arch- ery is not a game for sissies. Attention, class, let’s get back to our history. Shertly after the dawn of _the Christian Era the Genoese, French and Spaniards were all excellent bowmen, and - it’s hard to say which European country was the first to adopt archery. It took several lickings by the Norsemen to persuade the English Army to adopt this newfangled weapon, but when, in the 14th century, archery was made compulsory, England soon developed the best bow- men in Europe. Had they not been, France might have won the Hundred Years War which began in 1340, and history would have been changed, ma foi. Aide toi, et le Ciel t’aidera. Excuse, please. The English didn’t lose, and I can’t speak French. In 1360 some brilliant brain on the English HQ staff tried mounting a few bowmen on horses — Genghis Khan had done it years before — and discovered that his bowmen now had a range of from 400 to 700 feet. In the next melee with the French it was sheer murder. France lost 11 princes, 1200 knights and about 15,000 soldiers, while the English losses (official) were fewer than 50. Even the scribes knew how to draw.a long bow. Firearms superseded the bow and arrow about the beginning of the 17th century in England. Sports historian Frank -G. Menke claims, however, that as late as 1888 the clans of Mac- Donald and MacIntosh used bew and arrow in a clan dis- pute. (Presumably, the Scots had been too thrifty to throw away their ancestors’ wea- pons.) Target archery is a popular sport today, and the rules haven’t changed a great deal over the last couple of cen- turies. The aim is to hit the inner ring, or bullseye, of the target from varying distances. How William Tell would fare in a modern archery contest is sheer guesswork. Put him up against TV’s Robin Hood and you’d have a match that would outdraw a Grey Cup game. By ROOSEVELT WARD JR. Ma Is boxing monopoly % facing a knockout? NEW YORK It looks like the headlock held over the fight game by the James Norris organ- jation is about to be loosened. It’s too early to tell what far-reaching effects will result-from Judge Sylvester Ryan’s ruling that the International Boxing Club is guilty of conspiring to monopolize boxing. But it’s reasonably certain that Norris’ absolute rule over boxing as IBC president will be unable to survive the current verdict. Sometime soon government lawyers and défense attorneys - will present proposals for put- ting the. Ryan decision into ef- fect, from which the federal judge will deliver his own de- cree redefining financial and promotional practices of boxing _in the USS. Even before the IBC started operations in 1948, boxing had been noted for its success in eluding all attempts to rid it of corrupt practices. So the extent of the anti-monopoly decision will depend on how severely the final decree will handle the IBC by eliminat- ing new dodges and assuring that practices just as bad can’t be instituted by other groups. In his 59-page ruling Judge Ryan said the intent and re- sult of. the complex activities of the IBC “was to combine in order to obtain control of, and exclude others from promo- tion of championship boxing contests in the United States. “Of the 44 professional championship contests pre- sented in the United States be- tween June 16, 1949, the date of the first championship con- test promoted by the defen- dants, and May 15, 1953, the defendants promoted or con- trolled the promotion of 36, or approximately 81 percent of them,” Judge Ryan discov- ered. : Even more, 93 percent of the championship matches were controlled by the IBC between January, 1951, and May 15, 1953, with the organ- ization holding TV, radio and movie rights also, owning and Sugar Ray Robinson is training hard for his bout with middleweight champ Gene Fulmer but few experts give him a chance to win back the crown he once held. More than 80 percent of title bouts are run by IBC controlling arenas where the matches were presented, with exclusive rights on Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds for outdoor shows. The IBC octopus operation began in 1949 when retiring heavyweight champ Joe Louis was used as a pawn to get four leading heavyweight contenders to sign exclusive contracts for a heavyweight elimination series for the title. After Louis retired, the ex- clusive contracts were assign- ed to Norris and his principal associate,. Arthur. M. Wirtz, who set up the IBC corpora- tion. With exclusive possession of the heavyweight champion- ship, the IBC was then able to’ make its ownership self- perpetuating by insisting that challengers agree to defend exclusively for IBC if they copped the crown and succeed- ed in signing exclusive con- tracts in a majority of the other divisions. Rival promoters, unable to compete with the powerful IBC, were either bought out or crushed. Clubs closed, pro- Sn moters left the field, manag- ers were forced to knuckle under or else, and the ten- tacles of the IBC spread from coast to coast devouring the lucrative fight game. Judge Ryan may order th? corporation to~ separate the business of promoting fights frém the business of operating such arenas as Madison Square Garden., Chicago Stadium and the Detroit Olympia. It may be ordered to give up one or more of these aren- as or its stock in one or more IBC affiliates. Exclusive con- tracts with champions like Lightweight Joe Brow®t Middleweight Gene Fullme? and Welterweight Carme? Basilio may be declared ille- gal. It may also be ordered dissolved. In any event what finally happens to the IBGE will not a5 sure a resurgence of small time . or independent proioting, but a little more competition 19 likely. koe APRIL 26, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 14