Gunn, Got, Lum & Lorn

When Coach Benny Lorn of San Francisco's Chinese football team counted noses before the game with the city's Japanese team at Kezar Stadium last week, twelve players were missing, including Charley Chan, onetime star of Commerce High School. The absentees were less afraid of their opponents, or the possibility of the game's ending in a riot as it did the last time they played in 1930, than they were of their parents. Most Chinese families had forbidden their sons to play with the Japanese boys since matters had gone so far in Manchuria. Of the 2,000 Orientals in the grandstand only 150 were Chinese.

Coach Lorn is not Chinese. He is a Jew who was once a crack halfback of University of California.* He artfully persuaded his players who did show up that their parents would probably be less irate if they won. However the Japanese, including two former college linemen named Ping Oda and Ichiyafu, outplayed them for three periods. Then the Chinese team pulled itself together. Leong blocked Sim Nambu's punt on Japan's 8-yd. line, and Charley Hing slashed to a touchdown. Another blocked kick and Hing went over again. With the score 13-to-12 against them, the Chinese tried for extra point by a forward pass, Gunn to Got. Bill Got gathered in the ball on the goalline, was tackled and thrown back. The officials called it good, and the Chinese burst into a frenzied cheer. A mob of excited Japanese surrounded the officials, who changed their minds, awarded the game to Japan, 13-to-12.

Chinese Manager James Lum, fearful of what awaited him that night in Chinatown, announced: "I will leave town."

*When California's Centre Roy Riegels made his notorious run in the wrong direction in the 1929 Rose Bowl game against Georgia Tech, it was Benny Lorn who overtook him, tackled him just short of his own goal.

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