Last week a press dispatch trickling from St. Louis stated that Thomas W. Cahill, secretary of the United States Football Association and well known by a host of soccer devotee and friends in this city, intended to resign after the final game in the cup competitions this season. Upon his arrival in New York he confirmed the report.
This is the most surprising piece of news soccerdom has had since it was made into an organized sport mainly through Cahill's efforts eight years ago. He has been the honorary secretary of the organization since its formation and has guided it though its battles and troubles with a firm hand.
While he has made a few enemies by his determined policy, no one has ever questioned his unswerving fidelity to the objects of the organization, or his energy in serving them. He has seen the sport grow from a negligible thing into the big winter game of the middle west, and the organization which he started with a little nucleus of clubs in New York, a couple in New England, a half-dozen in Philadelphia, six Chicago and four in St. Louis has now grown into a body which has to play its national championship contest in two sections, one in the east, the other in the west, the sectional winners meeting the final for the championship.
Soccer football has long been in the eye of some of the baseball managers, notably Charlie Comiskey, of the White Sox, as a means of utilizing their parks in the winter time, and Cahill, in announcing his resignation from the U. S. F. A. said he intended to devote his time to organizing a national league of professional soccer teams, and while he has not yet announced his plans, it is probable he has been going into the matter with the baseball people.
Ed Cochems, who as director of athletics achieved national fame by his development of the forward pass the first year that play was legalized in college football, has also been working on the soccer proposition, and he too thinks that game has a bright future. Its biggest handicap has always been the lack of suitable playing fields, and if proper terms can be made with the baseball magnates, this problem will be solved.