WILLARD PROVES A YELLOW JOKE, NOT A WHITE HOPE

ALLEGED COMING CHAMPION DUCKS GUNBOAT SMITH White Feathers Enough In His Makeup to Stuff a First Class Mattress BY WILLIAM J. SLATTERY

Jess Willard, the giant cowboy of the plains, is not aching for the sort of game they deal here in San Fran- cisco. He came through with a cold turndown of an offer to fight Gunboat Smith here next month, intimating through his Chicago representative that "Smith has too much of a punch in his right hand."  This may be taken to mean that the cowboy is laying for the soft ones on the other side of the Rockies and that he does not intend to blossom out as a candidate for the heavy weight championship honors as the public was led to believe.  The refusal of Willard to meet Smith here means that there will be no im- portant heavy weight elimination con- test during the coming month. Up to the time Jim Griffen received Wil- lard's telegram yesterday afternoon, it did look as though we would see a battle between Willard and Smith, and possibly one between Willard and some other hope, but the big fellow himself has seen fit to flash the white feather, so he is now regarded in San Francisco as a white joke and not a white hope.

WILLARD DOES THE DUCKING  Smith is willing enough to take on any of them. Although he never did stand right with the followers of the game in this city, he is willing enough to keep on trying and when the Wil- lard match was sprung on him the Gunboat seemed delighted. So did his manager, Jim Buckley.  As Smith is about 40 pounds under Willard's weight and about 6 inches shorter, it looked as though he might duck the match, but the giant himself did the ducking, all of which will make the local fans all the more peeved. Willard has been clamoring for a chance to meet McCarty, yet he passes up an opportunity to meet Smith, who never was regarded as a real top liner until some charitable person started to mention his name with those of Mc- Carty, Willard, Paizer and a few others who were put in through courtesy.  Size does not make a great heavy weight fighter. He must have courage in addition. Tom Sharkey was not a big man; neither was Bob Fitzsimmons; yet the name of each of them is written in the pages of the Queensberry ring in the big letters and will remain there as long as the game flourishes. A YELLOWER EXHIBITION  Willard's present stand is not a marker to the one that he took back in Springfield, Mo. about a year and a half ago against a little fellow named Cox. W.F. Benedict, former St. Louis sporting writer, has this to say about the battle, to which he was an eye- witness:  "Willard calmly stepped over the ropes, drilled into the center of the ring and stood looking down from his great height at Cox as the referee gave the fighters the ring directions. Cox was just slightly red in the face - possibly from excitement, probably from excitement and nervousness com- bined - and the crowd of fans laughed in anticipation of what was going to happen to the 'bantam rooster.'  "The gong sounded and the two mis- mated fighters stepped to the center of the ring. they sparred for a few mo- ments; then Willard opened up, reached about four feet with a clumsy right and gave Cox a wallop on the side of the jaw. Cox had tried to guard the blow, and when he failed to stop it the look on his face would have given a mummy hysterics. It was sur- prise and anger, and the combination of feelings proved a winner. Cox throughout the first round was 'up against it.' and he showed it in his face. Then the worm turned.  Willard, it was plain to see, had shown his entire hand of tactics dur- ing that first round. And acting on this line of suggestion, Cox's seconds worked on him during the minute in- terval preceding the second time up until Joe would have challenged a pack of wildcats right then and there. GIANT FLEES FROM RING  The second round saw a vast differ- ence in the milling. Willard swung wildly, missed haymaker after hay- maker, and finally settled down to a series of long jabs in an effort to keep Cox at a distance.  Cox was an animated jumping jack. And he was mad. Up into the air he jumped and, with a newly invented swing that carried his right glove clear over his head, landed time and time again on the left side of Willard's face. The crowd laughed until it cried, and all the way through Cox kept jumping and hitting, jumping and hit- ting, as Willard backed around the ring with outstretched arms to escape his tormentor.  It was a stage production of the old Fourth reader story wherein the youthful hero saves his sister by trim- ming the big bully on the school grounds at recess.  Suddenly, just before the round was to close, Willard dropped his arms and, to the complete surprise of the crowd, walked quickly away from his agile opponent and toward the side of the ring. With more haste than grace he crawled over the ropes and went to his dressing room, where he arrived before the fans had even regained the power of speech. HIS LAME EXPLANATION  The writer was honored - perhaps - by an audience with Willard as the de- feated 'fighter' left the theater in which the scrap was staged. Only a few fight fans remained about the outer door, and these jeered openly the big, yel- low streaked giant as he ambled out and started down the street. To a volley of questions from sports writers Willard answered that Cox's right hand swings to the face had broken his cheek bone, and that it were folly to continue the fight at the expense of a smashed-up phyz.  Strange to say, Willard did not re- main to undergo examination at the hands of a local physicians, but had left the town far behind him when dawn crept over the Ozarks the next morn- ning  Now he is in New York issuing challenges to McCarty and claiming to have once worsted the Nebraska cham- pion.

What Jess Is Doing  CHICAGO, Jan. 15. - Jess Willard and Dan Daly, both of whom have designs on the white heavy weight title, were matched today to fight six rounds in Philadelphia on January 25. No de- cision will be rendered. Three days before the Daly fight Willard will box Frank Bauer in Fort Wayne, Ind.

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL JANUARY 16, 1913

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