Early Monday morning, long-distance calls begin to ring Endicott 8-8511 at the University of Delaware in Newark. Down in the coaches' office in the dank cellar of the century-old athletic building, a boyish-faced man answers. On the other end of the line may be one of the most renowned coaches in college football—perhaps Northwestern's Ara Parseghian, or Louisiana State's Paul Dietzel, or Iowa's Forest Evashevski. They want advice.
Why do these shamans of big-time football turn for advice to the coach at a small Eastern college? Answer: Delaware's chess-playing, 39-year-old David Moir Nelson has one of the finest football brains in the...