Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1898-11-17

Seven years ago the Independent pub
lished an article entitled. Football; a
z. Thwing. in the New York Independent.
Today wish. ii ] may. to supplement-
that article by one on the proposition.
Football; Game of Hearts For. If
football trains intellectual alertness and
the Judgment, i none the less trains the
moral nature OF the players.
The heart stands for pluck. Football
demands pluck. Pluck is of two sorts.
the active and the passive. Pluck of both
sorts football trains. The game actually
involves small risk to life or TO limb II
the players are properly trained. The
game represents far less peril than either
boating or swimming But this freedom
OF danger is not present to the mind of
the player. To him the game involves
uncertainty and uncertainty is the moth
er of fear. To him also the game in
wolves certainty-certainty that he. him
self will be pushed and twisted and
twist and throw. The passive pluck.
too. is quite as necessary as the active.
Today | saw an eleven practicing with
pouring rain on a clayed field. The men
We're wet to their hides and their cloth
ing had gathered UP a good deal of the
earth. For the player TO go into, the
scrbmmase. knowing that he will be
pushed and twisted and thrown: that he
will be tackled and flung down hard and
quick: that he will be rushed against one.
two. three or eleven other men: that he
must break through the opposing line OF
beef guided by his own brain and in
spired by his own vigor, demands as fine
type of pluck as modern life offers out
side of the opportunities open to the fire
man and the soldier. For him also to
undergo the. fatigues of training in all
weather and under all conditions de-
Pluck, grit, resolution and fortitude are
required by playing football and are Gre
ated in playing football.
the heart also means enthusiasm;
tr.tI pf nj hlS Toe md frf
enthusiasms. Each eleven is an incarna-
ton of silent and mighty zeal and the
hundreds on the side lines are also incar-
nations of mighty and noisy zeal. All
things being equal the team which burns
the most hotly with the fire of enthusi-
asm wins. All things being unequal. I'M
that team which burns most hotly with
energetic enthusiasm wins. Such enthu-
siasms, as l find among football players
are seldom or never witnessed. Each
hood He becomes eleven men. he be-
comes twenty-five men. All that the
other players feel and that the specta-
tors feel. he feels. 1t is the enthusiasms,
not of boisterous vociferation splitting it.
self in dissipation: it is the enthusiasm
OF whitest heat concentrating in ones
personal will and muscle Such enlarge
ment and such minimizing of ones self
represent supreme moments in life. They
prove that modern man has not been lost
in his enthusiasm and his devotion to SER
calling ones first vision of Mt Blanc
To look forward to them represents a
new mean of noble inspiration and aspi-
ration.
But the heart also represents the cardi-
nal virtues of temperance and self-re-
straint In more material interpreted
ton the game of football is an embod-
ment of temperance. The player Is con-
stantly obliged to use Solomon's phrase
and put knife to his throat. He is for
hidden indulgences in the pleasures of the
table. He sits at the training table. and
the training table means simple food.
Pipe and coffee are talbooed. He is a
NaZarine in certain things besides allow
ing the growth of his hair. But in vet
His emotions are and must be controlled.
! 1T Is easy. to detect new football player
by his either getting mad or by his weep
| ing. The old player has trained himself
to take and give hard knocks without
swearing or without a tear. l know a
football captain, who. when he was de-
| feated. wept like baby and l also know
an eleven; who. on being put down. Went
! off the field sowing the ground with their
| tears, but such eXuberance of emotion
does not belong to the well trained play
| them, but he usually has them not. hav-
| ing learned to bear defeat without des-
| pair and victory without vanity.
Pluck, enthusiasm, self-restraint are
in football. Most precious elements they
are, too. They are the elements which
are c0nStltutlOnally characterized in the
Anglo-Saxon. To develop them is one,
not by any means the only. purpose Of
the high work of each college, Football
Is an aid in this process Of developing.
The man who possesses these qualities
possesses qualities more precious than
the accumulated learning of the school.
He has himself well in hand vigorous
and wise. to take up and to do life,s
work. II is never for moment to be
said that football will or can do al IN
the development of the character which
the college is set to train but football for
six weeks of the fall may do much, II
properly conducted, in aiding the college
mate purposes in training true young
manhood.