Omaha daily bee., 1899-12-05
WEED OUT PROFESSIONALS
Athletic Board of State University is After
Clean Foot Ball.
WOULD PLACE GAME ABOVE SUSPICION
Gives out n Statement Reviewing the
History of the sport and Out
lining Its Policy for
the Future.

AlulellC GOVERNING bOdIu VI tue pNdNS uH'-
verslty has prepared a review of the foot
ball season Just closed The athletic board
has absolute control of athletics at the
university and its word is necessarily as good
as law 1t is comprised of FIVE members
of the faculty and five students. Three OF
the faculty members are elected by the
faculty and the other members are chosen
by the students. The review of the situa-
tion, which was authorized at the last meet
ing Of the board opens with a reference to
the charges that have been made by critics
during the season, the purpose of which
was to prejudice people against control or
supervision OF college athletics, and the ex-
preston of the belief that a statement of
it's policy should be made to the public.
Briefly reviewing the development of ath-
letics at the university during the last few
years and the difficulties encountered, the
report says:
1t is we'll known that until within a
comparatively recent period athletics, not
only az the University of Nebraska, but
throughout the west had been managed.
or mismaraged, in such way as to bring
us into general disrepute. As to the Uni
versity of Nebraska, under the old man
agement, affairs were conducted in such
extravagant and unbusnesslike manner
that the business houses both in Lincoln
and abroad lost confidence in the man
age ment ana In the institution ana II De-
came impossible to secure credit. At that
time there was no system or continuity
in the management of the several athletic
teams. No accounts were kept, or If
kept. were submitted to no auditing or
supervising authority and when bills In
CURED in one season were presented FOR
payment in subsequent seasons there were
often no means of ascertaining their cor
rectness or validity. There was no check
upon extravaganza and waste until In later
years impossibility of obtaining credit op-
Grated in that direction.
As to ProfessionnIism.
Again, professionalism was rife. Not
only were paid coaches allowed to play on
the teams in many cases but players came
to the institution after acquiring reputa-
ton in smaller colleges and secured places
on our teams, though in no strict sense
members of the university. In this manner
genuine students who had served an ap-
hope of some day securing place were
discouraged and retired in disgust as
they discovered that the management had
no intention of giving them a chance. 1t
was very rare in those days to have a
scrub team after the first three weeks
of the season. This condition, to be de-
plored on all grounds, had two especially
unfortunate results. In the first place,
whenever better inducements were offered
no particular institution, not mfrequently
migrated, and no players had been
trained in the institution to take their
places the opening of the foot ball season
too often saw most unseemly scramble
among managers to procure noted players.
We need only mention the we'll known
other year appeared substantially as
whole under the name of another institu-
ton. In the second place, the encourage
ment even indirectly of such floating play
was rapidly giving rise to class of
semi-professionals, with their several Co
teries of admirers. giving us, on small
scale the state of affairs which obtains
among professional base ball players and
prize fighters.
teams were coming by reason of these cir
cumstances led the Board of Regents to
establish an athletic board under it's au-
thority and to commit to it the absolute
control of all public athletics at the uni
versity. Although something had been done
previously to mitigate the evils above mem
toned they still confronted the athletic
board when, one year ago, it determined
upon firmer policy, which it has endeav-
ored with more or less success to carry
out consistently.
The policy outlined at the time was,
first, to put athletics on a sound financial
basis, and, second, to purify them by a
closer attention to the personnel of the
various teams The first has been success
fully accomplished
To Purify Athletics.
The second object of the existence of
the board, that of purifying athletics, from
the nature of the case and by reason Of
the opposition 1t excited, has not been so
successfully carried out. The practice of
offering inducements to players OF note
upon the teams of other colleges had taken
so deep root, and the habit of bringing
men to the university to play upon teams
who had no intention of becoming stu
dents and who often left at the close of
the season. had become so confirmed, that
the establishment of scholarship rule or
test became necessary. The board has in
every player on every athletic team shall
be first and foremost a real student of
the university. In consequence of the rules
adopted for this purpose two or three men
Tayar n la Of
These men at the time were not in attend
ance upon any department of the univer-
sity and have never since been seen within
its precincts. This year one man was ruled
off for the same reason, although he had
justly acquired the reputation of being
one of our best players The action of the
requirement that before continuing to play
he should become a student In the insti-
justified was shown by the fact that he
refused to meet such requirement and find
ing that study in the university would be
required of him as well as reputation as a
player left at once. But the rule has not
been strictly enforced as to work un-
due hardship. This has been illustrated
players, who have not been at all back
ward in criticism of the board and its
policy, who would have been barred by
anything approaching a strict interpreta-
ton of the rules, but were treated with
leniency because they expressed an inten-
tion of making good their standing at the
the board this leniency was unwse and 1t
will not be repeated.
During the season just past a reporter,
aided by coterie of persons connected
with the university, not all of them, how
ever, genuine students therein, has made
use of his position to foment discord and
create prejudice against the board by
charging it with faYortism and high
handed action. The charge of favoritism
that a comparatively large number of
players are members of fraternities and Il
has been stated that large numbers of
students capable of playing are not per-
mittcd to play because they are not mem
bers of some fraternity 1t is significant
that nearly every man who has been ruled
off our athletic teams in the last two years
has been member actual or pledged of
some fraternity. There Is nothing novel
in the circumstance that there are many
capable players who are not found upon
our teams The same condition has ex-
listed for years despite every endeavor TO
remedy IT,
The lack of success which has attended
the Nebraska team during the last season
is to be attributed to may ;ings besides
the policy of the board in insisting that
all players be bona fde students. At the
opening of he season we were without
a manager, the captain had not vet re-
turned and did not return for nearly two
last season were in the university. Thus
II will be seen that we started with ~
manager, no captain and no team. Every
thing had To be provided for at once with
games rapidly approaching. Iowa and Mis-
souri, have each sustained worse defeats
at our hands than any u which our team
has been subjected this season. Consider