The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-05-22
An Interesting Fact
About 1t Comes
to Light.
CAPTAIN COLLARS ADMISSION
He Purposely Threw
Meet to Bow
dom.

of the Dartmouth athletic team are to
be believed, Dartmouth college,
through one of its official athletic rep
resentatives, was guilty Saturday of
a grave breach both of craftsmanship
and collegiate courtesy. In the pres
ence Of several witnesses in the Bay
State house, Capt. Collar unequivocally
admitted that he mad refrained from
having Wilder jump off the tie for sec
ond place in the pole vault with the
express purpose of defeating Williams
and throwing the meet to Bowdoin
The conversation referred to took
place in the Bay State shortly after
the return of the athletes from the
field. Assistant Manager Stoddard ap-
preached Collar and inquired why he
had not called back Wilder and had
him vault off the tie with Squires and
Clark.
Why, so as to give Bowdoin the
victory, of course; we wanted to see
Williams beaten out, replied the Dart
mouth man, with more frankness than
tact, The words quoted are subs tan
TALLY the words of the Dartmouth
man, and are vouched for to The Spy
by one who heard them.
There may be no truth in the reply
given Manager Stoddard by Capt. Col
lar, in which case he is merely guilty
of lack of courtesy and lack of truth.
1t may have been a mere "Aufluessung
Won Weinelaune," as the Germans Zap
PLY described the indiscretion of Capt.
| Coghlan, and it is only fair to state
that Collar never expected that his re-
marks would be published, any more
than did the captain of the Raleigh.
| on the other hand, Collar may have
! spoken the exact truth, in which case
he is a sport, not a sportsman, and the
college which is so unfortunate as to
! have him for a representative, loses
some of its high reputation for sports
manship and fair play, for which 1t
has been so justly noted.
The facts of the case, as near as an
| outsider can penetrate them, appear
! to be these: Wilder, the Dartmouth
pole vaulter, was in poor condition for
a meet His plucky efforts TO capture
a place in spite of the fact that ms
! left shoulder was in bad shape, ana
only held in position by a support,
created favorable comment from the
/ crowd. When the three men tied for
! second place at ten feet, Wilder
promptly left the field no doubt sup
posing that second and third points
would be equally divided among the
] three contestants, as has been the Ia
variable custom of the New England
association No Williams man would
! for moment think of accusing Wllder
Of leaving the field at that time tcf
the purpose of throwing the meet 10
Bowdoin.
After Wilder had left. it was slg--
gested that Clark and Squires vault OH
| for choice of medals, no thought cF
yaulting off the points being enter
tanned at that time, as all thought me
meet had gone to Williams. Bcth
men were unstrung and exhausted.
| Several Bowdon men vetoed clark
! proposition to vault for meoals' anu
| told him to compete no more. oeVet a.
| Williams men did the same WIN
So,iiras The two men agreed to toss
nm a fact to which many Witnesses ~
Guiding The Spy man, are prepared lo
swear to- Wilder did not agree, OUT
| bis withdrawal from the fleld was
taken as a virtual agreement 10 ulVlue
noints and forfeit his medal.
II the meantime the Bowdoln tram
or had calculated that by gaming SCI
ond Mace Bowdoin could win the NEE NEE
ond he demanded that the polhts
anu allo,,i AZ he vauIted. 1t was not rea-
sonabIe demand in the opinion OF many,
hut nobody blames him for using every
esfo,-t To further the interests OF ms
taaro Everybody knows Referee Ad-
on,is decision. AS soon as 1T was an
nn1nced Manager Lehman OF Wiillanls
demanded that Wilder partlclpa1e IN
fine vault off Wilder was searched Ioli
| but Wilder had eyaporatea: ne na
| left the grounds with suspicious haste
! One Amherst man asked if Wilder
1youId have been so hard to ind II
| Dsrtnouth had needed three points 70
At all events he could not be found
and no explanation Of his absence was
lobtainable until Capt. Collar hlmsel1
offered an explanation after the games
| in his interview with Manager Stod-
dard.
of the meet. AS regards the final de-
cision of the executive committee
awarding the meet to Bowdoin there
can be no question they made the only
decision possible under the rules OF tne
association. 1t was not question OF
Justice. Had it been so Williams would
unquestionably have won her protest
An article in the constitution of the
New England Intercollegiate associa-
ton states that the decision Of the re-
fierce shall and must be final, and with
that rule before them in black and
white. the executive committee took the
! only course open to them.
There would be little use questioning
the decision of Referee H. A. Adams
were it not to show the necessity OF
certain changes in the rules and constr
| tuition of the New England association.
/ Mr.. Adams is a man of undoubted fair
ness, honesty and impartiality, but he
appeared to lack familiarity with the
rules under which the Worcester games
are pulled of. 1t is an unwritten law
of the association that the games are
1 played under the l. c. A. A. A. A. rules.
It is a long standing custom in the
Worcester meets that points shall be
divided in case Of a tie as the l. e.
-four Al rules provide. If that were
not the case why did Mr.. Adams allow
the points in the running high jump
| Saturday, to be divided among the
three tie men, c. Brown of Brown, E.
G. Littell Of Trinity and F. S. Cline of
Wesleyan? If that was not done under
I. c. -four A. rules what was it?
The only other rules governing ath-
letic rules in this country are the A. A.
u. rules. When he decided to have the
points vaulted off as the A. A. U. rules
provide, Referee Adams would have
been less inconsistent had he rigidly en-
forced the A. A. u. rules from then on.
But he did nothing Of the kind. The
pole vault tie was decided according to
a mongrel, hybrid set Of rules that can
be found in no book and which will be
known in future meets as the H. A.
Adams rules. This is how the A. A. u.
rule reads:
In case of a tie in a scratch contest
in vaulting the tieing competitors shall
have three additional trials at the last
height tried, and If still undecided the
bar shall be lowered to the height next
below and three trials given at that
hafohf etc