The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-03-17
WAS A PROFESSIONAL TEAM
COLUMBIA MAKES HUMTEIATING
But FRANK CONFESSION
M embers of the Crack Football Eleven
Had Their Tuition and Board Paid by
the Manager-Were Assured by Him
That They Had Secured Scholarships
His Accounts Faisiled.

New York, March ,16.-Columbia s
crack football eleven of last fall, which
defeated Yale on Manhattan Field was
a professional eleven. The humiliating
confession is now made by the univer-
sity faculty and the athletic directors,
and w. e. Mitchell, the manager of the
eleven, has been made the scapegoat.
The graduate advisory committee after
examining his accounts has removed
him from all participation in the uni.
versity's athletics. Mitchell has left
Columbia. All the story now comes out
in letters published in the student or
gan, The Spectator f. R. Hutton, act
ing chairman of the faculty committee
on athletics, writes to the paper, under
date of March A. as follows:
During the last football season
team was not genuine college team.
team was nto a genuine college team.
At the request of the president, the
faculty committee on athletics imme-
diately made an investigation through
the manager, of every person chal-
lenged. The manager stoutly asserted
that every person on the team was a
bona fide student. The records upon
the surface We're in every case correct.
so far as enrolment, payment Of fees,
etc, was concerned.
The investigation has shown, how
ever that this state of affairs was Sc
cured by assuring the student that he
had obtained a scholarship in the uni
versity which is contrary both to fact
and the policy of the institution. Fol-
lowing the uniform custom at Colum-
bia of believing every student until he
has shown himself untrustworthy the
committee reported to the president
that the criticisms upon the team were
not justified except in the case of Gill
christ, who was Immediately forbidden
to play. During the last few weeks
rumors have been in circulation involv-
ing both the financial honesty of the
manager and his truthfulness. AS
soon as these rumors reached the ears
of the faculty committee on athletics
this committee asked the graduate adj
visory committee OF the athletic asso-
citation to cause the managers books to
be audited by a public accountant and
10 report the result of their inquiry to
the faculty committee on athletics.
THE report of the graduate advis-
ory committee shows that the mana
ger has not used money belonging to
the team for his own purposes. 1t
shows on the other hand that he had
doctored the accounts in order to con-
ceal payments made to various men,
.bers of the football team for tuition or
for board: and that in two instances,
what appears to be mistakes of about
5000 in each case We're made in the set
tlement of visiting teams. These errors
will of course be promptly corrected.
ut also appears, by admission of the
manager, that, finding himself at the
opening of the college year without a
football team, he deter
mined that it was better to form one at
all hazards than frankly to face the
facts, This grievous mistake, made, as
the faculty committee believes, under
the stress of great temptation, accounts
for the Justification of the managers
books and for his blameworthy attitude
in many other directions.
Commenting upon the affairs, the stu
dent organ says: 1--WE are sure that it
is the true sentiment of every Columbia
man that it is preferable to be beaten in
football or any other branch of sport
by our weakest opponent rather than
team at the slightest sacrifice
of our athletic honor"