New-York tribune., 1900-10-14
opRoFEssIoNALTsMo IN FOOTBALL.


The football season opens auspiciously. The
reference is not much to the prospects OIL
the game as to the spirit in which 1t is to be
played. There is an evident Intention to make
1t a clean amateur sport and to rid it OF the
reproachcs of professionalism" and commercial
thrift. 1t is, unhappily, notorious that hitherto
these elements have to some extent entered INTO
ii. especially at some of the big colleges
The rule has been that any undergraduate OF
college might play on the eleven. So some III
stitutions are reputed to have induced men
to enter college for the express purpose or play
ing football powerful athlete-in one case IL
is said. a professional prizefghter-wouid DE
found who would be a tower of strength on the
gridiron. He would be prevailed upon by pc
cuniary or other compensation, to enter college
in some special" course He would have no
thought of completing a college course, and Iii
deed would not have sufficient intellectual abll-
ity to do So But he would manage to go through
the pretence of being student until the football
season was over and then the college would
know him no more. That was really nothing but
professionalism" and it was the direct cause
of the greater part of the ruffianly play and
other abuses that have marred this most in
spirIng of all athletic games
There is, as we have said, strong move
ment this year for the correction of such evils.
Columbia University, upon whose team last
year a depIorable scandal fell has taken most
advanced ground. Tt is ordered by the faculty
that no first year special student shall be eli
gible to the team. That is most cOmmendable
rule which will bar out the Objectionable class
of players we have just described who go to
college solely to play ball. 1t is assumed that
if a man passes the regular examinations and
is matricuated in one of the regular courses, or
if he remains in a special course until his sec
ond year, he is a bona fide student, who has
come to college for the sake of studying. But
that is not, in the view of the Columbia fac
ulty enough, so a second rule has been adopted
disqualifying students who suffering from
what are termed "conditiOns"-that is, who are
not up TO the required standard of proficiency
in their studies. There is disposition to regard
this as a trife harsh. but the best Judgment
will commend the rule. In the case of first
year men it would bar out those who have come
without sufficient preparation properly to enter
college and have done so just for the sake of
playing ball. and in all four years it certainly
seems just to rank studies above athletics and
to insist that before a man gives up a large
share of his time to football he shall give
enough time to his books to enable him to main
tain credtable rank in his class.
Both these rules are conceived in the right
spirit and their enforcement would have
sautary effect not only at Columbia, but else
where. 1t would remove not only the reproach
of professionalism but also the reproach that
studies are neglected for athletics If such
rules were adopted at all colleges the football
teams might for a season be deprived of some
of their best players. That would be better
than to retain those players to the reproach of
the colleges and the degradation of the game
But we are not at all sure the standard of
playing would be permanently lowered. For.
after all. the professional" players and the
study neglecting players have been small mi
nority. Most of the great football players and
other athletes have been bona fide students, and
have stood high in their classes, excelling in
brain as we'll as in Drawn. The general adOp-
ton of such rules as those formulated at Column
bia would tend to make that fact more gen
eral. Let a college know it can fill its eleven
with any sort of material and there will be
danger of its putting in some pretty poor stuff.
morally and intellectually. Let it know that
all its players must be real students. and good
students. and it will fill its team with such,
and it will find enough such who are good play
ers to make first rate team.