The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1901-11-09
THE FOOTBALL SEASON.

various college and university teams have been
in practice since the weather became cool
enough for hot work. and the rooters" have invented
their various yells, nicely adjusted to their double
purpose of terrifying the other team and encourag-
ing their The list of casualties in the practice
games is of the strength and courage that
have been developed, and until the last game ds
played, horse-racing and prize-fghting will go way
back and sit down." according to the latest slang,
while this strenuous sport holds the front of the
stage.
There is no denying the danger of football; the
bruised bodies and broken bones and the annual
fatalities testify to that But still it stands first in col
ege athletics. Parents may tremble when their stu
dent join the team, but as rule their commands
are in vain. The boy will play and make his muscle
mighty and his eye quick to excel in the rugged
sport Professors do not always look kindly on the
game. They make rigid rules as to the scholastic
rating of the players They scold, ,admonsh and
deprecate. They warn, advise and forbid. Then when
the game comes off they are found among the
boys on the bleachers wearing the team colors and
cracking their throats with the demonac YELL 1t is
somewhat the with the parents of the players
They go in fear and trembling to see the game and
remain to swing their and add their voices to
the awful chorus of encouragement which makes the
field sound like two rival pandemonums turned loose
in match at shouting jargon.
When the game and the motive that makes it popu-
lar analysed it is evident that is favorite with
American boys because has the spice of danger and
is rugged test of physical strength, aertness and
courage 1t is all very well for the stad old who
is called daddy by two three student to
suggest the bucksaw and tough wood as furnishing
the means of exercise when he was boy The buck
is all right but running it lacks the spice of ad
venture and competition that gives football its flavor
Then the use of bucksaw is very monotonous, and
youth abhors monotony. If it could be invested with
the variety of changes that add to the charms of
a strenuous game of football and with some of the
dangers thereof, it might figure rival But as it
we fear that daddy will have to give it up,
and hang up the buck and the saw like the fiddle and
the bow of poor old Ned and take his place the
bleachers and master the barbaric syables of the
yell.
To-day our two universities have it out in the an
nual competition game and the boys OF both will be
there, learning something more than the wild and
dangerous scufhe of the play. They will be learning
keep their temper and their wits, take of
their defense in emergency. The winners will learn
to be polite and patronizng the losers and the
losers will learn the most needful lesson of ALTO be
good losers, for in ali human history no fact stands
out prominently in war, politics, business and
society than that the good loser is the final winner.
If we differ from the parents and the professors
about football in colleges we do with becoming
didence but still must insist that the rough and
dangerous game teaches something that is taught
in books nor classroom 1t is for that that
young and DID, women and girls men of affairs and
all will be found on the beachers to-day to shout ap-
proval at the gadiators who will grapple in the field
Some may get hurt, but, like the game of and of
life, the battle will go to finish, and may the
best men win.