Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-11-25
MANAGING AN ELEVEN.
The Business Side Of q Bio COLLEGE
Football Season,


Although no player or coach receives
pay, Harvard or Yales football team
costs $4,000 for it's two months sea-
son. And yet the game makes more
money on the investment than Stand
ard Oil or the theatrical trust almost
two hundred per cent. Though the
public sees only the part of football
above (and on the) ground, the team
tnrusts its supporting roots deep and
far. The graduate manager of ath-
ietics, who runs the business (right
end of football, presents a composite
personality, is indeed an Arabian
Nights-like genius of transformation.
AS business man he directs a force of
clerics and keeps a complex set of
books; like a general he marshals a
whole corps of undergraduate mana
gers; as purveyor to all the bodily. de-
mands of the team he develops a half
dozen characters. He derives his in
come as a landlord, leasing eighteen
incheS or plank for an afternoon at n
rental OF from fifty cents to two dol
lars.
Like COMMUNICATIVE chief he learns
or the situation on the field and directs
AFFAIRS through his aids, the UNDER
graduate managers. They find out
from the field officers, the chief coach
and his assistants what is wanted and
from personal inspection decide what
must be had. Honor and the delight of
Deing on intimate terms with the
heroes OF the present, the players in
the great game of the year and with
the coaches, the heroes of the past. are
their rewards for much hard service.
Each hopes that he, too, may one day
become the graduate manager, and be
Great One in the focus of college
hero-worship for one with the training
OF an undergraduate managership
usually fills the higher and renumera-
tive position while doing graduate
work, most likely as law student.
AS common victualler the graduate
manager runs his business at a loss.
Though every player pays. his board,
the training table ends the season with
a deficit of about $4,000. Since the
men give the athletic management Just
what they previously paid at commons
IN Yale or in Memorial at Harvard, the
$500 represents chiefly the football APP
petite. Meat, meat and still more meat
feeds the "beefy line" and meat comes
high these days. Many things to eat,
and more especially to drink, are as
forbidden as the fruit of the well
known tree of Paradise, and a player
partaking of them courts Punishment
from the squad as surely as did Adam.
But none of the old ideas of Spartan
fare for athletics fingers, and all the
good things of the season, except posi-
lively injurious food, now burden the
training table. Our host. the graduate
manager, gets his satisfaction in the
health and strength of his boarders.
Costuming the squad costs about
$4,000. For in the furnishing business
the graduate manager considerably
forgets to ask any pay and about 100
men draw their equipment from him in
the course of the season. The appear
ance of the squad may remind you of
this version of the nursery rhyme:
''Hark, bark! --4- .
Hear the dogs bark!
The heggars are coming to town,
Some in rags, some in Shags,
And some in purple gowns.
Almost the real royal purple the
costly Tyrian of classic kings, greets
you in the rich red blankets that en-
velop the substitutes on the Harvard
side line and make such handsome
patch of color against the dark gray
mass of spectators and sky. Those
blankets cost a pretty penny apiece.
Strip them off and sweaters suggesting
the rags and shags appear, and UNDER
meath the sweaters jackets showing
various degrees of wear. A football
player would be ashamed to come on
the gridiron in an entirely new cos
tune, for he would look like q novice.
If circumstances should oblige him to
put on a new suit, he would roll in the
dirt before going on the field. All the
men had something of an outfit of their
own to begin with, which the manager
only completed from the athletic fund
and gradually replaced as it wore out.
One old player may proudly don the
Jacket which he wore on his prepara-
tory school team and through three
varsity seasons; another may have
pair of shoes that served him in two
Yale games. One man requires
Jacket, another a sweater, third a
pair of trousers; and all constantly de-
mand dead protectors, nose guards and
shin pieces. The captain makes re-
quisitions for the articles as the men
need them through the undergraduate
managers. Their chief would have to
stop to add the several items before
he could tell you just what a football
costume costs, for he does not buy the
clothing in suits.
Large as the total is. it scarcely COW
ers what the articles originally cost
Manufacturers will give as high as ot
per cent discount for the custom OF the
big teams and count their returns as
coming from the advertising, while new
makers would give their goods away
| for. Awkward as football suit looks
it's making requires an intimate know
ledge of the requirements. for the re.
| suits of trusting to inexperienced
workmanship might be more unfortu'
| nate than confding in bungling tait'
or for a dress suit. AS the maker o.
| football clothes resembles rather al
armorer, the comparison hardly ap
plies. He must place an extra pad mere
for this man, and special stlnenihe
there for another, so as to least inter-
fere with the players motions.
AS a transportation agent, the grad
/ note manager does all the work OF