Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-10-27
The Rouahness Of Football.


The Rouahness Of Football.
We notice that the enemies of football
are determined to take advantage of
the text offered them by the death of
a player in the game of last week be-
tween the players of Annapolis Naval
Academy and those representing a
Baltimore Medical school, but as usual
in their attacks upon the great autumn
game; which is firmly entrenched in
the heart of every strenuous young
American and the public generally,
they have distorted the facts to suit
their purpose. Football as game
was by no means responsible for the
unhappy fatality that occurred at
Annapolis. The player died. not on ac-
count of an accident in the game, but
because his heart was not strong
enough to stand the physical exertion
which it required. His death would
have quite as likely to have occurred in
rowing, running, skating or anything
requiring active exercise. He was one
of those young men who ought not to
play football anyway, and 1t is largely
In this class that accidents occur. Col
lege football is game that requires
strong bodies, and the young man who
is frail and puny or suffering from any
organic weakness has no business on
the gridiron. There are milder sports
for him to engage in which will bene-
fit him and be wholly safe.
But football is by no means the dam
gerous game that some people always
try to make us believe at this season
of the year. Professor Dexter of the
University of Illinois has recently
made an investigation and collected
statistics from all the leading colleges
and universities of the country, and as
far as can be ascertained, only three
men in the past decade have died from
direct effects of the game of football.
OF these one was a man who had been
a weak heart, the circumstances of his
death being similar to those of the
player at Baltimore last week, and
another was a young man of frail
physique who went into a hard game
without preliminary training. Pro-
lessor Dexter finds that less than three
&c IL,
sands of American college boys who
played football within the past decade
were injured enough to cause even the
briefest absence from their regular col
lege exercises. It is doubtful if any
branch of athletics could make a better
showing then this.
Nobody denies that football is a
rough game, but it is this element of
personal encounter this close approach
to the stern realities of the battle of
life, which makes the training of the
game peculiarly valuable to young men,
and gives the contest on the gridiron
such great popularity with the specta-
tors. There is something in the game
which appeals to the red blood that
flows In every manly heart. something
OF the strenuousness which President
Roosevelt has so often used as text
to the young generation of America
Its popularity has increased rather
than decreased, and while any accident
resulting from the game is greatly to
be deplored, it must be regarded as
something likely to happen whenever
active sports, and not as the necessary
accompaniment of the game. In spite
of the roughness of the game, which,
by the way, has always seemed more
so to the spectators than it Is to the
realization of the players. relatively few
young men, in proportion to the num-
Der that take part, suffer any injuries.
The facts are often exaggerated in the
newspaper accounts and even by the
coachers and trainers themselves. If
there is an opportunity to make the
number of injuries smaller it probably
lies in the selection of officials who
shall more thoroughly enforce the pen
altias that follow violation of the rules
and in precautions taken by the proper
authorities to see that none play the
game who are not in sound physical
condition.