The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-12-03
FOOTBALL IMMORTALITY
THREATENS COLLEGES
BY G. o. STEERE,
Star Of Iowa State Uni versity's Champion Team.

The keynote Of American political
and economical life has found re-
sponsive note in the athletic life of
the great educational institutions
which. during the last twenty years,
have grown up in the middle west. The
mass OF the people are vaguely asking
II the same spirit OF graft and gain
/ which appears 70 be- so powerful an
/ influence IN the affairs Of the nation
has pervded the college football grid
iron and the baseball field. Has a ust
Tor victory traduced the old university
ideal OF fair play and the square deal?
Is college sport reserved for the few
as opposed to the many, and has foot
/ ball become an advertising agency in
/ the hands Of interruptions authorit?
Popular opinion, remembering far
2raVer crimes against tho fundamental
| Ideals OF American honor and man
hood, vaguely says that these charges
are true. and lays the blame at the
/ door OF the professional coach, who is
alleged TO be agency for evil in the
SYSTEM
After all, what case yet has been
made Ouc against tho professional
coach? He is charged first with being
tho instrument through which Ameri-
can IDEAS OF sport and honor are cor
rupted. That he is the agent OF the
university has rot Vet been proved.
Supporters Of university ideals charge
that il is his own lust for victory coup
led with q judicious control and OK
penditure of box office receipts that is
/ the roOI OF all evil.
The university may suspect. but It
cannot prove. 1t accepts the winning
/ teamT that are developed without CUES
fgVefg l..
produced. II fears 70 tear up the
established order Of things in an in
Nestigdtion which. whatever way il
turns. cannot but east diScredt. upOu
the institution. IL fears 10 accuse the
mon uniUstlv, ana it, own officers usu-
ally are incapable OF pointing ont spe-
cific wronS. When the coach IT, guilty
az charged tho university may kink at
the offense. suspect yet be unable to
prove Or believe implicitly that tire
faint OF professional isr has not touched
th' rankg Of the chosen.
If tho charge is true. not only is
tho coach guilty o. grave offense
against public morality. but the uni
Versity itself Is taTred with the same
stick. II has been the promoter of the
Sporc. Il he's been responsible for the
employment Of the men who are now
charged with the evils OF the system.
IL has been close 70 the life OF its
students and should have known long
before the present pouuIar agitation
brought the matter forward that all
was not right within it's doors. II should
have been the first to recognize the
evil and tho first 10 have corrected il.
l. tn" administrative officers of an
institution do NJ understand whether
purity o. professionalism character
ICES the athletic life OF the student
body they are az unfit for Office as
the officials OF our much plundered
financial institutions. II they have
been content. on the contrary. To wink
at diShonor for the sake Of victory,
then do they stand accused as one
who would sell his friend for advance
ment.
x = 3
a long experience in the athletic life
o. the middle western universities
shows this much "a be true: At no
time and no place does an athlete re-
ceive from any one direct Temunera-
tion for his services The methods of
evasion arc without number and are
fairly well known. But almost without
exception they arc such as cannot DO
denied 10 any one, nor can the accep-
lance OF them make tho recipient an
object o. suspicion. The university can
not recognize them. The most power
tut investigating committee IN the