Evening star., 1905-10-29
JAKE STAHL AND ATHLETICS

the fun of playing around a hotel because
of that feeling I have OF showing myself
up. one Of the most natural of human feel
ings.
That's the way it Is with the college
lads who find themselves quite shut out or
all consideration with respect to the games
that they like.
1.-THE lad who enjoys pole-vaulting or
high-jumping for the sport OF the thing
ism going to follow up those sports when
he sees the picked fellows vaulting and
jumping rings around him, because the
picked ones are under the constant coach
ing and training Of cracks in those athletic
branches.
The situation is quite the same at the
colleges that go in for competitive rowing
events. The rowing coaches gobble up the
promising lockers In the rowing line as soon
they clap an eye upon them, and begin
the inevitable wheat-from-ehan separating
process. The discarded ones go to the Stag
heap. They're tossed aside like old sad
dies. They won't do for the big four or the
big eight, and that settles them They are
practically shut out OF the sport of row.
ing while at college. They're no good as
regular men, and that takes the acute fun
of rowing away from them. They're not
going out on the river in their rowing togs
and get themselves laughed at and Jeered
and guyed as dubs. So there you are.
1.-The remedy? Well, l am not attempt
ing to offer or even advance remedies. That
part of it is up to the colleges. An ath-
letic conference of the colleges ought to be
aDle 10 determine upon Il remedy. Inc eiiifl-
ination of the competitive idea as the one
great end and aim of college athletics will
be the remedy, sooner or later The we've
got-to-iick- the-other-fellows' idea makes, as
/ say, for the utter neglect o. the many for
the benefit of the few. al. for the hurrah
boys business and the more or less doubt
full glory of the winning college team.
''All of the boys who go to college are
entitled to the best athletic training of
which they are capable, along the lines in
which they show the greatest natural pro-
ficiency irrespective of the competitive idea
altogether. The idea that this Or that lad
will prove of no value member of the
regular base ball team of college shouldn't
virtually exclude him from the enjoyment
Of base ball altogether.
Il knew slews anu satherS of young fel-
lows who have graduated from colleges
from the greatest of the universities, some
of them-who have got the soft, fabby
muscles of women. This is rarely or never
their own fault. 1t is because they were
never taken in hand at their colleges. They
didn't promise anything. and SO they were
let slide. Few young fellows starting in
at college have any natural distaste for
athletics. They're nearly always willing to
be taken up and made something of in the
athletic line if they find the least encour-
agement. And only about one in twenty
of them looks like the makings of anything
special when he goes to college. Few men,
in fact. are ready-made athletes. Every
young man who comes away from college
ought to be sound as a hickory bough. hard
as nails. right as trivet. They're not ex-
pected to come away from college able to
put down hundred yards in ten and a half
or clear the bar in the high jump at six
feet. But every man-jack of them ought to
be man-handed and mauied into shape.
ought to be taken up and encouraged to
make the best of the bodily powers that
he possesses, and sent out into the game
Of life fit and rugged physically, as well
as fit and capable mentally.
That isn't the case at the present time.
But 1 think it's going to come, and at no
very distant time