The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1905-11-24
Amateurs Declare That the
Charges Made by Sprinter
Arthur Duffy Reflect Only
on Himself.
A. A. US REFORM INFLUENCE
SOME DARK CHAPTERS IN THE
FIGHT FOR PURE sPoRT-DAN-
GER SIGNALS TO BE HEEDED.


Despite the recent so-called exposure
| of a former amateur champion (Arthur
T. Duffey) calculated to mislead the lay
man as to the condition Of amateur sport,
and despite his attempts to prove the
rottenness of athletics, amateur sport to-
day is in better. condition than ever.
The ideal state has not yet been reached.
There still is room for decided improve
ment, but looking back Ger the last few
years a close student of athletics can
but notice the wonderful Improvement
which has been made toward purifying
and improving the sport.
The growth of the A. A. u, with its
consequent increase of power and the
rise of faculty control among the colleges
were responsible for the beginning Of re-
form. Yet reform" is an ambiguous
were responsible for the beginning of re-
seems to imply that originally the ath-
| letic situation was thoroughly corrupt.
Nothing could be more misleading. To
a certain degree reform has invented the
wells it would remove. Fifteen years
ago, it is true. the regulations governing
sport We're very loose, but there was no
corruption worth talking about. Ath-
letes were doing things which they never
supposed to be wrong. 1t was only when
| the standard of amateur sport was i'm
ported from England that the supposed
amateur awoke one morning to find him
self a professional.
The idea from distinctively amateur
status was novelty. 1t was customary
| for small towns to maintain basepaIt
mines, whose members divided gate re
ceipts among themselves, and likewise
| for the villages to hold running races,
where the contestants competed for some
small purse. It was the day of bucolic
athletic influence. Everything was done
openly, and there was no attempE at sler
ception or dissimulation. A young man
working his way through college well
coined an opportunity to earn few dol
| lars training an embryo athletic team
| playing on summer baseball nine. To
| have told him that such conduct made
him professional would have been to
amuse him. In his mind a professional
was man who made his living by ath-
leties, while he himself was a student
earning money to pay his college ex-
| penses.
| 1t is easy enough at this distance, and
with much sophisticated eyes, to see the
danger to which such a situation was ex-
posed, but it was not easy then. At the
same time, in the early nineties the A. A.
u, along with various universities. be-
gan, half hesitatingly, the process of leg
islation which to-day hedges about the
amateur athlete.
Meantime Caspar Whitney appeared
| upon the scene. Mr.. Whitney at that
time was commenting upon amateur ath-
letics for magazine, in pursuit of his
mission of purifying athletics. His crit
icisms may or may not have been justi-
fed, but none the less his structures
forced the ISSUE and the spirit of reform
started to assert itself vigorously. Ath-
letic boards began to scrutinize the mem
bers of rival teams in much the same
way as Mr.. Whitney scrutinized things
in general.
A detailed history Of this first period
Of reform, from 1890 to 1899, would not
make pleasant reading. Charges and
counter charges of dishonesty were con-
stant. The daily press was filed with
sensational stories concerning the status
aof prominent athletes. In one instance
"a student was pdotested on the grounds
Of his being a professional ball player,
and affidavits were forwarded to the col
legs authorities to that effect. It was
discovered that when a boy Of Is or 16
he had played on a village team against
another village team and had received
$3.50, Of which he had paid S2.15 for
transportation of meals. Not being as
wise as some of his successors, he signed
a receipt without stating that it had been
for his expenses. The board Of his coli
lege very properly refused to suspend
him, and the case was dropped by the
accusing board.
/ In 1S99-19oo. with the complete asser-
ton of its power by the A. A. u and
with general movement among leading
universities toward faculty control Of
college athletes, the second and most pro-
ductiye wave Of reform swept over the
country. It's inaueye was tremendous
and the great good It accomplished is