Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1906-04-28
School Athletics.

Ihat athletlcS IN q ScnOOl N, WIFI
properly regulated and subordinated
to its proper place, good thing, is a
self-evident proposition. 1t contributes
to the cultivation of manly qualities;
it teaches quickness and deXterity;
and is, in these respects, educative.
But there are two kinds of athletics
clean athletics and dirty athletics.
The former should be encouraged and
carefully cultivated; the latter is
disgrace to the school and community
and to all who come in contact with
it, and should be discouraged, dis
countenanced, and frowned down
upon by right-thinking people, and
drummed out of existence wherever
it is found.
These remarks have been occasion
ed by recent local happenings: On
March 9th the Onancock High School
baseball team went to Belle Haven
to play the Belle Haven High School
team in match game. The Oman
cock boys had previously adopted a
rule among themselves requiring that
members of their team be regular
bona-fde school pupils who had at
tended the school for at least thirty
days prior to the opening of the ball
season. They required furthermore
that when they should compete with
other schools, those schools should
put on their teams only boys who
were regular bona-fide school pupils
who had attended the school for at
least thirty days prior to the match
game to be PLAYED.
When our boys with the principal,
reached Belle Haven, we found that
Belle Haven school had put men on
their team considerably over twenty
years of age, who were not only not
regular school pupils, but some OF
them had never attended the school,
while others had gone through the
form of placing their names on the
school roll day or two previous to
the game, and had attended a few
classes, merely for the sake of playing
in the game as school pupils. All OF
our boys had been in the school as
regular, bona-fde pupils, the whole
session through, and the Oldest one
on the team was nineteen years old
We Indignantly refused to play those
1 who had 50 grossly violated the letter
and the spirit of the agreement. We
were not so hard up for a victory that
we were willing to purchase it at the
price of principle. as Belle Haven was
willing to do. This is one instance
of dirty athletics.
On April 5th we went to Parksley tC
play what the Parksley school hac
promised would be a clean, straight
game. The manager and captain o.
the Parksley school team, and the
principal of the school certified thai
their players were all regular students
of the school, though they admitted
THAT some of them had not been IL
the school thirty days. On eXamina
ton it was found that our manager
had failed to mention the thirty day
requirement, so we gave them the adj
vantage of the point and played them
After the game was over it was dis
covered, and has since been empha
sized, that men % or q years OF age
expert players, had been allowed u
enroll in the school on the day OF thu
game, or few days previous and t
attend classes, for the sole purpose o
playing as school pupils Indeed the.
had been drummed up for the pur
pose. And the school closed its ses
sion too on the next day! Only fou
of the team were school boys. o
course they beat; but at what cost
We lost the game, but Parksley los
character and sacrificed principle
This is another instance OF dirty, rot
ten athletics.
If the schools of Accomack count.
are going to stand for that sort o
thing, then let us look to see gradua
ted from them a class of educated ras
Gals. Better close the school than Il
allow them to stand for dishonest.
and fraud. Athletics means some
thing more than the mere physlca
exercises. 1t means that the primer
pies of honesty and integrity upright
ness of character and manhood, appl,
there as well as elsewhere. Deception
and fraud in baseball is no more to b
tolerated than in public office and il
positions of trust. And if the pupil
learn these evils in the schools, what
in Gods name, will prevent them from
practicing them after they leav
| school? Surely, surely, when corrup
ton is abroad in the land-a stencil il
the nostrils of right thinking, homes
people and when the demand is 70
clean, honest, upright men, we vii
not allow the young people in GU
schools to breathe in the poisonou
fatal atmosphere of fraud. If we dc
then look out for more and create
evil days. Rather instill into then
principles of uprightness, honesty, an
integrity; show them that these prln
: ciples permeate everything IN hfe
study, baseball, and business, ant
thus educate generation of high
] minded, right-principled young me
4 and women who will stand for honest
g first and foremost.
James R. Laughton, Prin.,
Onancock High School.