Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1907-02-16
WITH COLLEGE ATHLETES
rSings in the Field Of Sport in East
and West
MIcMeAws GREAT CRACKS ARE Eue'BLI
DIR. Nichols Remarks ON "Rule OF
Thumb" Training Arouse Com
ment-studyinE Habits n Point
of Professional Handler.

news of college sport seems to be taken up
with tales of disagreements, ruptures OF
alliances, cessations of athletic relations
and the like unpleasantnesses. Outside the
reports of contests actually held and pros
poets of teams for the seasons to come,
there is very little else to record but
breaks. Some colleges seem to be persis-
tent trouble makers Their names get into
the prints more often than any others
Either they make clamor after game, al
leglng various unfairnesses. or they loudly
proclaim their virtue to be so great that
they cannot continue in entangling al
liances with the more corrupt and there
fore more successful rivals
The recent case of Pennsylvania in its
i'll advised protest through the college daily
the Pennsylvania, against c. w. Randall
of Harvard official referee of the basket
ball game between Harvard and Pepnsyl-
vania, is one of the kind that have made
college sport unpleasant. The whole Har-
vard-Pennsylvania disagreement is too well
known to need rehearsing.
There have been all sorts of breaks be-
tween colleges in the middle west. which
have been set forth at length with the
greatest possible publicity. with the result
that the morale of college sport has been
hurt.
Inc OlSCusSlOn py LIT. NICHOLS OF mar
ward as to rule of thumb" training of
track athletes has aroused some comment
among the professional trainers. 1t is true.
as DR.. Nichols says, that in only a few
cases is trainer a medical man. Mike
Murphy. John Bowler. c. P. Hutchins and
possibly one or two Others have studied
medicine. 1t does seem that It would be
better If men who handled athletes knew
something of medicine, although the fact
that so many of them do not and at the
same time produce well trained athletes
points out that 1t is not absolutely neces-
sary.
Training seems to be a matter OF Guilt
waited observation A trainer gets hold of
n man whose physical peculiarities are thus
and such. He knows in a general way what
succeeded and what failed in the cases of
certain other men of a like physical de-
velopment But the trainer does not pro-
coed at once to adapt to this mans case
the rules that he tried before. He studies
his mans habits, finds out If he is nervous
or phlegmatic. gives him a bit of hard
work to see what his reactions are and
continues until, after a month or So in
which the man is gradually improving in
condition, the trainer knows what kind Of
an athlete he has to handle.
IIe knows whether the man has to be
worked hard all season to get At, or
whether he has to get light work for fear
that he may go over the edge. He knows
whether the man who is heralded as a
prep school star may be worked along
with the other athletes or whether the
unfortunate prevailing tendency of the
school boy to do everything in all sports
has put him l a condition where he
ought to rest entirely rather than take up
athletics. Possibly a medical man could
tell those things as well and certainly a
man with the true knack of training plus
medical knowledge would be better man.
But It must be remembered that there are
many men. who, even IL in their time they
had been great athletes and had afterward
acquired a very complete knowledge of
anatomy, physiology and hygiene, would
never be trainers at all. The training art
is a sort of Unborn quality. Every man
has different theories of the game. caused
by his own mental bias in regarding what
he gets from observation. There are illog-
ical minds among trainers as among others.
Two men have the same data and draw
different conclusions. 1t does seem there
| fore than even If. as DR.. Nichols sug-
gests, that the training game is rule
of thumb" affair, it has to partake tritie
of that nature involuntarily.
| II is said that II Michigan does enter a
| team of track athletes in the games of the
l. c. A. A. A., Garrels, Curtiss, Stewart
| and Ramey will be sent TO Cambridge.
among others. These four men, by the
conference rules limiting competition to
three years, are ineligible for the western
| meet but there is nothing in the regula-
lions of the eastern games to bar them.
| Therefore, after consultation with the
Nc
! decided that the men may fairly be sent,
| they will represent the Wolverines. That
will give them several points for sure.
Garrels' performance with the weights and
Ramey's running are good enough to earn
points.
| Edward Parry, the former University of
| Chicago athlete and foot, ball player, may
| take up professional wrestling, according
| to a western report. Parry has record
of close to 16O feet for throwing the six
teen-pound hammer. This is all the more
remarkable because he throws with one
| hand only. He has a withered arm.
Whether that would not make wrestling an
impossibility against good two-handed
man, the western report does not set forth.
With the return Of Eckersall to college
for the spring term to play base ball for
| the University of Chicago, there has been
revived some more ldlh dDoul MS opSShSSs
It was said that he had been in sporting
| goods store partnership with two other
athletes, and the point is raised as to
whether he has not thereby forfeited his
amateur standing 1t is likely that there Is
nothing but talk In the whole affair, as
Ecl<ersall's record has shown him too
careful to make. errors of that kind.
The two collegiate meetings held In New
York were not productive of the results
anticipated along the line of narrowing
the gap. between the intercollegiate Ath-
Ietic association OF the United States and
hve of the seven institutions which are
represented independently on the foot ball
rules committee, which the intercollegiate
association is especially anxious to enroll in
it's membership.
II is not too much to say that the OPP
position of the larger colleges is partly
political If any member of the old foot
ball committee is asked about politics
within the committee. he will scon and
deny the existence OF such influence. Never
theIess, politics is there, and always has
been. 1t was through nothing else-the
fear that unfavorable legislation to one
or another interest might follow-that pre-
vented the resclssiOn OF the unanimous
consent requirement of the old committee,
and AZ was the necessity of unanimous con-