The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-01-06
PRACTICAL PROPOSITION
IS ENTIRELY OVERLOOKED
While Clean Athletics Is Essential
Too Much Strain Unnecessary.
Examples cited-Aabama
May Lose Pollard.
BY HUGH w. ROBERTS.

business sense. certain amount of
money, out of the treasury, would be ex-
pended annually in behalf of athletics.
There is no doubt but that splendid
football team, or baseball aggrega-
ton that finishes a season among the
leaders is the best advertisements the
best practical advertisement-that a col
lege can have. Nothing more than a fi1St
rate football team keeps the college
prominently in theS eyes of the public.
Nothing more than ai successful team
awakens a longing ia the heart of the
future student to get himself to the classic
walls of a university. Therefore, there
is no doubt but that a winning athletic
team is the best advertisement that
college can produce.
Then, the next question to be deter
mined is whether or not advertisement
pays The best argument as to whether
or not advertisement pays is the presenta-
ton of the columns of a great newspaper
filled with the statements of practical
business men, for which vast sum of
money is expended annually. In Biz
mingham, for instance, it is fact that
one firm expends in the way of adver-
tisement something like $4,000 annually
as much money, in fact, as all the store
houses in Auburn combined take in dur
ing a years time.
Self Sustaining Athletics.
Therefore, admitting that a success
full football and baseball team is the
best advertisement that a college can
produce, and admitting that advertising
will leave n
stone unturned in its effort to put forth
winning athletic teams, and will with
hold no assistance, consistent with the
code of "clean' athletics, in the way
of practical aid and encouragement.
That being the case, each college should
expend annually at least as small sum
as $1,000 in the way of booming ath-
letics. Today, each college, overlooking
the practical good that comes from first
rank athletic teams force athletics to be
self-sustaining There is no doubt under
the sun that if the colleges would permit
the team to make as large schedule
as it sees fit, it could support itself. But,
in order that a student might lose as lit
tie time from his studies as possible, the
number of games off and on the campus
is estricted-properly. 1t is probable,
TOO. that if no rain interfered with the
few games scheduled off the campus, the
athletic teams would be self-supporting.
However, if rain does interfere, there Is
no other hope but that the team will be
in the 'hole" when the season comes
to a close.
Under the present system, the college
then sits down, writes a personal APP
neal to the alumni, and manages to pull
out again.
Role of the College.
1t is all right to expect athletic teams
to support themselves. But that col
lege which does not come to the as
sistance in times of distress, and which,
Instead of encouraging sport nags con-
tinually, strainins to swallow camels
when only a gnat is buzzing around, is
not only ungrateful in return for the eff
forts of the student body, but as also Woe
fully lacking in the practical.
1t is useless to preach hard times
There are thousands of ways in which
college could practice economy, and by
so doing extend to the football team
encouragement, and, if necessary, few
hundred dollars. In the south, the col
lege gives no assistance, whatever, to
athletics In the very beginning of the
season, when uniforms are necessary,
shoes, stockings, shin guards, headgear,
etc, the college very seldom advances
money. 1t generally happens that the
manager of the team makes a canvass
throughout the student body abjectly re-
questing subscriptions. In case the col
lege does advance money, its return is
demanded, and is invariably made.
While the college fails to encourage
athletics, it does not even occupy neu-
tral territory. The faculty, indeed, too
often handicaps the sport under the guard
of having its athletics clean. And in so
doing, the college often strains at a
gnat and gulps down camel.
Clean Athletics Essential.
1t behooves a college to have clean
athletics But whenever one athletic
team is guilty of violation of the code,
it is not proper for all the other col
Jeges to remedy that evil by adding re-
striction after restriction. The Southern
intercollegiate Athletic association, even
prior to the adoption of the one-year
rule, had a splendid constitution, and
by enforcing its law, would have guar
anteed clean sport. The rule requiring
that a player must be an amateur is
essential. The law demanding that
player must not have played on any other
college team within the space of year
is good one. The faculty supervision of
athletic teams is necessary. But there
is no necessity of the continual strain
and the continual restriction of whole
some sport. The faculties lack the cour-
age to deal out purishment-as is in
stanced by the embarrassing of the Uni
versity of Georgia, admittedly guilty of
violating the fundamental principal of
clean college athletics-and when such
punishment ism ecessary, often excuse
themselves by a promise to do better to-
morrow-as instanced by the adpotion of
new laws mad regulations.
1t is believed that the majority of col
leges in the south have clean athletics.
Until the recent Georgia scandal, it was
p't believed that any college in the south