Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-10-05
LaoeaCobbCasho Batting Honos Today Sporting NeWsandGos
FOOT BALL INJURIES
MUCH EXAGGERATED
Rules Committee Should Thor
oughIy Investigate All the
Seasons Accidents.
BY Edward r. Bushnell.

One of the worst enemies foot ball has
TO combat is the INSCRIPTIONS publication
Of statistics purporting to give record
Of the dead and injured whose fatalities
or wounds arc alleged to be due to foot
ball. Already several OF these lists have
been started i'm circulation. and probably
will grow in size with as much ease as a
rolling snow ball increases. Several OF
these which the writer has already ex-
amined have been fearfully padded. Sim
pie injuries have been exaggerated. until
strained ligaments have become disloca-
tions and bruises pictured as broken
bones.
1t is the publication OF misleading re-
ports such as these that give parents and
the intercollegiate public a totally wrong
notion regarding the extent of foot ball
injuries. In fact, If the perennial agita-
ton against foot ball were traced to its
true source, it would be found to originate
in these statistics. Naturally parents are
appalled, to read some OF those tables Of
statistics. and SO would we all be did We
not know many of them to be totally
false.
Last year Mr.. Moffett OF Princeton per-
formed a notable service for the foot
ball rules committee and the college
world by investigating these reports. dis
covering how many Of them were correct
ton of the truth from fiction very greatly
reduced the casualty HIST and proved most
emphatically that the majority of what
deaths and injuries still remained on the
list were due to fneXcusable carelessness
on the part Of the players themselves.
The same conclusions were reached in
several annual Investigations conducted by
a prominent professor in the University OF
Illinois several years ago.
Inasmuch as there is tendency to re-
peat and embellish these exaggerated re-
ports of foot ball injuries. it would be we'll
for the foot ball rules committee to ap-
point a subcommittee charged with the
necessity of investigating all the foot ball
injuries reported for the year and then
classify them as to their causes. At the
end Of the season the committee could
tell definitely whether or not there had
been a diminution in foot ball injuries
value in future legislation on the rules
Another Attack on Short Periods.
The division of the game into four
periods with a rule permitting a player
to return to the game a second time is
now being criticised from an unexpected
source. 1t is held responsible for the ILL
ness Of Ramsdeu of the Pennsylvania
team. In explaining this players illness.
1t is said that he contracted cold while
remaining on the side lines after being re-
moved from the Dickinson game and wait
ing to be returned to the contest.
Heretofore the moment a player left the
field he was sent to the training quarters,
and if he returned at all IT was not until
he was thoroughly dried. Now such a
player must remain on the field, for he
never knows at what moment he will be
ordered back into the game. Nothing is
more natural than that a player taken
from the game in a perspiring condition
should contract q cold on the side lines.
SO far We have had nothing but warm
weather, but when cold, wet days come
no player will be proof against pneumonia.
Then there will be room for criticism of
the rule dividing the game into four pc
RODS and refusing to let the players leave
the field during the intermission of three
minutes. 1t will be interesting to note
how these rules operate under the condi-
tions referred to. 1t will be fortunate If
by their handicaps.