The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-01-11

utilize this permission are really pro-
fessionals.
In the middle west the conference as
ISOLATION has tackled the problem, but
it has avoided no satisfactory solution.
For instance, the best the conference
could do was to pass a rule to permit
members of their teams to play bail
with a team which engaged a profess
sional battery. It was provided, or
course, that the other players on the
team were not to be paid for their ser
vices. This rule possibly did some good
by allowing those students who love
the game for itself to play 1t, but 1t
failed to go to the root OF the summer
ball evil.
What the N. /. A. A. must realize is
that a college baseball star can pick up
enough money during his summer va
cation to give him a year at college:
And If he can not play under his right
name he will play under an assumed
name, thus doubly violating the anna
teur rule. So strong is this tempta-
ton, and so readily can the rule be vio-
lated, that it is actually violated with
the greatest of freedom. This associa-
ton should not consider that the rule
is being enforced. In fact, the situation
is no better than 1t ever was, except
in so far as college sentiment is turn
ing against the summer ball player
and there is a difference of opinion even
on this point.
Some of the ardent reformers appear
to think that all baseball coaching
should be done by graduates, prefera-
bly, members of the faculty. 1t is hard
to discuss this proposition with patti
ence when it is seriously put forth.
Nearly every big university in the east
had tried the experiment and pronounc-
ed it a dismal and unqualified failure.
Even Harvard, where it was popularity
supposed the idea received most sup
port, has this year engaged a profess
sional coach, and not even a gradu-
ate of Harvard. He is DR.. Sexton,
graduate of Brown. Both Yale and
Pennsylvania tried the amateur grad
uate coach, and both were glad at the
first opportunity to secure an out and
out professional. Pennsylvania Secur-
ed a professional coach in the person
of Roy Thomas, the old Philadelphia
National league outfielder, and grad
uate of that university. Yale, on the
other hand, engaged Lush, the old
Cleveland outfielder, and not college
man. Cornell has a professional coach
in Daniel f. Coogan, though he is
graduate of Pennsylvania.
Among practical baseball men there
is no sentiment in favor of an amateur
graduate coach. It is realized that to
coach baseball properly a man must
have been a professional player him
SELF The mere fact that graduates are
apparently a success in football is no
argument in their favor, as far as base
bfial is concerned. There is no more
comparison between the amateur and
the professional than there is between
the amateur and the professional actor.
If there were such thing as profess
sional football then it would not be long
before we were hiring professional foot
ball coaches for this sport also. The
professional knows that his bread and
butter depends upon his making good,
and for that reason he is better quail
fed than the amateur. College man
are anxious to learn all they can in
have a right to the best coaching that
can be secured. This, and the fact that
every college wants its team to be a
winner, furnish the strongest argument
for the continuation of the present sys-
tenn Of coaching.