, 1915-10-28
USED BRAINS TO WIN
HOW ATHLETE ACHIEVED TRl.
UMPH IN RACES.
Ted Meredith Of University Of Penn
~sylvanla Had Carefully Thought
Out Methods That Brought
Him Victory in Contests.

There is a belated story of how Ted
Meredith of the University of Penn
s~ylvania defeated Bill Bingham OF
Harvard in the half-mile race in the
intercollegiate championships, which
carries with II a lesson valuable to
participants in practically all lines OF
snort, the New York Times remarks.
Meredith, 1t will be remembered, won
both the quarter and half-mile races.
The quarter was won in his usual
style. Meredith allowed one of his
competitors to go out and make the
pace. and then came like a streak in
the last furlong and won o as he
pleased.
When It came to the half Meredith
completely reversed the order of
things. He raced at top speed in the
first quarter and had all the rest of
the field on their toes and practically
beaten, doing the quarter in "a. He
then slowed down and W allowed a
couple of his competitors to pass him,
content with the fact that Bingham,
whom alone he feared, was plugging
along in the rear, hopelessly out of
1t. With him disposed of. Meredith
| again sped up in the last furlong,
caught and passed the two who had
headed him for a short distance, and
won very ~cleverly without being ex-
hausted.
Meredith's overwhelming triumph
was due to the use of brains coupled
with his powers as a racer. Before the
race he had taken the trouble to find
out the way in which Bingham, the
Harvard man, ran his races. He dis
covered 1t was his habit to take 1t
easy in the first quarter, running the
distance in about a minute fiat, and
~reserving himself for the final quar-
ter. which he would do in the neigh
borhood of fifty seconds. Meredith's
heartbreaking pace in the first quar-
ter completely upset Bingham's plan
for the race, and so bewildered the
fleet Harvard runner that the latter
had no time to think out and put into
operation a new plan.
Possibly there is no better example
Of the superiority of brain over Drawn
than in the career of George Bothner,
the wrestler. His lack of bulk was
more than compensated for in the abil-
ity to think quickly and almost III
cannily to anticipate and thwart the
particular hold" his opponent intend.
ed making.
John McGraw's success as a base
ball manager has been entirely due to
exceptionally acute brain power.
From the beginning of his career on
the diamond he analysed every play
made in a game in which he partici-
pated or witnessed, 1t was the study
that developed the baseball strategy
he made his own, and which made
him 80 much of a ~clairvoyant in
foreseeing the breaks of a game for
or against his team.
If Jim Jeffries had beer possessed
of enough gray matter he might eve
have lost the heavyweight champion
ship to Jack Johnson. But the punch
in the eye in the second round, which
was the turning point in the contest,
angered him. After that it was brute
force against brute force.
Football is so entirely a matter of
brains that everybody familiar with
sports admits that the best eleven of
the physical boxers or wrestlers, for
instance, would have no chance what
ever against an eleven such as repre-
sents any one of the great universal
ties on the gridiron each fall.
The thinking athlete gets more
sport out of the game he happens to
indulge in, also, than he would If
merely an exceptionally good natured
athlete or one who is able to absorb
the ideas of a trainer and carry
them out in purely mechanical fash
ion.
To the young athlete the lesson
modern sports teaches us: Attend
as well to the cultivation of the mind
as to the training of the body and
Its muscles if you would enjoy COM
petitive athletics to the full. The
first is as necessary as the last to be-
come s~upereXcellent at any sport, to
get the greatest enjoyment from sport
I and to cone with itR e-marReuciaa.