Norwich bulletin., 1915-12-14
PREFERS PROFESSIONALISM
 TO HYPOCRISY
President Perkins of Trinity College Comments on Athletic Situation.

The question of the eligibility of George Brickley, the Trinity football player who has been playing profess sional baseball, has been the subject of great comment in college circles during the past season. President Henry Augustus Perkins '96, president of Trinity college, has given the fol- lowing interview regarding Trinity s position and the eligibility situation in general:
 .UnquestionabIy the ideal situation in athletics would DC to have every man play his game for the love of it, and never for pecuniary gain. But, with human nature as it is, We have to face the facts in dealing with ath- | letiC conditions as they exist today in our American colleges.
 Tn my opinion it is better to have no eligibility rule whatever, than to have a rule which is likely to be evaded and to generate a spirit of hypocrisy. The present eligibility rule at Yale seems to me too harsh when it is car ried out to it's logical extreme. In the first place it bars d man from earning an honest and honorable means of live lihoOd, and secondly, because it does place him in a position where he some times has to play the hypocrite. With the present ruling in force at Yale. the committee is, of course, justified in declaring the five players ineligible. But hope to see the time come when the colleges can agree on a modifica- tion of the eligibility rule so that a man who is enrolled as a bona fide student can secure part of his neces- Sary financial means by playing sum- mer baseball of the unObjectionable type. And by this I mean that he be entitled to play on teams that are not members of any of the major or minor leagues. For it is these last mention ed leagues which really place the stamp of professionalism on the career and conduct of a man. If we are un- able to frame a rule that cannot be allowing college men to play on the smaller of these less professional teams.
 AS Professor Foster points out in the Atlantic Monthly, surely a college baseball team does not receive any more of the professional spirit which we all object to from one player who has earned his living during the sum- mer by his baseball, than 1t receives from the coach who has very likely been league player of long standing. It is idle to object to a slight amount of professionalism among the players when we find it embodied in full in the person of the coach.
 Once we adopt a stand against pro- feSSionaliSm in its slightest interpre- tation we find that we have to bar majority of the teams on our college schedules. Thus we see how rapidly the contagion of one team can spread it's eontaminating influence, if we choose to call it such.
 The case of Brickley at Trinity has drawn forth a great deal of comment this year. Our position at Trinity is just this: The faculty as a whole has no control over athletics, beyond cer- tifying that a player Is a bona fide student of the college and off proba- tion. Our athletic interests are in the hands of. an athletic advisory commit tee composed of several graduates, two faculty members and the managers of the teams. Trinity has always felt