The Bridgeport times and evening farmer. (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1918-1924, 1918-01-12
LEARNS
PRO" COACH HAS
NO LIFE OF EASE
Paid Athletic Tutors Spoil Chances Of More Useful
Career, He Declares, and Are Abused AS If They
Were Getting Money Under False Pretenses.

can he win with it If he is not wise
to the game-a problem equal to run
ming college at that.
Now one Of the points Of attack up
on the coach is Just this: In order to
win he must have, the goods and he
sees that he gets these goods. In con-
sequence, PROSECUTING, professional and
otherwise, is attributed to the coach.
In fact, if you think of any evil of
which college sport is guilty you can
Immediately and without much re-
search attribute it to the hired coach.
| That brings US down to the greatest
evil Of all-losing football games. The
coach is always to be blamed for that
| If he puts the burden of defeat on a
failing of any member or members
of the team-he is IL poor sport and
an alibiest, unworthy of retention.
Once more the scrap heap is brought
into action.
AS a matter of fact the coaches of
the country would like to see coaching
and all the evils pertaining thereto re-
| formed. This business of having a
short-time job of lucrative salary at
the mercy of that most figkle of god
desses, Victory, is unsettling, to say
the least. l have known men to lose
twenty-five pounds in a month owing
to such a strain. 1 have never known
a college prof to feel that way about
lis work.
Furthermore, a coach sees into the
future and it is as dark as that of
William Hohenzollern's. Around al out
the time he is getting fit for making
| in nv nfh ont
professional baseball, the coach is
nearing the age limit and is unfit for
any other vocation. All this makes
life unpleasant for the coach.
My guess is that the average coach
sticks to the work because he loves
| sport, and when one loves sport he
will take big chances. The average
ex-athlete who coaches never loses
his love for sport, ideal sport at that
| and he hates tC think of ever getting
out of it. He fools i<nself into stick
: ing to it until it is too late. Knowing
) al this, is it any wonder a coach want!
big pay? Should the faculty begrudgt
: a man who is far-sighted enough tt
take some stock in his old age?
} The only way to reform coaching
in so far as it relates to salaries il
to make it permanent. Even if tina
= is done the coach will worry and FIRE
= and become a near nervous break
t down at the end of each season bu
at that the ugly and cruel feature will
l be cast aside. Instead of bowling dow
e the salaries of coaches our noted edu
t Gators might better spend their tim
n il putting permanency into the occu
l.. patton. That is about what they d
:, in the Middle West and at Cornell, il
f the East. Consequently their colleg
r athletics are on a firmer basis tina,
= elsewhere.
g But nothing like that seems likel
to happen elsewhere. The unfortun
It ate part of the whole thing is tina
: educators and athletic followers ar
It not going to make intercollegiate spoI
- part of physical education. 1t
d a thing apart from that and the gam
Il is to win. That being the case Their
# is no sound or just reason why me
e should be made use of for few year
h as athletic coaches and then job j
o this widely diversified world.
s. If this war is to result in a refor3
in college sport the coach is worth
IS of consideration. AS it now stands OF
ID educational institutions are guilty {
is practice in their dealings wit
st coaches unworthy OF any purpose fl
lie which they were founded or are bein
IN conducted. This is all due to the ia,
a. that the academic has not as yet reG
es lied that physical education is a mo-
l. important part of education. Thel
lie are even now too many educator
r who think it undignified to give after
X ton to sound bodies. AS a form
K coach with no irons in the fire
n seems to me it is time to give the
III the scrap heap treatment.
er Copyright, 1918, by Sol Metzger)