The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-02-04
Intercollegiate Athletics Due
for Reforms After the War.
Way Must Be Found to Interest
More Students.

New York, Feb. 4.-Opinions among
followers of eastern college athletics
appear to indicate radical changes in
intercollegiate contests after the war.
Up to the present time there has been
no concrete suggestion or plan offered,
Incorporating the ideas under discus
sion but it is considered likely that
there will be rapid progress in this.
direction once the agitation reaches a
plane above idealistic propaganda.
Notwithstanding the attitude of GER
tain faction to the contrary, it is gen.
orally conceded that inter-varsity
competition is the stimulus necessary
to lift participation in exercise and
sport above the level of daily college
routine.
Just how to accomplish this, while
giving opportunity for participation
in these games to hundreds of stu
dents instead of a chosen few special
lists or experts, is the problem which
must be mastered by those who are
advocating the change. That much
of the unnecessary and unscholastic
glamor will be stripped from such in
tercoliegiate contests appears inevita-
BILE but beyond this point suggested
one suggestion looking toward re-
adjustment in a prominent eastern
| intercollegiate sport has been ad-
! vanced to date.
f1Odt IlstGtS.
This is the proposal to supersede
the intercollegiate championship re-
gatta with a series of short, dual boat
raes in which each college crew would
meet each rival in turn during the
| spring rowing season. Just how this
would increase, to any extent, the
| number of oarsmen now competing is
not made clear. Providing given
college crew was to row even a one
| mile race against a rival eight each
Saturday during May and June. as
football elevenS play contests in the
| autumn, it is likely that the. coach,
once he had seated satisfactory and
winning combination in the shell
would send about the same eight to
the line each weekend
That there is need of greater par
ticipation in sport exercises and train
ing by the average student is pointed
out by no less an authority than DR..
Dudley A Sargent. director of Hem
enway gymnasium, Harvard univer-
sity. DR.. Sargent, in recent article
in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin,
states in part:
Presumably the students who enter
Harvard come to prepare themselves
physically well mentally and
morally for life's great game. Recent
examinations have shown that from
% per cent to so per cent of our young
men are physically unprepared for
military service History shows us
| originally practised for the purpose of
preparing men for war. Gymnastics
furnished the preliminary training;
athletics afforded the opportunity for
competition. ts.
Encourage the Unfit.
I'm view of the conditions confront
ing a people, would it not be a
wiser plan SO to conduct our athletics
as not only to select the fit and elm
mate the unfit from the major contests
which are the basis of the present sys-
tem-of which l approve as far as it
goes-but so to modify, supplement
and conduct these or other athletic
contests as to encourage the unfit to
continue their practice and try and
make themselves more fit for the
! duties of a citizen and a possible SOL
der?
| The one great difficulty that is
| continually operating against such
| modification of our present-day meth
cd is the high standard demanded by
the candidates of our major athletic
sports. In my opinion any game or
sport that has become so highly or
| ganized as to require a special anti
tude or ability on the part of every
player who would engage in it has
ceased to be of practical service in a
democratic community, except as
source of occasional entertainment and
amusement
1T is almost impossible to keep up
any interest in a highly specialized
game after leaving college. for the
simple reason that not enough skilled
| players can be found to form a team
1t is largely on account of the sim
pllc1ty of the game and the readiness
with which one may find some of
equal ability with whom to play that
tennis ana soif are proving SO popular