Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1920-01-16
however entir,Ig fofeign to iva ing

.
cidcutS in American football can be
traced TO the force with which a nan
lands upon the Ia d ground. bare
and often frozen. upon which We
play. English play ing fields ale in
!driably soft turf. on which there is
much less danger OF injury Nor is
Rugger without its casualties.
Trifiing injuries occur in every game !:
serious ones are frequent; and one
oxford undergraduate was killed in
4 Rugby game this fall.
1t is always a surprise to .Ameri-
cans to find that track m cts are
held in the winter in the English
universities. This q counts for some
of the comparatively poor records on
this side of the water, though the
oxford Cambridge record of 1854 2-5
in the half mile, and a few others,
are good in any company. Many de-
tails of. the sports are different.
Races are run from left to right on a
circular track. The 22O-yard dash,
the low hurdles, the pole vault,
discus. and javelin do no. appear
upon the program. The high hurdles
are usually run on the grass, and
the hurdles are fixed in the ground
so firmly that if man fail; to clear
one, he is practically out of the race.
In the spring interest ce1ters in
rowing and cricket. Rowing, natu-
rally, is much the same in the big
races as at home, but owing to the
ford and Cambridge, the cole ge
races, as opposed to university races,
are on the bump" system. Races
are held on several successive even
ings. Each boat starts a consider
able distance behind the one in front,
and attempts, somewhere along the
course, to catch and bump the one
ahead, If this happens, both paddle
4 for the bank, if still afoat, to get
I out of the way of those behind he
next evening the bumper takes the
/ place of the bumped and attempts to
make one more step toward "head
of the river" In the first race of
the following year the boats take the
positions they held at the end Of the
preceding season.
Cricket is a game which l believe
/ no American can ever understand.
/ One match frequently takes three or
| four days; one man may make 100
out. Though superficially resembling
| baseball in some OF it's aspects, it is
in spirit utterly opposed to the sharp,
poppy contests of the diamond. The
spectators, too, share in the general
listlessness. They sit on the porch
of the clubhouse slipping tea, and if
what is considered a good play is
made, clap their hands and pipe out.
We'll played, well played" or well
caught, well caught as the case may
be. 1t may be an exciting game, but
all the evidence is against this con-
clusion.
In spite of the handicaps they have
had to overcome, Americans have Of
late years played more of a part in
Oxford athletics than they have been
given credit for. Captain Ziegler,
who was stationed at Camp Lewis
during the war, was for three years
winner in the shot and hammer
ovoufc a 20 iro% 10 ~, hriAUo Norp,ou
Taber. holder of the worlds record
in the mile, came to Oxford from
Brown university, and was member
of the Oxford team which captured
the four-mile relay championship at
the Pennsylvania games in 1914. In
almost every college this year Amer
leans are playing on the college
teams
But the real athletic event of the
year for the Americans is the Amer
lean football game on our Thanks
giving day, played between the old
men and the new. No one at home
would recognize them as football
players, for they play in the English
costumes, short trousers and bare
knees. The American wives, who
appeared at Oxford this year for the
first time, introduced some new fea-
lures into the roofing. AS the quar-
terback of the new" team got away
for an end run, his wife on the side
lines shrieked, Run, Precious, run"
am certain that the English specta-
tors found it as difficult to under
stand our game as we sometimes do
to understand theirs.
English roofing is not often SO i'm
passioned as ours, nor do the teams
consider even a varsity contest as
quite SO much of life and death |
matter. A same is only game
after all, and they 60 in for games |
for the pleasure and the exercise
more than for the glory of winning.
At the end of any contest, the MEM |
bers of the winning team set up three |