Daily Kennebec journal., 1922-03-28
Would Abolish
Athletic Boards
in College Sports

New Haven, Conn, March 81
Colleges and not athletic boards
should manage their athletics and
handle the revenues, President Alex
ander Meiklejohn of Amherst College
said in an address at the 132nd an
nual manquet of the Yale Chapter,
Phi Beta Kappa tonight. He replied
to criticisms of his recent suggest
ions as to college athletics made by
Graduate Treasurer Fred W. Moore
and Professor Clarence W. Mendell,
chairman of the Yale Athletic Board
of Control, and reiterated his declar-
ton that it was time that "under-
graduates should again coach and
manage and play their own games"
Il have ventured to suggest" he
said, that undergraduate games
should be played by undergraduates,
managed by undergraduates, coached
by undergraduates.
ITO the first of these suggestions
no objection has, so far as L know,
been made in words. In this field 1t
is not words that speak. Men do
not justify their methods here. They
simply get results. ! am glad to say,
however. that apparently in most of
the colleges with which we play,
these me mare losing influence. Very
few of us care to pay men to play
Oh the college teams.
ITO my second suggestion, Mr..
Moore has replied that it is imprac-
ticable that under graduates could
not possibly manage their athletic
activities. Mr.. Moore seems to me
t. confuse issues and so TO miss the
real point. l know that Harvard
undergraduates ought not to try TO
manage the Harvard stadium, but the
point seems to me irrelevant. The
one essential change in athletic man
agement which is needed is to cut
the connection between games and
gate receipts. The college or uni
Nersity should own and manage its
athletic field Just as it owns and
manages all other equipment. 1t
may. if it wishes, provide for admit
ting the public to see the games. But
III that case it is the college and not
the athletic council, which should
make the arrangements and collect
the fees.
"All the vast business of stadiums
and bowls should be cut off from the
games themselves. 1t is to the con-
rectiOn between these two things that
one can trace the eXaggerations in
athletic management and with every
year the eXaggeration becomes great.
On the other hand what / had pro-
posed was that undergraduates
should manage their own games. pay
for their own uniforms and equip
ment. should go to the field to play
just as they do to any other place of
equipment which the college sup
plies. If that separation is made.
undergraduates can manage their
own games.
1.-The suggestion is not impractical.
It is essential that it be carried out.
An athletic board commissioned by
the college to use it's equipment to
extract from the public huge sums of
money to be used for athletic pur-
poses is an absurdity.
ITO my third suggestion Prof.
Mendell has objected. saying that
since in our intellectual work We
furnish the best teaching, therefor in
sports we should give the very best
teaching there is Mr.. Mendell's ar
gume nts seem to me to rest upon
confusion between teaching and
coaching.
"a good illustration of this point
is found in the field of debating. De-
batting should be taught in colleges.
Should it also be coached? Evident
ly not. A debating team which de-
claims the arguments which some
one else has furnished, presses points
which some one else has sharpened.
is a mockery of real undergraduate
debating. College men should be
taught debating. But when they
compete with other men they should
do their own work within their own
game, or lose it.
Just so in athletics. The colleges
all students. should teach them
games. should develop in them all
the love of play and the skill in do
ing it. But does it follow that the
college should coach them when they
engage in conflict with another COL
1ege? No man who knows what sport
is wants another man paid to win
his game for him. And that is what
our present coaching system does.
Mr.. Moore and Mr.. Mendell seem
to me to be arguing for n mode Of
procedure that is dying itself by its
own absurdity. A game is a thing
for player himself to play. But we
have made OF our games vast enter
prises with which others have alto
gether too much to do. 1t is time
that undergraduates should again
coach and manage and play their
own 2amesn p