The Washington times., 1922-03-21
SAYS COLLEGES
MAKE BUSINESS
Of ATHLETICS
American Student in England
Compares Sports Of Two
Countries.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. March IL
The American way OF handling
college athletics tends to encourage
a situation whereby athletes do not
find 1t hard to slip into professional
life. College athletics nowadays 10
business. All the fun is squeezed
out Of competition. 80 declares the
Harvard Alumni Bulletin in COM
menting on a letter recently pub
lished in the Harvard Crimson and
Evening Journal from Thomas s.
Lamont. son OF the New York
financier. who 10 studying in Eng.
land and finds conditions there con-
siderably different from those at
his Alma Mater.
The Bulletin states:
Time and again the difficulties
we all recognize in our athletic pro-
cedure have been traced to the
spirit in which we play our in
tercollegiate and interscholasic
games. We make a business OF It..
We organize, purchase equipment
out of gate receipts. hire lcoeche s
and call on players to work for
the honor Of the college"
I'VE squeeze the fun out OF play.
Only the excitement Of competition
is left. The players get no recrea.
ton from the games or from the
practice; managers are overworked;
fellow. students are much too anx-
ious over the outcome, and the
whole enterprise assumes an i'm.
portance It does not deserve.
The English attitude has often
been contrasted with ours. and to
our disparagement. English play
ers play for the fun Of 1t, train
only incidentally. and take the
whole thing, even to the provision
Of equipment and the general meet
ing costs. as q matter OF individual
choice. much as one takes mem-
bership in a club.
Our spirit 10 in one sense not
less the amateur spirit than Is the
English; we frown severely on any
hint of Professionalism; yet so
deliberately dc we organise for VIC
tory and 50 much do we mix com.
pulsion with pleasure for the ath.
lete, that the genuine amateur
the lover Of sport for sports sake
Is perhaps not 30 conspicuous
among US as he 10 in England.
IF our college athletes slip over
the line into the rank of pro-
fessionas II Is not much to be
wondered at; for there is little rea.
son why our athletes should not
consider athletics the main bust.
ness of life. This over seriousn ess
of ours is the great difference he.
tween athletics here and athletics
in England. We are good losers
and we are not in athletics for
money but we take the game too
hard.
''T. S. Lamont, twenty one, writing
from Cambridge to the Crimson,
thinks our preparatory schools land
| even our elementary schools) re.
sponsible for the American spirit in
athletics. The reform. he says, must
begin at the bottom. In this we
believe him to he mistaken, for in
athletics the schools ape the col.
ieges, and the colleges began our
present regime Of management,
with stadiums, cross continent trips
and the whole train of results con.
sequent upon organization of atb.
/ letics on a grand scale. The evils
began in college and must be at.
! tackled there.
"One suggestion IL that we de
velop our organization in new
! direction--a direction we have al
ready begun to take. namely, the
consolidation OF athletics into the
educational enterprise as recog
nized department Of training and
| Instruction