Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1922-02-24
Friday. February "a, 1922.
ATHLETICS AND SCHOOLS

ATHLETICS AND SCHOOLS
There are several sides to>the ques-
ton of athletics now being so vigor-
ously discussed in the schools. While
some would have the professional
coach made member of the faculty
others would do away with him alto
gethor leaving to the student body to
select from its ranks the one to man
age its affairs. There is, however,
one conclusion to which there appears
10 be no dissent; some method of i'm
. provement must be insisted upon.
4: Speaking before the alumni the
. chairman of the Yale Athletic Board
!. declared he would bar coaches from
(. the playing field and sidelines during
/. college football games and he would
do away with the tramp athlete by
preventing a man who had represent
ed one college thereafter representing
another. The president of Amherst
would go further and eliminate the
professional coach altogether.
when is considered the money that is
made from athletics in some colleges
It is easy to understand why profess
fional coach may draw salary sew
oral times larger than that paid to
the dean. Also. when is considered
the enormous growth of interest in
tho athletic side Of college life within
the past few years and a seemingly
though only SO we believe-corre-
spending decrease in interest in other
activities. ones Imagination need not
be stretched far to conceive the COL
.lege presidents wondering what pub
lie appeal would be left to them if
athletics were toppled from their en-
lnence
And then when one comes to think
OF the money there is in it: Of the
inevitable flies and other insects such
money attracts, of what the big
money has done for baseball, one be-
gins to look about for a Lands to
reform college athletics, begins to
wonder what would happen once they
" were reformed.
The status Of athletics in a pro-
fessional school to which men go be-
cause they have a definite purpose
for which that institution euuips
them. is hardly comparable with
that OF college, to which some, if
not many, would not go but for the
athletic attractions. Nevertheless 1t
Is interesting to see what they are
doing with athletics in the Institute
OF Technology.
There exists no professionalism as
the production of winning teams is
not part of the program. Accord
ing to those who speak for the athle-
tics of that institution 1.-THE aim is to
develop physically as many students
as possible, on the theory that good
PHYSICAL training is an aid to clear
thinking. 1t is also the object to fit
students physically for the engineer
ing profession, which often requires
n strong physique. Competitive ath-
letics are maintained only as an in
centive to students to engage in
sports. The success of this system
or undergraduate athletics is attested
by the fact that the average scholas-
tic standing of all students taking
part in competitive sports is consid-
cradle higher than the average of all
the students in the institution. -
Technology. with an undergraduate
registration of $500, has no varsity
football or baseball teams, because
1t is believed that participation in
these sports has a detrimental effect
on scholarship which is not offset by
the degree of physical training re-
reived"
OF course there are at "Tcch" no
huge gate receipts, no atmosphere of
the gambling which must in greater
or lesser degrees surround the
big varsity, none of the ad-
~Nertising, none Of the appeal to
TO the alumni afforded by these con-
Ssts and without which college life
10 many an onlookef and to some of
Abe participants would indeed seem
nat stale and improbable, yet some |
-of us would like to see a like policy
applied to the other schools and cof-
1fges. One thing is sure, if athletics
As factor of college life increase in
IKE proportion to the increase of the
past twenty years the purposes Of the
founders of those institutions will be
as far out of mind as the advice of