New Britain herald., 1925-04-04
 
ICOLLEGE SPORTS ARE PROFESSIONAL
Home Games Occasions for
 Drinking DebaQches

Columbus, O., April 1, --- Charges
 that 'intercollegiate sport is now on a professional basis" that the home-
 coming football games of colleges and universities are made the occa-
 sion Of "liquor drinking and de-
 bauches" and that the present sys-
 tenn of college football lis a real
 detriment to the health and physical seundness of many Of its players and
 even to their lives" were made here last night by Professor F. G. Mahin of Purdue university, speaking at the annual dinner Of the Ohio Col lege association.
 Professor Mahin is a teacher of analytical chemistry nt Purdue. i ~ He asserted that the Big Ten" conference rules committee and oth- CT regulatory bodies of similar or ganizations are without real control and that in reality there is no such thing as factulty control Of ath- letics. One of the principles Of the western conference is that control of athletics shall be in the hands of the faculties. l venture to say that if the principle was really enforced. It, erally and in spirit, the conference would not longer be known as the Big Ten" It would be the Dig Zero.
 Faculty Loses Power The power of control of athletics 1 has passed from the hands of the faculties into those who interests in educational affairs is but secondary to their interest in success Of a great commercial enterprise of pub lie entertainment.
 There is an old saying that If you give dog rope enough he will contrive to hang himself. Possibly so. We seem to be making a test of the thesis in intercollegiate ath- letics."
 Professor Mahln declared he be. lieved that the only practicable so- lution for this momentus problem of higher education is to be found in the absolute divorcement of the coll lege from this enterprise of inter- collegiate athletics"
 Coaches Paid Too Much
 The few outstandingly successful coaches demand and receive salaries that are absolutely out of proportion to those paid real teaching and re- search geniuses in the scientific and research fields" he declared "un- der these circumstances, it remains ! for the college that can obtain large athletic funds to get and to keep these coaches, and it is these schools that are, in the long run, able to win high places in the championship tables.
 "We should not blame our players too much for this condition. They ! are but the victims of the system | which we permit and encourage.
 There Is another factor to he considered-the securing of the good potential playing material for the teams. For many critics ti imply | that players are bought for college teams is to provoke an immediate storm of protest.
 No, They are not bought in the ordinary sense of the word But we must have our chance for the cham pionsllip. We can not have 1t with out the best coaches and players, and neither coaches nor players just happen
 "The championship business re- wolves itself into the matching of the wits and skill of the coaches and the wits and the purses of the alumni and the sporting public. each col lege against the other.
 Easy For Athletes
 Things are made easy for the young athletes in more ways than one, When scholastic difficulties de- velop, as they do occasionally when our young recruits find themselves under professor who has an old fashioned idea that study and mem tai accomplishment have a certain place in his class program, along come fraternity committees who fur 1ish examination questions of years pack and who bolster up and spoon Iced the weak brother until he 1 scrapes through, at least for the season.
 This is one kind Of 'manheod : hat we hear so much about in pep meetings and at athletic bsnqueta
 We talk about how professional sm would make our intercollegiate ( athletics into mere race Of high finance. What else than this do we imagine 1t is now? IT We refuse to lIlow ourselves to be deuded by words and catch-phrasos we cannot ,scape the conviction that intercol- egiate sport is now on a professional oasis and it never can be returned o an amateur basis until the place ye give it in college life is abso- utely changed.
 And now we have the stadium with us. No college today is com ,lete without it. When the decision . given hy a certain college motto 0 be outdone in the stadium racs, q lriNe for funds must he organized. There is 3 commonly held notion hat students are back of these afr- cities one hundred per cent. This is l fallacv
 Object To Assessments
 The young man and woman who ire going 10 college and are sup ported by parents or who are living n borrowed capital. are not likely o eonjure up any great amount of over the prospect of be- ng sand-bageed into contributing { 100 or $500 for a concrete or steel diice in which 5o,000 frenzied 'leasure-seekers spend a few hours a