Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-04

Dean Christian Gauss of Princeton.
in discussing university problems at
an alumni gathering recently said.
with considerable emphasis: For my
part, ! wish we played foot ball every
Saturday during the college year. My
job during the foot ball season is
much easier, as far as enforcing disci-
pline in the university goes. than at
any other time"
Dean Gauss hit the nail on the
head. The temptations surrounding
the college boy today have increased
tenfold sine ! was an undergraduate.
The automobile has eliminated dis
lance. Most. If not all, of our univer-
stiles and colleges are within easy
reach of half dozen cities and towns.
The college or university undergradu-
ate is not going to spend his entire
time in study. Nor do l believe he
should. What is he going to do, then,
when he is not studing? Certainly he
is not going to sit down, fold his arms
and mediate. Quite the contrary, he
is going to be up and doing, for he is
full Of animal spirits, vitality and en-
thusiasm.
Foot ball offers a partial solution
During the foot ball season 50 per
cent of the undergraduates in almost
every college and school in the land
are at the foot ball field every Satur-
day afternoon-out in the clear, brac-
ing Autumn air. and, which is more to
the point, out of mischief and out of
the way of temptation
As to Grand Stand" Spirit.
Sometimes | hear well meaning peo-
pie, even people who know a little
about the surface of the game itself,
speak slightingly of foot ball enthusi-
asm in the colleges. Side line and
grand stand spirit, they call it. And
If it We're true that such an atmos-
phere breeds a tendency to take one
own exercise on the bleachers, I
should agree with them in part at
least. But l find it strongly effective
in exactly the opposite direction. The
more you can rouse foot ball enthusi-
asm in man utterly unable to play
the game the easier it becomes to per-
Suade that man to develop his body
and to keep it in decent running
repair
More men go out TO play soccer
or tennis or golf in a college where
foot ball interest is keen than where
it is not, and. Of course, the goal
toward which every athletic director
is working is to get as many stu
ucHtS DIS pOSSlUlG TO DdrLlc1DdtG IN
some sort of athletics.
Newspaper reports of tremendous
receipts from foot ball games some
times give well meaning people the
idea that the game is run for some
bodys profit. Perhaps in some cases
these receipts are not altogether
wisely used, but in the vast majority
or instances every penny is managed
as carefully as it would be in any
big business and applied scientifically
to the general athletic needs of the
university.
The college foot ball game is not
run for profits. 1t is a spectacle
incidentally, and not primarily, and
the student bodies whose rivalry
makes 1t possible are hosts for the
day to a body composed mainly of
graduates and their friends, each of
whom makes Il contribution to the
general athletic fund Of both colleges
which is gratefully received and
wisely used
What the Coaches Did.
To counterfeit the extravagant
statements that are sometimes made
about the excessive demands on the
foot ball players time and it's inter
ference with college work the Foot
Ball Coaches Association. which is
composed of all the leading foot ball
coaches In the country. adopted a
resolution recommending that practice
sessions should never exceed two
hours and that full practice should
not start prior to September Is, I'M
less college actually had opened. In
the discussion that preceded the adop-
ton of this resolution it was the
consensus of opinion that such limi-