The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-10-23
/ ALKING
IT OVER
WITH JOE WILLlA,.Is
NEW YORK, Oct. %.

A VERY large and ponderous
IN document bearing the solemn
imprint of the Carnegie Foundation
for the advancement Of teaching
and purporting to be an exhaustive
study of athletic conditions, sinister
and otherwise, in American univer-
stiles, viii be unveiled in detail for
public ogling in the local gazettes
Thursday. I am informed by those
who have perused advance copies of
the report that the disclosures while
interesting as text matter are not
exactly staggering or shocking in
content and as a whole the indict-
ment presents very little that has
not been previously alleged, adj"
mitted and proved.
n
Four conscientious Sieuths representing
the Foundation spent more than three and
a half years shifting and raking around
adameci refuse bins of some 100 intellectual
enters Of assorted standards and II Is
not surprising to learn they found many
irregularities in the conduct Of Athletics,
and only n scattering Of colleges where alb
soIute chastity prevailed.
20
Whether these irregularities are
serious enough in character to cause
the fathers of the nation to come
foaming up out Of the cellar and
call on the college deans OF the
country to revolutionize the entire
scheme of athletics so that their
sons may not be persuaded into i'm
moral practices remains to be seen.
EVERYBODY that knows any
T. thing at all about the curious
athletic structure of the modern
American college knows the practice
of PROSECUTING and substituting Is al
most generally employed in greater
or less degree and has been in one
guise or another for years. This
may or may not constitute a great
social evil or dangerous menace to
the matured career of the benefi-
Charles. The point has been debated
at no little length by some OF our
best minds and there is no record
that anybody or any group ever ar
IlYHQ Ut u eiAAN ONAAF$AAS@A@S
accord on the problem.
The matter OF the professional coach, rs
distinguished from undergraduate di-ec-
tion. also has been a subject of endless
controversy. / am told the Foundation re-
mort boxes n few fast rounds with this
one, too. and in the end concludes the
system is neither wholly attractive nor
wholly unattraetive.
Undoubtedly there are some pro-
fessional coaches of high character
who contribute much that is impor-
tant to the young men under them.
And just as surely there must be
quite a few others who contribute
very little, and whose ideals and 10y
alties are regulated mainly by the
proportions of their pay checks.
TERTAINLY there is type OF
~ professional coach that football
could readily get along without. /
refer to the dominating tyrant who
publicly humiliates his young charges
by switching them from the varsity
to the scrubs because of miSplayS
which may have retarded the prog
ress of the team, and in so doing
impugned the alleged genius of the
hired tutor.
On IT, other hand, there Is the type of
coach D lives longer in the memory of
the young men he worked with than any
other attachments they may have formed
in college. No professor has chance to
get as close to the students as the Ath-
letic coach and where the influence Is
right 1t Is both powerful and precious.