Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-09
SEES GREAT HELP
TO YOUTH IN GAME
Critic Contends That Grid
Sport Affects Morale
of Students.
BY LAWRENCE PERRY.

n YEW YORK, February "a
M close follower of intercol-
Y legiate foot ball-he has an
official position in the great
Autumn game-predicted to the
writer today that gridiron receipts
next Fall throughout the country
will show a marked decline. This
decrease, he says, will be due to
public reaction to the attacks on
the game by educational authort-
ties.
He pointed out that whenever q re-
form of whatever sort starts in this
country the public rises to it like
culminative wave and with the
complete lack of intelligence observed
by a wall Of water in its onward course.
In the case of foot ball he believes
that things that have already happened
and that will happen in the near
future will exert a depressing effect
upon public interest in the game and
that the reaction will be revealed Ct
the turnstiles.
With a great university such as
Pennsylvania leaning far backward in
dealing with foot ball overemphasis,
with the game under fire in various
| directions, there are certain facts that
| should be borne in mind at this time.
Not Paying Many.
First of all, according to the find
ings of the eminent foot ball stats
tician, Parke H. Davis. Of nearly 500
colleges throughout the country that
go in for foot ball the athletic treas
uries of $50 Of them are empty. So If
foot ball is overemphasiZed, the exag-
gerated impulse cannot be especially
comprehensive.
Secondly, of all the influences with
which American youth is brought into
contact. foot ball from moral stand.
point is one of the most formative.
This applies to those who play the
game and to student bodies as a whole.
The typical foot ball player, in what
ever part of the country he may be
found, is a clean, outstanding, coura-
geous, modest. self-sacrificing boy.
Hours which he might have spent
lcaflng on street corners or finding out
let for his animal energy in unwhole-
some and malicious activities are spent
in the give-and-take of rugged COM
petition. And they are exemplars to
the entire student body.
Go to university where foot BAN Is
played up to the hilt, mark the spirit,
the morale of the undergraduates gen.
pride in their university = then visit an
institution where foot ball is not en-
phasized, or where it Is conducted in
slipshod manner with a cheap coach
and poor material. The difference In
the very atmosphere of the two seats
of learning is SO great as TO be amaz-
ing.
Game Helped Princeton.
L.
ton last Fall following foot ball meet
Mg-does any one suppose that the up
rising would have occurred had the
Tigers been playing halfway decent
foot ball up to that time?
When that team rose in its might, CO.
alesced and turned In against Yale, as
well played and as thrilling fort
ball game as the season of 1880 saw,
the changed impression of the Prince
ton campus was literally miraculous.
A new spirit vas born, and it is there
now.
Foot ball is call to manhood and
all that is fine and clean and brave IN
manhood. II anything occurs to d.
miniSh its legitimate influence it viii
be a national calamity, and those who
are working to this end are traitors to
youth.
Foot ball, of course, needs supervi-
sion py those VINO are concerned with
the direction of youth; like anything
else of Importance. evils creep in. But
should remedies be applied with broad
axes by fanatics or by those whose dry
souls have never thrilled to brave &C.
ton or who think of youth in Terms
Of nothing but book fodder?
In the general drabness of American
life foot ball supplies color, pageantry
and chivalry. 1t is one of the fine
things about American life; it is con-
structive in many ways; it makes young
men brave and old men young, and
We nee6 1t as much as we need books.