The Redwood gazette., 1936-12-24
Footballs Future
= RESIDENT Coffman of the

n RESIDENT Coffman of the University
of Minnesota is to be commended high
ly for his dignifed and scholarly, yet
altogether pointed and constructive discus
sion of college athletics and the problem of
professionalism and gambling.
Two schools of thought are developing,
apparently, on professionalism in college
athletics, particularly football One believes
winking at Scholarships" for athletes and
at phony jobs open only to players who do
no appreciable work for the salary drawn
and bidding for high school stars on an auc-
tion-like basis should be discontinued in
favor of an open professional system with a
sort of NRA code of salaries for grid heroes.
The other school also frowns on speak
easy type hiring of halfbacks but recon-
mends instead of salaries, return to the old
days when football was sideline with the
boys who played it and securing an educa-
tion was their motive for being in college.
Under the first plan football would be
very much like professional baseball except
that instead of growing up with the game
and staying with it for perhaps 20 years,
the career in college would be limited to
three or. four years. The customer who
watches the ST. Paul American association
baseball club play the Minneapolis club of
the same league, for instance, recognizes
and is not in the least concerned by the fact
that few if any of the men playing consider
either city their home. He knows their in
terest to be entirely in the salary they are
receiving and in personal advancement. He
watches the game for the game itself, cheers
the players for individual prowess and sup
ports the team representing the town in
which he takes civic pride.
While he is the same fellow in many in
stances, as football fan his attitude is diff
ferent. To large extent the team he sup
ports represents his alma mater. In that,
unless he is too recent grad, is built the
tradition of college days when only the stud
ents played on teams, the memory of fellows
who washed dishes, scrubbed restaurant
floors after closing hours and held the null
titude of equally servile jobs open to the
undergraduates of his era.
Not all football fans are college bred,
not by a long way, but the majority have
some contact with the graduate and uncon-
sciously or otherwise bear his view of the
matter It is no thrill to them to hear un-
dergraduates tell of college players too dumb
to pass eighth grade tests being pushed
through pipe" courses, an invention OF the
curriculum to preserve some vestige of eli
gibility., rules, or who simply, enroll in
their chairs in classroOmS may be vacant
practically every period of the semester.
Football after all was started in colleges
for the Students. The teams of decade or
two ago may have been comparatively poor
ly coached and the gate receipts small but
the sport was pure, the teams really repre-
sented the institutions from which they came
and the idea of players was to play together
to win. not to play individually to attract the
attention of All-American pickers and as
sure fat salaried professional job after
college, or movie contract or coaching
berth.
It is pointless now to criticise educators
for allowing athletics to grow in Importance
to sad state of affairs in which the only
thing most people know about many univer-
stiles is the relative position of their teams
in football standings, where coaches demand
and receive salaries comparable or higher
than the college president and where seats
are sold at such high prices that only the
weather. students can afford to see the
games.