The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-11-13
MAHONEY ASKS
 RETURN TO A.A.U. EARLY IDEALS
President to Be Named !;
 Help for Younger Ath- Iete, Basis of Speech
BY ERNEST BARCELLA


 United Press Staff CorrespOndent)
 Boston, Nov. 13-(U.P)-Return of athletics for athletics sake" and encouragement of organized labor's desire to become athletic conscious" were urged today by retiring Pres- ident Jeremiah T. Mahoney aS the National A. A. U. opened It's 49th annual convention.
 Mahoney's plea was contained in suggestions to delegates who, during the three-day session, will
 1. Take Q definite stand on the attempt by college authorities to gain control of certain Olympic sports.
 2. DiscussN the A. A. us action in declining in invitation to com- pete in Germany the past summer.
 3. Touch upon. the matter of participation in the l940 OlympicS, scheduled for Tokyo.
 4. Approve records and award national championship events.
 s. Debate the advisability of using starting blocks.
 6. Decide on the proposed aban- donment in national championship. events of the metric system in use for the past five years.
 2. Name 6 successor to Mahoney, who has indicated he does not seek reelection.
 In his plea, Mahoney asked dele- gates to give some time and at- tention to the consideration of the necessity for what might be termed development meets and contests .' Tn this connection he urged spe- officially that, more consideration be given to the budding athlete, the one who is still novice, who has athletic ambitions, but has never won a prize in open competition"
 Occasional meets exclusively for such budding athletes, he said, would result ia development of fu- ture champions from groups who, under the present setup, are given practically no opportunity for athletic competition"
 Tn the early days of the Anna teur Athletic Association, Mahoney added, "there weer practically no so-calied invitation meets to which were invited those who had what we might term 0 'box-ofilce appeal, Equal attenion was paid to the champion, the excellent performer, and to those who had aspirations, but no athletic record as yet. TO a certain extent, in this respect ct least, there should be 0 return to the old days when, l feel, we were probably more interested in athle- tics for athletics sake and were not of necessity endeavoring to get profit from the games, which natur- ally are 50 much needed for the development and promotion Of all kinds of athletic sports"
 In discussing organized labor na athletics, Mahoney said:
 T feel that much encouragement should be given to the desire or organized labor to become athletic conscious and all the facilities Of the A, A, U, itself as well as the facilities of district.organiSation should be placed at he disposal of labor so that in due course proper afiiliations with labor groups might be made. .
 "Now that the maximum number of hours for work has been consider. ably reduced labor will have more time for recreation than ever before, and progressive labor leaders throughout the country feel that the time Is now ripe for labor's interest and participation in Q athletics throughout the country. l am anx. ious that the officers of the district associations throughout America keep in touch with organized labor at all times and give to labor the proper encouragement and advice 50 that there might In the very near future be large aceessions by differ ent groups of labor to the member ship of our association"