Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1942-09-24


physical and mental fatigue would
leave it's poison and the extra work
was worse than wasted. 1t was
harmful
Football and Var
If this goes for football, it also
goes for training needed in war. A
good many people, knowing that war
is tougher game than football, or
any other game ever invented, can't
understand why soldier shouldn't
be worked from daybreak reveille
to nightfall. They can't see why any
recreation is needed.
But those who know their business
in the. army and navy understand
the cracking point.
When anyone is packed with men
tai and physical fatigue, there must
be resting spots, as every good
trainer knows. After that point he
can't absorb any further develop
ment in skill or condition for the time
being.
This is why both the army and
navy have been smart in getting so
many physical conditioners who
know what should be done.
Golf, for another example, is not
a killing game. But a fatigued golf
er is rarely any good. The mes
sage that comes from a tired brain
to tired nerves and muscles is al
ways badly blurred.
The Surest System
The surest system is to start train
ing kids from 13 to 16 years of age
They can be trained to walk from
10 to IL miles day. AS they get
little older this can be lifted to Is
miles or 20 miles. We have too
many hundreds of thousands of boys
from 13 to 16 who have known far
too little leg work. At that age
body contact should be light, to be
increased from year to year.
Someone was smart enough in
both Germany and Japan to start
training these younger boys as far
back as 10 years ago. Standing be-
! fore the Army-Redskin game in the
Los Angeles Coliseum a few weeks
ago several of us from the top tower
looked down on the Olympic swim
ming stadium, recalling Jap swim
mers from Ia to 16 years of age
winning distant swimming events.
These youngsters had been started
1.-THE age of nine or ten. Some of
them were among the Jap troops
that swan to Hong Kong.
I have mentioned before about
the hundreds of thousands of Ger
man kids from II to 16 who were
in hard training all over Germany
during the 1886 Olympic games. In
this respect both Germany and
Japan, knowing the inevitability of
war they were going to start, made
this youth training national plan.
This youth training isn't a matter
of: surmise, but matter of fact
and of record. I still recall an old
Southern Civil war poem to Little
Giffen of Tennessee. Part of it ran
like this :.
"Smitten with grapeshot and gangrene-
Sixteenth battle-and he fourteen"
The Only Way
Almost every athlete of any i'm
portance started his game as a kid.
You never develop stars who start
after Is or 80.
Bob Jones began playing golf at
the age of eight. Jack Dempsey was
street-fghting at the age of 10.
Babe Ruth was playing baseball
at IL.
You never make the Big League
starting some game after 20. The
knack comes to younger minds and
younger muscles-to kids who came
along to championships later on.
If this is true in sport, it must be
true in many phases of combat work
in war-fying, marching, shooting,
swimming, parachute jumping-any
part Of the war games that calls
for skill and stamina. So far this
has been overlooked in this country.
For the army or navy I'd much
rather have 16-year-old boy than a
civilian beyond 80 or 35. The latter
are game enough. They will have
just as much courage. But they
can't have that unbeatable gift OF
youth-so much more easily taught
so much more effective when thu
showdown arrives