Bolivar Central School - Gusher Yearbook (Bolivar, NY)

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BOLIVAR HIGH SCHOOL ‘BLIZZARD 17 Athletic Association OFFICERS George Bliss, President Paul Husak, Vice President Teresa Wellenhoffer, Secretary Pauline Smith, Treasurer

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16 BOLIVAR HIGH SCHOOL BLIZZARD out the ability to fight they are useless. For football is no game for the mollycoddle or cake-eater. It is a game of bruises and hard knocks. But those things are of small moment when compared with the joy obtained from playing. It is a wonderful feeling that you obtain when you tackle an opponent as hard as you can. That crashing and rending of bodies is obtained iu no other sport. Probably there is no other game that is harder to lose than is a game of football. The bitter disappointed feeling that a fellow experiences after the loss of a hard fought game of baseball or basketball is gone over night but the loss of a football game is never so easily forgotten. The reason for this is that in no other sport does an athlete tight as hard for victory as lit1 does in a football game. Therefore there is no other game that furnishes such elation to a team as does a football victory. Football players will talk over a post game time and time again without tiring of the subject. There is another effect that football has on a youth that no other sport has. Beginning two or three days before the game most fellows will think constantly of the coming contest. lie looks forward to it with nervous anticipation. He lies awake nights wondering whether or not they can win. Other sports do not act in that manner on a fellow. Only fleeting thoughts enter his mind in the hours preceding some other athletic contest. A player never worries as to the result of many athletic contests. It is argued by some that football is a dangerous game. To be sure it is not a nice, polite game like croquet. Every player suffers bumps and bruises that are of minor con- sequence. The athlete who never allows the thought to enter his mind that he may be injured is the one who is seldom hurt. But considering the large number that play loot ball it is a very small proportion of these that are seriously injured during the course of a season. But this very small amount of risk that is involved is more than offset by the part football plays as a character builder. It does more to instill sportsmanship in a youth than any other game. As I have said a football game is harder to lose than any other and so it does more to teach a fellow to take defeat smilingly. We are told that courage is one of the greatest virtues possessed by man. Football will do more to develop courage than any other game that I know of. Many a fellow has courage and tight but oft times it lies dormant in him. After he has played on the gridiron in a hard battle this quality will no longer slumber. The value of a game that is such a builder of character as is football can not be placed too high. Besides developing character football is a great benefit to a fellow from a physical standpoint. All the muscles of the body are constantly called into play. It strengthens ones wind and ones power of endurance. Surely there is something to a game that is such a physical aid to a boy. Football has ever been a game of the schools and colleges. They have made it their big game and ail other sports are shelved if they interfere with football. I am not able to say why it is that the game is so highly esteemed in the eyes of the students unless it is that they realize that the players are giving every ounce of strength and fight that they possess for the honor of their school. (Continued on page 31)

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Bo! i car Hi oh School Football Team