Northwestern University - Syllabus Yearbook (Evanston, IL)

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re yorthvvestern, ear Book as fs. .553 decided to bar intercollegiate football temporarily. They realized, also, that it was impossible, under the old system, to get out enough men to give the 'Varsity sufficient practice to harden them for the strain of a heavy season, that it was neither an advisable nor a sane state of affairs when a considerable number of the men had to leave their laboratory or class work down town to make the trip out to Evanston every afternoon for practice. Under such conditions, the chances of physical detriment were large, the effect upon the candidates' class work could hardly be otherwise than demoralizing. The new plan comprehended the employment of an eflicient man who should be at the head of the department of physical culture, and who should rank as a professor. The abolish- ment of football was, indeed, a severe blow to the students, to the majority of the alumni, and, perhaps, to a small minority of the faculty, but the most radical defenders of the old system have come to see the matter in its true light. They realize some at least of the evils claimed against the old order of things and every Northwestern student and Alumnus is co-operating in the move to get every available man in school out for either the class or department team. That time will hardly come during our college generation but when it comes-as it must come-under the athletic policy now in its first stage of development-then we shall have our 'Varsity team again. A 'Varsity team, too, that will have the physical support of a large number of strong class and department teams to try out against. Consistent with their announced policy at the time of the shake-up at the close of the football season last ear, the trustees in the s rin si ned a contract with Prof. Gillesb for three . . . P g 3 . . Y years, and included a provisional arrangement for an additional two years. The past season in football was unquestionably a success, as a starter. As opposed to two or three dozen men playing football in former years, there were in all I5I candidates out for the various teams, and for this, much credit is due to the untiring efforts of Prof. Gillesby. Nor was money spared: the new football field was in even better shape than it was last year, and suits were furnished by the university. Next year Prof. Gillesby hopes to secure the services of a prominent coach who shall give his entire attention to football. His own ability as a detector and developer of the basket ball instinct, as he calls it, has already proved but little short of marvelous. The class games, which served as a try-out for the 'Varsity squad, was the most encouraging series of games ever run off in the old gym, ' ' At the end of the series, a squad of ten men was picked, for he believes that the best work may only be secured from a man when he is never quite certain whether someone else has him beat out for the next game or not. A squad, where every man is practically a regular, and at the same time a reserve, is less dependent upon its stars, for every one must keep Working all the time. Immediately after the holidays, two leagues were organized, making upwards of twenty Liberal Arts teams, alone, in the field, during the late winter and early spring months. In this manner much good material was brought out that had not shown up during the inter-class series. During the fall he arranged a basket-ball schedule with some of the strongest teams lf? theiWest, declaring that if we won but one ofthe games he should be satisfied for this year- a rea we have won that game, and from the strong Evanston Y. M. C. A. team, last year's championships in the Western A. A. U. series. As to track and baseball, we prefer to remain a dark horse-for a while. 'One thing is nolw assured, the student body is determined to give the new plan a thorough trial and it is quite evident. that their 'interest will be centered largely, for a year or two, in the organization of strong inter-class, inter-department, and inter-fraternity schedules. In the end this will do the W? Potro 455 18

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4-43 pa .gg in KGZSYLLABUS gg The Athletic Situation As it is Of course, this is the ideal system of athletics, a system which allows the greatest number of men to engage in the sport and to attain the physical development attendant upon it. PTOf. F. O. Glillffby With a summerls active campaigning in athletic advertising, with a foot ball season, under the new order of things, past, with a basket-ball season at its height, it is not impossible to appreciate, with some degree of accuracy, just how much of last summer's athletic literature was based upon the principles of purely commercial advertising, how much was intended as a pacifier to the student body, how much ofit was good athletic dope, Yet there are some first principles to be considered before all this. A theory has gained considerable ground, of late, that without strong athletic teams, presumably, as advertising mediums, a university cannot hope to stay in the front rank. It were as sensible to claim that the buildings make a school. For the cause of a school 's real strength one rnust go back to its scholastic ideals and forward to their fulfillment. At Northwestern we have used the Harvard plan, teachers first, then the trappings. Our budget for the current year for faculty expenses alone is ,fC5oo,ooo, while that school which a few years ago was the one great school in the West, has, of late, had winning teams and-a poorly paid faculty. Man for man Northwestern has the strongest teaching force in the West, and by what in the last analysis is an educational institution to be judged? College athletics performs its most legitimate function when it furnishes the means of systematic exercise to the entire student body-not to a few specialists. Aside from this more limited and ideal view, there are a few things concerning our athletic situation, past and present, which faculty and student body, alike, need to consider. While we may have had the best of raw material, it has been almost an impossibility to whip it into shape for a championship team, even impossible to get some of the most desirable of that material out for practice. Each of the other members of the Big Nine has all its departments upon one campusg Chicago and Minnesota with modern gymnasiums backing upon their athletic fields. Minnesota, until the new Conference ruling, had her training table in the gym itself. Our Medic school is distant I6 or I7 miles from the field, and our other professional schools are over I3 miles away. Northwestern has never asked for quarter, has never accepted sympathy, and has always defied anyone to pity her, but we, ourselves, need to understand why, with men of championship calibre, it has been impossible to have winning teams, we need, even more than this, to appreciate the fact that it has taken more physical stamina, more moral courage, and more loyalty to their school, for the men who wear the N to play their consistently snappy never-be-crushed game in the face of all odds, than it has for the men of the Maroon or the Maize and Blue to win their championships. Not because we were losing, nor because they believed with some critics of the game that football was essentially brutal, but because ofthe spirit of professionalism that has been creeping into the game oflate, and because of the tendency toward commercialism, the trustees, last year, Y-at FOLIO 17

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