University of Vermont - Ariel Yearbook (Burlington, VT)

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THE ARIEL, 1908 13 But probably no game of football is ever played of which the same can be said. A certain amount of brute force, which it is difhcult if not impossible to restrain within the bounds of fair play, seems to be of the essence of the game itself. But so long as there is a certain amount of unregenerate brutality in every body of young men, it may be best to regulate and exhaust it by a rough game like football, rather than to let it End its own outlet in more reprehensible ways. This is not denying that there is room for both science and fair-play in football, or that gentlemen may and do play the game. It has possibilities as a vigorous, manly game waiting to be realized. TV. A serious, but thoroughly alien element which has entered into the problem, is professionalism. But this element, because it is alien, can be ex- truded. The student body in our American colleges can exclude from their corporate life anything which they seriously wish to exclude. Wfhat the law calls the police power they can exercise with a thoroughness unknown to any other community. They have all the agencies at their command-the detective, the punitive, the expulsive. The remedy for professionalism is a sound esprit dc 601725-a profound collegiate self-consciousness, a distinct and pronounced social pride, which resents the intrusion of personalities or policies which are below grade, or of other than collegiate grade. If the university guild does not feel the stigma put upon it by the presence in its membership of men hired to assume the academic garb, to simulate the speech of scholars, to flaunt the hon- ored name of Alma Mater, the situation is more serious than any mere matter of athletics. It affects vitally the total morale of student community life. But we do not believe in the existence of any such moral defect in our student bodies. F or the time being the situation needs more thorough exposure. The sounder party, of college sentiment needs reenforcement from a maturer constituency. And the severely critical and wholly unsympathetic judgment of certain extrem- ists may be safely ignored while the reform is going on. V. The most serious consideration yet remains, namely, the tendency to sacrifice higher interests to the exaggerated claims of athletics. Taking the long look ahead, which every young man should take, and which the prevailing influences of college life should induce him to take, is a student justified in giving to athletics an amount of energy which subtracts materially from the intellectual and moral power which he came to college mainly to acquire? Let us not obscure the question by any side issue respecting marks, Has the student body the right to require of the captain or manager of a team that he sacrifice himself for the sake of its pleasure or pride? Here is a man capable of

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12 THE ARIEL, 1908 The isrnhlzmi of tbletiw BY PRESIDENT M. H. BUCKHAM N ATHLETICS, as in everything, we Americans have to pass through a stage of craze before coming to a condition of sanity. VVe have reason to believe that we have passed the most dangerous part of the crisis. YVe are beginning to regain consciousness, and are steadying ourselves, and asking where we are, and what it all means, and what we are going to do about it. Thanks to the intervention of the strong institutions, and the guid- ance of strong and wise men, we are bringing in thought and judgment and system Where before all was rush and hurrah. Out from the hurly-burly have already come two or three settled principles which will have to be included in any coming settlement of athletic problems. I. Youthful vitality normally expresses itself in athletic sports-otherwise it suffers an unnatural and dangerous suppression, or vents itself in rowdyism and vice. The decadence of college rowdyism is synchronous with the growth of college athletics. TI. Rivalry is one of the essential elements in the sports of young men. There can be no spirited games without it. The intensity of the rivalry is in some sense the measure of the sport. This is why college teams are sometimes beaten by younger and really weaker teams of preparatory schools. The rivalry is not keen enough to put the stronger team to its proof. A college team, which plays only with other college teams which are near at hand but not the best, feels that it has not had the chance to do its utmost. This is the justification in part, for remote tours, which are in other respects objectionable. TTT. Some degree of roughness in the sports of young men is inevitable, and is not wholly objectionable. There is a real but difncult line of separation between rouglmess and brute force. Certain games are gentlemanly games- that is they can be played in all their vigor without any overmastering induce- ment to break over the laws of courtesy and good-will. Such games are cricket, tennis, baseball. The game between Vermont and lfVilliams last summer was a gentlemen's game-a perfect game. Angels could have found no fault with it.

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14 THE ARIEL, 1908 attaining a high grade of intellectual efficiency if he leave athletics aside. But he is wanted for a managership, and must content himself with a lower grade if he accepts. Here is another who is hovering on the verge of failure in his course, and is sure to fail if he goes off now and again with his team. No man is wanted on a team, or deals fairly with it, who does not put a great deal of heart into it. Once in a great while a specially brilliant fellow can put a large afnount of enthusiasm into athletics and not appear to suffer thereby. The student of average ability cannot. College records are strewn with wrecks from this cause. VT. This brings us back to the point from which we started. Athletics- and especially intercollegiate athletics-have had an abnormal development. The present condition is-or the recently past condition was-one of feverish inten- sity. VVe are working toward a stage in which we can keep all the undeniable good we have gained, and disencumber ourselves of the attendant evils, which we believe to be incidental and detachable. By outlawing professionalism- which has been the chief bane and the source of most others-we shall have made a brave beginning. That accomplished, and the mercenary motives put out of the held, there is left pure sport, with all its healthy rivalry, all its exulta- tion in the consciousness of physical prowess, all its incentives to bodily training and mental alertness, with no undue excitement, no -blunting of moral percep- tions and no suppression of gentlemanly instincts, and with vigor unimpaired- heightened perhaps-for the serious work of college life. They are foolsf' says I-lesiod, who know not that the half is more than the whole. XVhen devotion to athletics has become fanaticism, halve it and you get enthusiasm, which is saner, and more continuous, and longer lived, and far more sure to win all that is worth winning. -- ..: .1- i 1 7