PHILADELPHIA I. A. L. GAMES, FRANKLIN FIELD, MAY 29, 1896.
| Events. | Winners. | ||||
| 100-yard dash | McClain, Haverford. | 10¾ | sec. | ||
| 220-yard dash | McClain, Haverford. | 25½ | " | ||
| Half-mile run | Little, P. C. | 2 | m. | 12½ | " |
| One-mile run | Ross, Haverford. | 5 | " | 46 | " |
| Half-mile walk | Evans, P. C. | 3 | " | 53-1/5 | " |
| 120-yard hurdles | Marshall, P. C. | 18-2/5 | " | ||
| 220-yard hurdles | Marshall, P. C. | 30-1/5 | " | ||
| One-mile bicycle | White, G. A. | 2 | " | 58-4/5 | " |
| Running high jump | Newbold, De Lancey. | 5 | ft. | 7 | in. |
| Running broad jump | McClain, Haverford. | 20 | " | 6 | " |
| Standing broad jump | Claflin, Haverford. | 9 | " | 5¾ | " |
| Pole vault | Hanson, P. C. | 9 | " | 6 | " |
| Putting 16-lb. shot | Sayers, Haverford. | 32 | " | 6½ | " |
| Points. | 1sts. | 2ds. | 3ds. | Totals. |
| Penn Charter | 5 | 8 | 7 | 56 |
| Haverford Grammar School | 6 | 3 | 3 | 42 |
| De Lancey Academy | 1 | 2 | 2 | 13 |
| Germantown Academy | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| Cheltenham Academy | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Episcopal Academy | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| — | — | — | —- | |
| Total | 14 | 14 | 14 | 126 |
The Inter-Academic League of Philadelphia held its field meeting at Franklin Field on Friday afternoon, May 29, and three of the old records were lowered. Newbold of De Lancey jumped 5 ft. 7 in., the former record being 5 ft. 4½ in.; Hanson vaulted 9 ft. 6 in., which is 3½ in. better than the old figure; and Little of Penn Charter brought the half-mile figure down from 2 min. 13¼ sec. to 2 min. 12½ sec. Marshall of Penn Charter, the big football-player, took both the hurdle events, although in neither case was the time particularly good. But for a big man he is a clever hurdler.
After the games had been under way a short time the contest narrowed down to a duel between Penn Charter and the Haverford College Grammar-School. Penn Charter finally came out ahead by 56 points to 42. A full record of the day is given in the accompanying table.
Some of the semi-professional and mercenary athletes among the students of the New York schools have been talking a great deal in the public prints of late about how they think amateur athletics should be managed, and, in private, so far as I am able to find out, they have been doing all they can to interfere with the success of the National tournament scheduled for the 20th of this month. It looks now as if these young men with professional tendencies were going to have some success in weakening the team which will represent the New York Interscholastic Association, and if reports are correct, many of the winners of the recent games at the Berkeley Oval will not appear in the National tournament, either because they support the opinions that have lately been so freely expressed in some quarters, or because they are influenced by the clique above referred to.
It is amazing that there should be any young men who would condescend for a moment to support such opinions; and yet there seems to be a number, and they have the assurance to pose as amateurs! Some even intimate openly that they do not wish to go into the National games because there is not enough money in it for them. Of course they do not use the word "money," or "cash," or "dollars," because they know that the A. A. U. would get after them, but they are brazen enough to say that they do not think the medals which are to be offered on this occasion are of sufficient intrinsic value for them to compete for.
Perhaps the readers of this Department who do not live in this city, and do not know how near to professionalism some of our scholastic athletes here can go, will think that I am exaggerating when I say that many of them are apparently in sport largely for the intrinsic value of the medals. Whether it is to pawn them afterward or not I cannot say. But to show these readers in other cities that I am not exaggerating, let me quote from an interview published in the New York Sun of May 31. The Sun is so rarely inaccurate in quoting an individual that we may all depend upon its accuracy in this case.
The name of the young man who is quoted in the article is given as Rose Ambler Curran. He is said to attend the Drisler School. I do not know whether Mr. Curran has ever done anything himself in athletics; he certainly is not in any way prominent in interscholastic sport here, and I do not think that he represents a very large element of the school-boys of this city. He certainly does not represent the best element. What he is quoted as having said, and what I think every true amateur will consider most reprehensible, is this: "The medals which were offered at the last in-door games" (the games given by the New Manhattan A. C. at the Madison Square Garden last March) "were of such a poor character that many would not have competed had they seen them before. This is the main reason, as stated by the boys, for what might be termed their lack of interest in the meet" (the National Meet).
As a matter of fact, the medals given to the winners at the Madison Square Garden games were as handsome and appropriate as any I have ever seen. They were simple. They were laurel wreaths on ribbons—gold wreaths, silver wreaths, and bronze wreaths. The designs were not such as would appeal to a pawnbroker, but they were such as would appeal to any honest boy who takes a pride in his athletic achievements for their own sake.
There is nothing ambiguous about Mr. Curran's statement as quoted above. He says clearly that the money value of the medals at the winter games was not great enough for a certain class of New York school-boy athletes to contest for, and that these same individuals are not going to spend their valuable time and energy in running races for less than a certain weight of gold or silver. I do not see how much nearer to professionalism these boys can get without being thrown out body and baggage from the society of amateurs. It is well if they do keep away from the National Interscholastic meeting. Such medal-hunters are not wanted, and the sooner they can be detected by the officers of the Association and prevented from mingling with the true and sportsman like element among school-boy athletes, the better will it be for athletics in this city.
The New Manhattan Athletic Club, or rather its athletic directors, were considerably surprised, I know, at the attitude taken by this semi-professional element among the New York school-boys. It had been their intention to offer a valuable trophy in the form of a cup, to be contested for on this occasion, in addition to individual medals, and they had even gone so far as to consult with the President of the National Association concerning the order for this cup. But when they found that their interest in school-boy athletics was apparently unappreciated, they gave up the idea entirely.
Fortunately the success or failure of the National Meet does not depend upon the entries from the New York Association, and we may well rejoice if a lot of medal-hunters keep away. Strong teams will come down from Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and there will be representatives from New Jersey, and probably from other leagues, and the sport will be good and clean, and the races will not be run with the sole idea of getting money value in prizes at the end, but for the sake of the honor of winning on that day—of the glory of sport for sport's sake.
At the recent Olympian Games the prizes were olive wreaths—plain, ordinary vegetable growth; worth, say, ten cents a bushel, with perhaps fifty wreaths to the bushel. And yet those dried branches brought home from Greece by the American winners are worth more to them than any yellow metal they can get here. The young men who talk of remaining away from the National meet, because the weight of the medals is not great enough to suit their tastes, would do well to reflect on this: there is a greater object in life than the collecting of medals.
The New England Interscholastic baseball season is practically closed, although there are a number of games yet to be played. But Brookline has won the championship, having played all its scheduled matches, and having won each of them. In the last game Brookline defeated English High 6-0. Brookline played excellent ball both in the field and at the bat, but E.H.-S. was weak all around. Some of the features of the game were Nettleton's stop of Manning's hard hit in the fifth inning, Wise's clever throw from centre to third in the eighth, putting out Cronin, and the heavy hatting of Lewis and Parker. A review of the whole baseball season will be made in this Department as soon as space enough becomes available.
C. S. D., Bayonne, N.J.—Any interscholastic association composed of at least two schools may join the National Interscholastic Association upon applying for membership. The field meeting this year will be on June 20, and is the first one ever held by the Association, which was formed only last December.
The Graduate.