"Oh, there is such a thing."
"There may be, but people are not used to it."
"That's why I do not think much of horse racing,"
declared Frank. "There are too many tricks to it to suit me."
"Oh, there are tricks to any sort of sport."
"Very few to college sports. If a man is caught at anything crooked it means ruin for his college career, and he is sure to carry the stigma through life. I tell you college sports are honest, and that is why they are so favored by people of taste and refinement—people who care little or nothing for professional sports. The public sees the earnestness, the honesty, and the manhood in college sports and contests, and the patrons of such sports know they are not being done out of their money by a fake. Prize fighting in itself is not so bad, but the class of men who follow it have brought disgrace and disrepute upon it. Fights are 'fixed' in advance by these dishonest scoundrels, and the man who backs his judgment with his money is likely to be done out of his coin by the dirtiest kind of a deal."
"What makes me sore," said Diamond, "is that some sensational newspapers should send professional bruisers to witness our college football games and denounce them as more brutal than prize fights."
"That makes me a trifle warm under the collar,"
admitted Browning. "But I don't suppose we should mind what that class of papers say. Their motto is 'Anything for a sensation,' and the intelligent portion of the newspaper readers is onto them. These papers have faked so many things that they carry no weight when they do tell the truth."
"I wouldn't mind putting Nemo into a race just to see what sort of stuff there is in him," admitted Frank.