Frank L. Wells, Dorchester, Mass., full back of the English High School, received a scratch on the arm in a game between his school and Salem High School November 7th. He died of blood poisoning in a hospital at Boston November 10th. Wells was an all-around athlete and junior member of the Boston Athletic Association.
T. G. Brown, of Knoxville, Tenn., and member of the Sewanee University eleven, died on the field October 3d after a scrimmage between two teams. Organic heart trouble was held responsible.
The fatalities this year fall one below those of last, when fourteen fell victim to the gridiron game. Only three times in the last fourteen years has the list been smaller, in 1901, 1908, and 1911. It does not compare with the casualty list of 1903, when the total reached forty-four, nor in 1909, when thirty lives were sacrificed. The smallest number was that in 1901, when only seven were killed.
Serious injuries have been on a smaller scale this year than last, although minor sprains and contusions have been as numerous as ever. As has been the case in many other years, the more severe injuries came in the early part of the season, and, as was the case with the fatalities, they were mostly confined to the younger set of players.
Over 71,000 people saw Harvard defeat Yale, 36 to 0, in the biggest game of the year. Harvard holds the undisputed title to the Eastern championship. The Illinois and Nebraska University teams have proved the best in the West.
New World’s Record in Bike Contest.
A new world’s record was set in the recent six-day bicycle race at Madison Square Garden, New York. Alfred Goullet, of Australia, and Alfred Grenda, of Tasmania, who won the race, covered a distance of 2,758 miles and 1 lap. The previous record was 2,751 miles.
Close behind the “Kangaroo team,” as Goullet and Grenda are known, were Iver Lawson and Peter Drobach, the Swedish-Polish team. Jimmy Moran, of Boston, and Reggie McNamara, of Australia, were third. Moran had declared it would be his last race. The veteran made a desperate effort to win, but evidently his age told against him. Francesco Verri, of Italy, and Oscar Egg, of Switzerland, known as the Italian team, and Fred Hill, of Brooklyn, whose title was the American team, tied for fourth place, while George Cameron and Harry Kaiser, of New York, the Bronx team, finished last among the leading six.
One might imagine a six-day race as a terrible, and even cruel, test, of human endurance, but the riders do not complain. Though they obtained very little sleep, they are not racked with the sufferings of exhaustion, as supposed. They eat continually, often over forty times a day, and it is not unusual for them to leave the track at the end of their long ride weighing more than when they began. They become more tired mentally than physically, and strangely, they insist that it is their arms, and not their legs, that become fatigued.[Pg 68][Pg 67]