The action of the Interscholastic Athletic Association in passing the law prohibiting bicycle-races at all future in-door meetings held under the rules of the I. S. A. A. cannot be too highly commended. It was, of course, the logical outcome of the occurrences of the past four months, but nevertheless the promptness with which the evil was abolished is praiseworthy. Bicycle-races as an in-door sport should be universally done away with. What games in the past season have not been marred by accidents and collisions in that event? The culmination was the carrying away of W. G. Dann in an ambulance after he had broken his collar-bone at the Brooklyn Poly. Prep. games last March. It is to be hoped, now that the good work has been begun, that in the near future some of the other peculiar features of in-door meetings will receive proper attention at the hands of the legislators. I do not believe that Olympian Zeus—or whatever enlightened heathen god it was who invented and fostered track athletics—ever intended that sprints and shot-putting should be held under a roof. He surely would have drawn the line at bicycles, had he known anything about them. He wisely preferred the less-murderous four-horse chariot. But, to my mind, track athletics were never intended as an in-door sport. The gymnasium is not a hippodrome. But more of that later. Let us be thankful for one thing at a time.
I am not opposed to what some timid people call "rough and dangerous" sport. Football should be encouraged, by all means, although it may justly be termed "rough and dangerous" for young men who do not know how to play. It is not dangerous for those who do know the game and have been trained to take part in it. Yet under no circumstances is it a sport adaptable to evening clothes and kid gloves. If it were, we should not care for it as we do. But bicycle-racing—and I am speaking now essentially of in-door racing on a flat floor—is just as dangerous for experts as it is for the ignorant and the novice. More so, perhaps; for a novice's timidity will protect him from any attempt at riding through an iron girder. The dim light of an armory makes it difficult for a rider to judge angles and distances, especially when the track he is circling is marked solely by a chalk line on a slippery floor. In an open field, on a cinder track well rolled and well fenced, it is a very different matter. Should a rider fall there, his injuries are limited to a few scratches at the worst, and surgical assistance is unnecessary in such a case. As to sprinting and putting the shot on a board floor, these events are more incongruous than harmful. And if custom has made them popular as in-door sports, I am willing to defer to the dictum of Custom, until Experience shall step in and pronounce her verdict.
Another good rule adopted at this same meeting of the I. S. A. A. was that proposed by Syme of Barnard, to prevent, when possible, two boys from the same school starting in the same trial heat. It is, unfortunately, not uncommon for two boys from the same school to deliberately pocket a rival runner, especially in events like the 220, the half-mile, and the mile. Such practices are beneath the dignity of amateurs, and it is somewhat of a disgrace that any rule should be required to prevent it. But if the managers were forced to recognize this unsportsmanlike tendency on the part of even a few contestants, it is to their credit that they adopted measures to put a stop to it. Nothing in sport to-day is more important than to maintain a broad and honest spirit of fair play, for without such a spirit interscholastic athletics, and every other kind of athletics, are bound to deteriorate.
While speaking of this, I am reminded of rumors current in Brooklyn to the effect that one of the schools in the Long Island Interscholastic League has secured track athletes and baseball players by offering them half tuition, and in one case free tuition, as an inducement to attend that particular institution. This is a very ugly story, and should not be credited unless very positive proof of its veracity can be adduced. The only ground for the rumors, that I have been able to discover so far, is that the individuals in question attended other schools last year. But that fact is by no means sufficient to warrant the assertion, or even the insinuation, that the change they made was influenced by a financial consideration. If the report is unfounded, it is almost as reprehensible an offence against honest sportsmanship to circulate it as to be guilty of the dishonest practices alleged. As the matter stands now, there is no doubt that somebody—either the school in question or the other members of the league—is suffering under an injustice.
THE NEW YORK INTERSCHOLASTIC CUP.