Harper's Round Table, January 28, 1896

by Various

O. E. MICHAELIS, Treasurer.

The officers or the National Interscholastic Athletic Association, whose portraits appear this week, are all prominent workers in their respective organizations. Mr. McDavitt, in addition to being president of the National Association, is president of the New York I.S.A.A.; Mr. Pratt is president of the Long Island I.S.A.A.; Mr. Dunbar is president of the New England I.S.A.A.; and Mr. Michaelis is secretary of the Maine I.S.A.A.

The address of the secretary of the National I.S.A.A. is H. Nelson Dunbar, Esq., 552 Shawmut Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts. All communications on matters connected with the association should be addressed to him.

Dr. White, of the Berkeley School, says that he feels sure "the head-masters of the preparatory schools throughout the country will look with anxiety upon the formation of a National Interscholastic Athletic Association," and he gives his reasons for this belief in a letter to a New York paper; but I believe a great many of his objections, if looked at from a slightly different point of view, can be turned to the favor of the new organization. Dr. White has, to a certain extent, condemned the weaknesses of the young association, instead of suggesting improvements and remedies. He begins, for instance, by saying that "the avidity for athletic competitions among boys has already been fostered too keenly," and he adds that "we already have so many contests of a competitive nature that the schools cannot without danger stand the pressure of still another and more engrossing series."

In advocating and encouraging the formation of a National Association, the main object of this Department was to secure the organization of a parent or controlling body that would bring order out of the present chaotic state of interscholastic contests. The holding of an annual field meeting was purely a secondary consideration, the principal desire in urging the formation of the association being to secure uniformity in the schedule of events contested at minor meets, establish a standard of record, and to fix a cast-iron definition of what constitutes an amateur with regard to athletic competition among schools. In favoring the holding of a field day this Department believed, and still believes, that the many smaller school meetings would be done away with, and that interscholastic sport would thus be rid of one of its worst features. Take New York city as an example. Almost every school in the local League holds a field day previous to the big meet in May controlled by the I.S.A.A. These little meetings could be done away with altogether. I am heartily in accord with Dr. White when he says that "the avidity for athletic competitions among boys has already been fostered too keenly."

That a National Association of schools can never be a representative one I think is not true. It is certainly not true if the object of the association is to be the promotion of pure sport, and the regulation of events that interscholastic associations in every part of the country shall compete in. And that, I hold, is the object of the association. I repeat that an annual field meeting is purely a secondary consideration. If it should be found convenient to hold one, the contest would be beneficial, and would doubtless be attended by representative athletes from widely separated localities; but such a contest would merely be a small evidence of the good work the association had done. It would also serve to establish a definite standard of record, which it is certainly advisable to have. But I cannot say too emphatically that in urging all these arguments I consider them as purely secondary to the main and fundamental objects of the association. When Dr. White says that the date fixed for the meeting (the last Saturday in June) would of necessity exclude a large percentage of the best athletes from the preparatory schools, I agree with him fully. This Department has already gone on record as being opposed to that date, and has suggested to the Executive Committee that an earlier time be chosen. This Department's objection, however, was not based upon the probable absence of a "large percentage of the best athletes," but on the ground that the date of the meeting would come at a time when senior school-boys must be giving all their time and attention to the college entrance examinations. Dr. White refers to this, too; and I don't think he would find any more evil in the holding of a national meet in May than in a league meet at about the same date.

Where this Department fully agrees with Dr. White is in his objection to the newspaper notoriety connected with a big meet, and to the evil results of too much politics in the executive work. The latter is by all means the worse of the two, but I have hoped it could be vastly diminished by having the work distributed at centres so widely separated from one another that the petty jealousies of local efforts would be entirely done away with. As for the newspapers, they are a condition and not a theory. It is the mode of the century to treat events by columns rather than by lines, and I doubt if in the end (the small meetings being eliminated) there would be more type set about interscholastic matters to describe one great occasion than to record a swarm of lesser events. It is well for the principals of schools to take an honest interest in this new movement, and if the preponderance of opinion is that the objects desired cannot be attained along these lines, there ought to be enough wisdom among the older heads to point out the better way.

A new track-athletic league has been formed by the larger boarding-schools of the Eastern States, and it is proposed now to hold an annual field meeting in the spring, alternately at New Haven and Princeton. The present members of the new association are Lawrenceville, The Hill School, Westminster, and Hotchkiss; and it is probable that Worcester and Andover will join at the next convention of the managers, which is to be held during the Easter recess. This league ought to prove a very strong one, for the schools in it are all prominent in track sports. If they should become members of the National Association, as they doubtless will, they would send one of the strongest teams of any association excepting New York and Boston.

Interest in the National I.S.A.A. seems to be general among these large schools. The Phillipian, of Andover, has an editorial on the subject, and urges the track athletes to go into training at once, closing with the statement that a strong team is necessary this year, for "it means not only competing in Boston, but also the chance of winning laurels for Andover in the All-America competition in New York." If these large schools, such as Andover, and Worcester, and Lawrenceville, and the most important Boston schools, determine that a national championship is something worth working for—as it certainly is—-they will give the New York athletes a hard tussle for supremacy, and the latter may as well realize at once that it is none too early for them to begin hard training.