The occurrences referred to above took place at a track-athletic meeting, but they might just as well have happened at a football or a baseball game. The two schools are rivals in sport, and the single aim of each is to defeat the other. This spirit is commendable and should be encouraged, and I know of no one who will yell louder and longer for his own side than I will. But when it comes to jeering, we must draw the line. It is unsportsmanlike, and that means that it is ungentlemanly, cowardly, and indecent. We go into sport in order that the best man may win, and if the best man is on the other side, this may be a disappointment, but it is never a disgrace. If we start in to jeer at the best man's efforts we are openly trying to prevent him from winning, which is conduct directly opposite to the motives that led us to encourage the competition. It is as cowardly to jeer at an opponent as it is to adopt unfair means to defeat him: and any act calculated and intended to injure the chances of an antagonist is unsportsmanlike.
As to the particular case mentioned in the editorial, I can make no comment beyond what has already been said, except that fighting after a friendly contest is wholly irreconcilable to sport. I don't know, of course, whether there was an actual fight or not. The editor may have exaggerated; let us hope that he did. But to allow one's feelings to get the upper hand in sport is always a sign of weakness, and persons of such weak character as not to be able to restrain their passions should not indulge in sport. They do not belong among sportsmen.
There is nothing better than athletic contests to develop character and to teach a man to restrain himself. Aside from all ethics in the matter, and looking at the case purely from the point of view of securing advantage, it is better to be able to master one's passions and feelings. The man who loses his temper on the football field, and begins to "slug" his opponent, or to adopt mean methods of play, invariably weakens his own efforts, because he is giving more thought to his spite than he is to his game. Of two teams absolutely evenly matched in every physical respect, the team whose members keep cool and collected, and do not lose their tempers, is bound to win every time. It is so in everything; in business the same as in sport. Therefore, let me repeat that whereas enthusiasm and eagerness cannot be too highly commended, any display of ill-feeling or displeasure in sport cannot be too severely condemned.
At a number of schools it is the custom to allow instructors to play on the football and baseball teams, and these instructors frequently go into match games against other school teams. Such a system, of course, is bad; but it is fortunate that it is not countenanced at those institutions which hold a prominent place in the interscholastic world. It is mostly at small private schools that the teachers play, but the principle is the same. In the first place, a man who is old enough to be a professor is too old to play against boys. He outclasses them in experience and in strength, and it is unfair to pit such a player against a young athlete who has gone into sport for the sake of trying his skill against his equals. It is also discouraging to any team of young men to have to face opponents among whom there may be one or more college graduates. The mere presence of an older man on a boys' team serves to overawe the other side.
A Captain is perfectly justified in refusing to play against any school team that puts an instructor or professional trainer into the field with the school players. In fact, I should strongly urge every Captain of a school team to refuse to arrange games with any institution where the professor habit prevails, and to retire from any contest in which the opponents propose to play an older man. A few years ago there was a school team in Pennsylvania that won most of its baseball games simply because the pitcher was so much superior to any school pitcher the team ever met, and so much better an all-round player than any school-boy could be, that their opponents had no chance. That was not sport. There was no glory in those victories. The school team did not win. It was the professor against the field. He was a graduate of Williams College, I think, and had been the crack pitcher of his year among college baseball teams. But I think that he no longer performs for that school, and I believe that the boys there have a truer appreciation of the ethics of sport now, and fight their own battles on the diamond and on the gridiron.
It is all very proper for instructors who were athletes in college to give the scholars at the school they teach in the benefit of their experience by coaching the players, and even by going out on the field and playing against the first school team. But they should always play against the team, not with it, except for the purpose of demonstrating a play. By coaching the school players they are doing much good for the school team and for sport. But by joining the school players in games against other schools they do injury both to the players and to the cause of sport.
The absurd reports which appeared in some of the New York daily papers concerning the injury received by Captain Mynderse, of the Betts Academy team, in the recent game against the Berkeley School eleven, only serve to corroborate the statements made by this Department two weeks ago. Fortunately Mr. Ely, the coach of the Berkeley team, came out promptly with a statement to the effect that the boy was not at all seriously injured, and that he returned to his school the next day with his companion players, and was not, as reported, laid up in the hospital in a critical condition. In closing, Mr. Ely remarks: "Any team of school-boys who are properly looked after and cared for while playing the game, and who are physically fit to play it, need have no fear of doing so, nor need their parents have any fear that their sons will be permanently injured or incapacitated from pursuing a collegiate or business career from injurious effects sustained upon the football field." Mr. Ely is perfectly right; and let me add that boys who are not properly looked after while playing the game, or who are not physically fit to play it, should not be allowed on the field.
The most promising eleven in the New York League, up to date, is the Berkeley School team. Bayne has been made Captain instead of Irwin-Martin, and he will, no doubt, put more life and snap into his men. The change is a good one, for Martin is a good deal of a back number in scholastic athletics, and has thoroughly outgrown the class of players who properly belong on school teams. The protests against him on the score of age will probably again this year pop up with persistent regularity in the meetings of the I.S.A.A. Martin ought to get a certified copy of his birth certificate from the Bureau of Vital Statistics, and settle this disputed question once for all.
The league games began last week, and the schedule is divided into two sections, as the baseball schedule was: