fe

issue with athletios in the colleges themselves. The disease starts from
without + among the men whose interest is misguided. But also conflicting
purposes arise in the mind of youth regarding school and vollege., Many

eonches hold up to the boy the glory of conquest on the athletic field as —
the most important activity of college life rather than the all important
thing of acquiring durable satisfactions in the classroom.

The intelligent athlete will not sell hie academic birthright
for a mess of pottage (the pay-off). ‘This athlete will protest his forthe
right freedom the sane as the Anerioan voter protects his ballet. But
naturally the bey desires to compete in gemes of combat and contest. The
game of football as a morale builder and as a builder of men perhaps has
nO equal. Above the door of the gymnasium at the United States Military
Acadeny at West Point, Nee, are those words of Major Koehler, out in
stone;

Ses Sea ee ros Se

fruits of victory."

Football would never die, but would continue to thrive, were
it not for the football followers of Brutus who have stabbed the sport to
near deaths These psoudo-friends of football are the gamblers, the sub-
Bidisors, the proselytors, and the “pollyannas" who state that "football
at the present ie enjoying sound health and ia becoming more of an amateur

I stated last winter thet subsidized football and basketball
had but ten years to live. I revised this estimate dowward somewhat this
fail, depending on the part that we play in this second World War which
wo are now in. Replying to my long-time friend, Mejor John Le Oriffith,
Commissioner of the Big Ten, may I say that I base my deductions on the