VALUES IN ATHLETICS*
FORREST C. ALLEN

Director of Athletics,

Lo we are tremendously interested in the
athletic life of our young people; athletics
are an integral part of school and college life.
Athletic administrations are much criticized for
overemphasis, commercialism and deception in
some high places. But athletics are the halter
that enables us to capture and lead the young
American mustangs of athletic endeavor to a
greater usefulness during their plastic years of
growing and going places.

Thirty years and more ago athletics were not
an integral part of school life. They were not
even a step-child. School administrators would
not recognize athletics as part of school life. The
pool hall proprietor and the sporting gentry of
the town were the sponsors of high school and
college athletic teams.

Some Specific Values

Our parents were children of pioneers and had

been taught that any sort of recreation in the
form of play was wrong. They were so busy
hewing homes out of the wilderness of the fron-
tier that there was no time for play. And any
boy who did play was not to be considered as an
energetic and purposeful young man.
But today “stone that the builders rejected,
the same has become the head of the corner.”
We find splendid competitive teams among boys
of high school and college rank. Today the heart
of America is clean, athletically, because that
clean heart resides in the breast of the 12-year old
American boy. He is a fighter and a hero wor-
shiper. Every great high school and college ath-
letic star has hundreds of worshipers among
younger boys. If these athletic heroes train, they
set a splendid example to this oncoming genera-
tion.

The young athlete is a selfish creature. Through
his athletic contests and conquests he has found
by competition that he must possess not only a
splendid body but a strong heart. His body is a
machine and by contests with other boys he has
learned that if his physical machine does not
' function far beyond the power of his opponent’s,
he is defeated.

Because he is such a selfish creature he will
develop a habit of saying “No” a thousand times
to temptation before he can say “Yes” once to

 

*Excerpts from address before SDEA convention,
Mitchell, Nov. 25, 1935.

SDEA JOURNAL e December, 1935

University of Kansas

victory, because to him victory is sweet indeed.
So, today our great young American athletes con-
form to training rules.

True some boys on the team do not train and
some boys in school will try to “get by”. But
athletics should not be blamed for these indiscre-
tions, for without a doubt the erring boy has been
carried along by his love of play a great deal
farther than he would have gone had he no play
life.

There are some phases of athletic administra-
tive shortcomings that should be corrected. The
game of football today is taking the lives of too
many high school players. To say that these boy
casualties are not in proper physical condition is
not enough. Boys of today are not of the tough
fiber as were the sons of real pioneer parents two
generations ago. The game should be modified
not abolished. We must seriously consider its
revision and- modification.

Why are so many boys of foreign born parents
playing football in American colleges today? Be-
cause they are the so-called poor boys, without the
automobile, the predigested foods, the cocktail
parties, the late hours, and the hours of idleness
—the very things that are “softening up” our
civilization. The foreign born parent is a strict
disciplinarian. His son is tough enough to stand
the football racket and our average American
born “cannot take it.”

Athletics For Girls

More time and money have been spent on the
boys’ program than upon the girls’ program.
Someone has said that there are more girls smok-

ing cigarettes in America today than boys. If

this is true, it is not primarily the fault of the
girls. Rather it is the failure of educators and
parents to find something that will grip and hold
the girls’ interest the same as athletics have for
the boys.

It is at least thinkable that in the future, the
educator will discover, by accident or design, a
habit of behavior and activity for the girl which
will absorb her self interests during the plastic
stage and lead her out of a wilderness of sophisti-
cation into a new world of worthwhile romance
which she has not experienced today. Perhaps
a woman educator will find the answer for her sex.

In the deep currents and tides of human’ emo-
tions, woman is always the first to detect the true

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