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TEN THOUSAND MAN HOURS PER WEEK OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Ten thousand man hours plus per week of physical education sounds
rather impressive, ~- and so it ise At’ the peak of the war effort on
Mount Oread, the University's Department of Physical Education did a
Heroulean jobe Twenty-five hundred hours per week for the Navy V-l2,
forty-two hundred hours per week for the Army Specialized Training
Program, nine hundred hours per sail each for civilian students, and
Nevy Ve5 fliers, and approximately fifteen hundred hours per week for
machinists! mates = totalling ten tiousand hours per week. Of course,
the physical conditioning was only one of the integral parts of the
education these men were getting, but physical fitness has long been one
of the imperative needs of a first class fighting man. And with the
American armed forces the finest in ‘es world; the emphasis upon physical
education is paramount.

What a ssihicdeiiocnaiatin has taken place here on Mount Oread since Pearl
Harbor’! During all these months the physical training plant of the Univ-
ersity of Kansas has been a beehive of activity, with full use from early
morning until late in the evening of Robinson Gymnasium, Hooh Auditorium,
Memorial Stadium, the drill hall of the Military Science Building, the
intramural fields, and nearby tracts used for playfields.

In the fall of 1942 the University adopted a plen of compulsory physical
 gonditioning for all men registered for induction and for all men enlisted
in any of the ened services or reserve progeams. Through the fareseeing
eye of Chancellor Malott who early in the game visited Washington and got
first hand information on the Army ‘inl Navy needs, the University began
to recruit outstanding men in physical education to carry on the very

important work the government was asking of her educational institutions.