the thrifty graduate managers who in so many stadia in America
have made seats for three spectators appear where space for only
one exists. They evidently have measured the thinnest spectator,
clad in a bathing suit, rather than the average overweight customer
in a fur coat lined with quart pockets.

It is somewhat strange that the phenomenon of offensive drink-
ing is really peculiar to football games, not being so evident at big
league baseball games, prize fights, and other athletic exhibitions.
Strange, because a larger proportion of those at the football game
than at other contests have had the benefit of college training. Such
training is supposed to have some beneficial effect upon a person’s
manners, self-control and sportsmanship. Some of those who de-
fend stadium drinking say that much of it is due to frigid weather
conditions. But those who regularly attend great skiing meets, to-
boggan races, and other winter sports, assure me that the spectators
there, as a whole, are a sober lot.

Perhaps the real difference between college football games and
other largely attended athletic contests is that the former are looked
upon by the average person as gala occasions to which social and
holiday attitudes contribute as well as the contest. I dare say that
there is a much larger proportion of baseball fans who attend their
favorite sport for the game’s sake and who understand thoroughly
the technique and fine points of the game they are watching. To
many in the football stands, the organized cheering, the parade of
the bands, the banter and betting of partisans furnishes as much
amusement as does the game itself.

It is remarkable what alcohol combined with a love of Alma
Mater can do for a person. More than one man, who would con-
template divorce if his wife asked him to go down to the cellar and
break up a little kindling for the fireplace, goes out on the field and
tears the goal posts to pieces with the greatest joy. The tearing
down of goal posts by the adherents of the victorious team seems to
be one of the most senseless and infantile expressions of emotional
instability. The true sportsman is never so cast down by defeat or
elated by victory that he loses control of himself. It is not impossible
that the uncontrollable desire to get possession of a splinter of goal
posts is in the same emotional category as that of trying to secure a
strand of lynching rope.