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Kansas University Weekly.
FROM several quarters come reports of heavy losses by college athletic associations on their foot-ball teams. This might be accounted for in two ways: by a loss of interest in the game on the part of the public, or by extravagance of the managers of teams. That foot-ball is going out of favor could hardly be proved, though the attendance at games in several western cities, such as Chicago, Omaha, St. Louis has been small as a rule, and even Kansas City people were by no means as liberal in their patronage of the games this year as they usually are.
In discussing the other explanation it is necessary to decide what is extravagance. How much ought a training table to cost? How many coaches ought a team to have? etc. The answers to these questions depend on what it is agreed that an athletic team is for. If its only purpose is to win games, then perhaps the management is justified in spending every cent in sight in order to make the team a winner. It does seem, however, that even in this case debts should not be contracted to an amount greater than that of the estimated minimum receipts of the season.
But if the sounder principle be adopted, that an athletic team does not have to be perfect in order to be a good team, nor have to win in order to play a good game, then there is evidently no call for lavish use of money.
THE WEEKLY does not like to criticise. Its happy moments are not those in which it is finding fault. But we believe that the time has come when those who have the welfare of University athletics at heart must demand a change in the manner of conducting the affairs of the foot ball team. From a financial standpoint the season has been a woeful failure. Not that success is to be measured in dollars and cents; not simply that there is a deficit of something like a thousand dollars; but because of the looseness, and general lack of good business judgment which has characterized the administration of the affairs of the team. Now we do not believe that any one individval is responsible for this lack of good management. It is precisely because there is no one who can be held responsible that we are making this complaint. The root of the whole evil lies in this very fact that the expenditure of money is not restricted in such a way that any one man or committee is responsible for the bills contracted, or even knows what or how great these bills are until they are presented at the end of the season. Under such circumstances, and with the credit of the Association lying ready for any one to use, what but extravagance could be expected? A careless and needless use of money, or credit, was the only logical result. No business man who would use such methods could remain solvent a day.
This matter is not a difficult one to adjust. The same trouble, growing out of the largeness of the receipts from foot-ball games, has been met and removed in other universities. What is needed is a vigorous application of business principles to the affairs of the athletic association. The creation of some officer or committee with the responsibility and power of controlling athletic finance.
"At WESLEYAN every student is required to add the price of the college paper when he pays his tuition." Wesleyan must be the college paper's alcove of heaven. There is liable to be a sudden migration of college papers Wesleyanward, unless the authorities up there establish some sort of protective tariff or immigration law. By the way, Wesleyan, won't you make all your students subscribe for our WEEKLY, too?
NOT FOR some time has a more definite step in advance been taken by the University than in the recent action regarding the establishment of a Summer school. Nothing now remains to insure the school but the approval of the plan by the Regents. An opportunity will then be afforded to high school graduates, and to the teachers of the state to do work which they would otherwise be obliged to make up after entering the University or which in the case of teachers, could not be done at all.