Clipping:Charles Eliot's critique of intercollegiate competition
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| Date | 1882 |
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| Text | Intercollegiate contests in athletic sports demand further regulation by agreement between the colleges whose students take part in them. They are degrading both to the players and spectators if conducted with brutality, or in a tricky or jockeying spirit; and they become absurd if some of the competitors employ trainers, and play with professional players, while others do not. The opinion of the authorities of Harvard College upon this subject is perfectly distinct; they are in favor of forbidding college clubs and crews to employ trainers, to play or row with “professionals,” or to compete with clubs or crews who adopt either of these practices. They are opposed to all money-making at intercollegiate contests, and to the acceptance of money or gratuitous service from railroads or hotels, and therefore to all exhibitions or contests which are deliberately planned so as to attract a multitude and thereby increase the gate-money. In short, they believe that college sports should be conducted as the amusement of amateurs, and no as the business of professional players. The distinction between amateur and professional players is one easily made and easily maintained, as the experience of the numerous amateur athletic associations in this country and in Europe abundantly proves. The opposite view is that all games should be played to win, and that whatever promotes winning should be done,--that the best trainers should be employed, and the most expert professional clubs be hired to play with college clubs, and to meet these expenses that the largest amount of gate-money and the largest subsidies from railroads and hotels should be sought for in a business-like way. Between these opposing views there seems to be no tenable middle ground; whoever tries to occupy an intermediate position soon finds himself pushed to one extreme or the other. It should be observed that the evils and excesses which now need to be checked have grown up in connection with intercollegiate athletic contests—contests which attract undue public attention, but in which only a few persons from each college actually participate,--and that they have no tendency to weaken the force of the arguments in favor of promoting physical exercise and manly sports among college students. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College for 1882-83 pp. 22-23 (published early 1884) [available at archive.org] |
| Source | Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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