Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/433

 SOME IMPORTANT DEPARTMENTS 379 falling below the required scholarship standard on the very eve of the crucial game. 5. The University insisted on clean sport. Amateurs are capable of dirty play in their eagerness to win. This was never tolerated by the University. Mr. Stagg would not permit it. The Presidents would not allow it. If the students in their eager desire to see games won ever encouraged it, they outgrew this as the years went on, and it may be truthfully said that one of the tradi- tions of the University came to be "Fair play in all athletic con- tests." 6. It early became a part of the policy that intercollegiate con- tests should be restricted within reasonable limits. This was found particularly necessary in football. So many colleges desired to play Chicago that not only was too great a tax on the time of the members of the teams threatened, but there was also danger that the undergraduates would become so much absorbed as to neglect their studies. The number of football contests was therefore limited to seven or eight each year. A large amount of athletic work, as distinguished from the required work in physical culture, was done by both men and women students. Among the women this included basket-ball, indoor and outdoor baseball, field and ring hockey, roller and ice skating, tennis, golf, rowing, fencing, and swimming. The com- petitive side of athletics was developed by match games between the women of the University. No intercollegiate contests were permitted. Among the men in addition to the regular required gymnastic work instruction was given in swimming, wrestling, and fencing. Class and department teams were organized in as many lines of competition as possible and schedules arranged to decide class and University championships. Teams for intercollegiate competition were organized in football, baseball, track and field athletics, basket-ball, swimming, wrestling, fencing, tennis, and golf. In the early years much interest was manifested in baseball, but professional baseball soon threw the college game into the shade. Basket-ball won its way into great popularity. But foot- ball was, far and away, the great college game. The important