Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/435

 SOME IMPORTANT DEPARTMENTS 381 competitors won their full share of the championships in the various sports. The gate receipts of the Athletic Department for the games played during a little more than twenty- three years from October i, 1892, to November 30, 1915, was about eleven hundred thousand dollars. The expenditures were about the same. With the development of the business system of the University all athletic receipts and expenditures passed through the treasury. A quar- terly budget was made and all expenditures were rigidly scrutinized and regulated by the Business Department. It will be seen from the above statement of receipts and expenses that the intercol- legiate games were neither a burden nor a source of revenue to the University treasury. Some years there was a surplus, but there was sometimes a deficit. This deficit the University carried until it was made good by the football receipts of the autumn. It was football that earned the money to support the other athletic activities. Basket-ball contributed something, but the other games were a charge on the athletic funds. Twice the Department sent baseball teams to Japan. The four-quarter system of the University permitted this to be done without loss to the members of the teams in their college course. They merely took the quarter of their absence as their regular vacation. Going under the supervision of an instructor the experiences of the trips were educationally valuable. They were, moreover, recognized as contributing to that better understanding with the Orient which furthers international peace. The teams, on both occasions, gave an excellent account of themselves, winning most of the large number of games played. Amos Alonzo Stagg was the Director of the Department of Physical Culture and Athletics during the entire period covered by this history. For an officer in such a position he sustained a somewhat remarkable relation to the students and the alumni. Very early the undergraduates, as a mark of affection, began to call him "The Old Man." The appreciation of the graduates was voiced in an editorial in the University of Chicago Magazine in the January, 1913, issue: Mr. Stagg is now fifty years old. He has given twenty of the best years of his life to the incessant service of the University. His accomplishments in