Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/172

 responsibility which this prominence brings him. I have known a number of athletes who were elected president of the Young Men's Christian Association, but I do not now recall one who was any good in the office; as class officers and as presidents of student organizations they have pretty generally been figureheads, put into office for advertising purposes only, as prominent men in real life sometimes lend their names to the furtherance of some enterprise or to the advertising of some nostrum in which they have little real interest.

There are exceptions, of course, many of them, and one I recall which is a joy to remember. He was a big husky guard on the football team who made Tau Beta Pi and who was elected president of his fraternity and who really was president after he was elected. He counseled the freshmen like a father, and they adored him. He was a veritable D'Artagnan in leadership; he set all the fellows an example in conduct and morality and scholarship that they never forgot.

On account of his popularity, also, there is no man who can so easily be elected to office as the athlete. His prestige carries him through; what he has done to win athletic prominence for the college, his followers argue, entitles him to the reward of the office he seeks, and forgetting that his other duties are already a tax upon his time and his strength, he yields to his ambition and to the insistence of his friends. I have wished over and over again that he might have had the strength to decline when he was urged, for he seldom assumes seriously the responsibilities of his office. It would be better usually for all concerned if