Page:Pacific Monthly volumes 9 and 10.djvu/39



HE football season of 1902 in the Northwest has had many elements which indicate progress in this, the greatest of college games. In years gone by there were comparatively few teams in the field, and of these only two or three played with any comprehension of the finer points of the game. These two or three, simply because they had been coached by men who learned football where it has been known and played for years, so far outclassed the other teams that there was little of interest in the contests. It very often happened, too, that the strongest teams did not meet on the gridiron, but fought the battle through the medium of the newspapers. Moreover, some of the colleges seemed so possessed of the spirit to win that the games resulted in pitched battles, in which each side was determined to win at any cost, by fair means or foul. This desire to win frequently led managers and captains to induce players of established reputations to enter college for the sole purpose of playing football, and with the understanding that their expenses would be paid, that the rough road to knowledge would be smoothed for them, and that their sudden disappearance after the close of the season would call forth no comment. Thus the crying evil of professionalism made its way into a sport which should be kept totally untainted by its curse.

These are some of the disadvantages under which football has labored here in the Northwest. There are others—but, well, my space is limited. That most of them have been cried down—except in one college, rumor has it—the season just finished bears testimony. Whether or not they ever return to college athletics depends, in the first place, on the many college students and alumni in this great Northwest, and in the second place, on the faculties of the various institutions. Frankly, the secret of three-fourths of the trouble is just this: The faculties, especially the faculty committees on athletics, have failed to do their duty. They have been incompetent because they have not known pure athletics from impure, or because they have not taken the trouble to keep in close touch with the athletics, or because they have winked at certain violations of widely recognized rules of athletics