The Days of a Man ^1906 



impairing efficiency, as was shown in the recurrent 

 contests. And because professional coaches as a rule 

 (though with some honorable exceptions) take little 

 interest in scholarship, they constitute a distinct 

 obstacle to academic welfare. Again, their extrav- 

 agant salaries often higher than those paid to 

 university presidents depend on winning games, 

 and conspicuous success lines up the gambling 

 element in support. In earlier years, also, funds were 

 raised to hire men to play and to coax promising 

 athletes from one institution to another solely for the 

 purpose of strengthening a team; this abuse, however, 

 was finally done away with, largely by the device 

 of prohibiting the participation of first-year men. 



Another serious criticism arises from the unfitness 

 of the American game for high school students, who 

 rarely have adequate physical training and supervi- 

 sion. In view of all this, at the instance of Angell who 

 had played Rugby at Oxford, Wheeler and I jointly 

 American arranged to abolish the American game, allowing our 

 men a choice between Rugby or "Soccer" the 

 British Association game or inventing a new one. 

 They accepted Rugby, most reluctantly at first but 

 with rapidly increasing enthusiasm, playing matches 

 not only with California but later with teams from 

 Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. 1 



In 1916 the continued efforts of coaches at the 

 University of California brought back the American 

 game there. Football relations between the two 

 institutions were then suspended for three years, at 

 the end of which period contests in each of the three 



1 While I was in Australia in 1907, the two alumni coaches of Stanford, 

 James F. Lanagan, } oo, and George J. Pressley, '07, came over to get points on 

 Rugby. Finding this much more to their liking than they had expected, they 

 went back to launch the new game with spirit and success. 



C 194 3 



