526 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1429 



cism and especially in a few instances where 

 players have been disqualified from intercolle- 

 giate competition because of having partici- 

 pated in games of a semi-professional nature, 

 and where there have been exposes of the 

 attempts of coaches and others to influence 

 prospective student athletes by the use of 

 money. How much may we expect to accom- 

 plish by disqualifying a few players, here and 

 there, or by the dismissal of a coach or two 

 for the breaking of the rules regarding the 

 pajrment of money to athletes? I think that 

 we shall accomplish very little of a remedial 

 nature by this sort of publicity unless we go 

 considerably farther. These published cases of 

 professionalism in students have been largely 

 technical in their nature and it appears evident 

 that the students in question do not feel any 

 consciousness of guilt nor are they regarded 

 as criminals by their fellows. The general 

 public probably sees little in all this but a 

 rather fantastic exhibition of hair-splitting 

 and quibblng by college folk, who appear to 

 magnify a purely technical offense into a serious 

 case of law breaking. It is probabh' true that 

 the majority of non-collegiate observers, — or 

 at least of those who take an interest in ath- 

 letic affairs, — sympathize with the players who 

 are detected in what they regard as purely 

 technical violations of unnecessarily strict tech- 

 nical rules. 



The principal reason for all this is that the 

 average person does not appreciate the real 

 evil of professionalism in college athletics. He 

 sees nothing inherently wrong in playing for 

 money, any more than in doing any other 

 legitimate thing for compensation. We have 

 professional baseball and enormous numbers of 

 us go to see it and feel that it is perfectly 

 proper that gate fees should be charged and 

 that the skilled players should be paid liberally 

 for entertaining us. Why, then, should inter- 

 collegiate associations adopt such drastic rules 

 against college athletic professionalism and 

 why should faculties attempt to enforce these 

 rules so rigidly? This is certainly not done 

 solely in order to insure fair play in inter- 

 collegiate contests. 



The fact is that mere playing games for 

 compensation, in the college or out of it, is not 



inherently immoral or wrong in any way, ex- 

 cept as it may bear some relation to the vital 

 concerns of the college in its efforts to promote 

 true education. But we are insistent that the 

 least taint of professionalism shall be kept out 

 of our college athletics because we know that 

 whenever we admit it we shade our scholastic 

 standards. If petty, technical professionalism 

 may enter then unlimited professionalism and 

 commercialism to the last degree can not be 

 excluded. 



I am saying no more than what is fairly 

 common knowledge when I state that there is 

 a sort of underground activity to-day that is 

 exerting every effort to circumvent and evade 

 our regulations concerning amateurism. How- 

 ever much some of us may boast of the "clean- 

 ness" of athletics in our various colleges, we 

 all know perfectly well that the cases of viola- 

 tions of the rules that are occasionally brought 

 to light are merely the more obvious ones. We 

 disqualify our players for participating in a 

 smnmer game in a village of a neighboring 

 state but we harbor far more serious cases of 

 real professionalism in the boys who are pro- 

 vided with workless jobs, fraternity homes and 

 other outside-financed "education" in order 

 that they may take important places on ath- 

 letic teams. These boys are hunted out while 

 yet in the secondary schools and they are 

 brought to college and kept there by an organ- 

 ized effort on the part of men who, in some 

 cases, care nothing for educational standards 

 or for education itself, but who know athletic 

 excellence when they see it and who are deter- 

 mined to have the best of it for the college of 

 their choice. This work is done quietly, as a 

 rule. Occasionally some novice in the business 

 makes a slip and an uproar ensues. This has 

 happened on several occasions, quite recently. 

 As a result, it is apparent to a close observer 

 that the interests that work for commercialism 

 are now scurrying to cover. They realize that 

 they have been riding to a fall and in order 

 to save intercollegiate competition from the 

 impending wreck they have become loud in 

 their pharisaieal professions of a determination 

 to see that the law is obeyed and that college 

 sports are kept clean. But even in this they 

 are careful to keep attention focused upon the 



