The Necessity of Training Table.

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The question of training tables has been brought to a head by the statement of a man long connected with college sports, both as a participant and as a graduate manager, that all training tables should be abolished, and by the recent vote of the Athletic Committee not to support or authorize tables for minor sports.--a vote which was later reconsidered. We are certainly at a point in athletics where we must either drop them entirely or do thoroughly what we undertake. This work cannot be limited in scope to the major sports, for taken as a whole the minor and class sports are fully as important as major athletic since they actively interest an equally large number of men.

No system of training can be entirely efficient without the aid of a training table. In the first place it affects the athlete's health, for he must have nourishing food, served at regular times and adapted to the hours of practice. To get these conditions the table must differ from the ordinary standard even though the changes are slight. Moreover, it is only fair to the trainer to allow him to watch the men at meals, for in no other way can he surely discover that a man is out of condition. Men have frequently been sent on time trials and injured, simply because the trainer or coach had not had a good opportunity to discover his physical unfitness. The graduate who remarked that careful choice of food and therefore training tables were unnecessary, quite overlooked the fact that both trainers and men are in this way unjustly treated, and in addition to regular and good food, we at least owe to the athlete representing our College efficient and constant supervision by a trainer.

The training table has an even more definite value than that of providing good food. It tends to stimulate sociability and good fellowship, two important factors in producing team play. It is all very well to say that the men must eventually "go stale from having the sport served up as a necessary conversational accompaniment to every meal," but there is a far more undesirable state of affairs, wherein an athlete, eating at a private table, is plied with questions in regard to the team, and, as the centre of an inquisitive group, is never allowed to forget his athletic connections. At the training table, on the other hand, a healthy crowd of fellows would no more over-talk the sport than in their rooms, and outside of the natural review of the day's work the conversation turns upon anything but sport.

But often, talk about the game is necessary. Many of the coaches are graduates who find it difficult to talk things over with the men except at meal hours, and consequently find the training table the best place in which to discuss plays and rules. At such times men meet upon a totally different basis from that of the athletic field. Friendly criticism and quiet discussion is certainly more effective under these conditions, and here a man is far more ready to act upon a suggestion than when his mind and energy are centred on the actual field work. There are, undoubtedly, many cases where men, naturally extremely shy and retiring in nature, are developed into far more efficient workers by the contact of the training table. I know of one cases where the men at table made a special effort to bring out an extremely backward and awkward man, who afterward frankly spoke of the pleasure and benefit which he had gained there.

Since training tables are needed to keep athletes in the best condition, since they facilitate the work of the coaches, and since, by bringing the men together, they stimulate team work, I believe that a training table costing not over $8.50 a week fully warrants the expense to which the University is put in supporting it. H. W. NICHOLS.