Communication

[We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest.]

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

During the past week the partisans of the four major teams have been silent. Their sports have not been endangered by the recent proposal of the Athletic Committee, except in the case of the track team, which would lose its annual relay race with Yale. Here is one of the four major teams holding hard practice from the end of the Christmas vacation until the end of the season in May, with but a few weeks of rest in March. The baseball team also begins work early in the year, although its games do not commence until after the first of April. The crew has almost continuous practice until the weather allows them to go on the river, and after that time the men row every day.

Is this fairness to the minor sports? They are to be abolished, as far as intercollegiate sport is concerned, merely because they happen to come at the time when the weather conditions are such as they are fitted for. All of them are essentially winter sports and do not exist at other seasons of the year. Imagine attempting to play basketball in the spring or autumn in a hot gymnasium. Hockey can only exist at the present time when there is ice, and even with a rink, nobody would want to play it in warm weather. These different forms of athletics are to be given up entirely (for to my mind that would be the result of an abolition of intercollegiate athletics) merely because they happen to be sports fitted for indoor work. Yet, the three major sports would go on all winter, and would then have only gotten through their preliminary practice. It seems unfair that these teams should retain their privileges, when the winter sports are being ruled out of existence.

Personally, I must acknowledge that I am more partial to the major sports; but this lack of fair play is what brings forth my protest. Is the man who runs on the track every day during the winter supposed to do his college work conscientiously, while the basketball player neglects his? Such a supposition is ob- viously absurd. Either both athletes will study, or both will not do any work. If one has to give up his athletics while the other keeps on exercising, the result would be that he who had no incentive to keep off probation would be the one to neglect study. Hence, the best way to keep men off probation is to allow them to participate in some form of athletics; and if one is allowed, why not all?  1909