ATHLETICS GET SEVERE RAP

The "receivers of Yale athletics," Professor Robert Corwin, George P. Day and Henry Hobson, in their report to the new Yale Athletic Committee, assailed the cost of athletics at Yale and vigorously criticized high-priced coaching staffs, predicting their abolition. The report, which was tendered on October 6, reads as follows:

"This committee desires to call the attention of the corporation to the continually increasing competition for supremacy among rival universities, as exemplified in the employment of expensive staffs of coaches.

"The budget for Yale football coaching for one year alone is considerable, and this money is expended in the employment of a small number of men for the period of only a few weeks out of the year. The expenses for the coaching of the crew are proportionately large, although at present a considerable sum is contributed by graduates to that end. We are given to understand that large sums of money are contributed for similar purposes by graduates of other universities.

Scramble for Money.

"The intensity of this rivalry, if unchecked, may so increase as to make intercollegiate athletics an unprofitable scramble for the raising of large sums of money for the payment of the disproportionate salaries demanded by expert coaches.

"It may be urged that Yale cannot fore go such advantages unless her rivals follow her example, but present practice must, it would seem, lead to still greater lengths of extravagance and absurdity. For this reason it has been felt by your committee that ultimately the suggestion must be seriously considered that in time all payment of salaries to coaches of Yale athletics should cease, and unless Yale can from her own resources, graduate and undergraduate, develop her teams without such artificial stimulants, so that she can reasonably compete with her rivals, it would be best to eliminate intercollegiate athletics altogether until the dawn of an era of reasonableness in such things.

"It might come with somewhat poor grace from Yale at this time to urge upon others this course of action. None the less, it may not be amiss, even at this time to close this report with a reference to a matter which may sooner or later require definite decision.

"It is our belief that many of the perplexing and disagreeable problems of eligibility take their origin from this multiplication of expensive coaching staffs, and extravagant paraphernalia. It is impossible to devise or fully enforce eligibility rules which will cover all cases of so-called professionalism unless there is a high spirit of honor among the candidates for teams. This spirit cannot be best fostered in an atmosphere of lavish expenditure, now considered necessary, owing to the nature of the rivalry above referred to. We should like to see Yale, in the near future, inaugurate a system of restraint upon such expenditures; but first we believe that only through a centralization of authority and control by the corporation of the University and through the faculty, with such undergraduate assistance as may be enlisted, can such reforms be wisely formulated or effectively enforced.

Athletic Supremacy Desired.

"We are not unduly impressed with the desire or demand for athletic supremacy, but we do feel that so long as Yale makes herself responsible through the corporation, the faculty, the graduates, and the undergraduates for orderly, effective and wise conduct of this branch of undergraduate activity, continued failure can result in ever-growing distrust and despondency, and consequent injury to the general morale of the institution and the public regard for the university.

"Lack of discipline from the top to the bottom of the whole structure of the Yale Athletic Association is responsible for many of its ills, and it is our belief that regard for wise discipline is one of the principal permanent benefits to be gained by participants and the undergraduate body as a whole."