COURSES AND COMPETITIONS

When those who are "higher up" in the college world, take it upon themselves to investigate the question "that the methods of conducting certain athletic sports make unreasonable demands upon the time of the student", it is time for those "lower down" in the college world to look to their "p's" and "q's" -- rather than their "D's" and "E's". The investigation clears the athlete to a large degree of any charge of delinquency in scholarship standing. For the managers and manager candidates, however, the charge is valid.

It cannot be denied that competitions for managerial position have in the past necessitated a percentage of unnecessary routine work. Often the man who can "stick" has won over the man who has ability. The result is an award of managership upon a man whose interest centers in only one thing -- his team. Serving two masters for him is the impossible. As a result his studies suffer.

Does settlement of the question revolve around the choice of the man for the manager position. Should only a man of high scholastic standing be eligible for the berth of manager? A consideration only of the "A" man should not necessarily enter into the problem. The root of the problem lies -- not in barring the average student -- but in changing the present methods of conducting competitions.

A change towards making the competitions easier is not in itself good. It is not good either for the "prestige" given managers or for the "unknown" student who has not a score of prep school friends to help him along. It is not, then, for those who are conducting competitions to make them easier but to make them more intensive. As the athletes have a certain number of hours to prove their worth so should the manager candidates have a certain set time in which to prove their ability. Hours of midnight work, senseless typing of statistics, should all be left out of the competitions. A systematizing of the work required, a stressing of the necessity to pass college courses should be the inevitable result of the Committee's investigation.