MAHAN'S APPOINTMENT

The engagement of E. W. Mahan '16 the University baseball coach means more than a change in the personnel of the coaching staff. It involves as well a restoration of the graduate coaching system in baseball, what was abandoned a decade and a half ago. In 1910 the supply of suitable graduate coaches appeared to be exhausted, and the policy of appointing a professional was inaugurated, a policy which has continued ever since except for a few weeks at the end of the 1916 season when P. D. Haughton '99 came to the rescue of a wabbling nine and ied it to victory over Yale.

The plea for the professional coach has been that he knows baseball more thoroughly and can teach it more effectively than the amateur possible can. This may very likely be true, but twelve years of professional coaching have brought Harvard seven defeats and five victories against Yale. Judging from percentages, the only way that a professional does judge the professional coaching system has not been a success.

Coach Mahan has a thorough, if not a professional, knowledge of baseball, an unusual gift of leadership, and a high sense of fair play, Under his regime the percentage of wins may well increase and, what is, fully as important, insures on the diamond for coming seasons the high plane of sportsmanship which should characterize Harvard sport.