FOOTBALL IS SPORT FOR THE SPECTATOR ALONE, DECLARES PRINCE BACKING OWEN

The statement that football is not enjoyed by the majority of its players, an opinion expressed by George Owen Jr. '23 in a recent article in the Independent Magazine, is heartily corroborated by Morton Henry Prince '75, rusher on Captain Ellis' 1874 football team which defeated McGill University 3 to 0.

Mr. Prince's article, published in the issue of the Alumni Bulletin which makes its appearance today, upholds one side of the discussion occasioned by Owen's unexpected statement. Several other letters received at the Bulletin office have been fully as favorable to Owen's point of view. Mr. Prince's article is printed in full below.

"At last the cat is out of the bag, and George Owen, the famous Harvard football star, has let it out in an article in the current issue of the Independent, reproduced in the Harvard Bulletin and other publications. He gives it as his frank opinion 'that the majority of college football players do not enjoy playing the game. There are, of course, a certain number of exceptions, but these are the men, I think, who would enjoy any fight.' But for the majority of players 'capacity for enjoyment of the game as a game is in many instances completely lost. It is only after the season is over that he can look back with any pleasure on what he has been through and then the feeling of pleasure is commensurate largely on the degree of the team's success. In almost any sport you can suffer reverses and not feel that the world is coming to an end, but not in football.'

Compared New With Old Game

"I have been for a long time interested in this and other questions connected with the modern game of football and have made systematic observations and inquiries of football players, and I came to the same conclusions that George Owen has come to. I was rash enough to incorporate these and other comments on the modern game as compared with the game as originally played at Harvard and in England in my account of the history of football in the Harvard H' Book, but I was requested to cut all this out on the ground, although it was said to be admittedly true, that football was running the gamut of sufficiently severe criticism, and not to incite it further; and so, not to be 'nasty', I cut it out.

Finds Few Enjoyed Football

"In my inquiries, which included one captain of Yale team, I only found two who were playing, or had played, the game, who said that they enjoyed it; and these two were old 'grads'.

"The question whether or not the player enjoys the game as a game is not as easy to find an answer to as might seem at first sight. Undoubtedly George Owen's statement will be contested by many players. The Boston Herald has interviewed live former football stars and found only one, Charlie Brickley, who substantially agreed with Owen.

But Owen did not write of football saws he wrote of the majority of players, which is quite a different matter. Undoubtedly the majority of stars, those who excel, who can beat their fellows at the game, enjoy it; but that involves the personal factor what is known as 'individual psychology'. Stars are in a class by themselves. It is whether the majority enjoy the game that is the important point.

"In Love With Our Memories"

"As every psychologist knows, one cannot rely upon unanalyzed, unexamined memories. Undoubtedly the memories of many old players when looking back in retrospect are those of enjoyment of the game; but what they really are in love with are their memories, which are enjoyable, while the original experiences may not have been enjoyable at all.

"It is the same thing as when one has been through some frightful anxious adventure, like a shipwreck at sea, or a lucky escape from the charge of a lion while game hunting; the original experience was far from enjoyable, but when looking back in retrospect one enjoys, has even a thrill, in recalling the adventure, although at the time one may have been almost frantic with anxiety or fear. We are in love with our memories though the original experiences were far from lovable. The same principle applies to pleasurable football memories.

"The only way of obtaining reliable data is to catechizes the players at the time they are engaged in playing the game and even then such are the fallacies due to the well-known principles of rationalizing and compensating, that a very precise questionnaire by experts is necessary to elicit reliable facts. Too much feeling enters into the question to settle if off hand by superficial questioning. The best test is behavior.

Football An Unpopular Pastime

"Why, if the majority of players enjoy playing the game, do they not play it amongst themselves, without being on college teams? Why do not college undergraduates, and even young graduates go out of an afternoon and play the game by themselves, with or without being organized as a team, and under their own leadership? That is the way in tennis, and baseball, and other sports, and used to be the custom with football, even when there were no intercollegiate football matches. And that was the way in hockey when young graduates used to play organized teams until the extra-mural game got into the hands of professionals, forcing amateurs to drop out.

"Football was played at Harvard long before there were any contests between he colleges. Intercollegiate games were gotten up merely as an added enjoyment, not to make the game itself enjoyable; and intercollegiate games were also usually enjoyed in the same spirit as were the scrub games, as I can testify from having played in a Harvard McGill game.

Unorganized Playing Difficult

"I am perfectly well aware of the technical difficulties in playing the modern game without being organized as a team, so highly developed have become the tactics and science of the game. Nevertheless, these difficulties could be gotten over if college students really enjoyed and really wanted to play the game. Where are the young graduates who so enjoyed the game and why don't they organize teams and play it as they used to play it shortly after leaving college? Such lack of playing by those not on college teams does not speak for enjoyment of the game. Still, if a decisive answer is desired, the question must be left open until a systematic inquiry has been made of a large number of players, preferably during the football season, by experts in such investigation.

George Owen has given adequate reasons as to why college students play the game if they do not enjoy it, and these need not be repeated. He points out that the undergraduate has "a feeling of duty" to his college; does not want to be a "quitter"; that if he has football ability, he is practically commandeered; the fascination of the eclat and glory of being on a college team; the excitement of being in the public eye; and the tremendous publicity and public interest in the game which induces excitement. In the Boston Herald of Saturday morning. November 7, I counted eighteen columns given to football; and this before a single game had been played on that day! It was propaganda to work up interest in the coming games of that afternoon. Of course every one, whether he likes the actual playing or not, enjoys the eclat, the glamor, and the glory; but to enjoy these is not the same thing as enjoying the actual playing of the game, which, includes all the preliminary drudgery, self-sacrifice, and hard work.

As to whether or not the players enjoy the game, I don't believe the undergraduates, nor the graduates, nor the general public care a brass button, any more than the Roman populace cared whether the gladiators enjoyed the game of slaying one another, so long as it was given a "Roman Holiday." Nor any more than the spectators care whether Jack Dempsey or Georges Carpentier enjoy being punched and mauled and knocked out. I find that this is the point of view of those I have asked, and I do not claim to be different from the rest. Nobody cares about the players having fun; it would be well for them to bear that in mind. What we want is that they play for our fun. Football is cock fighting on a grand scale. Whether the birds enjoy the sport they have not yet told us. For these reasons George Owen's point of view will not awaken a general interest beyond an academic one.

"But every one of us should face the facts. It is true that football is not enjoyed by the majority of players, then face the fact that it is not a sport for them but only for the professional coaches and the spectators. What the 50,000 spectators enjoy as a sport is the fight; they want to see their own particular college win. Probably not two per cent, of the spectators can recognize and appreciate what the plays are and how they are made (barring forward passes and punts).

"At the last Harvard-Dartmouth game, as an old 'Varsity' man I had a choice seat amongst younger Harvard graduates. I heard not a single expression of enjoyment of the beautiful plays of the Dartmouth team; only chagrin and disappointment, and abuse of our professional coach.

"When, as a matter of curiosity and to test my theory, I called attention to the fine playing of Dartmouth and suggested that that was enjoyable and well worth seeing, the silence and looks of astonishment on the faces of the Harvard 'grads' were most illuminating. What manner of man was I?, there looks seemed to ask.

"Let every one take up again his 'Tom Brown at Rugby' and reread the account of the game between 'School' and School-House' and then ask himself if he can possibly imagine that account, or anything like it, being written of the present American college game. That game was true sport.

"No; if it is true that the majority of players do not enjoy the game, it is mere idle chatter to speak of modern college football as a sport. It is sport for the spectators, and it is sport for the professional coach who plays his team against a rival coach. But of these I shall write in another communication. And I will try to answer the more important question which the Bulletin asked in its last number: What is the remedy? --if a remedy is really wanted.