AMATEUR ATHLETICS

The curt announcement contained in last evenings' papers that all invasions of foreign stars to this country and similar trips abroad would be barred by the American Athletic Union during the coming year was worthy of more news space.

The unhealthy condition of amateur athletics in the United States grew to alarming proportions last year. It was evidenced in many ways, from the increase of international football games with their attendant professional atmosphere, to the achievements of Hoff on the vaudeville stage during a supposedly amateur athletic tour of the country. The whole thing may be experienced in the phase, sport becoming spectacle. The danger of this tendency cannot be emphasized too often.

This year a new and definitely recognizable counter-development has appeared; the extension of aroused professionalism into fields where amateur sport had acquired the professional atmosphere--though not its frankness. In both football and tennis Mr. Pyle has done inestimable service to amateurism. Rumor has had it that this indefatigable promoter will extend his field of activity to include track, which has certainly sorely needed elastic treatment.

That the A.A.U. has learned a lesson from what has happened to travelling tennis performers is evidenced by the action taken yesterday. It may be that further expressions of a returning sanity will make it unnecessary for Mr. Pyle to extend his purging process further with a travelling troupe containing Messrs. Nurmi, Paddock, Hoff, and their jlk. At any rate, evidence is accumulating that amateur athletics are being restored to a common sense boats.