PLAYING A NEW GAME

The Western Conference has adopted what the Michigan Daily terms a "rigid code of ethics" on the recruiting of high school athletes. The provisions in brief condemn "scholarships, loans, and remissions of tuition of the basis of athletic skill," the endeavor of athletic directors and coaches "by initiation of correspondence, by distribution of literature, and by personal interviews of their own seeking to recruit athletics," and the previous promise of employment to prospective athletes "by the athletic department of the university."

But this "rigid" code distinguishes between illegitimate and so-called legitimate recruiting. Among the methods listed under the latter heading are "banquets to prospective athletes, rushing at interscholastic meets, talks by coaches at high school banquets, the writing by athletic directors to high schools for the names of athletes in the senior class in order to send them information about the university."

The directors of the Western Conference are possessed of an admirable sense of sportsmanship. They have made a game out of proselytizing. Given, a high school halfback and ten college coaches. Object: who gets the halfback? Rules: the above. As the new code says, "any resort to improper methods is poor sportsmanship."

Thus will the universities of the Conference be preserved from the business spirit in athletics. Thus will they maintain the highest standards of sportsmanship in the education of American youth to be good halfbacks.