Lining Them Up

Apologia and Manifesto

We have long felt the need for a suitable medium for presenting CRIMSON readers with some sort of compendium of the numerous sports items, which, while they are hardly of the sort that can command rating as definite news, are of real interest to Harvard undergraduates and as such deserve comment and mention in our columns. It is chiefly to fill this need that "Lining Them Up" has been inaugurated.

Although the column will deal most often with news directly connected with Harvard's athletic world, its scope will extend over all sports. Space will also be given to the sports at Harvard which do not come in for as much publicity as football, for instance, and intramural athletics will receive their share of attention.

Suggestions, criticisms, and interesting items of Harvard news from undergraduates will be welcomed by "Time Out."

The Surplus Hydra

It seems as though, despite the valiant efforts of the H. A. A., the surplus is doomed to continue on its upward path. Thanks to the failure of the steel stands to produce the estimated expense of $170,000., rather miserably letting the association down with a mere bill for $155,000., and to the fact that other items of expenditure have failed to come through as expected, the surplus, a several headed hydra, looms more ominously than ever to puzzle the minds of corporation potentates.

Former dicta have forbidden that this surplus be turned to the completion of the new Athletic Building, whose scrawny frame may be destined to strike terror into the hearts of nearby residents for many months to come. But on the other hand, rumour saith that the immovable hath been moved if only slightly, and that the Corporation may reconsider its previous decisions, and leave the path open to the utilization of the surplus.

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News about the new gymnasium includes the rumor, emanating from several sources, that there is a real possibility of the A. A. U.'s awarding the national swimming championships to Harvard. The Nationals come sometime in March, and at the present time, it is expected that the new pool will be completed in February. Of course, the meet would rest on the contingency that the pool be ready for use in good time, and it is possible that uncertainty on this score would prejudice Harvard's chances to obtain the meet. It is certain that the event would prove a gala opening for the new pool and would do immeasurable good in stimulating interest in aquatic sports in Cambridge. It is to be hoped that what is now at best only an uncertain rumor may some day become a fact.

The Rise of Pro Tennis

The rise of professional tennis which has been so noticeable for the past two years seems somewhat out of accord with the decline of pro sports in general. We now have two pro tennis players who are considered to be on a par with the cream of the amateur group in Karel Kozeluh, the Czech wonder, and Vincent Richards, formerly of amateur fame in this country. These two recently engaged in a match which according to eye witnesses produced tennis of a far higher brand than the Tilden-Hunter final of the national singles championship held within the last few weeks on the same Forest Hills courts. This is of course partly explained by the equality of the two players, a factor which few will contend existed in the amateur championship play. But it is nevertheless significant that pro tennis is taking its place among the recognized sporting spectacles.

The reason for this is fairly obvious to any one who stops to consider the function which pro tennis performs and compare it with the function of say boxing or baseball. The last two named serve only one purpose as professional sports and that is to amuse the spectator. Pro tennis on the other hand like pro golf has for its primary purpose the instruction of those who desire to learn the game so that they can play it themselves. Just why the stigma commonly associated with professionalism should attach to such an unquestionably worthy end is a mystery, but fortunately one which seems to be clearing up. The sport is a healthy one and seems bound for greater heights than it has reached in the past.

The presence of two such players as Kozeluh and Richards in the pro ranks is rapidly speeding this advance. Tennis followers are already beginning to ask themselves if Kozeluh could take Cochet, and though few can offer any very definite opinion, it nevertheless raises an interesting point. To offer a solution of the knotty problem is, of course only to open oneself to criticism but then who is above criticism anyway? So here goes.

On the basis of watching the two men play it is this writer's opinion that Kozeluh could beat the Frenchman. He doesn't attempt to blast his opponents off the court and therefore would fall no easy victim to the infallibility style which Cochet plays so faultlessly. His ground and back court strokes are the most beautiful examples of coordination and effortless skill to be seen on a tennis court. They are of a type to keep an opponent away from the net as much as possible and simply wear him down. On the defense he is if anything faster than Cochet and his endurance is little short of marvelous. Whether he has magic touch which seems to characterize the Frenchman's play is not sure; he has not met enough worthy opposition; perhaps he would fall as other's have before the defense that is an offense, before the steady brillance and brilliant steadiness of the master of the amateur courts. BY TIME OUT.