IS IT A GAME OR AN INDUSTRY?

When a Harvard team loses all of its major games and can offer to its graduate and student supporters only victories over little Bates and New Hampshire and a temporarily paralyzed Brown, it is both natural and inevitable that there should arise a cry for a new deal at Soldiers Field. In the past this combination of a defeat by Yale and by the earlier opponents has always led to a protest for a change in the football regime, and today history is once more proving its infallible repetition by the existence of a loud demand for a "radical shakeup."

This time, however, the demand involves far more than the previous cries for a mere change in coaches. For, though few of those who are protesting realize it, today the Committee on the Regulation of Athletic Sports is faced with the prospect of a possible alteration in the fundamental principle of participation in athletic contests at Harvard. Stated briefly, the Committee must decide whether or not it will countenance a swing from the laissez-faire method of athletic competition to a system involving "high pressure" instruction and heavy emphasis on pure victory. Or, expressed more simply, the Committee must decide between the goal-line desires of some of its more enthusiastic alumni and students, and the desirability of keeping football a game which will be enjoyed by those who play it.

These are the two extremes of the situation which shortly will come before the Committee as the result of defeats by Holy Cross, Dartmouth, Princeton, Army, and Yale. Possibly at its meeting scheduled for December 3, but more probably later in the year, the Committee must find some solution. What is this to be? Is Harvard to send its scouts to the high schools in search of potential All-American material and to have its football squad practice until 6.30 o'clock every day? Or, is Harvard to continue to subsist on the scanty fare of an annual victory over New Hampshire? Either alternative is undesirable in the extreme, and it is the task of the Committee to find a path that will lead between these poles on some middle course. That is, it must develop a policy which will bring at least a fair average of success in conflict and yet will avoid the creation of a group of semi-professional athletes, whose existence in the University is justified solely by their prowess on the field of battle.

Perhaps it might seem too much to assign to the Committee the burden of an entire policy, yet, in selecting a coach, it will be committing itself to a definite stand on this fundamental issue. In choosing the man it will be choosing the policy. For he who comes to take charge at Soldiers Field next fall must come with a clearly mapped outline of the restrictions which Harvard imposes on its desires for victory. Such restrictions there must be. Harvard must not acquire through its new coach a system which places the almighty football on a sacred altar.

What, then, are these restrictions, and how can they be made consistent "with a fair average of success in conflict?" In part they comprise a maintenance of the limit on daily practice sessions to the present two hours and one half; in part an avoidance of the system of proselyting which some theorists of modern football claim the new "scientific" game demands. But principally they relate to the man in charge, to the head coach. In the past this has always been a Harvard graduate. Certainly it is desirable to maintain this system of graduate coaching wherever possible, but experience in every sport, not solely in football, has shown that of necessity there comes a time when an able graduate coach is not available for the sport in question. When such a situation arises, it is pointless to cling to the tradition in the face of reality. Thus, in every sport save football Harvard has looked outside the lists of its Alumni Directory for leaders. There is no reason why it should not follow the same course in the case of football if the Committee decides to change the present regime. It is difficult to see where Harvard can at this time find in its own ranks a coach who is capable of providing the team with the technical knowledge and the inspiration necessary for success. In the past it has always been possible to find a man who was a Harvard graduate and at the same time combined pure ability as a football coach with the congeniality and other personal characteristics necessary for the squad to accept him as friend as well as instructor. It is the last two of these conditions rather than the first one which should be considered in the choice of a new coach.

Without any doubt this standard will prevent Harvard from achieving fame in the Rose Bowl--a fact that is little to be regretted. We are here "to develop a broad cultural background" rather than to win a place in the Who's Who of athletic annals. The one is incidental to the larger purpose of the other.