Washington Athletic Head Defends Amateur Policy Despite 2-7 Season

One of the Crimson's 1862 goldiron opponents, Washington University of St. Louis, concluded one of its most disastrous seasons on Saturday. Washington lost to Senance 7 to 0, to finish the year with a two and seven record.

Amateur Policy

This season marked the fourth year that Washington has fielded an eleven under a "strictly amateur policy." In the three movions years Washington had a cumulative record of 21 wins and six logges to this season's gridiron collapse caused a shock similar to Harvard's 1949 crisis. But Washington athletic director Rlair Gullion is standing by the Bears' policy according to recent reports in the university's student publication.

Gullion explained that the losing season was "partly attributed to unforeseen shortages of manpower (injuries and players giving up the game), not to the athletic policy."

Furthermore, insisted the athletic director, the purpose of amateur athletics is not to have an all-winning team but "to fit the athlete into college life." Washington claims it can afford to maintain this policy because, like Harvard, the university pays the grid deficit (about $20,000 annually) as part of its educational expenses.

TV Troubles

Gullion is not too disturbed by television hurting the game. He believes that TV may be a medium of dividing college teams into commercial and amateur classes.

"The silver lining in this trend," says the athletic head, "is that big-time football teams will be comparatively few, for there will not be enough TV channels to carry many games and therefore more colleges will be forced into amateur policies."