Football Analyzed

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Three cheers (without cheer-leaders) for Mr. Sayre's proposal to do away with Harvard football and put soccer in its place!...

I believe Mr. Sayre is a little optimistic, however, in calling the substitution of soccer for football an "inevitable development." College football is a financial investment; the players, just as much as the stadia, are its capital; for advertising purposes, the football hero is made to seem a Man Apart just like the gentleman who drinks Calvert; the sentiments, and finally the pocketbooks, of students and of old grads like Mr. Sayre are appealed to with the calculation of any singing commercial. The buying of football players is America's way of delaying government subsidization of education, which is an inevitable development. But it will be as difficult to end the exploitation of students for football as to end their exploitation, through ROTC and the like, for the armed forces.

Lest I seem to exaggerate, let me recall a member of the football team I met as a freshman, who complained that he was "always too tired in the evening to study." The last time I saw him was lying on the sidelines at a Harvard-Princeton game, having just been taken out with blood streaming down his face... Staughton Lynd 1G