Athletics Aweigh

Over the weekend, two batteries of big guns--the American Council on Education and the Ivy League presidents--poured salvo after salvo into the battered and rotted hulk of once-proud college athletics. When the thunder had died away, a couple of crewmen of the punished vessel, Petty Officers Caldwell and Jordan, fired one final round against the foes of spring practice, and then struck their ensign.

But, as was the case in the battle of Jutland during the first world war, it is hard to tell just who won. It will actually be impossible to tell who won until the admirals of the victorious fleet show their true colors by either effecting or obstructing sports de-emphasis. In the case of the Ivy League presidents, most of whom are more concerned with education than with winning teams--either athletic or political--chances are good that they will actually keep their institutions headed on the path of amateurism. The eight-point program they have set forth is a good one. It iterates some policies that most of the league is already following, but other items, like the abolition of football clinics and of spring practice, are also salutary. The last-named, which has evoked the most controversy, is probably more important symbolically than practically--it puts football in the same category as one-season sports instead of year-round activities.

Since the most effective way to de-emphasize football (or any other sport) is to take away the incentive for emphasis, the ban on post-season spectacles, such as the Bowl games and regional games or tournaments, is probably the most important part of the program. But the Ivy League is hardly a major offender as far as bowl games and tournaments are concerned, and the section regarding these contests is relatively more important in the program of the American Council on Education, which was announced on Saturday. The A.C.E., which in a sense speaks for all the colleges that might possibly be involved in post-season games and tournaments, cannot actually tell them what to do. It can only propose, and the full National Collegiate Athletic Association, when it next meets to dispose in January, 1953, may well dispose of the whole idea. It may also dispose of the A.C.E.'s other laudable suggestions, such as a ban on freshman participation on varsity teams and limitation of practice time in all sports.

The president of the University of Oklahoma displayed the attitude that could negate the value of the A.C.E. program when he said: "The code looks a little rough to me. We may have created another Volstead (Prohibition) Act." That is just what the program should not be considered--a restrictive, legalistic, unworkable ordinance. It is a framework on which colleges interested in preserving amateur sports can build their athletic policies. As long as college presidents find the suggestions "a little rough," even if they try to carry them out, the program will never work. It requires a will to comply, in the Ivy League and in the nation as a whole. If Penn or Cornell, just for the sake of argument, decided that a winning football team was a desideratum, it could arrange to procure one while piously and truthfully proclaiming its adherence to League rules. And if the president of Oklahoma accepts the A.C.E. draft and wants to find loopholes, he will surely be able to do so. But the two proclamations of last weekend are most encouraging, even if there is still a long war to be fought.