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The following editorial is taken from the Yale Alumni Weekly and is well worth reading, as showing a somewhat original attitude in regard to professional coaching. As to the justice and spirit of the assertions, each one can judge best for himself.
'In connection with the football season just closed there has been brought into great prominence a practice which, it seems to us, is destined, if not checked in time, to lower the game from its present high position in public favor. We refer to the practice of Yale graduates, who have been drilled as members of our foot-ball team and thus trained in what are conceded to be the best tactics and manoeuvers of the game, going to other colleges and universities and coaching their teams, in most cases for salaries. In this way the game is made more than ever a matter of money, and Yale graduates become foot-ball professionals. We do not mean to say that the game should be restricted, but that other teams should gain their knowledge through contests on the field or through their own inventions, but not by a purchase from a Yale graduate of what has been entrusted to him for the benefit of his alma mater. Our victories on the water have been attributed to the peculiarities of a stroke which has been developed by long and faithful study of rowing and also to the superior knowledge of our coaches. No one claims that Yale, which is smaller in number than Harvard, has better material. Now if Mr. Cook, for a sum of money or any other consideration, should go to Harvard and coach her crew, a storm of indignation would be aroused; and yet, with but little protest from any quarter, over twenty Yale graduates, some of them among the most prominent of our football players, and some even while coaching here, are selling to other teams the plays and tactics planned out for our team. Surely this state of things is radically wrong, and some steps should be taken to check it. Let all our readers who still revere our common alma mater and hope for her success in athletics do what they can to eradicate this professional element from this branch of sport."
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