More Substitutes in Soccer

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

The Intercollegiate Soccer League, of which Harvard and Yale were members, dissolved recently by mutual consent. This week's newspapers carry the story that a new league is to be formed, and that the objections Harvard and Yale had to the previous league--such as the fact that Harvard could not close its season with the Yale game, but had to continue a week or two longer against other opponents, like Haverford--were to be met. As one interested in soccer both at school and since, I wonder if another improvement might not be agreed on before the articles of the new league are definitely drawn up.

The old league had a ruling prohibiting the use of more than two substitutes in a league contest. This applied to the Yale game as well as the others. This year Yale awarded thirteen letters, to its eleven regulars and two substitutes. Last year, and this one, for some reason, three extra Harvard men get their letters for playing against Yale. It seems to me unfair that thirteen men alone, in a game requiring eleven regulars, receive letters in the Yale game. If we look at the football team, we see eighteen or twenty men generally in the letter game, with two or three more receiving letters by award. This is a just state of affairs and shows all the more the injustice of the soccer ruling permitting only two substitutes. I have known seniors at Harvard, out for practice every day in the fall, in rain and in snow, without whom there would not have been enough men to form a second team for the varsity to scrimmage against, unrewarded in the only way Harvard can reward men for service in its various athletic activities, with a memento to treasure a lifetime.

I do not think my suggestion of permitting more than two substitutes to get into the letter game, is selfish. It applies only to men deserving of this reward, and there are always more than two extra men who do deserve this. Has this suggestion a chance, through your columns, of reaching the proper parties? Arthur Bronstein '24.