En Retard

It is somewhat baffling to find the American Association of University Professors accusing the game of football as a disturbing element in itself to a proper sense of perspective. We blame public over-emphasis for any such detrimental effect; but the pedagogic critics would cut the game into such minute particles that no good would be derived whatsoever from participation in it.

Last fall the editors of the Harvard CRIMSON started a fanfare of criticism in this regard. The whole country seemed to be up in arms over night against the growing plague of over-emphasis. Destructive critiques advocated tearing the game to pieces; constructive thought proposed what may be termed a limitation of armaments and a saner public attitude. The CRIMSON put forth a plan whereby the Big Three would ignore the ambition for national supremacy each autumn, and limit themselves to a short season and their own petty and traditional rivalries. We supported the CRIMSON idea of reducing over-emphasis, but proclaimed loudly against the proposed plan.

Now the great ballyhoos start again, this time from the American faculty camp. It seems to be a case of overemphasis over-emphasized. Is there no saner method of correcting this unbalanced perspective than by depriving student America of its most healthful and wholesome enterprise? Football has a thousand times as many virtues as vices. The game itself has no bad features. It is the emphasis which the public lends it, and if the vicious circle is started this results in distorting values among the players and coaches themselves. Hence the black sheep in this problem are the newspapers and football fans.

The News in its 1927 Board platform advocated "Support to the Harvard CRIMSON project for a reduction of the public's virtual control of college football. We favor the plan in principle, but we do not believe the program advocated by this paper is either practicable or desirable. The fact that football has become so immense and has gained such a following should be proof against the drastic punishment prescribed. In its present condition it is somewhat of a mountain, but we would not go to the other extreme and make it puny."

The "public's virtual control" of the game is sinister and perniclous not the game itself. We would protest against the American professors' plan as sincerely as we do against the Harvard program. Both go to the vitals of football to save the sport-crazy public from losing its sense of balance. The only people to worry about in this regard are the men who are in the minority: the players themselves. These can be saved their equilibrium if the college don't deity the Red Granges and if they keep down the hours of practice which deter men from their other interests. The apotheosis of the game lies only with the public There is no justifiable reason why the players should be deprived of the good effects of participation in football just as it stands today or why the undergraduate bodies of the colleges should lose their enthusiasm simply because the great American people over-emphasize the annual competition. Toreadors have to eater to the Spanish public; football players don't in America. Here the public goes wild for a brief period, but it is all forgotten before the hockey season is under way. If the players have been able to keep their feet on the ground, no one has been the worse for the wear.

The game should be preserved as it is, but the colleges should not let the public bowl interrupt their several theories for developing good teams without requiring more of the players interest and time than the game justifies. Keep the sport-goer out of the stands if necessary, except for the alumnus and undergraduate; but by no means carve up a great game simply because the public looks upon it as a Golden Calf. Yale News, May 1.