SECRET PRACTICE

In a letter to the CRIMSON printed in this issue an old grad of nearly forty years' standing makes the suggestion that secret practice for the football team should be abolished. At great length he points out that Harvard graduates and undergraduates should have the pleasure of watching those who represent them on the gridiron not only on Saturday afternoons, but whenever practice is being held. Whether or not he is right in supposing that "hundreds of undergraduates" would flock to Soldiers Field to watch the Varsity practice on weekday afternoons, were that permitted, is a question open to considerable doubt, but what is most important is that the abolition of secret practice would be a decided step in making football less professional than it is at present.

Although there are other ways of reducing commercialism in college football and putting the game on a really amateur basis, none of these seems practical at the present moment for one reason or another. The reintroduction of open practice sessions, to which anyone would be admitted free of charge, is a step which could be taken immediately, and would involve no difficulties other than those of making the change itself. If several of the large colleges were to reach a "gentleman's agreement" on this matter, the smaller ones would undoubtedly follow their example, and secret practice would soon be a thing of the past. Few will deny that college football today is amateur in name only, and any change in the conduct of the game which will tend to make it amateur also in fact, should be hailed as a step in the right direction.