More On Athletics

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

This letter has but one purpose: to protest against any action by Harvard University or alumni giving preference of aid to athletes who apply to Harvard College. I should like to assert that I am as great a sports fan as anyone at Harvard. I had spent more time playing sports than I had eating, attending school, seeing movies, shows, etc., reading, riding on bicycles, cars, trains, streetcars, and busses, listening to the radio, or writing until I got polio when I was 14 years old. Nor have I ceased to play sports since I recovered from my attack: only recently I was warned that my basketball playing was liable to injure my health--I took basketball as Freshman physical training while it was available. Any plan to aid athletes, I believe, is contrary to the whole purpose of sports.

The supreme purpose of sports is enjoyment; all others are subordinate to it. There are two ways to enjoy sports: by watching and by playing. To satisfy the watcher, the spectator, the ballplayer is generally called an athlete. In professional sports the avowed purpose is to please the spectator, not the ballplayers. It is natural, then, for the professional to tag opponents in the nose win a baseball, to commit intentional fouls in the hope they will not be seen on the basketball court, etc. The supreme purpose of non-professional sports is the enjoyment of the ballplayers, whether he wins or loses, whether he is talented or not. A simple example of the conflict between the ballplayer's and the spectator's enjoyment is that of the crippled person, by definition less talented, who gets more enjoyment out of sports than the healthy persons, all other things being equal, for obvious reasons.

The supreme purpose of a college is to develop minds and character; it is not a farm club for professional sports, in theory anyway. Sports in college, therefore, is a diversion engaged in without animosity or dirty playing, regardless of talent. Economically favoring the athlete is prostituting that purpose. What about the boy who is refused admittance because of athlete preference? I knew a high school boy who got polio right after he was picked as the best baseball player in the diocese of Brooklyn. At least 6 feet tall, his body was conspicuously atrophied. To pick an athlete in preference to this boy, or one like him, would be to continue a time-honored American custom, viz., discriminating unfairly against a human being because he could not overcome the crippling effects of disease. Everyone wants to help the poor athlete, but few consider the physically handicapped, than to the athlete! I wonder if those who extol the "sentiment" of school spirit can work up some sentiment for the persons who would be hurt by athletic preference!

The CRIMSON has managed to stand in defense of the individual: will it be brave enough to continue this policy by favoring as unpopular a position as the one I maintain? Gordon Zimmerman '52