MR. REID'S SMOKE TALK

Mr. William T. Reid, head coach of the Harvard football team, gave an enjoyable and profitable smoke talk in College Hall Saturday evening, March 24. The speaker's prominence as a player, coach, and sportsman, made his remarks unusually interesting and significant.

"Though the football situation is overwrought and overdrawn," said Mr. Reid, "the fate of football will not be decided at once. The game will be on trial next season more emphatically than it was last, and if not satisfactory then, final action will probably be taken. To save football, therefore, we must do our best during the coming season to eliminate its objectionable features. The greatest endeavor of all who are interested in the welfare of the sport should be, as it shall be at Harvard, to revise the American idea of sport. My definition of sport is a contest between individuals or teams in which, the main idea is to secure wholesome fun, in which the question of winning or losing is of secondary importance. The American temperament of working hard to win at any cost has ruined this ideal of true sport. If lam in charge at Cambridge next fall, it shall be my purpose to make an eleven out of the material that voluntarily presents itself; there will be absolutely no proselyting.

"If football is to continue," said Mr. Reid in closing, " the rules next fall should not be evaded. Officials should be considered, not policemen, but authorities to decide debatable points. Visiting teams should be considered guests. Harvard has tried in a measure to follow these rules and has been laughed at; but the first stage of all reform is often considered ridiculous. In a word, to preserve football, and indeed all sports, athletics of all kinds must be absolutely on the square."