MILITARY ATHLETICS AT DARTMOUTH

With the creation of the contract relation between the government and the College concerning military training of students in the draft ages the control of student activities passes from the authorities hitherto constituted with their supervision. In the designation "student activities" may be included all forms of organized diversion, athletic, artistic, and literary, and the catalogue is pretty fairly complete, from football to chess.

In the wartime collegiate training camp there is allowed perforce scant time for the development of organizations which do not bear pretty directly upon military efficiency, and the adherence to this principle eliminates automatically such an activity as debating or the college humorous monthly publication. Certain other activities seem to occupy the middle ground, such as the musical organizations, which while leading not directly to military efficiency in the strict sense do have an effect on the morale of the soldier. Certain other activities are deemed to have a direct value, since military efficiency may depend somewhat directly upon physical condition. Participation in athletics is universally urged by military authorities and organization is even enforced.

But the athletics of the collegiate training camp resemble not in the least the highly developed and specialized participation in sport as known to the colleges before the war. Whether the former development will be re-created by conscious effort or the passage of time when peace again comes may be the subject for fruitful argument, but it seems quite certain that the "parlor-car" athlete or at least some of his prerequisites or perquisites may have passed from us never to return.

Military athletics in the colleges will include in the program intramural contests and inter-training-camp games. But there never will be aroused the public interest, as it was aroused by the old intercollegiate spectacles, and attempts to so interest large audiences will be frowned upon by the military authorities unless there is present the added attraction of a charitable disposition of the gate receipts.

The training of the military team is partly accomplished by the routine drill and the physical work accompanying instruction. Naturally there is no training table other than the ration provided by Uncle Sam, and there are no physical conditioners, no rubbers, nor any particular requirements restricting the personal habits of the participant. In matters of equipment and supply the military athlete is most easily satisfied, being informed that the government does not undertake to finance any demands, and that if the tools of his trade are to be supplied they must be contributed or loaned, or he may forage for himself. And it is surprising to find that almost no one seems to need anything and there is no complaint. Bills for medicines and medical adjuncts, and office and sundry expenses vanish as if by magic.

Coaching of the military team may be by the voluntary contribution of the services of the expert, or the loan of them, or of the haphazard amateur persuasion. The object sought by the military authorities is the general participation of all enlisted men, which seems by proof to be best accomplished by the utilization if possible of a director attractive not only in personality but also through his knowledge of the subject he essays to teach.

There are no eligibility rules in military athletics. Each man in the collegiate training camp is as welcome as a team member as is any other. That he comes from another college and has not been, one year in residence is immaterial, that he is a freshman makes no difference at all, and the husky drafted man enrolled for vocational training in concrete sometimes may serve as a most excellent guard at football or first baseman at baseball.

And the business management of military athletics,—and such there must be just so long as athletic teams shall require the receipt of money in the form of entrance fees and the payment thereof for their upkeep and travel,—may very easily show the reversion to the good old days when the undergraduate held the money-bag and answered not' at all at the close of the allotted season. Military officers have plenty to do with their work of instruction as assigned, and the business of athletics in its detail must be turned over to the enlisted men who show indication of aptitude for the work.

The collegiate military team for the present football season is allowed out-of-town trips requiring absence from military duties during November only, and two games only are allowed requiring absences from Friday to Sunday.

The tentative schedule of the Dartmouth S. A. T. C. team for November is as follows:

November 2nd—Syracuse at Spring-field.

November 9th—Penn at Philadelphia.

November 16th—Middlebury at Hanover.

November 23rd—Brown at Boston.

Of the above list of games it is likely that one will be played for the benefit of the War Work campaign, or that the schedule may be revised and an added event may be devoted to that cause. Only one game has been played thus far, that of October 19th, against Norwich University, which was won by Dartmouth by the score of 22 to 0. A fair sized squad is practising daily under the direction of Coach Spears, and the Athletic Council has loaned to the military department all the available equipment and the use of the plant, and is rendering such service and assistance as is possible in an advisory capacity.

Graduate Manager Horace G. Pender '97