More Football Reform
(From the Indianapolis Ind. Star)
The first touch of spring seems to have developed an urge in certain academic quarters to resume the almost perennial demand for drastic changes in the supervision of football. The latest proposals have come from E. M. Hopkins, president of Dartmouth college, a figure in the educational world whose opinions command respect, particularly since he represents an institution that has achieved national prominence on the gridiron. Dr. Hopkins is a firm believer in football, but he does not want "to see it exalted to its ruin by uncomprehensive forces outside the college life, nor see it stifled to death by exasperated forces within." By the former he refers to the graduates, presumably, and the "exasperated forces" undoubtedly are the faculty.
The general and almost constant agitation over football in collegiate circles suggests that conditions require some revision, although they probably are not nearly so serious as some of the reformers would have us believe. There seems to be a growing tendency on the part of university presidents to participate in and offer recommendations for football conferences. Frank and open discussion can do no harm, although the suggestions so far advanced have not commanded any material following among friends of the gridiron sport. President Hopkins submitted a list of proposed changes and they have been so impractical for the most part as to impair his helpfulness in future reform programs.
The Dartmouth president's specific plan would limit membership on intercollegiate football teams to sophomores and juniors; would provide two major teams, one to play at home and the other on the field of the adversaries; would limit coaching to undergraduates—members of the senior class. Not a single one of these proposals would aid materially in eliminating certain evils which may have crept into the sport. The last was designed to end the professionalism which has made the game a battle of wits between coaches rather than a fair test of the mental and physical prowess of the players on the field. It also would end the criticism of salaries paid the coach far above the stipend of veteran department heads.
The forced retirement of skilled players after two years would create intense dissatisfaction, together with the attempt to organize two teams of theoretically equal strength. The operation of the plan might satisfy some of the professors, but it would never be tolerated by the students. It is also likely that the professional coach, even with some evils incident to the system, maintains a degree of discipline beneficial to the players and eliminates the dissension and the fraternity politics which would be a factor in the selection of senior mentors. Reforms should be introduced slowly as major symptoms develop, rather than subject the gridiron patient to a serious operation at the hands of unskilled professorial surgeons.
