Athletic Training

INTRODUCTION xxvii of track and field athletics so clearly described in this book by one whose name is connected with the rise and growth of athletic compe– tition in America during the thirty years spanned by his active life. He saw the foundation of the great American athletic clubs. He taught track athletics and foot– ball at Yale and at the University of Penn– sylvania, and from the crude beginnings of thirty years ago he collected the traditions as they passed from athlete to athlete, and devised new and valuable methods which he tested and proved in his daily work. Michael C. Murphy, or, as his friends affec– tionately called him, "Mike," was a man of unusual personality. Hundreds of amateur athletes, from last year's college graduate to the man whose hair is silvered, can recall stories of things he said or did. Anecdotes of men like Jewett, Owen, Kraenzlein, Orton, Sherrill, Shevlin, and Tewkesbury he con– tinually used, to illustrate some point he wished to make to his pupil. He was quick to recognize athletic ability in a beginner, and had the connoisse~r's admiration and apprecia-