Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

422 Track Athletics games, is no more typical of his country than is his country's army, drifting pleasantly along with its polo-playing officers until there arrives some Boer War reckoning, and dogged strength and sand and pluck have to pay the price that staggers hu– manity. Smith of Oxford doesn't worry because he isn't built that way; Jones of Harvard does worry because he £s built that way, and it is as absurd to tell him that he might get more fun out of his running if he didn't worry as to tell him he might cut a bigger figure in the world if he were four inches taller. Jones doesn't worry because he likes to worry; he has run on easy– going paper chases and across country in his vaca– tions, and he knows, you may be sure, when running's fun. But Jones knows he has been chosen to run against Yale, and that is a very big and serious thing to him. He doesn't want to place the victory above the sport, but a race is a race, and when you're in a race it's your ~usiness to win. That seems to be logic and sound ethics. Jones doesn't see why you should wait until the starter's pistol snaps before taking the thing seri– ously, and if by any scourging of the flesh he can honorably improve his chances of winning, he is going to do it. Perhaps Jones, in his strenuous– ness, will go stale and not do as well by his col– lege as he would have done if he had taken things more easily. Perhaps Smith, with his lack of