Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Track Athletics be made to such an austere argument as this, vig– orous and admirable as it is in spirit, is that it tends to confuse terms, - that sportsmanship and athletic efficiency are assumed to be synonymous. Sportsmanship, as a national ideal, we assume ~to mean the general attitude toward life of a man whose body and mind have been trained in sports and who conducts himself in the world of affairs with that same courage, frankness, and generosity which he would use on track or field. Such an ideal is not necessarily inconsistent with the somewhat dilettante methods of training enjoyed by the English undergraduates. It is very easy to carry this rigidly ethical point of view too far when applying it to so flexible a subject as sport. A Harvard or Yale half-back who would break train– ing on the night before the annual game would bring upon himself disgrace which he might never be able quite to live down. The same man might be chosen by his table-mates at Memorial Hall or the Yale Commons to represent them in an inter-table tennis match, might eat so many dishes of ice-cream or strawberries that he couldn't put up a respectable game, and the delinquency would be dismissed as a joke. It is so impossible, in fact, rigidly to define any attitude toward training that will fit all conditions, all individuals, and perfectly reconcile the desire to make sport a pleasure with the determination to do one's best