Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Track Athletics in the Colleges 275 Hemenway Gymnasium, the best gymnasium in the country at that time, was built, and in 1883 a quarter-mile track was laid on Holmes Field. There was no better track in the country, and the men who used to run on it firmly believed that there was none so good, and with this track and an adequate gymnasium and field-house almost adjoining the Yard, there was every reason why track athletics should be pursued with enthusi– asm. That this was the case, the teams of those days are proof enough, and it was in the eighties - in the days of Evart Wendell, Walter Soren, Goodwin, Easton, Baker, Rogers, and Wells - that for seven years straight the Mott Haven championship was won by Harvard. In all the Eastern colleges at that time a laz'ssez .faz're system of athletics existed, and the methods of training, particularly at Harvard and Yale, were curious and unlovely. Not only were pro– fessional trainers employed, but each athlete chose his own - often a professional sprinter or walker who had no connection with the college. There was great rivalry among these trainers. Each one was desirous of the advertising which would come from having put a winner into the field, and the result was that the weaker candidates were neglected, while disputes and jealousies arose over the handling of the favored men, which were anything but in keeping with the spirit of a