Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Track Athletics zn the Colleges 287 the games resulted in the formation of the West– ern Intercollegiate Association, which included the colleges that had sent teams to the meet and several small institutions. This vigorous growth of track athletics was not, however, paralleled by healthy development of the amateur spirit. The decadence of the athletic clubs had already set in, and whatever influence they exerted on college athletics was bad. Unscrupulous trainers and managers vio– lated continually the laws of sportsmanship, and all of these harmful influences were exerted on a public which had, as yet, no intelligent under– standing of the special code of ethics which applies to sport. After Michigan's victory at the games of 1893 it was learned that the enterprising mana– ger of that team had used five " ringers" to make sure of success. Such flagrant offences are com– paratively easy to deal with, and the man was expelled by the Michigan faculty just on the eve of getting his diploma; but it was a harder task, as it has always been, to prevent the offering to promising athletes of sugar-coated inducements, or to pound into the heads of untutored, husky, easy-going youths a serious appreciation of the meaning of the word " amateur." Where the status of individuals was in question, there was bound to be continual bickering and backbiting between the rival colleges that made up the new