Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

288 Track Athletics Western association. At the meet in 1895, for example, Wisconsin protested at the last moment two of the best men on the Michigan team. One of these men had been one of the "ringers " on the team of 1893. But his case had been put before the association the preceding winter, it was shown that he had acted unwittingly, and he had been reinstated; the other, a former Princeton man, had accepted a few dollars for expenses for coaching a team in Alabama, an infraction of amateur ethics which was also made without any intelligent understanding of the nature of the offence. Michigan was willing that this latter man should be disqualified, but she was dis– pleased at the method which Wisconsin had taken to bring about such a result, - it was asserted that Wisconsin had "doctored" up the board of directors of the league against Michi– gan, and fixed things for the expulsion of two of the Michigan men regardless of all prescribed rules of procedure, - and as a result she retired from the association, and arranged the following spring for dual meets with the University of Chicago. We have no desire to enlarge upon such unseemly squabbles as this, but it is neces– sary to mention at least one to make plain the situation in Middle Western athletics at that time, - a situation which re ulted eventually in the dis– solution of the association and the formation of