Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Track Athletics in the Colleges 293 giate" association, there are a dozen or more state intercollegiate associations, and a score or more dual-meet agreements between the larger colleges. There are intercollegiates now in Texas and in North Dakota as interesting and important to those concerned as are the dual meets of their alma maters to the undergraduates of Harvard and Yale or Stanford and Berkeley. The second– ary schools and high schools are now organized on no less comprehensive lines, and there is scarcely any part of the country where school– boys and collegians cannot find rivals to run with and tracks on which to run. The time has long gone by when a victory at Mott Haven makes a man a college champion except in name. The sentimental satisfaction of such victories must always be very great to the men who win them, but that no longer necessarily implies that the performances are of any higher standard than would have been required to win at home. In looking over the growth of track sports in America three phases are apparent. In the first place, there was the vague general interest which, manifesting itself in running as in other sports, marked the beginning of that healthier appreciation of the out-of-doors which has been so typical of the last generation. Then came the starting of the athletic clubs, their amazing growth and popularity during the seventies and