The Athletes and Athletic Sports of Scotland

PROFESSIONAL V AMATEUR ATHLETES. 117 round of the games. In thecourse of the twenty-five years, five athletes, whose /orte was hammer, stone, and caber throwing, regularly left their usual work for the summer season for some years. With these exceptions it is as absurd to call the great majority of competitors for money atScottish games professional athletes as it would be to call a farmer, who ridesoccasionally at arace meeting aprofessional jockey. WHAT IS AN AMATEUR ATHLETE ?—A realamateur athlete is one who competes at athletic sports solely from loveof athletic exercise. How manyamateur athletes are there ? They are as few as the real professionals. The ordinary amateur athlete is one who has never won orcompeted for a money prize. Money isagain the main test. Never compete for a money prize and you are called anamateur. On what grounds is the competing or non-competing for a money prize made themain distinction between so-called amateurs and so-called professionals ?First and foremost, because it is held by a certain class to be more noble to compete for glory than for gain. Second, that com­ peting for money demoralises the competitors, proof of which is the discredit that professional athletes have brought uponmany branches of athletic sports, by concealing their true form, winning or losing according to orders, selling races, and other practices that are dark and crooked. ANCIENT ATHLETES IN GREECE.—When a supporter of the amateur principle in athletics wishes to point out his beauideal ofwhat an amateur athlete shouldbe he almost invariably refers to the high-souled Greek athlete returning as victor from the Olympic games, crowned with a simple chaplet of wild oliveas his sole reward. This is the stock argument of those who are down on what they call professional athletes. Now, the fact of the matter is,that when athletic sports were in theirmost flourish­ ing condition in Greece, the victors at the Olympic games who received their chaplets of wild olive were more purely and strictly professional athletes than any class ofmodern athletes. They were trained allthe year round in places set apart for the pur-