Why? The Science of Athletics

HEALTH ASPECTS AND HEALTH TRAINING 43 ever st~iving to devise interest-driven act1v1t1es, for the purpose of monopolizing the attention of his pupils. The best way to combat anger, fear, worry and kindred adverse emotions is to be found in the creation of content– ment and happiness and by engendering intense interest. If an athlete can be given a sufficiently intense interest in physical activities during training, much will have been done to eliminate those strains above referred to, which may otherwise prove a real bar to athletic progress and even become an actual menace to health. Another thing for the coach to remember in relation to the training of the mental outlook of his charges is that the athlete must first of all be given a challenge to undertake some form of physical activity in which he has a reasonable chance of enjoying success. One should be careful, therefore, when an athlete comes along and says that he wants to train for some event or another, to make sure that the lad has sufficient of the right sort of physical and mental equipment to afford him a reasonable chance of succeeding in the company in which he is likefy to compete. I have known boys who showed a perfect passion for, say, high jumping, but nothing short of a miracle would ever have enabled them to clear even 5ft., and, since the days of miracles are no more, it would obviously be unfair to ·let a lad of that type take up an event in which he had not the smallest hope of ever succeeding. Constant failure to achieve an effect after which one is striving soon brings disappointment, and the constant sticking ·at one height would equally soon breed discontent and even a sort of sullen resentment. It is necessary for the coach to be quite firm, for the sake of the athletes themselves, for I think it is only the knowledge that one is right at the top of the class in which one is training, or retains the hope of getting there because there is still a chance of improving one's per– formanGes, that induces the athlete to stick to his chosen task, and to sustain the discipline of training. It is the easiest thing in the world to arouse athletic