Why? The Science of Athletics

CHAPTER IV HUMAN MECHANISM Brain, the directing force-Eyes, the investigators and guides-Heart, the engine. Brain must · Think Clearly To be a good athlete a man must have a good brain. It is not suggested that even a nit-wit cannot be taught to perform certain athletic feats with a satisfactory degree of mechanical precision. This applies particularly perhaps to the more conventionally formal technique of some of the field events. But, even so, such a man is entirely dependent upon his coach. He may have outstanding natural athletic ability ; by practice, precept and imitation he may become perfect in technique, and so may enjoy a marked degree of athletic success, but he will never have the broader vision that is needed for the exploration of the greater possibilities in develop– mencs of style which should ensue logically upon his personal natural ability. A man of no particular brain-power, but who p~ssesses great natural speed and stamina, may even win flat races in good company, but the task of planning most of those races -for liim generally falls to the lot of the coach. Great athletes, as a rule, are extremely clever people, as witness the careers and the personal characteristics of such men as the late Lord Alverstone, the late Sir Montague Shearman, Professor Philip Noel Baker, Drs. Rex Wood and Henry Stallard, and those rising young barristers, H. M. Abrahams and D. G. A. Lowe. To be a really great athlete, in the most intimate sense of the term, a man must be able_to study form, to think out points of technique for himself, to root out ss