ATHLETICS.

DR. LAMBETH REVIEWS THE FOOTBALL SEASON.*

The football season of 1914 is perhaps the freshest and most vivid object in your memory. Needless, then, is a review. We had best occupy ourselves with a study of the "deeper causes of the season." It is perfectly safe to attempt this because, while we may be contradicted, while we may be either right or wrong, neither fact nor fallacy can be demonstrated. And then, in order to round out the subject, some predictions might be made along with a few scattering admonitions concerning preoccupation.

One of the most potent causes of our success this year is that the students last year banished, I hope forever, politics from the election of officers of the General Athletic Association. For years the power of the students to render support, and to coöperate efficiently in the development of athletics, was frittered away in order that a few astute politicians might, as they presumed, innocently and harmlessly exercise their talents in the framing of platforms and the conduct of political campaigns. The result was, as in all political matters, the creation of two parties and the halving of the strength of the whole. Not, of course, that bad men or indifferent men were ever elected to positions, for we have no such men; but, nevertheless, those elected were pledged and obligated to support this or that policy, the correctness of which had not been determined further than that it was different from some other policy which the opponents had proposed. The result was that no step, however wise or necessary, could be taken without consideration of its political influence. It is probably possible and desirable to furnish opportunity for political practices among the students of the University, but let us hope that never again may that greatest of all student interest be debased and prostituted for such purposes. Whenever it is again proposed that this shall happen, may the big, strong leaders among the students of the Univer

*Given at the December College Hour.

sity exert their influence in putting it down; and, if necessary, may these same leaders devise some other avenue for the expression of political ambition. Seventeen years ago a political ticket with an anti-alumni coach plank was elected. The selfsacrificing alumni were slapped in the face and informed that their services were neither necessary nor desired. During the following period of nine years we did not advance, we did not hold our own; but, compared with others, we slipped backward. We are sincere when we tell you that if that plank had never been written and you had been permitted seventeen instead of seven years of development, you would have now been placed ten years beyond your class. Let us hope that you may study the history of Virginia's athletics from 1897 to 1914. Ponder upon it and refuse to be robbed of your athletic patrimony by the easy tongue of the master political manager. The college politician in athletics suggests affinity with the insects. He first comes out of his pupa stage in March as a crab—he's a crab, because you can't tell which way he's going, forward, backward or sideways. He backs and fills until his final metamorphosis, which gives him his feline characteristics, which become pronounced in May. Now I suggest to you students that when one of these animals comes pussy-footing around your room about midnight, you ask him if he purposes to destroy the constitution or discount the financial credit of the association. He will tell you that that's all bosh; he's heard that tommy-rot before. You might then demand that he show you a bill of purchase of one of the bonds you voted to issue the other day.

The second cause of our success is that we have had the influence and the power of the Faculty. Through its Athletic Committee, it has sympathetically coöperated with the Executive Committee of the General Athletic Association. To be sure, in many of the bigger questions which have come before them, there might have been and there were differences of opinion; but as always where mutual faith and confidence reside, these differences were easily adjusted or disappeared altogether in reaching final and right conclusions. It is not difficult to see that if a plank were placed in a political platform forcing an issue as to whom, when, and where we play, without the

legitimate and proper consideration for the larger interests and welfare of the University, that an irreparable breach would show itself. Whom, when, and where we play is a matter of grave importance and a responsibility on the University as a whole, and if such policies against and without consideration of the interest of the University are strongly advocated, we shall soon see destructive friction between these two governing bodies. We are happy to believe that, under the present government, such a catastrophe seems impossible.

The third cause for the success this year is found in the efficiency of the present Executive Committee of the General Athletic Association. During a somewhat lengthened acquaintance with successive Executive Committees, we have rarely heard the motives of a single member questioned; but unsullied as has been their record, the committee of this year is one we shall long hold up as a standard. Competent, conscientious, painstaking and patient, they have approached every question with a gravity which befitted their great responsibility. May we have many such committees, and then we shall know that the great interests committed to their care will be handled with correctness and distinction. We wonder if you know them-Cronly, Fitchett, Lane, Lefevre and Warren! I can refer to them with pride and becoming modesty, for I am a member myself.

The fourth deeper reason is found in the Football Club. This club has done much to make our men, who may be neither practical nor technical athletes, see and feel that they have an interest to attend and a duty to perform. We believe that this influence will become more and more powerful. In many ways not foreseen, nor yet thought out, we shall secure a rich service from this organization.

The fifth reason is that the technical side of football is receiving more and more attention by the brainy men of Virginia. We have here the socalled "Alumni System of Coaching," which means that the Virginia football teams are coached by those who have previously played on Virginia teams. It is easy to defend a system which wins; defense, therefore, is now useless, but it is a good time for self-criticism. We know that the system is

not perfect. We know wherein many weaknesses lie. It is our duty now to remedy these faults and increase its strength and usefulness. But if adversity should come before we have succeeded in doing this, we should profit by the radical failure of other systems. We know what happened to Yale last year when she changed by revolution instead of evolution. We can predict what will happen to Princeton this year if she does as she threatens to do, that is, to have one coach only and to drive her loyal sons away. We here must remember, of course, that every football player needs a hundred coaches, but that no team can tolerate more than one. Year by year we have striven to diminish the contact between the coaches and the team and to increase the contact between the coaches and the players. Whatever of wisdom or experience the coaches wish the team to have reaches that organization only through the head coach. So far was this policy carried this year that even exhortations to the team before the games by any other than the head coach were abandoned in all cases save one. In the coaches' meeting every coach had an equal vote on every question-defense, offense, plays, time and character of the work-but on the field, the field-coach was the source of law. Hence diminished confusion and cross purposes. Contrast this method, imperfect as we acknowledge it to be, with the motley, heterogeneous methods of some of our rivals, where many All-Americans addled a select setting of eggs. May we conserve such forces as reside in our Hammond Johnson, Empty Cook, Johnny Neff, Charlie Crawford, Kemper Yancey, Speed Elliott, Rice Warren and Joe Wood. Speaking of Joe Wood, we should love to pay a tribute to this quiet, able, lovable leader and teacher, the idol of the football team, who has earned the respect and gratitude of college, whose place and fame is fixed in our annals forever-this Virginia gentleman, with a gentle gentleman's manners, who for this reason will perhaps be known to generation of students as "Roaring Joe."

We should be unfaithful did we omit publicly to profess and proclaim the obligation we owe to the Chief Executive of the General Athletic Association. This man who, with personal sacrifice far beyond the demands of loyalty, with ability born of maturity; considerate of every claim and every faction;