Athletic competition

“ The competition is divided into athletic and equestrian. The athletic part is divided into events for men and events for boys. Each division is arranged in the order, real or fictitious, in which the various events were introduced. The only exception is the race in armour, which is placed after the boys’ events, owing to its late introduction, its peculiar character, and the fact that it was the last event on the programme. ”

“ The experience of recent years has taught us that international competitions do not always make for amity, and do not always promote amateur sport. The events of the last Olympic games, and the subsequent performances of some of the victors of these games, particularly of the fêted heroes of the so-called Marathon race, have gone far to justify the forebodings of those who feared that one of the chief results of such a competition would be an increase in professionalism. ”

“ Each college has also a set of athletic games yearly. If we add the men who play golf, lawn and court tennis, rackets and fives, who swim, box, wrestle, and who shoot on the 155 ranges of the gun club, the total of men schooled in competition reaches eighty to one hundred. A simple calculation will show that when so many are exercising daily, few are left for spectators. ”

“ The selection of these events at any athletic meeting is a somewhat arbitrary one, and the inclusion of those which require strength and skill rather than speed and agility rests more on a traditional than a logical basis. A particular feature which distinguishes these exercises as athletic sports is the presence of the idea of competition; thus running and walking, as isolated exercises, can be called 'sports' only when men compete against one another, although the factor of competition may be only indirectly present, as when an athlete endeavours to beat a record. ”

“ Games and athletic competitions, if they do not hold such an honourable position to-day as they did in antiquity, are still practised with great enthusiasm and excite the keenest interest in their patrons. ”

“ The Olympic beauty of this game is beyond all praise. It calls into active exercise every muscle of the human frame, and brings into bold relief the supple and athletic forms of the best built people in the world. ”

“ Imagine the athletes of every village training for those prizes—thousands of boy-topers turning gymnasts, ward delegates running for something besides office, and the members of a Young Men's Association seeking paradise on this side of the grave!
With the decadence of athletic sports, games of skill come generally into favor ”

“ Keep the game free from the taint of professionalism, free from betting, free from the disposition that would win fairly if possible, but win at any cost, and we have a form of recreation distinctly beneficial to the whole community!
The discipline of athletics develops obedience, self-control, and the spirit of cooperation, all of them useful, moral qualities. Many a rich man’s son, ambitious for college honors, has gotten his first taste of real discipline on the athletic field. ”

“ Prize-Fighting is not the aim of boxing. This noble exercise ought not to be judged by the dishonesty or the low lives of too many of its professional followers. Let it stand alone, an athletic practice, on the same footing as boating or foot-ball. ”

“ The years of late boyhood and early manhood say from twelve or fourteen to twenty-eight or thirty, and often until much later are those in which athletic sports prove not only most attractive, but also most beneficial to the individual and the race. In college and in most of the schools which are preparatory for college rowing, foot-ball, base-ball, running, jumping, sparring, and the like have assumed a constantly increasing prominence. ”

“ All through the livelong day on Saturdays, and in the afternoons during weekdays, boys in strange-looking running costumes of various designs could be seen diligently practicing at all manner of stunts, from sprinting, leaping hurdles, engaging in the high jump, with the aid of poles; throwing the hammer; and, in fact, every conceivable exercise that would be apt to come under the head of a genuine athletic tournament. ”

“ It is possible that the universal interest in track and field sports, which has so rapidly developed in the last two years, will prove harmful to baseball and tennis. Already I have heard several complaints from captains of nines that it is difficult to get candidates to come out and try for positions on the team, because almost every boy who has any ambition for athletic honors is running or jumping, or otherwise training his muscles that he may take part in contests which offer material reward for success. ”

“ For amusements, they practiced running, wrestling, racing, throwing javelins and spears, and other athletic feats and accomplishments—in every thing excelling all their competitors, and becoming in the end greatly renowned. ”

“ The place of physical training and of games in education, the place of athletics in our daily life and in our national life, are questions of present importance to us all, and in considering these questions we cannot fail to learn something from the athletic history of a nation which for a time at least succeeded in reconciling the rival claims of body and of mind, and immortalized this result in its art. ”

“ Skill, prowess, and endurance in leaping, running, lifting and throwing huge stones, the use of bow and arrow, diving and swimming, riding and rowing, were all the subjects of contest, and each victor sought to surpass the achievements of the former one. All warlike peoples of whom ethnology is cognizant show much the same picture, and highly civilized nations, too, accord an important position to athletic contests, as the Greek and Roman games bear witness, as well as the championships and records of our own day. ”

“ It was customary for the young men of all classes in those days to pursue athletic exercises, such as pitching the bar, leaping, wrestling, and the like, these being regarded as the surest tests of bodily strength. Possessing a powerful and active frame, he was ever the victor in those sports; and from his marked success among his comrades in this respect, and his fair and impartial disposition, he was universally the umpire in all disputes growing out of these and like contests for superiority that arose between one and another. ”

“ The information intended for athletes in training for a contest, like their exercise and food, must be condensed and particularized; but it will be found to contain matter of common interest, needing only the change suitable to individual circumstances.
It is undoubtedly true that the mass of those who live in cities, and whose occupations involve little manual or physical exercise, allow their bodies, at an early age of manhood, to sink out of all trained and athletic strength and shapeliness. ”

“ Prizes were offered for tennis, baseball, rowing, swimming, running, and every imaginable type of athletic feat. But usually the interest of the day centered on a free-for-all race of one mile, which everyone enjoyed, and a great many people entered. ”

“ In addition to these four major forms of college sports, tennis, lacrosse, basketball, and swimming also have a prominent place. The four major sports are usually under the control of special athletic associations, which spend large sums of money and have a great influence with the students. ”

“ Athletic contests are invested with such great interest not only because they may be good games, but because they are contests, contests perhaps between traditional rivals, or are for the championship of this, that, or the other. ”

“ The gymnasium and playground are considered of unusual importance, as the faculty encourage athletics not only for physical, but for moral and social culture. Football, cricket, baseball and other athletic sports are the most effective equalizers that can be adopted. ”

“ There were constant competitions for the honour of the championship in each of the particular games or exercises, and young and old competed together on special grounds which were selected for that purpose, where the assembled and admiring multitude came to witness these contests. There seem to have been no prizes given to the successful competitor—at least no mention is ever made of them. All that was desired was the fame which fell to the victor, and every great warrior always excelled in the use of weapons or in athletic exercises. ”

“ There is a greater appreciation of athletic sports among Americans than among people of any other nationality.
We have had definite proof of this in the correspondence occasioned by our publication of the adventures of Frank and Dick Merriwell. These two boys are active athletes. They are proficient in every line of sport, and they play fair or not at all. ”

“ It is, therefore, a matter of importance to establish records which will be a sort of athletic starting-point for the twentieth century. The amateurs and professionals, without intermingling in the least, will be able to see each other at work, and comparisons advantageous to sport will be the result. ”

“ The great value of athletic games is the education they give toward essential qualities in our modern, civilized and work-a-day world. A judicious blending of work and gymnastics would probably bring about as125 high a physical development as would the same training supplemented by games; but it would stop there. Only sports, one may say only competitive sports, can bring about the perfect adjustment of hand and eye, the sense of “time,” the quickness of resource, the steadiness under excitement, which mark the successful athlete. ”

“ There can be no doubt that in the first Olympiad the programme included at least all the events described by Pindar, the foot-race, the diskos, the spear, boxing, wrestling, and the chariot-race. If the Olympic games did develop from a single event, it was probably not from the foot-race, but from the armed fight or the chariot-race. ”

“ Our modern people think they train their sons to strength by football and rowing and jumping, and what are called athletic exercises; all of which it is the fashion now to preach as very noble, and likely to lead to the goodness of the race. ”

“ Stop before indulging in the rougher athletic sports for which you are physically unqualified. Study your capacities well—take in the entire athletic range, from jackstraws to Indian clubs, from the bean-bag to foot-ball—and discriminate for all you are worth. ”

“ In general, one broad, comprehensive rule may be laid down with regard to training for athletic contests, and that is this: All training must be adequate to the demands of the particular kind of contest to be entered into. For light athletic contests, light training; for heavy contests, heavy training. The same training requisite for baseball would not be sufficient for rowing; nor can training for track athletics be at all adequate for football. Different sports make different demands upon the physical man. And the training for each must be adapted to meet the demands of each. ”

“ At a later time the greaves were discarded, perhaps as a concession to athletes who regarded such a race as a spurious sort of athletics. Certainly the race never attained to the same prestige as the other events. ”

“ Football is the particular game which will probably first occur to any one in this community when the question of the serviceability of athletic games is raised, as this form of athletic contest is at present uppermost in the mind of those who plead for or against games as a means of physical or moral salvation. This typical athletic sport may, therefore, serve to illustrate the bearing of athletics upon the development of the contestant's character and physique. ”

“ Rowing, cricket, football, athletics, and, in a lower degree, gymnastics, bicycling, swimming, and riding, constitute, besides walking, the favorite modes of exercise; and it is impossible to suggest better. I have only to object that, regarded as recreation, there is, both at Oxford and Cambridge, far too much tendency to a specialization of these forms of exercise. Competition dictates practice, and practice entails too exclusive a devotion to the one kind of exercise which is practiced ”

“ The games were held every fourth year, and the interval between two successive festivals was known as an Olympiad.
The contests consisted of foot-races, boxing, wrestling, and other athletic games. Later, chariot-racing was introduced, and became the most popular of all the contests. The competitors must be of the Hellenic race; and must, moreover, be unblemished by any crime against the state or sin against the gods. ”

“ Athletics and Athletic Festivals ATHLETICS, whether ancient or modern, is a wide term covering a large field of bodily activities, while the boundaries between sport and athletics are often hard to fix. ”

“ Each successful champion in the great athletic contests means a large number of men who went through a course of training in which they were wrought up to the highest pitch of perfection not only of muscular development, but also of pluck and endurance. ”

“ Did you ever stop to ask yourselves what the right aim of athletics is—what the chief aim should be? Some of you will answer: ‘That’s easy; the chief aim of athletics is winning.’ Wrong; the true aim of all athletics, the world around, is physical culture. Winning is of small importance; contests are only incentives. We go in for athletics because we wish to attain to a condition of physical fitness that will allow us to make the most of our lives. Athletics without training is useless; it will accomplish almost nothing good. ”

“ But those members of respectable society who advocate athletic games commonly justify their attitude on this head to themselves and to their neighbors on the ground that these games serve as an invaluable means of development. They not only improve the contestant's physique, but it is commonly added that they also foster a manly spirit, both in the participants and in the spectators. ”