Athletic team

“ A team trained under the new system will play with considerable life and dash while it lasts, but the team trained under the old system stays, and comes in the winner. Let us notice some fallacies of the new system. As an argument for less work, the case of athletic teams is often cited, where men train very little, and still play very good games. Any reasoning by analogy from such cases is absolutely misleading. Men who play on athletic teams are for the most part matured men, many of whom have played on college teams for years. ”

“ TRACK-ATHLETIC TEAM.
The superior value of team-work over individual brilliancy was effectively demonstrated at the New York State Interscholastic games at Tonawanda, New York, June 6. The honors of the occasion were carried off by the Buffalo High-School team with 38 points, Syracuse H.-S. coming second with 36, and Ithaca H.-S third with 27.
Ithaca boasted the most brilliant performer of the day—A. B. Miller—who took four firsts, thereby earning twenty out of the twenty-seven points to Ithaca's credit. Miller is a sprinter, and a sprinter of the first class. ”

“ The cause of all the commotion is a great blue 'bus, which has just lumbered up to the training-house, a short distance from the track, with "Varsity" painted on the side. Out of this are pouring strapping hammer-throwers and shot-putters, slim distance-runners, wiry jumpers, and all the other competitors who go to make up an athletic team. And now the crimson delegation have their innings as the Harvard team file into the training-house. The Yale men are located on the ground-floor, while above them in the same house are their rivals. ”

“ Although the control of athletics at the Academy is not under the gymnasium authorities, still it is fitting to speak of the sports in this chapter. 208 The Academy has its football, baseball, basketball, and hockey teams, and in addition the cadets play golf, polo, and tennis. There is little in the training or conduct of these teams that differs from other educational institutions, except the question of time allowed for preparation. It has always been the rule at West Point that no inroads shall be permitted upon the Academic course to aid the development of any athletic team. ”

“ At the present advanced athletic era there are very few who do not understand that a certain amount of preparation is absolutely essential to success in any physical effort requiring strength and endurance. The matter of detail is, however, not faced until one actually becomes a captain or a coach, and, as such, responsible for the condition, not of himself alone, but of a team of fifteen or twenty men. ”

“ It is to the effect that any school wishing to enter a team for the baseball, football, tennis, or track-athletic championship must file a list of all players or competitors with the chairman of the committee governing that special branch before such team can enter any contest. ”

“ At any track-athletic meeting where teams of athletes represent certain units, the team winning the greatest number of points becomes the victorious unit, and the athletes who aided in piling up these points, as representatives of that unit, are of no importance whatever so far as they can claim any relation to the other athletes who strove as representatives for the rival or defeated units. ”

“ In the mass-meeting of the school the night before the games, when the boys gathered in loyal force to give their team a “send-off” for the morrow, nothing that was said by student or graduate or friend stirred such response in the hearts of the school as the short, plain, virile exhortation of the captain.
And no athletes need personal inspiration as do the members of a track team. The football player stands shoulder to shoulder with his fellows, the strong helps the weak and shares with him the glory of victory. ”

“ So, notwithstanding the fact that every one is welcomed as a candidate for these teams, the final result is to turn out, perhaps, a score of exceptionally well drilled men, while hundreds of others, who, in reality, most need the exercise thus afforded, are content to fill the grand stands and cheer their men to victory.
Undoubtedly, team athletics does much good. It stimulates a greater interest and brings more men into the field than any other influence ”

“ Athletics now are regarded in a different light. Very few of us go through the tedious systematic drill necessary to a perfect physical condition. By many, indeed, the exercise of the entire year is crowded into the short space of a fortnight, and then it is taken only as recreation.
A better form of the practice is found in what we might term team athletics, but even here we lack the wise purpose of the ancients. The object in this case is to develop a squad of athletes, generally those already well gifted by nature, to compete with and defeat another such team of picked men. ”

“ And if you're on a winning crew, or a winning nine, you can rip off the 'A. A.' from your sweater, and that leaves just the big 'F', and shows you're a point winner for the school. With the track team, it's a little different, because there it's more a case of every fellow for himself. You can't have the same kind of team work that you can with the nine and the crew. So when the big meet comes for the cup, no matter whether the school wins or not, if you get first, second or third in your event, then you're a point winner, and you've got a right to your 'F'. ”

“ There was the same endeavor to develop musical and dramatic talent and direct its use among the men. The cordial coöperation of the same civilian organizations that did so much to promote the welfare of the soldiers in training aided also in safeguarding the naval recruits and in adding to their pleasure. The thorough organization of athletic sports in all the camps, both outdoors and indoors, provided seasonal recreation in the way of football, baseball, basket ball, hockey, running races, boxing, wrestling, rowing and swimming. ”

“ So you shall give your mite to the rest
⁠To bring the whole team through,
And then at the time of your single test
⁠They shall give their strength to you.
And these are the laws of the athlete,
⁠You can heed them or not, as you like,
But they make the code of the runner fleet,
⁠And they check a man when he'd strike.
They tell you how to lay your plan,
⁠And how to carry it through.
They help the man, who's done what he can,
⁠To bear his Waterloo.
"CASEY AT THE BAT"
BASE BALL.
By S. D. Richardson. ”

“ The enthusiasm over a track meet grew, and many more lads than were expected put in an appearance at the gymnasium, to try out their skill over the hurdles, vaulting the bar, in hundred yard dashes, putting [69] the weight, shot and hammer, while any number said they were going to try to qualify for the mile run, and the broad and high jumps.
Meanwhile, more or less correspondence went on among the athletic committees of the four institutions that naturally would form the new league, if matters came to a head. ”

“ Just say to yourself that you're going to be one of the stars on the school team. If you have to fall into the second team—-don't be cast down over it—-but make every possible effort toward getting on the top team. That's the spirit that wins in athletics," finished Dick, sagely.
"I'm going to make the school team," announced Dave Darrin. ”

“ In the morning the squadron baseball team will play the local team. In addition there will be a trap-shooting competition in which both an officers’ and enlisted men’s team will compete against anything that the local people bring on. ”

“ Arrange your eleven in such a fashion that you come out as captain in the most picturesque costume.
Be careful to "kill" your colleagues' appearance by an artful combination of discordant hues.
Carry out the above scheme with the assistance of a joint committee consisting of two, yourself and the local subaltern.
Arrange, at the last moment, that the men shall only send out six of their team to field.
Manage to put yourself in first, and play with confidence the initial ball. ”

“ The training of Base Ball may not go back quite that far, but it approaches the time as nearly as practicable, for America starts training of future Olympian winners very early in life. Youngsters not yet big enough to attend school begin quickening their eyesight and sharpening their wits and strengthening their hands and arms and legs by playing on base ball fields ready at hand in the meadows of farms, the commons of villages and the parks of cities all over the land. Base ball combines running, jumping, throwing and everything that constitutes the athletic events of the Olympian games. ”

“ Offences and late time are entered in a record book, and an opportunity is given to wipe off all past records by two years' good service. The Athletic Club, with over 500 voluntary subscribers, runs three cricket, four football, and two hockey teams, besides bowling, tennis, swimming, and other sports. ”

“ If the practice is not interesting enough to burn an indelible impression of every rudiment of football into the player's working knowledge, it is wasted. The coach can best instruct his men by putting on his football suit and illustrating exactly what he wants done, not only in fundamentals, but in team play. Confidence of the members of the team, one in the other, and constant interest in how each comrade is developing will in time form a team spirit, a factor quite as potent in carrying a pig-skin as an extra hundred pounds of muscle. ”

“ For the best heads evolved it, and the idea of the committee representing the University Athletic Club was to do away with the worst features of roughness in the game, at the same time retaining the science and the keen edge of the sport. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The clubs going to make up the Professional League were admittedly stronger than ever before, and to take the pennant from Boston was the avowed ambition not only of the Athletics but of every team that was to contest against the "Hub" aggregation. ”

“ Next measure nine feet three inches to the right, and the same to the left of the center points on the end lines, and place four goal posts, two at each end of the field. This will leave the proper space, eighteen feet, six inches between the posts. On these posts, and ten feet from the ground, the cross bars should be placed. The uprights should extend above the cross bar just ten feet.
THE TEAM The teams in football consist of eleven men each, but where boys are out for practice, they need not be bound by the regular rules. ”

“ It was decided that each school shall hold an athletic meeting every year. The State athletic meet will be held on the first Saturday in June, and the annual meeting of the association will take place on the same day. The association will control track athletics, baseball, football, and cricket. ”

“ In my last year we had a new superintendent who was interested in athletics, and we then had teams in basketball, football, baseball, and track.
Right. At that time they reorganized a girls’ basketball team which had been dropped two years before, and they made me jumping center. Although our high school was not a large one, we played some very good games, and managed to make a good record for the four years. In my last year we had a new superintendent who was interested in athletics, and we then had teams in basketball, football, baseball, and track. ”

“ From each team a man detaches himself and, with a man in citizens' clothes, looks over the field. He is the captain and his companion is the coach. He tests the consistency of the surface of the field, notes the direction of the wind, the effects of the sunshine and the other conditions which, if properly observed, will give one side an advantage over the other at some stage in the progress of the game. A couple of wet spots are carefully noted, for in a close game these things may mean victory or defeat. ”

“ That seed grew so quickly that by 1916 there had been 974 enrollments for the athletic work which the Alumnae Committee on Athletics of Barnard College had originated, and the activities had grown until they included, besides basket ball and swimming, social, folk and æsthetic dancing, bowling, hand ball, gymnasium work, indoor and outdoor horseback riding, with drill work, polo and basket ball on horseback, field hockey, base ball, tennis, tramping, summer boat and trolley trips, swimming parties, and college picnics of all kinds. ”

“ As actors begin to dread the drudgery of rehearsing, so do baseball men detest the drill of the spring training. The only thing that I can think of right away which is more tiresome and less interesting is signal practice with a college football team. ”

“ TEAMS.—The players are divided into two teams, each consisting of three basemen, three base guards, and one fielder. One of the basemen is captain and stands in the base at the end of the ground farthest from the center. Each team has a guard stationed near each of its opponents' bases, and a fielder whose general place should be near the center of the ground but who is free to run to any part of the ground, and who should pick up the ball whenever it goes afield. ”

“ The first runners, having been called by their respective captains to the starting bases, run on a signal; the players may reach the club together and go through many false moves and dodges before one snatches the club and turns back to his goal. Should he succeed in reaching the goal before the other player can tag him, his team scores one point. ”

“ Five fellows who are on the two first elevens—five fellows who are candidates for the school team! And right in the middle of the football season to sneak off and break training, and run the risk of being fired from the school, when you know how you're needed to help build up the school team! ”