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To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The question of professional coaching is a difficult one today. By "professional" I mean the ordinary use of the term, referring to the man who for years has either played for money or has earned his living by the instruction of athletics--not the college graduate of reputation who perhaps for a season or two coaches a team before entering business. The ordinary professional--there are exceptions to be sure--has the spirit of winning at any cost, and he is often willing to employ all the "tricks of the trade" or to deceive the umpire by some little ruse. Now such tactics ought never to be introduced into college athletics. They must above all be kept clean in order to accomplish their purpose of teaching healthful manliness. A glance at the newspapers during the league baseball season will show the number of petty disputes which occur between players and umpires, too often when the player knows he is in the wrong. Besides this the professional usually has his own reputation to consider. This depends on the success of the team, and this success he is willing to attain by methods sometimes unsportsmanlike. That college athletics should be dominated by a man not entirely in sympathy with the students seems in theory wrong.

But there are sports where the professional can defeat the amateur every time, such as baseball, rowing, and track athletics. When Yale employed Mr. Lush Harvard had a long string of baseball victories to her credit; yet in one season, Mr. Lush turned out a nine from poor material which defeated a Harvard nine of veteran calibre, coached under an amateur system. The converse, nearly, is true in rowing, though Mr. Wray had even a more difficult task, because he had to oppose a professional system of marked success. Yet Mr. Wray's success here and his superiority over his amateur predecessors is unquestioned. Track has always seemed to be a sport where the professional trainer is necessary. Thus we have on the one hand the known superiority of the professional coach over the amateur, and on the other the possibility of an unhealthful influence ethically.

That a good system of graduate coaching can be built up seems entirely possible, when we consider the Yale football system, a recognized success. There ordinarily the captain of the eleven comes back to act as field coach during the next season, and he has graduates to assist him who for years have played under the same system. Yale knows exactly what she is going to do and what she can do, and usually succeeds. If the same general system were applied to sports at Harvard, there is no reason why Harvard would not have success. It would be a system of amateur graduate coaching, entirely feasible, and would do away with any one man king ship. Yale turns out a Yale football team: Cornell, a Courtney crew. In England there is no difficulty in finding loyal graduates to assist in the development of teams. Why should there be difficulty here?

Though in general, therefore, I am against professional coaching; yet I should not like to see Harvard abandon her professional coaches unless the other colleges are willing to do so also. Harvard would then be at such an obvious disadvantage that candidates for the teams would from the beginning see the possibility, even probability of defeat, which is more demoralizing to enthusiastic sport than any ethical disadvantage of a professional coach. Let each college abandon professional coaches and all will meet on perfectly fair grounds. Until then I sincerely hope Harvard will stick to the policy she has now adopted--and not allow her teams to meet others on unfair grounds, to be defeated year after year merely for the sake of theory.  A. L. CASTLE '06.