B. To abandon scouting. By scouting we mean the current practice of sending accredited agents to watch and report upon the system of play used by an opposing team. Just as signal stealing, once a common thing in football, was finally discredited by common agreement, in like manner scouting can be given the stamp of common disapproval.
C. To limit football practice to three hours in the afternoon. We mean by this that the number of hours of practice shall be so limited that football will not make the exorbitant demands upon a student's time that it now does. Evening meetings should, therefore, be discouraged.
2. The head coach of the Harvard football team should be a Harvard man, since a graduate of Harvard is more likely to be in sympathy with the ideals for which Harvard stands than an outsider. Because of his great influence upon the players, his character and personality should be paramount considerations. Since the object of coaching is to teach, men to play the game. and, since in every sport to play well is one of the greatest incentives to playing at all, the Harvard football coach should be the very best available.
3. The CRIMSON advocates athletics for all. Class football, begun this year, should be continued and fostered by providing class teams with adequate, paid coaching.
4. Admission requirements and general academic standards should be maintained as strictly as they are at present. Students who represent Harvard on the football field should be representative Harvard men. This implies that they maintain their academic standing at all times.
5. There should be no public sale of tickets to any Harvard football game. Such games should be considered the concern of the undergraduates and graduates of the competing colleges. Throwing these games open to the general public has brought about some of the worst evils of college football. All sales of tickets should be by application, and a strict check should be kept of the occupants of seats at every game to discourage speculation.
6. For the present, the CRIMSON advocates no change in Harvard's game schedules. The present ruling against post-season games should be continued. The CRIMSON opposes the idea of an Eastern Football Conference, which is being currently discussed in the press. It is conceivable that such a conference might be made the instrument for effecting a wider acceptance than is now possible of limitations upon the overemphasis of football. But just the opposite motive seems now to underlie the agitation in favor of such a conference. A Big Eastern Football League with its big conference games every week would bring to final completion those evils against which the CRIMSON directs these proposals.
7. The CRIMSON deplores the preponderance of space devoted to college football in the newspapers. The doings of professional football teams may, in the future, come so to fill the public eye as to remedy a large part of this evil. The custom of picking All-American teams is the last stage of that cheap aggrandizement through newspaper publicity which tends to create in students' minds a false sense of values. The CRIMSON, therefore, has discontinued this year its old custom of picking an All-Stadium team. The CRIMSON also deplores the habit of sporting writers to make college players the butt of their gibes and witticisms. This practice is decidedly pernicious. Because a player makes an error in a football game, his career in life may be ruined by branding him before the public as "the man who dropped the punt."
In theory football is good for the players, for the general body of undergraduates, and for the alumni. For the players, football serves to build character, to inspire personal courage, and to develop true sportsmanship; but present overemphasis tends to rob the game of all pleasure and make it a grim and serious business. For the general body of undergraduates, football is a cohesive force and represents dramatically the ideals of the college; but present overemphasis tends to give it a false importance which-distorts the students' sense of collegiate values. For alumni, football is a magnet, drawing graduates back to the college and serving to renew their interest in the affairs of the college; but present overemphasis tends to confine their interest to the maintenance of a winning football team, and to crowd out of their minds completely matters of larger educational importance; and here is, perhaps, the most serious evil of the present situation.
The CRIMSON has offered these suggestions as first measures looking to an ultimate correction of these evils