Sport of Skill
The following is from the preamble to the N.C.A.A. boxing rules:
"Boxing is a sport of skill participated in for the fun and satisfaction derived. There are many boys who have need of a direct method of dissipating their aggressions and boxing provides that opportunity . . .
"Skill is the criterion, not brute power or force; points not knockdowns; clear hits not knockouts. Intercollegiate boxing de-emphasizes power and emphasizes skill . . .
"The skill of Boxing is the skill of a highly trained nervous system, capable of instant reflex action; it is the skill of perfect balance and graceful efficient movement . . ." tercollegiate bout, and is not its objective."
Public sentiment against boxing in colleges, which did not consider this Preamble, grew in the late forties with the arrival of television. People saw the sport on the professional level, coach Lamarr explained, and thought that all boxing was like that.
If Harvard were to take the initiative now and reinstitute boxing as an Ivy League sport as it appears it could do, it would not be strictly against past University policy. In the five years following its inception in 1930, the Harvard Boxing team developed into the most powerful squad in the East, recording an undefeated season in 1935 with one tie against Yale. The victories included semi-professional Virginia and Penn as opponents. Only once in six matches could the boxers defeat Yale, however.
Yale Scoring Questioned
The meet with the Elis at the end of the one undefeated season, which marred the Crimson's record, raised the sport's only real problem in its brief span. A protest by Harvard which followed the contest over the Eli's method of scoring prevented the teams from meeting the following year, the last year of boxing at the College.
Harvard may, in fact, be regarded as a foster parent of intercollegiate boxing. It began in 1920 when the Crimson's famous football Coach, Dick Harlow, was beginning his career at Pennsylvania. At the time water gun fights and dormitory riots were supposedly a fad at this Ivy university and Harlow suggested intercollegiate boxing as a possible alternative to the disturbances. The story is, of course, that the idea worked and an interest in the sport replaced the dormitory fights. At any rate, the first college meet was held at Penn against Colgate in 1920.
Boxing team promoters at the College today reason that if the sport is acceptable, as the intramural tournament each March indicates, and if it is not against University policy to sponsor a team, then "Why not boxing?" According to the newly-formed boosting committee, the answer, which must come from the Committee on Athletics, may be available next month.
A team, if the sport were revived, would then be ready in December for its first season since 1937.