Is Football Good Sport P

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 31, 11 February 1904, Page 4

Is Football Good Sport P

| The question "Is football good 'sport?" will be somewhat startling :to thousands of enthusiasts. Pro--1 fessor George E. Merrill, presitleait of Colgate University, asks it in the Xorth American Review, and makes out al least an arguable case for the negative. His point is that there is no real sport in a game i,n which the object ©very player is to spoil the game of his opponent. He 1 admits that football is ""manly" 'in 1 the sense that, it prepares youths for hardships and disappointments, trains them to learn self-control, and cultivates observation. Hut these good features, he argues, represent only one aide, and that, so far as the game is concerned, tho secondary side of (oothiall Can any game be reckoned .as good sport that depends so much upon conditions of mere inequality in the weight—the corporosit.y—of the players ? Tho eleven that can tip the scales with the biggest weight on the beam has everything in its favour. Ten pounds extra to a man will almost surely win the game. Skill alone has little chance against beef. Another objection to fuobhall as sport lies in the fundamental principle of it—the stopping of good play by opposition 1 and interference. lam embarrassed by the technical use of the term "interference." I shall not employ the word in its technical sense, but use it to mean any and all attempts to break up and prevent good play. In this respect how different is this game from almost any other. All plays are made as difficult as they can be made by the skill of the opposing side, but every play is allowid to proceed to* its linidh without interruption. Billiards may give an illustration. The hard table, the evenly elastic cushion, the perfect) ball, are all at the exclusive service of the player. Imagine what- sort of a game billiards would become if an opponent were permitted to interpose his cue between the moving ball and the cushion, or otherwise spoil the shot. In racing, the weigihts are equalised as much as possible—it woild not be good sport if they were not—and the slightest touch of interference round the track is a foul sufficient to bar the horse. In track athletics it will hardly do to push an extra hurdle before the racer. Is not footfcjall the only game wV(ere the assured completion of a play is not an element in the sport ? And is ; it good sport when the highest skill is baulked by the interposition of , some force which is destructive, not of iinul results, but of processes ? In other words, is it good sport when skill is not allowed to carry out its effort to t-ne very highest i possible ivsult ? Mr Merrill also elaborates another point. He argues r that the time division of the game J into two halves is unfair to bot'h . sides). Suppose, for instance, a stu- , dent who has worked faithfully through a term in college falls ill 1 at the end ol it. Would he not com- , plain of injustice if, at the beginning of tho next term, he were allowed no 1 credit for his past good work, but * compelled t'o do it all over again •?