Athletics and the Boy
- Author:
Charles Keen Taylor,
Philadelphia.
Every spring and fall most parents are asked this question: ‘’Shall your boy play baseball, football or indulge in track sports with his fellows?” If the writer were asked such a question, and if the boy in the case were under seventeen, the answer would be ‘’It depends.”
It is usual for people to take extreme views in this matter. Some point to the number yearly killed and disabled by football, and the still greater number who are victims of baseball, and loudly declaim against both games. On the other hand, there are those who declare that it is by means of such sports that boys acquire manliness, ruggedness, health and other unmixed blessings. The majority of mothers belong to the first class, while a fair balance of fathers are in favor of these sports. But it is the schools themselves, from principals and headmasters down, who are the real supporters of the second extreme view, and for several reasons; for nowadays, unfortunately, a School’s reputation and the estimation in which il is held arc determined in no small degree by its athletic prowess. There follows much talk concerning “school-spirit,” playing for the school, victory at any cost, and a general urging of every boy to join the squads and try for the teams, with often an utter disregard of the physical lilncss of the candidate.
There is something to be said on both sides. The number of deaths and minor accidents every year among boy athletes is a matter for serious consideration. It means that every care and intelligent supervision should be given the boys indulging in these sports. If the mothers are doubtful as to the quality or quantity of such care and supervision, they are right to object in the strongest possible manner. On the other hand, the fathers are apt to realize how important out-door exercise is to the growing boy, and to encourage the boy to take part in such sports as are open to him. Then the school managements know that healthy, out-door exercise makes their pupils better boys, that school athletics are a strong influence against smoking and other vices of boyhood, and that by competition bovs are greatly stimulated to do their best and to make sacrifices for the benefit of their team or their school which otherwise they would not dream of makinc.
(7-1) ATHLETICS AND THE BOY. 75 The writer’s answer therefore remains the same as that of most careful, intelligent parents: “It depends.” It depends upon the amount and quality of the care and supervision given the boys in their sports, and this is the crux of the whole matter. Having had unusual opportunity for studying conditions in quite a number of typical schools in widely separated localities, I have come to the conclusion that it is in the inadequate care and supervision generally given that opponents of school-boy athletics find strong and irrefutable arguments. I claim that even in the large private academies such intelligent supervision is generally lacking, and thus there are more football fatalities among school boys than among college men, as was shown, for instance, in the statistics for the last football season. I do not mean to say that the supervision is a failure in every particular. Indeed, the officials in control of school athletics are generally sincere and painstaking men. They arrange that the boys keep good hours, and thus learn a beneficial habit; they see to it that the boys do not smoke, and explain why smoking is harmful; they give admirable talks concerning diet, training, bathing, sleeping and the ilike, all with excellent results; but, in general, they fail to guard against any boy playing on the team, or 011 the “scrub” team, who is not physically fitted for it in every way. And here lies the danger in scliool-boy athletics. It is true that most private schools and a few public schools have compulsory physical examinations. The public schools arc the greatest sinners in this respect. In a city like Philadelphia, some of the highschool boys may get a cursory examination, but for the grammarschool boys there is no examination worthy of the name. Even this, however, is not the main point, though it should be made a rigid matter of routine to have the hearts of all candidates examined. This, by the way, is something that the parents can have done themselves. The great common failure is in regulating the size, age and weight of boys who make up teams, and this is the basis for the most serious complaint.
First of all, on a team, and on the “scrub” with which that team practices, the boys should be of nearly the same age. The reason for this is that they have approximately the same ability to withstand such physical shocks as are common to the ordinary athletic games. Introduce a sixteen-year-old boy into a team of fourteen-year boys, or into the team opposed to them, and you have a factor of considerable danger, because a shock serious enough to disable the younger boys might well be without effect upon the older one, for he has had two years in which to strengthen and harden bis ligaments and his bony framework. Even though his size should be that of his younger competitors, his greater resistance would force them to put forth an excessive amount of energy in order to compete with him, while he can easily disable a younger boy by methods which would have no serious consequences had the boy been of his own age. A far more serious, and far more common mistake, however, is allowing younger boys to play with older ones?a boy or two of fourteen, for instance, playing on a team of boys aged sixteen, or older. Especially in football is this danger very great. The mere weight of these older and far more firmly-knit boys in running into or falling over the younger boys is capable of working serious injury. The younger boy, as has been said, no matter what his actual size may be, lacks the physical resistance necessary to meet such shocks. I have seen many accidents among school boys, mostly in football, and the great majority were just such cases? younger boys playing with or against older ones. You can see why mere size and weight arc important considerations. You may have a team in which all the boys are of one age, say fourteen or fifteen, but the weights of these boys may vary by thirty, forty or more pounds. The objection against one boy being so much heavier than another is his power of injuring, and greater resistance against injury; for by simply falling over the back of one of the lighter boys he might injure him for life, something that probably would not occur were the boys equal in weight. The majority of accidents, moreover, show that it is usually the light, younger boy, playing with older and heavier lads, who is injured in school-boy athletics, especially in football.
One typical case comes to my mind. This boy was not quite sixteen years old. His team-mates and competitors in this particular game averaged eighteen years, yet the boy was an excellent athlete and quite as accomplished in this respect, as his fellows. But, of course, his frame lacked the resistance of the eighteen-year-old boys to shocks, such as one must meet with in football. Often a boy escapes injury under such circumstances. Tf so, however, it must be attributed to good fortune. This particular boy was tackled in the usual manner, and had an opponent fall over him?things that would have been without serious effect upon one of the older boys. His spine not being capable of withstanding such an excessive strain, received an injury which, seemingly slight at first, has made his existence one of long, lingering, absolutely helpless invalidism, for he is not able to move his jaw or even so much as a finger.
Another case occurred several years ago. An exceptionally able boy, not quite fourteen, unusually big and strong for his age, was made quarter-back upon the first team of a large academy. His age was nearly four years below the average of the team. He played all through that season, and did remarkably well, and, though he escaped permanent injury, there was not a game in which he was not “laid out” one or more times, knocked down and often rendered unconscious by shocks which his older mates would hardly have noticed. Even though he has thus far escaped permanent injury, he cannot avoid a weakening of his whole physical system on account of its being called upon so early to sustain an excessive strain. Another hoy, a year older, was urged to try for the same team. He did so, and for over a year he lias limped slowly about the streets with one leg permanently injured. I might go on and multiply such cases concerning football. There is no end to them, for it is a most common thing?this placing of young “stars” on teams of older boys. Even where the trainers are careful concerning the team’s themselves, they allow the younger boys to play on the “scrub,” where the danger is greater than ever, for here the picked boys of a school play against the less fit, and the danger to the younger boy is greater than if A WELL CIIOSEN TEAM. THE BOYS ARE VERY NEARLY OF AN AGE AND WEIGHT.
lie were playing on the team itself. It is the boy on the “scrub” who is exposed to the greatest danger. What is true of football, is true, though to a lesser degree of course, of baseball and of track sports. In these last, by competing with older, more enduring lads, a younger boy may go beyond his strength, and be permanently injured. As a general thing track work and running are excellent exercise, and deserve all possible encouragement, but the older boy makes a standard which forces the younger one to excessive exertion, and enlargement of the heart is no uncommon result.
Yet all these sports are splendid things in themselves. The coming of athletics into schools has done wonders not only for the morals of the boys, but for their actual physical condition. I have taken a great number of measurements and records which show how a boy will gain in strength, endurance, and in lung capacity and power in a football season. As a lover of boys, I have taken care of 110 small number of boy teams, and particularly football teams, and yet not a member of any of these teams has ever had an accident which could rightly be called such, perhaps for the simple reason that the following rules were observed: 1. All the members of a team should be approximately of the same age and size, and there should be 110 great disparity in weight between any of the boys.
2. In arranging for games with other teams it was made a condition that the other teams should have 110 member older or heavier than the oldest or heaviest of the home team. 3. All candidates had to undergo a thorough physical examination, no one being permitted to play who had any defect likely to be affected by the sport.
These same rules applied to the “scrubs,” and also to the baseball and track squads. The accompanying photograph will give an idea of an ideal boys’ “squad,” and how nearly they approximate one age, size, and weight. So when the question comes up, as to whether parents will allow their sons to join a team for any kind of athletic sport, the proper thing for them to say is, “It depends”, and then make it a point to find out whether the men in charge of the teams have certain safeguarding rules like the ones quoted. If they do, then bv all means encourage the boy to play, for he will be greatly the gainer by so doing. Tf they do not, then refuse the boy permission, and lose no time letting the trainer or coach, or, better still, the school principal or head-master, know what considerations have led to this decision.
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