Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1913 — COURAGE NEEDED IN SPORTS [ARTICLE]

COURAGE NEEDED IN SPORTS

In Baseball, Football and Other Games Pluck Is Essential to Success of Player. A recent writer in this paper in commenting on the playing of games made a statement which ought to be set in bigjype and repeated as often as possible. This was to the effect that it takes courage to “play the game,” whatever that may be. A baseball man in a ball game needs to be cool when he stands close to a base reaching for the ball when the runner notorious for his ‘‘spiking” tactics comes sliding in to him feet first. “In any position on any team a football player must have courage. It takes gameness for a runner to crack on all his .speed when he is about to be tackled. It takes courage to dive into a runner and tackle him. It takes courage to hit the line, head first, running low and driving like a battering ram. The player who lacks grit will turn his back and' lose force as he meets the resistance, and be thrown back. i

“It takes a world of courage to tun the route in an Olympic marathon race, and to come reeling in over the last few hundred yards refusing to drop when last resources seem to have been burned out in the long, terrible drive over 26 miles. “Lots of things take courage. Americans have more to be proud of than mere medal and point winning when they look over the performances of their Olympic athletes. Our men are the peers of any in the world.” —Milwaukee Sentinel.