Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 253, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1914 — ADVOCATE OF ALL ATHLETICS [ARTICLE]

ADVOCATE OF ALL ATHLETICS

Vivian Nlckalls, English Rowing Coach, Says American Students Overlook Outdoor Exercise. Ten years ago we would have been highly offended at a charge made by an Englishman that our athletes specialize too much. But times and manners have so changed since then that the latest strictures from Vivian Nlckalls, the English rowing coach at the University of Pennsylvania, instead of arousing our patriotic indignation are heartily welcomed by that fast-growing host of college athletes and athletic directors that is striving to encourage more men to get and do something all the year round. Nlckalls •ays; “Athletic exercises ought to be a compulsory part of every university education, as they not only develop a 'man physically, but develop his character more than any amount of study, and I do not consider that enough time is given in American universities to outdoor exercise. I do think the American specializes too much, but it

is not so much the man as the coaches who make him specialize and do not take up sport for the exercise, but more for the glory and fame attached to it A better spirit is wanted in that direction, and I am doing all I can here to make my oarsmen go out for football in the fall, so that they can keep in good trim. "I never found that athletic exercise hurt my work at Oxford. It is up to the man himself. He can study from 9 to 1 and from 6 to 10 or 11, and that Is quite enough. If he does more without exercise he will only get 'mud-dle-headed.' " , *. . ■