Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1916 — AMATEUR GOLF AND FOOTBALL PLAYERS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AMATEUR GOLF AND FOOTBALL PLAYERS

(By FRANK G. MENKE.) A study of the rules governing amateurism in athletics convinces us that there are so few simon-pure golfers and football players in the United States today that they can be counted almost on one hand. Jerry Travers and Francis Ouimet, the golfing stars, are regarded as amateurs. They are not amateurs; they are professionals, if we interpret the rules correctly. And in the profesr sional class belong at least five hundred other golfers who are under the delusion that they are amateurs. Eddie Mahan, the great Harvard football star, and the men who will be the Crimson’s pitching mainstay in the spring, is in the professional class, according to the rules. So are his teammates. So are all the players on the Yale, Princeton. Syracuse. Amherst, Trinity, Dartmouth, Michigan, Michigan Aggies, Colgate, Carlisle, Williams, Tufts, Wesleyan and a score of other ' teams. . _ . Article 10 of the constitution of the Amateur Athletic union, the governing body in amateur athletic affairs in the United States, says, in part: "An athlete becomes a professional if he enters a competition open to a professional, or knowingly competes against a professional.” Jerry Travers, Francis Ouimet and hundreds of other supposedly amateur golfers have competed in open l tournaments—have played against professionals and have done so knowingly. By this act they violated the laws of the A. A. U. and' became professionals in every sense of The word. Later, when those men—Travers; Ouimet et al. —who had become taints edi by playing in open tournaments,, plhyed against real amateurs they tainted every one of those amateurs; with- pTOfessionafism.The rules jDfJth®’ A. A. U. are specific on this point, and' can be construct® to mean that if Travers, after competing against a. professional, played! in a tournament against 500 amateurs, every one of those amateurs would become professionals by their very action in playing

against Travers;. These is no alibi for those who* played against Travers. Ouimet, et al. after they became tainted through* playing in an open tournament. Ignorance as the law excuses no one. Theamateur law readb plainly, and it was up ta those men who wanted to preserve) their amateur status to make “Sure that thewwerenot playing against professionals. And now as to football: George Bricktey was signed to- play -for Connie Mack’s Athletics last spring. The fact was heralded throughout the country.. Brickley played two dr three games with the Athletics during the sumißer and was paid for his services, in keeping with the contract he signed wAen Mack corralled him. I Brickley entered Trinity college last September and played halfback on the eleven. He was in every sense a professional, and all his teammates became professionals through their action in playing with him. Here is the A. A. U. rule to back up this statement: i “A single professional player in a team makes that team professional." I Brickley and the professional Trinity team played seven games during the 1916 season. Every team that-Trin-itv played became professional through its action in playing against a team that had become professional through the fact that it knowingly played Brickley, the professional baseball player. Norwich, Brown, Bates, Amherst, Williams, Tufts and Wesleyan were the teems that played against Trinity, and each became tainted with professionalism by its action in competing with the professional Trinity team. These teams, in turn, tainted all those they played against later. Brown played Trinity, got itself in the professional class and then passed tt along by playing Yale and Harvard. These teams tainted Prlhceton. SyraIcuse played Brown and automatically got into the professional class, and

Syracuse made professionals out of every team it played afterwards. Many of the 1915 football players will compete in baseball, track and field and rowing affairs in the spring. By their presence on those teams they will cause their amateur associates to become professionals and will throw into the professional class all the amateurs against whom they compete. In short, the fact that George Brickley was allowed to play with the Trinity eleven in 1915 when the fact was generally known that he was in the professional class has so tainted athletic affairs in the various colleges that before the end of this school year there will not be a dozen absolutely pure college athletes among the tens I of thousands that began the 1915-1916 i college year.

Charged With Playing Against Professionals.