Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1918 — SPORTS HELP SOLDIERS IN AMERICA’S ARMY NOW FIGHTING BOCHES OVERSEAS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SPORTS HELP SOLDIERS IN AMERICA’S ARMY NOW FIGHTING BOCHES OVERSEAS

(By E. A. BATCHELOR.) What is putting the “pep" Into the push toward Berlin which 'the Yanks are giving Kaiser Bill’s bad Boeses? Athletics certainly are helping. How? By raising the morale and the muscle of the American fighters. In one unit and in one week, 6,835 soldiers participated in athletic sports. They had 36,275 spectators meaning that for every six soldier spectators there was one soldier participant. Better record than baseball or football has in the U. S. A., ne e’est pas? How did the sports rank in popularity among the soldiers? Volley ball came first. Baseball was second. Boxing was on the limb. Track and field sports were just out of the money. Basketball was fifth. Indoor baseball, soccer, rugby, tennis, etc., were in the ruck. Muscle and “Pep.” Athletics surely are putting muscle and “pep” into the young men who must handle the rifles, artillery, grenades, spades, and other implements of warfare. Beside this there Is the high morale generated by the tingling high spirits and good health which blesses the well-exercised body. Contrast the figures above with a world’s series baseball game.where 43,000 spectators watch eighteen men contest, or a Yale-Harvard football game, where the Yale “bowl” holds 70,000 fans while twenty-two men struggle to uphold the supremacy of Old Eli and John Harvard. Contrast it with a boxing championship match where a “gate” of upward of $100,009 witness ..a bout between two men. Consider the greater advantage, the wider spread benefit of 'sports involving one contestant to every six spectators. V. M. C. A. Was Pioneer. The figures are furnished by the Y. M. C. A., one of the organizations which assumed responsibility of spreading mass athletics among as many of ojur soldiers as \Vould respond to the opportunity. The Y. M. C. A. was the pioneer to make “everyone get into the game.” When the K. of C.

I, went Into overseas work, one of its first acts was to purchase and ship tons of athletic equipment. Up to the present the “Y” has provided hundreds of athletic directors recruited from the foremost athletes of earlier generations, and tons of sporting paraphernalia. The K. of C., starting a little later, is developing a similar program. Directors use every art th get the backward, the shy nonathletic soldier into the games for the good of his body and his morale, a tremendous aid to the winning of the war. The “Y” and K. of C. men seek to enlist the greatest number of men in sports rather than to develop a small team of crack athletes. Figures Show Result. The figures, based on the activities of one unit, show the result. They were taken in a comparatively small region and were selected at random. Baseball engaged the attention of 1,423 men of this region in a week. The games were witnessed by 12,000 men, which would be considered a very good weekly attendance for a minor league club, and as many spectators as a big league team in the second division often draws in seven days. Here the proportion of players to spectators is 1 to 10, while in league baseball it would be 1 to 400, figuring thirty players as the average number appearing weekly on the diamond. Volley ball, probably the most popular game for soldiers, engaged. 1,605 players with, a large gallery. Boxing ranked third in popularity, with 1,027 men participating, while 9,000 soldiers looked on. Compare that one to nine average with a big fist fight crowd viewing the efforts of two men. Tennis exercised 227 men, while 805 participated in track and field sports. Basketball engaged 793 soldiers, while Indoor baseball, soccer and rugby football worked the muscles and minds of hundreds. Just as Waterloo was won on England’s cricket and football fields, so this war may be decided by the athletic contests bf the clean-living, hardhitting American boys.

Finish of 100-Yard Race at Y. M. C. A. Meet In France.