Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1919 — EXTENSIVE ATHLETIC PLANS FOR SOLDIERS [ARTICLE]

EXTENSIVE ATHLETIC PLANS FOR SOLDIERS

Competition in All Branches of Sports Is Sanctioned. Efforts Will Have Active Co-operation of the Various Welfare Organize tions With Authority From , General Pershing. An extensive organized effort will be made to develop athletics in the American expeditionary force during the next few months. Through the organized direction of entertainments also it will be aimed to bring out and develop the entertaining talent the army affords. ' ; The efforts in both these directions will have the active co-operation of the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, the Salvation army and the other welfare organizations, with authorityfrom General Pershing. Competitive sports as well as purely athletic exercises will be arranged In each division and corps. Official championships will be contested under rules to be adopted later in these sports: Track and field events, baseball, football, basketball, tennis, boxing and wrestling. Beginning with each company as the smallest unit, there will be elimination contests In the organization all the way up to army corps. The company winners will cofnpete in battalion events and battalion winners in regimental contests. When- the winners in each army corps are decided there will he final contests for the athletic championships of the American expeditionary forces, in which only the winners of divisional championships will be eligible. All the team events will be conducted so as to make selections of one athletic team from each of the First, Second and Third armies and two teams from the service of supply, including the distrtct of Paris. Football teams will be organized to represent army troops, corps troops, division base sections of the service of supply and intermediate sections of the service of supply in the Paris district and the service of supply in the advanced sections. The boxing contests will embrace six classes —featherweight, lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight. The elimination bouts will consist of three rounds each of three minutes, with finals in the division corps of the army and service of supply tournaments of five rounds each. Boxing and wrestling tournaments must be concluded by 1 March 31. - Individual prizes will be awarded members of teams winning the first place in the divisional contests and to the members of the two teams contesting in the finals of the American expeditionary force championships, the prizes to be emblematic of service in the American expeditionary force.