The Madison newspapers, it seems, had some fault to find with the method
of play indulged in by the Chicagoans, and accused several of them of
slugging. Full-back Trude was one of the men who received a raking over
the coals. A few days later, however, the manager of the Madison
High-School team received a letter from Mr. Trude, saying that the
charges made against him were totally false, for the very simple reason
that he was not in Madison on Thanksgiving day. Who the young man was
who masqueraded as Trude and played full-back for the Hyde Park team I
do not know.
This incident goes to show what serious results may come from what young
men at first consider as merely innocent deception--if any deception may
be considered as innocent. Many parents of Chicago school
football-players objected this year to the game, and signified their
unwillingness to have their sons take part in it. A number of these
boys, however, disregarded these wishes, and played football under
assumed names. In fact, it got to be quite a joke among Chicago
high-schools that a number of boys had two names--their real name, and
their "football" name. Of course, a few months of this sort of business
hardened the unscrupulous players, and was no doubt indirectly
responsible for the deception practised by Hyde Park upon Madison
High-School.
Four of the members of the successful Madison High-School team graduate
this year, but a good nucleus is left to start in with next fall. The
average weight of the eleven was 143 pounds, and the average age, I am
told, was 16-1/2 years. This seems very young to us in the East, where
boys remain at school until they are considerably older, or, perhaps, do
not get to school until they are more advanced in age. With teams
averaging between sixteen and seventeen years there is no necessity for
an age-limit rule, apparently; whereas in Boston and New York there is
always an altercation when the age standard has to be decided, a strong
faction regularly demanding that men of twenty-one shall be admitted to
school athletics.
My opinion is, and always has been, that no one twenty-one years of age
has any business being at school, unless he is extraordinarily stupid,
or unless illness or a weak constitution has made it impossible for him
to keep up with his studies. In either case such boys had better keep
out of athletics, except for necessary light exercise, and devote all of
their time to learning enough to get out of school with credit. All this
is aside, and I find that I am again wandering far from the Madison
High-School.
The Madisonians, to take the subject up again, did not meet any team
this fall which was not considerably heavier than their own, and it is
plain therefore that their victories were largely due to their
team-work, and, doubtless, to the agility of their ends and the
swiftness of their backs. Their eleven scored during the season 135
points to their opponents' 46.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account