TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 96, 26 April 1933, Page 6

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

MODERN ATHLETICS. U'arp (By PEO BONO PUBLICO.) "We -were walking up the valley at the back, Old John, Young John and a shepherd and myself, and- talking of nothing in particular, until Young John, who was a fair athlete in his youth, got to talking of old-time running contests. He and the shepherd argued whether the modern athletes were any better than those- of old time. The shepherd was all for the moderns. He knew the names and performances of all the champions, and reeled them off to convince Young John that they had forgotten more about running, jumping and the rest than the old-timers ever knew. The argument was getting a little heated when Old John intervened. "There's no need to get hot about it," he said; "you're both wrong." There was silence for a while, because we expected the old fellow to speak his piece, but all he said was that there was rain coming over the tops, and we had better get on. However, I wouldn't let him off as easily as that, and so I remarked that they couldn't both be wrong. "Well, they are," said John. "It is foolish to think that in all th© millions of years since men raced and jumped against one another there hasn't been a better set of athletes than those of to-day." The shepherd began to talk of times and distances. John promptly named a man, one Donald Willi.imson, who jumped a measured 24 feet in his socks. Of course, Young John claimed his father as a supporter. "You're wrong, too, Jack," said Old John. "These modern athletes make a business and a science of it. When I was young we played at running and jumping. If there was an athletic meeting coming on we trained for it by eating steak and drinking beer and practising in _ the early morning or before we went to bed at night. But it was all in play. We didn't take it seriously. Now, by what I have read, it seems the athletes go into special schools and camps and are taught how to get the last ounce out of themselves. It must be terribly hard work for them. They have all sorts of scientific tricks. "Mind you," he continued, "it isn't only the professional athletes who make hard work of it. They tell me the amateurs have to put in so many hours a day. Look at the way they play golf, with their professionals and their books and majrazines. There is no real game left. "If you had taken the old-timers and given them the same teaching and the same training they would have run just as fast and jumped just as far. If you watch from now on you won't find them breaking all the records every year. They may break their hearts, though, and the young men who take on athletics will bo old men" before they are forty." I suggested that he did not hold with the modern methods. "I do not," Old John declared emphatically. "If you make a game a game and nothing else, it does you good. If you make it a business you lose your game and spoil yourself for any other business."