ANOMALIES OF AMATEURISM

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 109, 11 May 1933, Page 6

ANOMALIES OF AMATEURISM

The United States Lawn Tennis Association's plan to hold a championship tournament open to both amateurs and professionals serves as a fresh reminder that, in actual fact, many big-timers in various sports operate contentedly in the concealed space between the two categories (says the "Christian Science Monitor"). Not that concealment is really very thorugh. Everybody who knows anything about the inside of these matters knows that the recognised allotment of "expenses" to amateurs is subsidisation, since it enables many of them to do things which are normally quite beyond their private means. The winning of a national amateur championship in a major sport brings with itj—not only social but often financial advancement. Hotels, sports outfitters, tailors, newspapers and other concerns desirous of attracting public attention offer the top-grade amateur of limited means many facilities which, allied to "expenses," make it possible for him to play on the same level as people who can afford to do so without such assistance. The top-grade performer of adequaite means is outside the argument, for he can afford to remain 100 per cent amateur if he wants to, and whether he does or does not is a matter for himself alone. , Perhaps one day it will be frankly recognised that there are three sorts of games players—the professional, who plays in order to gain; the amateur, so-called, \fho gains in order to play, and the unequivocal; amateur, who is either moneyed as well as -sHlful or else so undistinguished that nobody l: ,;ds it worth while to transport, feed, equip or c : Jtlie him for the frav, free of expense. Before the advent of large gate money there were only two classes, and present-day complications arise from attempts to insist that there are still only two. Weird anomalies and quaint rulings result. In British sport, for example, a boat builder can play amateur Association football, but he may not row at Henley Royal Regatta; an amateur Association football player may disport himself in a "gate-money" match in the company of professionals without forfeiting his status, and so may a golfer, but a lawn tennis player, track athlete or Rugby footballer may not. While amateurs in certain sports are at the same time professionals in certain others, and while various nations hold various views on the subject, the general query, "What is an amateur?" has no conclusive answer. It is an "open" question, and maybe America's new "open" lawn tennis championship is one of the best replies furnished to i date.