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Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6992, 19 August 1929, Page 4

Young’ is a Great Fallacy” Sport Develops Good Physique, Says American PRIDE IN KEEPING FIT "Every now and then something gives an awful jolt to the mossgrown theory that strenuous athletic competition gives athletes what our old friend Tad used to call a weak heart. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone say ‘Athletes die young. And there never was a greater fallacy." This is the opinion of Robert Edgren, expressed in a recent issue of the San Francisco "Chronicle.” He continues: — "Oh, there have been cases. Athletes have 'died young,’ like some ordinary mortals. I remember keenly a very famous oarsman from a great Eastern college who went to San Francisco years ago, shortly after graduation. "He was a tremendously powerful man, built like a wedge, with huge shoulders, small waist, thick arms that bulged impressively under his coat sleeves. He could pull a chair -o pieces with his hands. In fact, he liked to pull chairs to pieces, because when he was drunk the little trick of pulling something to pieces amused him. "And he was always drunk. I never saw him sober, and I saw him a great many times during two years. For about two years he could be found at any time, day or night, standing at the bar in the Palace, or the Grand, or in Pop Sullivan’s or the Davy Crockett, the Crystal Palace or the Richlieu, for this was ‘before the fire,’ buying drinks for people and drinking all the innumerable drinks people bought him. "At the end of two years he suddenly died. It was a great shock to everybody, a famous athlete dying that way. People went around everywhere, looking exceedingly solemn and saying: ‘Poor fellow —he was all burned out inside from the terrible strain of all that rowing. That’s why he was so thirsty all the time. Rowing killed him. It must have ruined his heart.’ I listened, and believed it.

“THREW, PHYSIQUE AWAY". ' “But after wider experience I’ll say that rowing turned this youngster out with a marvellous physique, and he threw it away in dissipation—which was no fault of the rowing. And his was an exceptional case. "Athletes who dissipate in later life are very few, because competing in athletics gives a, fellow 3, certain pride in' keeping fit. “Covering the inter-collegiate regatta at Poughkeepsie late in June, I met a number of very cheerful gentlemen who went out and rowed three miles in the old rowing colours of Columbia University. Some of them were grey-haired and two or three were a bit thin on top, but they were all pink skinned and full of pep, and there wasn’t a fat man in the bunch. “They were the Columbia .varsity crew of 1889. “The crew that rowed at New London, where they held the big college races then. They came up to Poughkeepsie •specially for the purpose of borrowing a shell from the youngsters representing Columbia and showing the boys what a crew of real oarsmen can do after forty years. "Before starting they pranced down to the float, threw Coxswain Arthur Hewlett overboard, just as they used to, and all dived in for a cooling swim. Then they placed the shell in the water, all stepped in handily and rowed off with only a moderate amount of splashing in spite of choppy water. “They rowed up the river and back, and came in as fresh as daisies. After forty years! I ought to have made a Sport Miracle of that. But it’s the kind of miracle I find often in sport. IN BORROWED SHELL “They went out and rowed a full three miles—the' same distance they had rowed in their last race together back in 1889 on the Thames, against Cornell and Pennsylvania, trailing Cornell a bit at the finish, but gathernig a share of glory by leading Penn. “They borrowed that shell and they rowed with what they remembered of the stroke invented and taught Columbia crews by Dr. Walter Peet, Columbia Mines, 1885, coxswain. "They rowed the three miles without any trouble at all, and came back with a sprint. Except for the grey hairs and a slight lack of that long, flat stomach that denotes the trained oarsman, they might have been taken, at a little distance, for a 1929 cr^w. "Why, I was a weight thrower on the first track team that travelled East to compete for the University of California, back in “ninety-five”—eleven men, every man fit and sound today. We meet every year, coming from different parts of the world to a reunion just before the annual California-Stan-ford football game. At our last year dinner, Ernest Dwyer, one of our star hurdlers, said: —‘Boys, I think we can beat any 1895 college track team in the country right now. Let’s issue a challenge.’ “Columbia University has a glorious rowing record that goes back to the begining of college rowing in this country. And perhaps in 40 years the crew that swept the white-capped Hudson on June 24, can go out and show the youngsters of 1969 how they did it. Men are trained and coached better in these days, and should last even longer.”