BAN ON CHEAP SPORT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 118, 21 May 1932, Page 8

BAN ON CHEAP SPORT

ADVICE TO SPECTATORS MUST “PLAY FAIR GAME’’ Until “spectators of all ages” realise that they are part of every athletic contest they witness, and that they, too, are just as much bound by the code of sportsmanship as the actual players, the progress necessary to decent conduct of competitive sports will not be made, Frank S. Hackett, headmaster of the Riverdale Country Day School, declared at a spectatorsportsmanship luncheon in New York recently.

More than 100 leading pupils, representing nineteen high schools and preparatory schools, attended the luncheon, which was part of the full-day conference at New York University conducted by the university’s Student Senate and the Sportsmanship Brotherhood.

Mr Hackett emphasised the important part spectators play in every kind of sport. “Americans,” he said, “are frequently chided because so many are onlookers rather than participants. This angle, however, is all wrong. Practically every spectator really plays the The fact that he does this by means of imagining himself on the field does not detract from his presence there. In spirit, he is throwing or kicking the ball, and in particular he is the referee or the umpire. 4 Vicarious’ is the big word used to describe this kind of participation, but the reality of the experience ought not to be misunderstood because of such a term. “No wonder we have so many Monday morning quarterbacks’ as BarryWood calls them, so many Charlie Klems and so many Tunneys and Dempseys. It is naturally right that those who develop keen interest in sports, whether they actually play or have played, or expect to play, should bo intense about any contest in which, they have a real or imaginary stake.” At the morning session, John T. McGovern, co-author of Carnegie Foundation Report <23, discussed "Sportsmanship and the Olympics. "This is our great Olympic year, he said, "and since we are t 0 M host to the nations of the world it is incumbent upon us to demonstrate the highest sportsmanship, not only ou the playing field, but also in the stadium and in our comments on Hie games in the press and elsewhere. Mr McGovern praised the American athlete of to-day as a Ine sportsman and declared that the vast majority of coaches would not tolerate any unfair or unsportsmanlike conduct on the part of the athletes they are leading. “But the spectator,” he continued, "presents a mixed picture and all too frequently the primitive element—-the pop bottle, the booer and cushionthrowing contingent —too often dominates the situation. It would be an everlasting disgrace if at. the coming Olympic Games we should see any such exhibition of childish partisanship as I have occasionally seen in recent years at some of our contests.

Suggests Three Remedies "I have three practical suggestions to make as to how we may proceed to propagate sound ideals of spectator sportsmanship throughout the youth of the nation and how we may control the small minority of chexp sports. "In the first place, in every school the incoming freshman class should be thoroughly educated in what their conduct should be toward officials andvisiting athletic teams and warned that unsportsmanship in the stands may lose them their contacts with their most cherished rivals. "In the second place, the school and the college paper, ss well as the public press, should from time to time warn tha* muckerism will not be tolerated on the athletic field or in the gymnasium “In the third plate, there should be a sufficient organisation of marshals or guards at every great athletic contest so that the individual spectator who starts razzing the officials or otherwise acting in an unsportsmanlike manner may quickly be seized by the collar and thrown ont without further cere-