PSEUDO AMATEUR SPORT.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19899, 30 May 1936, Page 21 (Supplement)

PSEUDO AMATEUR SPORT.

TINNIS PLAYIR'S REMARKS. ‘ ANOTHER QUESTION ANSWERED. KNOCKED OUT BY BALL. Mr E. A. Brooke, the famous Aust—ralian tennis player. tilts pungently at the pseudo-amateur in sport. in a lengthy career. Mr Brooke has rubbed shoulders with all manner or men in sport. with loads or time for the true amateur. He says:. ' “An article in an issue of the Sydney Referee, “The .\lishaps of Sport. and the lladylike Game of ’l‘ennis‘ made me smile. I played ‘A‘ grade cricket and football for years, also lacrosse and baseball, had 10 years‘ cross-country running, competed in at least a dozen boxing championships ‘with hundreds of training home, and the only time I have been knocked clean oil my feet and rendered temporarily unconscious was when an opponent and a lady at that, clipped me on~the chin at the net with a short driven tennis ball. 1 spun like a top and fell flat. "In both your tennis and golf notes you refer to the pseudo amateur, the pot ’hunter, and the cash order. It is regrettable that that spirit is growing‘ I originated amateur athletics cycling, swimming, and boxing in Tasmania in 1904, and the Amateur Sports Federation a few years later and made many enemies through insisting that amateurs lived up to their title and played the game. Difference In Profoulonallum. “I had every time for the open professional. but none for the hypocrite. the false amateur. “The only safeguard is to have trophies publicly presented, such trophies to he indestructible and to be engraved. The distinction between an amateur and a professional to my mind is that the former plays the tame for what he can put into it, the latter for what he can get out of it.” The term “lady—like“ has never fltlenl lfrwn tennis. Actually ihc game calls for high-grade physical condition. To soc young champions like John Bl'o'mwlrh, Arthur lluxlt‘y. lienry Llnclo. and girls like Joan llnrllgan anil‘ ’l‘holma Coyne playing;r at their ion is‘ in are alhlctcs m to men! any silualion in a game demanding ihc finest in stamina and speed.