PLAN ATHLETIC GAMES NOV. 3

Plans for a big athletic carnival for soldiers and sailors to be held at the Stadium on Saturday, November 3, are being completed. Among the chief attractions will be a football game between a picked team representing the National Army cantonment at Ayer, and an eleven selected from the leading teams in the various naval camps of New England. Track games of all kinds are scheduled for the occasion, and it is probable that the finish of the cross-country run, which is also to be held, will be inside the Stadium.

In all camps there is much interest in the proposed field day. At Ayer hundreds of men under such coaches as P. D. Haughton '99, Capt. C. A. Coolidge '17, and Capt. G. H. Hoban, a former All-American player from Dartmouth, are learning the rudiments of the game, and later in the season should make formidable aggregations. At Westfield and other camps in the middle and western part of the state preparation for the season is already well under way. From Westfield, the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery is to send a team against the informal University in Cambridge. In this regiment are many natural athletes from the farms and woods of Maine, who need only coaching such as W. T. Gardiner '14 will be able to give them to make a powerful eleven. Several college players are also numbered among the men.

The Navy is perhaps even better off in the number of well-known players. Bumpkin Island has men of the calibre of Cawley, a former collegiate star. The Newport Naval Reserve, however, has the greatest aggregation at present in Naval football of the vicinity. Black, captain of the Yale team last year, and Barrett, Cornell's sensational quarter-back, are the more prominent. Other Yale men in the lineup are Pumpelly, the drop kicker, and Callahan, a centre. Gerrish, a former Dartmouth captain is also playing. Several other former college players could be mentioned. This list has not considered the possibilities in the development of the limitless material at Newport by these men whose capabilities are already known. Other reserve stations, warships, in fact every group of navy men, each has its team, now playing every week with school and college elevens. From these thousands of active participants in football, there can be no doubt as to the quality of the team selected for the championship struggle in November.

But while football holds the greatest attraction for the men, other sports are undertaken with as much eagerness. The Boston Athletic Association through its Governing Committee has unanimously voted to offer to the Government its services in the promotion and management of athletic and recreative sports at the Army and Navy Training Camps in New England. By placing their facilities for conducting contests and directing athletic activity of every description, much good has been accomplished at the camps.

The B. A. A. is especially active in promoting track athletics and cross-country running with a view to having military and naval entries in the indoor meets of the coming season. To further their campaign for more participation in these sports by men in service it has issued a statement showing the value of cross-country running as proved by many trials.

The statement reads, "The average time enlisted men could run one mile would be six minutes, 30 seconds. After a course of cross-country running, three times per week for two months, a fair average of the time would be five minutes, 15 seconds. The mathematical improvement does not begin to indicate the all-round improved physical fitness.