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COLLEGIATE A. A. TO MEET IN N. Y.

Will Decide on Status of Summer Baseball for College Athletes.

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

The annual meeting of the National Collegiate Athletic Association will be held in New York, December 28. Dean Birggs, president of the association, will preside. Other speakers will be: Professor R. N. Corwin, of Yale; Dean H. McClenahan, of Princeton; Professor W. H. Taft, of Yale; President H. A. Garfield, of William; Professor A. LeFevre, of the University of Virginia.

In addition to the addresses to be delivered much attention will undoubtedly livered much attention will undoubtedly be given to the question of summer baseball and amateur eligibility in general. There is no doubt that the cases of eligibility which arose last fall have brought college athletics to a point where some drastic action must be taken, if they are to be kept on the level of strict amateurism.

That summer baseball is the real cause of 90 per cent of the infractions of the college amateur rules can hardly be questioned. A good ball player is always in demand, especially among the summer hotels, which have been accustomed to maintain teams to play with other hotel teams in their vicinity. Few are the college undergraduates who care to or who can afford to play for nothing, and so they are tempted to break the rules and oftentimes fail to report to the college authorities or voluntarily withdraw from participation in college athletics. Some of the eastern college, notably Brown University, have been permitting summer baseball in a restricted from and this plan will probably be proposed at the meeting next week, as the real solution of the problem. But that it will meet with strong opposition from most of the college is practically certain and little can be expected to come of it.

That summer baseball be entirely barred from the college athlete is also apt to meet with considerable objection. There seems to be two reasons for this. One is that it will simply mean that some of the best ball players will try to play despite the rule and this will result in deceit. The other is the idea maintained by many that it is unfair to the good ball player to deprive him of the right to play in the summer for his board and expenses, if another athlete is allowed to earn money in other forms of employment which are offered him solely because he is a good athlete in some form or other.

There is no rule today which says an athlete shall not accept a position at some camp as a counselor. That these counselors secured their positions through their athletic ability is pretty widely admitted, and if a college athlete is to be allowed to take money during the summer, is it just to deprive the good ball player of the right to earn his living during the summer?

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