"GET IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR," URGES BINGHAM

This is the second of a series of articles which will be published in the Crimson written by University coaches on the problems and various aspects of their respective sports.

Not so very many years ago, there was a familiar expression among those interested in sports at Harvard University that we should have a championship football team until more "prep school stars" headed Cambridge way. In one year, however, a Harvard football coach started to turn out winning teams, and the consensus of opinion now among the same following is that the football success is based on a system emphasizing the fundamentals of the game.

Harvard has not won an Intercollegiate Track Meet since 1909. We hear the same old story about track which we used to hear about football, yet in the 90's Harvard had Intercollegiate championship teams, and so far as I have been able to learn, we did not then get any number of "prep school stars."

Wonderful Chance to Earn "H"

In track, more than in any other sport, a man has a wonderful opportunity to get his letter. I do not mean by this that making the track team is an easy task, but I do mean that by conscientious effort a man can make the track team where he could not, with the same effort, make any of the other University teams. Not every man knows how to catch a baseball or a football. It takes a certain type of a man to make the crew, but in track all that is necessary is a pair of legs, a pair of arms, and a lot of determination. I wish that space would permit me to give the names of all men who have made Harvard track teams who never knew that they had any athletic ability when they came to Cambridge, and to name others who did not make their school teams, but were first class performers in college. Two of the former are W. A. Barron Jr., Captain of the 1914 team, who came to Harvard from a school which has no track team, and West more Willcox, of the class of 1917, and present holder of the Harvard 440-yard record, who never ran until his Freshman year in Harvard. Some of the latter class are Jay Camp '15, who was not good enough for the Exeter track team, but plugged away at Harvard and in his Senior year tied for first place in the high jump in the Intercollegiate meet. Robert St.B. Boyd '14 was supposed to be too small to make a team at school, but he came to Harvard and proved that even with a slight body he could win the Intercollegiate cross-country run in 1913. Kenneth Fuller '16 was the first man in his class to get a track letter, yet he never made a school team. These examples are not exceptions, and it is unreasonable to think that in a college as large as ours that we have not enough latent track material to make, a good team each year.

No Time Will be Wasted

Recently the track team had its first practice in the Hemenway Gymnasium. We, too, are trying to emphasize the fundamentals of track by beginning first of all on your muscles. There are two classes of men I hope will read and act on this article. First, those who have dabbled a little in athletics, but who have never felt themselves "good enough" to make the team, and second, the man who has never done anything in athletics but likes and believes in exercise. To both, I shall guarantee that your time devoted to the track team will not be wasted. In addition to getting very healthy exercise, you will meet some of the finest men in your class and in other classes, and you will make more acquaintances than you can make in any other way. Those of us who are interested in athletics are sometimes accused of over emphasizing the importance of our sports, but I do not think that there is anyone who will not admit that a sound body is just as essential as a sound mind. That Harvard University endorses this fact is evidenced by compulsory exercise for all Freshmen, and the approval by the Faculty of University athletic teams.

This year, the track team will be coached by William F. Donovan, affectionately known by all track men as "Pooch." The fact that, he has turned out such men as Willcox, Withington and O'Connell places him in the first rank as a college trainer. He will be assisted by Edward Farrell.

Report at Once

Our track team can and will win next spring if right now everyone interested in athletics or in exercise, and is not a candidate for any other team, will report to the Hemenway Gymnasium on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons at four o'clock to Mr. Surbeck. After Christmas, we shall start running on the track, but, I repeat the time to get in "on the ground floor" is now