INTRAMURAL SPORTS

Last fall the new policy of "athletics for all", instituted by Mr. Bingham, received active expression in a successful and highly enthusiastic class football season. Class football had been tried before with disappointing results. Under the able leadership of the Athletic Director and M. A. Cheek '26 the difficulties heretofore apparently insurmountable were overcome. But class eleven football,, excellent as it is, affects not over 80 or 90 men at the most. It was distinctly a step in the right direction but it was not yet "athletics for all". We were impressed, but we awaited with interest further developments.

An augury of what was to come developed in the informal touch-football league in which groups of friends formed teams and competed for the league crown with all the ardor of championship contenders. Last Sunday's snow storm put an untimely end to all further thought of football, but Mr. Bingham and his aides have plans already formulated for carrying the enthusiasm developed during the last weeks of November on through the winter.

Class hockey has been given up because of the uncertainty of good ice, but the touch football plan will be used instead and a series of informal pick-up teams will have opportunity to use their abilities, good, bad, and in different, toward the common goal of joy in the sport, or sport for sport's sake. And the introduction of this sport is, after all, the fundamental reason for and justification of intramural sports. There are many negative remedies for commercialism in intercollegiate athletics, but probably none by them possess the tonic qualities of a successfully applied "athletics for all" policy.

It should be remarked in conclusion that not only in hockey, but also in squash and in basketball extensive tournaments and leagues are about to get under way. Over 150 men have entered the class squash tournament, and at least 20 basketball fives have already been formed. This is "athletics for all" in earnest. It further becomes apparent that the less formality in organization of teams the more extensive and beneficial are the results of the plan. Such a conclusion is an interesting commentary on the innate desire for participation in competitive sport, heretofore developed in those thousands of undergraduates whose athletic development consisted in cheering from the sidelines, a desire which only needed a little encouragement and careful avoidance of too much formality and professionalization to bear fruit in active, healthy exercise.