Country Life and Sport
RHODES SCHOLARS AND ATHLETICS.
A question in the athletics of the Empire. is much exercising many Oxonians, both present and past. When the Rhodes scholars first came over it was feared, and freely expressed by Cambridge men, that Oxford must become supreme in the athletic sports. The prognostic was plausible, since the scholars are selected for athletic prowess not less than intellectual. A very large proportion come from the United States, where athletics, in the narrower sense, flourish as nowhere else in the world. But the prophecy was unfulfilled. More than this : the effect of the scholarships has been actually to depress the level of Oxford athletics. There seems to be no doubt whatever about the influences that have produced this unexpected result. It is twofold. First, schoolboy athletes, eager to represent their University, go to Cambridge rather than Oxford to avoid the competition with older and more technically skilful athletes. Second, younger undergraduates up at Oxford, who have not fully discovered their abilities, prefer other games before athletics, because they feel inferior in an arena almost farmed by elder under- graduates from overseas. So it comes about that the Rhodes scholars take most of the burden on their own shoulders ; and fine athletes though they are, they are not numerous enough to compete with the whole of Cambridge. It is a peculiarity of athletics, as compared, say, with cricket and football, that the best men often do not discover their quality. I could from my own experience quote four examples where good runners and jumpers did not find out their capacity till their last year, or in one case later. This was so in the old days. It is more than ever true to-day in Oxford, while at Cambridge double energy has been spent in unearthing talent to compete with this specialized genius from overseas. We have had no example so salient as at the Inter-University Sports won most handsomely by Cambridge last Saturday. Athletics are a more popular game at Fenner's than at Tilley.
It once fell to my lot to conduct a very large group of the picked athletes of the United States over Oxford ; and I asked many of them individually what struck them most in the comparison with their own Universities. The reply they all made was rather unexpected. What amazed them all was the amount of playing fields. That a college should have its special grounds, apart from the University--even that astonished some. They wondered at the number of games played, both in general and by particular athletes. Their comment is a propos. It is a toss up with very many men which game they shall chiefly cultivate ; and it follows that a very slight influence may divert a man from this game or that. Some critics will object to the inclusion of athletics among games ; but with the modern field events it may be made a game and given much more general popularity than it now secures.
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