The book of Athletics

ly popular both as an amateur and professional sport. In Canada the modified game of rugby has an established place in school and college seasons, and in America no game holds such undivided attention among the student body at large as does our intercollegiate football, while soccer and rugby have a strong following in certain localities. This popularity is not without its reason. No game so well as football combines speed, strength, endurance, cleverness, and quick thinking with the elements of personal contact, and no game lays such stress on the importance of team-play. This is particularly true in our American game. During its forty-odd years of development, there has been an increasing value placed on team-play, so that to-day no other feature is so essential to a team's successas its unity alike in attack and defense. There are many different schools of football coaching. There are eleven different positions on every team. There are innumerable details for the football player to fathom, but in all schools and in each position and in every lesson the underlying current is that of team-play. The great coach is not necessarily he who can invent new and startling plays, but rather he who can teach his team to play as a unit. He drills his line to charge as one man and his backs to act with one another and with the line. Can there be anything more thrilling than a long run in a championship game of football, and is any athletic performer more deserving of the cre...