SATUOMVAtiIORIAI# From This Angle... Have high school athletics lost their real meaning? It's a ques tion that has been running in this mind for a long time now. I think they have, and I think its about time that high school coaches wake up and begin to put the schoolboy sport back on its own level. Coaches all over the nation have begun to develop a cut-throat attitude that is rapidly taking away the basic principles of playing for the sake of playing and has over-emphasized victory to a tre mendous degree. It is hurting the schoolboy athlete, and is creating a problem for college coaches. The emphasis an winning has been forced on the 'college coach, but quire Is no money-wielding alumni group hanging on the high school coach's throat. Yet the trend has been developing rapidly. The CIS* of the celebrated Wilt (the Stilt) Chamberlain is a good example. Thursday ho scored 90 points in a Philadelphia City League game and his Overbrook High team won• its' contest 123-21. What did it prove? Chamberlain is a shoo-in to his second all state selection. His college education is already assured (he has offers from over 150). He established a new Pennsylvania schoolboy scoring record, but made shambles of an obviously below-par high school team. When his coach allowed• him to play in all. but two minutes of the genie while eager reserves sat and watched, was he really ac complishing anything? The competitive urge is born within the athlete; the high school coach does not have to develop this. Rather, high school sports shbuld serve to develop character and sportsmanship. This is the job of high school athletics today. 'and it is being thrown by the wayside in favor of absurd lust for newspaper headlines—space whith should be reserved for the colleges and the pros. There are others who are serving to ,ruin the underlying prin ciples of sports also. The proud, and more often just plain greedy, parent has been a flagrant violator. Last spring basketball coach John Egli went to visit the home of a highly promising high school basketball player. • Egli presented the father with a Penn State enhance appli cation, but it was bluntly rejected .with a sneer. "I've got hundreds of these things," said the proud papa, "I want to know what you have to offer my boy." ) It was a reaction typical of those confronting colleges through out the country: The college education has become secondary. Only the dollar bill speaks loudly enough to be heard. One of the most promising young baseball players in the nation is on the verge of 'throwing away a college education today because his father has convinced him that he should take a bonus offer and go directly into organized :baseball. Another club has, already promised to send him to college and then sign him to a bonus con tract after graduation. But he has turned thumbs down on this offer, following father's convincing adVice. The situation is losad and it is getting worse. High school ath letes, who haven't begun 'to learn the finer points of the game which they are playing, are living as big fish in a little pond. And the biggest share of them are going to find themselves in a pretty good sized lake pretty ,soon. All over the country pampered prima donnas are moving into the college ranks. They could be much better off if their high school coaches and their parents put school boy sports back on their own - level where they 'belong. Giants Sign All Hands NEW YORK, Feb. 18 (A 3 )—The world champion New York Giants beat the field to the starter's post tonight by becoming the first ma jor league club to sign all its play ers to 1955 contracts. STILL GOING ON DON'T MISS THESE GREAT SAVINGS Bur's litett's t Sr DICK MCDOWELL Collegian Sports Eaten NOW nset 'O printing in State College Commercial Printing 332 E. College Ave. Get His at Hur's Opposite Old Main THE DAP cptitplAN SLATE ; 2 01.1;qt pgloir4ytkN4% Wrestlers— (Continued from page six) on Steve Johnson, winner against Yale, or Stan Hatch. Homan will draw either Stan Cass, 130 pounder with a 2-2 rec ord, or Tony Wetzel, 0-1. In the lightest weight, sopho more Sid Nodland, who is also un defeated but scored a tie in his first collegiate match at Cornell, will meet either Fox McCarthy, 0-4, or Ben Alle r, 0-1, at 123 pounds. Cadet coach Lloyd Appleton has indicated with repeated weight shifts at 177 and heavy weight that he has a . broad se lection for these two weights. Ap pleton has shifted John Nichol son, Nick Bruno, Freeman Cross, and Frank Greer in and otat of the two weights in each of Army's last five matches. Nicholson has lost and scored a draw at 177, While Greer managed to win once at this weight. But their teammates Bruno and Cross have lost at 177 pounds. At heavyweight Cross and Ni cholson have won once, while Bruno has lost twice and Greer once. Although Speidel is solid in these two weights with depend ables Joe Krufka, 177, and heavy Bill Oberly. Appleton has indi cated he has a choice and whom he'll pick is a tossup. Gymnasts-- (Continued from page six) tine. Paxton's highest perform ance so far was 268. Dick Adams and Bill Axup will go against Heim and Schwenz feler on , the horse. Heim, a regu lar performer last year, has scored one victory to date, and is expect ed by Wettetone to "explode" at any time. 'Newcomer on the H-bar for the Lions; Dion Weissend took a first against the Middies by three points and should be in for an other close battle tonight. Cadet Don Jellison has gone well over the 250 mark with his H-bar routine. Tony Cline will be Engineers GRIMM MISSILES AUTO OTIVI 9:00 - 5:00 Grier, Blockson Set For IC4A Title Meet The explosive power of Rosey Grier and Charlie "Block buster" Blockson will be one of the strong points for the Lions when they tangle in next Saturday's IC4A indoor track and field championships at Madison Square Garden. For the past two seasons these two muscular giants have "pushed" each other toward record after record, leaving num erous revisions of the shot put mark in their wake. "I don't recall," said Nittany track coach Chick Werner, "of ever having heard of two shotputters placing in the championships before." Werner was referring to la st year's IC4A title meet when cr ier placed fourth and Blockson third. Grier and Blockson have shat tered meet and school marks in the weight events with machine Atn-like rapidity. Blockson exploded for a new Penn State indoor shot put cri tereon last season in the cham pionships with a heave of 51' 3 1 / 2 ", eclipsing the 51'1 1 / 2 " standard set earlier in the year by Grier. The discus throw is Blockson's special ty, but this event is not included in indoor competition. Blockson erased Grier's Penn State discus record in last season's meet with Navy when he flipped the plate 157' 10". Although both have competed in only one meet so far indoors this season—a quadrangular battle with Michigan State, Missouri, and Ohio State last Saturday at East Lansing, Mich.—another rec ord was sent to oblivion. Grier smashed Blockson's Nittany in door shot put mark with a toss of 51' 10%". That heave copped the number two Lion entry in this event. A host of Nittanies who will be backing up the top entries include Leroy Fritch and Bill Marshall on the rope, Harry Colley lind Don Rehm on the twin bars, Dave Ken nedy and Dud Potter on the mats, and Al Poydock on the H-bar. 2 WHERE TO AFTER GRADUATION &art your career with a company famous for Creative EVl nesering. Your knowledge might be a "natural" for theproduct engineering activity offered in these diversified lines at .- Eizz„d o e- Sendix Products Division !EP DIX AVIATION CORPORATION South Bond, Indiana Fuel Systems—Controls and fuel metering devices for jet and, reciprocating engines. Landing Gear Shock absorbing struts, wheels, brakes and hydraulic controls. Systems analysis, guidance, steering intelligence, propulsion, hydraulics, telemetering. Brakes, power brakes, power steering, hydraulic con trols for passenger cars, trucks and buses. Talk over your career plans with the Bendix rows sentative. Mechanical, aeronautical and electronic engineers should register with your Placement Director now. CAMPUS INTERVIEWS PAGE SEWN first place. Blockson's 50' 11" throw missed second place by one and one-half inches in the quad rangular meet. It was in last year's meet with Navy that Grier obliterated his own outdoor shot put mark w ..th a sensational heave of 55' 8 1 / 4 " a new Penn State record that still stands. Grier, a 6-4, 240-pound senior, uses an unorthodox stance in the shot put. Unlike most shotputters, Grier stands in the shot put circle with his back to the the board. When he unleashes from his crouch he counts on a speedy turn to ignite the fuse which will set off his dynamite-like power. Parry O'Brien, Olympic shot put cham pion and the only BO foot shot putter in history, uses a similar stance. Blockson and Grier have been spurred on by competition from other outstanding weightmen. Rut their finest performances can ne attributed to the friendly compe tion between one another—a com petition which has turned them into two of the nation's top ,ank ing weightmen. Baseball Managers Sophomores interested in be coming wand assistant mana gers in baseball are requested to sign up at the Athletic Of fice at Roc Hall. February 24
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers