Page 9 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 2 Winter 2013

7
What’s Missing
from Sports Today
“What Ever Happened to the Three-Sport
Athlete” at St. Paul’s School (Alumni
Horae, Fall 2012) by Jana F. Brown is an
important essay and a sad commentary
on what today’s students have to do to
get into the college of their choice – at
least for an elderly alumnus like me. I had
the 81-year-old club system of sports to
enjoy and play for fun.
Three times as many players started
games on the varsity teams of Old
Hundreds, Isthmians, and Delphians in
football, hockey, and baseball. Track was
run on the Anniversary track meet day.
In football, there were five teams per club
from the varsity down to the fifth team.
You played to your ability, and worked
up the ladder to varsity play. There were
15 football teams on the Lower Grounds
each day.
Competition was intense and you had
the fun of knowing who you were playing
against: whether your roommate, your
best friend or even someone you didn’t
like. You played as many sports as you
liked and were encouraged to do so. You
hoped to help your club win the champi-
onship in each sport. Later in the season,
SPS teams were chosen by the coaches
from the best players on each club team
to play “outside” schools in hockey, base-
ball, track, and squash. We actually did
pretty well with little practice as a team.
In my Sixth Form year, I played six sports
on 10 teams, and still got into Princeton.
In the Fall Term it was football; in the
Winter Term it was hockey, squash, and
basketball (we challenged Concord High,
the New Hampshire state champions, to
two games and lost by only two points
in the first game and six points in the
second game); in the Spring Term it was
baseball and track.
You did not play sports to get into
college then. In those days, they felt
your wrist, and if it was warm and your
dad could pay the bill, you were taken!
Instead, you played to help your club
win the championship in each sport. In
my Sixth Form year, in closely contested
seasons in all sports, we Delphians won
the championship in all four sports,
which only happened seven times in the
81-year history of club series play.
Nowadays, it seems that you have to
specialize in one sport only, which you
even have to play in summer camp with
video of your play in order to get into
college. If you don’t make it, what hap-
pens to your psyche after all the concen-
trated effort?
It’s a shame that sports at SPS and
other schools have evolved into this state
of affairs. The kids are missing a lot.
Talbot Adamson ’40
Gladwyne, Pa.
January 19, 2013