Athletics
And The

Grinnell
Curriculum

by Glenn Leggett,
President of the College

Athletics as a pedagogical, an educa-
tlonal matter, ought to he managed with
the same purpose and intelligence as other
elements in our academic curriculum It
isn’t easy, because in many colleges, in
tercollegiale athletic coaches and retract
tiOnists and physical educational people
have allowed a proiound schism to develop
in their own ranks. In the big universi-
ties, the coaches have so clearly won over
their colleagues that a goodly poition oi the
athletic program goes over to supporting
the appearance in elaborate physical
settings or three oi iotii- dozen young play-
ers who haven't mucll time or energy left
Over to be students Though the argument
that such appearances finance the rest Oi
thergthletlc and recreational program may
be valid, the difficulty, at least in my
experience, is that the rest oi the program
is so feeble as to he hardly worth the
name, Yet when intercollegiate athletic
competition has been removed from the
scene, as it has in few places, and the
program given over completely to recrear
tioiiists and physical educational special-
ists, the results do not strike me as very
successful It may lie unfortunate, butl
think it is ttire a student body which
does not support competitive athletics will
not support a recreational or physical
educational program oi any substance. A
mixture of competitive athletics, recrea»
tional games, and intramural sports is
apparently necessary to the individual health
oi each oi them, ior they each provide a
part of the total phySICal and competitive
demands at a liberal arts students.

Why” First 01' all, every human being
needs to know something about his own
physical constitution and how to keep it
healthy and functioning, This is an intelr
lectual and a physical discipline and a
duty to himself and to his fellows; and it
means, among other things, having a know
ledge oi the physical properties at the
human Constitution and the elements it needs
in a physical environment oi land, air, and
water This knowledge can be imparted in
the classroom, but l think it Comes through
more successiully ii opportunities are also
around in which students learn what their
physical and nervous strengths and reilexes
can do and can be tlained to do, So much
the better it in the process they learn a
game or two that they can enjoy in middle
age when they can aiiord to leave their
working offices at noon One of the pron
blems 0f the late twentieth Century will he
to iind ways to keep adults irom spending
all their leisure time, of which (hopes
fully) there is going to tie a great deal,
in cocktail lounges and in front of the
boob tube, The sports developed or re
iined in college, sports such as goll,

sailing, swimming, tennis, handball, are
going to he crucial to young people growA
ing old, and one oi the obligations oi a
college is to see that a student has a chance
to develop and relino them, under just
enough supervision to keep him irom driving
oii the tee with his putter or irom dog»
paddling to the nearest swimming float.

Then too we all need the excitement of
competitive athletics. Some games we play
primarily against ourselves; some against
others, But the excitement is much the
same, ln learning to make our reilexes
work better for uS, We discover an imporr
tant fact about ourselves: that 'we can be
better than we are if we Work at it. The
importance oi competitive athletics is that
we can discover not only this fact but
also two other things which are closely
related: at the moment or victory to prer
pare ourselves tor defeat; but even more
crucially, at the moment of deieat to pre
pare ourselves ior eventual victory by
training ior it and earning lti Knowing
this we also know that anyone who says
he doesn't care Whether he Wins or loses
is missing the whole point: play to win;
otherwise we cheat ourselves, and patronize
our Opponents.

Now, competitive athletics can exist in a
college in a lormal or informal intramural
or an intercollegiate program. But we
need all, not one or the other. The value
of intramural competition and its estab-
lishment here at Grinnell are clear. It
embraces, or should, all students. it
clears the eye oi the whole student body,
provides excitement, and may even work
on some excess energy that would otherwise
be expended in terrorizing the president
and the deans. (I am aware that it some-
times serves to make the participants
even stronger and healthier and thus more
terriiying.) But intercollegiate athletics
are also necessary: not merely ior that
ambiguous thing called school spirit, but
essentially because they provide a way for
an individual student to find out how well
he can compete in the company of experts
of nearrexperts. At its best, intercolle-
giate competition presents a model otex-
cellence, and this kind of presentation is
what a college is suppsed to be doing in
all its activities, I know that all sorts of

 

foolishness can get attached to excellence
in intercollegaite competition improperly
counselled, young people can be led to bar
lieve that athletic prowess represents a
climax of success that makes other achieve-
ment unnecessary, and they can reach old
age dreaming exclusively oi the glories at
their past. But this is the fault (lithe
coaches who are not living up to their on-
ligations to be teachers first We haven’t
any such coaches here. Our coaches are
teachers who believe in the unity oi in-
tellectual and physical Well—being and
therefore the need of the college tp develop
programs to develop this unity and show
how useful it is to the liberal arts tradition
we are trying to maintain here. This is
the reason we have our physical education
complex and our expanse of athletic fields,
and Why I do not hesitate to insist that We
continue to improve our threefold program
of recreational, intramural, and intercoller
giate athletics.

ARTISTS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS

Page 1--Alice Guzenhuuser

Page 2--top Mark Sableman
bottom: Alan hakagawa

Page 3--photo by John Morris, silkscreen
by a host or others

Page 4--i0p: Grant Gale
bottom Jonas Goodman

Page 5--top» nan l-lenry
bottom: Adele Anderson

Page fincam Patterson photo; doctorcd by
editors

Page 7rrtop' Nada Mangialetti
bottom Mark Sableman

Page onto . Jonas Goodman
bottom: Cam Patterson

Page lo--top sketch Barb Leslie
top photo. Jody Coltell
bottom photos, Jon Davis

This page-~PE Complex (top) and pool
(lett) Balthazar Koiib Photographers
Football Rick stein
Cross Country Cltnn Sui Man
held llockey Jody Cattell

‘ , May 24, I972

 

