The Chattanooga News

THE COME-BACK OF SPORTS
Amateur Athletic Union Preparing for Big Boom in Track and Field Sports, Boxing, Wrestling, Swimming, Basketball and Gymnastics in 1919, Says Secretary-Treasurer F. W. Rubien.

AMATEUR
ATHLETICS

(By Jack Veiock.)

New York, Jan. 16.—The outlook for amateur athletics in the United States was never brighter, according to Frederick W. Rubien, secretary-treasurer of the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States, in commenting on prospects for 1919.

"Amateur athletic—track and field, boxing, wrestling, basketball, gymnastics and swimming—is due for a big boom, now that peace has come," says Mr. Rubien.

"These branches of amateur sports will be followed on a broader scale this year than ever before. I feel confident that amateur sport will come back strong, and one of the big reasons may be found in the fact that nearly 3,000,000 young men who have been trained for army life during the last eighteen months now realize the benefits of such training. The doughboys have learned to get into the open, stretch their muscles and inhale the fresh air. They have taken to sport like ducks to water, and many of them who were never athletically inclined before are converts now.

"With thousands of young men who in the past considered some sports too strenuous or too much of a bother clamoring for the chance to participate in them now, athletic throughout the length and breadth of the land are making elaborate preparations for the year 1919.

"March will be the banner month in indoor athletics. The Boston Athletic association will stage its annual indoor games in that month, and the national indoor championships will be held in New York on March 8. The big Millrose A. A. games, always a feature of the early months of the year in athletics in the metropolis, will be held here March 12, while the Meadowbrook club, of Philadelphia, will stage its games on March 15 and the western conference championships will be held at Chicago on March 22.

"An indication that athletics are coming back strong may be pointed to in the action of the Irish-American Athletic Club of New York, which suspended athletics activities when the United States entered the war. The Irish-American club has announced its intention of resuming all branches of athletics where it left off and promoting them on a larger scale than ever before. Likewise, all of the large clubs in every one of the larger cities are preparing for 1919 along identical lines.

"There is now talk of Olympic games and international competitions in amateur boxing, wrestling and swimming, and the long list of national and local competitions already planned far exceeds that of previous years.

"For the first time in the history of the Amateur Athletic union, its list of the national championship awards is practically complete for the entire year. There were two or more applications for every event awarded, and the list of awards shows the great interest being taken in all sections of the country in these sports.

"When the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States was organized thirty years ago it incorporated in its constitution as one of its objects: 'The promotion of national, state and local legislation in the interest of the institution of public playgrounds, gymnasiums, baths and fields or amateur sports in the United States.'

"Many public baths, gymnasiums and athletic fields have been built, but every important city in the United States cannot boast of a first-class athletic field containing a quarter-mile track enclosing a field suitable for football and baseball games and providing accommodations for tennis, basketball and other field games. Every city should be able to point with pride to such a field, where its youth may participate in health-giving athletic sports.

"Every one admits that the splendid physical condition, clean body, clear mind and initiative of our men in the world war was largely due to American athletics, and no more practical and fitting memorial to the boys who made the supreme sacrifice can be suggested to all municipal authorities than to dedicate such a field in memory of the local heroes."