g. That was the
game of the year for us. Time was when Kiowa used to beat us and look
bored about it, but that was all in the misty past. For two years we had
tramped all the lime off her goal lines; and maybe we weren't crazy to
do it again! As early as October we used to sit up nights talking over
our chances, and as November wore along the suspense got as painful as a
good lively case of too much pie. We watched the team practise all day
and dreamed of it all night. And then the blow fell.

It wasn't exactly a blow. It was more like a dynamite explosion. School
let out the day before Thanksgiving, and when announcement time came in
chapel Professor Sillcocks got up and begged permission to make a few
remarks. Then this little ninety-eight-pound thinking machine, who
couldn't have wrestled a kitten successfully, paralyzed half a thousand
husky young students and a whole team of gladiators with the following
remarks:

"I have long held, young gentlemen, that the pursuit of athletic
exercises for the mere lust of winning is one of the evils of college
life. It does not strengthen the mind or build up one's manhood. It does
not encourage that sporting spirit which leads a man to smile in defeat
or to give up his chances of winning rather than take an undue
advantage. It does not make for gentleness, mildness or generosity. I
have, young gentlemen, endeavored to make you see this in the past year
by all the poor means at my disposal. I have not succeeded. But this
morning I propose to bring it to you in a new way. As chairman of the
credentials committee which passes upon the eligibility of your football
players I have decided that the entire team is ineligible. If you ask
for reasons, I have them. They may not, perhaps, suit you, but they suit
me. These players are ineligible because they play too well. With them
you cannot hope to be defeated and I am determined that the Siwash
football team shall be defeated to-morrow. Your college experience must
be broadened. Your football team, I understand, has not been defeated in
three years. This is monstrous. All of you, except the Seniors, are
totally uneducated in the art of taking defeat. This education I propose
to open to you to-morrow. I have made it more certain by suspending all
of what you call your second team and your scrubs--I believe that is
correct. And the Faculty joins me, young gentlemen, in assuring you that
if the game with Kiowa College is abandoned--abroga