My dear Allen:
What you say bout the College of Emporia surprises me. I assume it is the College of Emporia, because I asked the Managing Editor and the Sport Writer on the Gazette to come in and I read your letter to them and on a guess they told me that they supposed that you were referring to Rolla Clymer who was acting on behalf of the College of Emporia. This was brand new to me. I had never heart of it, and as a matter of fact, the Sport Writer on the Gazette, who is a College of Emporia graduate and who has been around here for four or five years, had never heard of it either. But in view of your letter, he suspected Rolla and I do too, and I am writing to know if we are on the right trail. I want to sweep my own doorstep first.
What I object to in the university is the fact that the Athletic Department shoulders into the University and, by getting more jobs in proportion to the number of athletes in the University than, we will say, Greek scholars than there are Greek scholars in the University, thereby makes an unfair division of jobs, and I think it is wrong. What is the difference whether the University wins or not, so far as the scholastic standing of the University is concerned? A football or basketball victory only attracts the undesirable students and not those that you particularly care for. Harvard does not need a football victory to make it a great University; neither does the University of Kansas. And while I am glad to see the ordinary human spirit in the boys manifest in desiring a victory, yet I think that inside of the University, and particularly in your department, the soft peddle should be played most of the time. Any other attitude is going to overstress athletics. And it seems to me that the big job before a Department of Physical Education in any State University is to keep down the desire for athletic supremacy rather than to fan it. I know this advice gives you heart failure and yet I hope, in the long run, you will find it wise advice.
Sincerely yours,
William Allen White
Dr. Forrest C. Allen
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
