More Football

THE JOHN O'HARA SOCIETY

On October 13, 1928, publication of "Taking Up Sport." The New Yorker.

An Afternoon Delphian Society member wants support for the local high school team:

   This fall I think we ought to take more interest in athletic sports . . . we ought to pay at least a modicum of attention to that side of school life. . .
   The coaching is very capably handled, I understand by none other than Forrest Inness, who as we all know is Mrs. Inness' oldest son and played football at Princeton, wasn't it, Mrs. Inness? Yale? Well, I knew it was Yale or Princeton because I remember hearing about his wonderful touchdown in a Yale-Princeton game more years back than I care to remember, ha, ha. . . .

Of course, right away we hear the argument, I can't stand seeing my boy or my friend's boy getting hurt in a football game, but coaches and everybody say that if you play football correctly, nobody will get hurt, barring accidents, which are just as liable to happen in tennis or golf and other sports which haven't got physical contact. There are fewer people hurt every year playing football than there are driving automobiles, and yet almost all of us think nothing of driving to the station twice a day to carry and fetch our husbands to and fro.