From THE NATIONAL OBSERVER
printed on the inside, back cover of the 1963 CAC Spring Sports Festival program
hosted by Washington and Lee University
Lexington, Virginia
May 10-11, 1963

"No Pay, No Pressure, No Hypocrisy;
Five Schools Make Sports Fun Again!"

In the midst of the flourishing football factories of the South and Midwest, a small band of schools stands for these athletic ideals; No pay, no pressure, no hypocrisy. They're proving that intercollegiate sports can be an amateur pastime of fun and successful for all - players, fans, alumni, even faculty.

The group is the brand new College Athletic Conference. Its members are Washington and Lee University, located here in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia; Centre College of Danville, Kentucky; the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tennessee; Southwestern of Memphis, and Washington of St. Louis. Their symbol of league supremacy: An old locomotive bell donated by the Norfolk and Western Railway.

Conference rules say simply: "All participation in sports by members of its teams shall be solely because of interest in and the enjoyment of the game. No financial aid shall be given to any student which is conditioned upon, or for the purpose of encouraging, his participation in intercollegiate athletics."

On the Honor System

What's more, an honor system governs the conference. Each member is expected to live up to its commitments without any policing.

This new athletic life is not due to a lack of an athletic tradition. Centre's famed Prayin' Colonels claimed the national collegiate football title in 1921. Sewanee's team of 1899 won 12 games without a loss, whipping Texas, Texas A&M, Tulane, Louisiana State, and Mississippi. Southwestern won 7, lost 1, tied 1 in 1938, and included Mississippi State among its victims. In 1950, Washington and Lee won 8, lost 2, and played in the Gator Bowl.

Long ago, though, each of the schools quit subsidizing athletics, and knuckled down to the job of turning out students. Their decision - and the new conference - are steps in American education's draft toward higher academic standards.

Putting a coat and tie on an athlete (as Washington and Lee requires), and making him go to class doesn't mean that a school is an athletic pushover. Washington & Lee's Generals were undefeated in football the past two years. Sewanee won 5, lost 2, and tied 1 last year.

Washington and Lee typifies the CAC's spirt. There are 48 boys in this year's football squad, and before the season's out, every one of them will get to play. In fact, most of them will play in every game. Says Coach Lee McLaughlin, "I simply feel that it's good for morale to get a chance to play." Besides, he adds, "The boy who's fresh plays better."

Spark of Leadership

McLaughlin isn't a tough coach, but he's able to set afire a spirit that makes the team hustle. Boys run full speed from late afternoon laboratories to the practice field, unbuttoning shirts as they go, so they won't miss practice.

Bobby Payne, a tackle and senior co-captain from Louisville, Kentucky, comments: "They don't drive us until we're ready to drop dead. We all have a good time. When football becomes a task and drudgery, its not football. Here we enjoy it."

The school's athletic department is under the watchful eyes of a faculty committee. Budget, schedules, eligibility, and personnel matters are in the committee's hands.

Coach McLaughlin says that "I don't even want the scholarship committee to know which boys I'm interested in."

Dr. William Hinton, chairman of the psychology department, and head of the faculty athletic committee, is happy to have on campus some students who happen to be good athletes.

"I like to see a few hard-nose boys around," he says. "It adds a little flavor." Hard-nose athletes are boys who look the part - big, burly, tough.

On the typical campus, perhaps 5 per cent of the male students take part in varsity athletics. At Washington and Lee, it's 33 per cent - 350 of the all-male school's 1,050 undergraduates. And under the program of purity, no sport is more important than any other. So-called minor sports - soccer, lacrosse, golf, tennis - get all the money and equipment they need.

The amateurism delights athletic director Cy Twombly, the leathery, 41-year veteran of Washington and Lee athletics. He says: "We don't have to keep up with the Jones any more. It's an entirely different atmosphere."

In the old days, he said, an athletic association ran the school's intercollegiate athletics, and existed almost entirely apart from the rest of the school.

He adds: "Now, we're running our own house. Coaches and athletic people are a lot better off. If they keep their noses clean, they don't have a thing to worry about."

President Cole's View

Washington and Lee President Fred Cole sees the CAC as giving the collegiate athlete a "fair shake" at last. This may sound peculiar in view of critics' charges that college athletics are recruited, coddled, and ride and educational gray train that education can't really afford.

But Dr. Cole's point is interesting. To him, and to others in the CAC, the pressures of big-time collegiate athletics shunt the athlete into an isolated corner of the campus. He spends most of his years pursuing one thing: Athletics. Dr. Cole reasons that if he's brought into the main-stream of campus life, and forced to live and study as any other student, his horizon will expand. New talents will be uncovered.

CAC officials say they aren't crusading for purity in college athletics. Their policy fits them fine. At the same time, Dr. Cole wryly says: "A great many schools could profit from this."