University of Virginia Library

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An adjourned meeting of the Board of Visitors from January 12th, was held on this
date at 11.30 o'clock A. M. There were present Visitors Corbitt, Garnett, Goolrick, Munford,
Rinehart, Lewis C. Williams and R. Gray Williams, and President Newcomb.

Mr. Corbitt, elected Rector pro tem. at the meeting on the 11th, occupied the chair
and called for the reports of the special committee appointed last evening to draft resolutions
in the matter of the report and recommendations of the President's Committee on the
athletic situation and to prepare a statement setting forth the policy of the President and
Board of Visitors with respect to the subsidizing of athletes here

Mr. R. Gray Williams, Chairman of the Special Committee, submitted the following
resolution with respect to the report of the President's Committee which was unanimously
adopted:

At the meeting of this Board held on the 7th day of November 1934, the President
of the University presented a Report entitled. REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF COMMITTEE
APPOINTED BY DR. JOHN LLOYD NEWCOMB, PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, TO STUDY AND
REPORT UPON A PLAN FOR THE COORDINATION OF INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS, INTRAMURAL SPORTS AND
PHYSICAL EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

The Rector and Visitors desire to record their gratitude and appreciation to the
members of this Committee for the painstaking study which they have made, and for the formulation
of so comprehensive a Report.

Since the meeting of November 7, 1934, a careful study has been made by the individual
members of this Board, a full discussion has been had at this meeting and due consideration
has been given to the views presented at this meeting of many interested persons.

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Whereupon, on motion duly seconded, the following Resolution was adopted:

Mr. Williams then presented the draft of the declaration of the President and Board
of Visitors with respect to the subsidizing of athletes here, which was unanimously adopted:

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT AND BOARD OF VISITORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

The University of Virginia football teams have lost many games in the last few years
and many of our alumni and friends do not like these defeats. We agree with them that it is
pleasanter to win; but victories may be purchased at a price too great.

It has been urged that many young men, capable of keeping up with their classes, can
also play football and that such young men, when in financial need, should be given scholarships
worth their way through college. The suggestion is appealing for it is assumed that
the particular young man benefitted is worthy of assistance and able to do his mental work
fairly well and ambitious to prepare himself for an after-college vocation other than
athletic.

Certainly the young aspirant for a college education is not to be denied a scholarship
simply because he is a good athlete; but certainly also, such an aspirant is not to be
given a free way through college merely because he is a good athlete.

Moreover, when a student receives a scholarship, under the rules of the colleges and
universities that are members of the Southern Conference, and under our own rules, he must
frankly declare that he has not been paid to play on any athletic team representing his college
as a condition to his right to play.

The reason for the rule is to prevent professionalism and to preserve sound sportmanship
in college athletics. Once restrictions on paying players are removed the colleges
would compete in the purchase of players and victory might well be measured by the size of
the purchaser's purse. No victory so won would be worth the price for brave and honest youth
would be taught that success might be bought by him who has the largest purse. The poison
of professionalism permeates alike the player who is paid and his companions who know that
he is paid. The professional may indeed fight nobly for his team; but his teammates know and
many others inevitably will know that he is on this particular team because of the money that
he has received and not merely because of his affection or loyalty for the college of his
choice.

In a word, professionalism in college athletics paralyzes true sportmanship for it
makes the warrior on the gridiron or the diamond a sort of mercenary. In an age too material,
the impelling feeling to fight without pay for a team or a cause or a loyalty is a fine inspiration
to young men who cherish this feeling. A feeling like this is a sort of spiritual
education, if not indeed exaltation in itself not to be underrated.

In spite of these considerations, careful studies of current developments in American
college sport made by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and others,
reveal that players on some college teams are paid to play. The pay may be indirect; the
gratuity may be a contribution to the student's expenses, the compensation may be disguised
as an athletic scholarship; but the vice of professionalism is there, nevertheless, if the
motive for the gift is in fact a reward for the athletic ability of its recipient.

The University of Virginia cannot pay players to play, directly or indirectly, however
much it may need them in football, because this University feels that professionalism in
college athletics is deadening to the development of the fine spirit and high character of
young men, and, moreover, because these matriculates must sign a declaration that they have
not been paid to play if they are to be permitted to play on a team of this University
either under our requirements or those of the Southern Conference. This, we feel, is a
right requirement.

Under the honor system of the University of Virginia a young man must sign the above
declaration without deceit or reservation, and the alumni who assembled here to help us solve
this problem are as determined as we are to preserve the honor system.

The honor system is the most priceless possession of the University of Virginia. It
has been preserved untarnished in spirit and unweakened in effectiveness because of the
loyalty to its tenets of successive generations of students who have passed out for a century
through its gates of honor to recruit each year that interesting army of alumni ever ready
to defend it.

And so we declare that no compromise will be made with professionalism; that games
will not be won at the cost of the ideals of this University; but that the voices of the
alumni will be welcomed in the councils of the governing officials of the University in the
effort to develop better athletics without sacrifice of more vital ideals and more enduring
traditions.

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The meeting then adjourned.