David J. Yates, of New York City, an all-round athlete and athletic
supervisor, was appointed director at Pensacola, combining the work of
athletic organization with the physical training of the aviators in that
station.
Intensely practical and stimulating as well as picturesque and almost
fascinating programmes in their attractiveness were carried out during
the fall at the larger stations. The Newport football eleven, captained
by "Cupid" Black, the former Yale gridiron star, and containing such
all-American players as Schlachter, of Syracuse; Hite, of Kentucky;
Barrett, of Cornell; and Gerrish, of Dartmouth; the Boston team,
including in its membership Casey, Enright, and Murray, of Harvard; the
League Island eleven, captained by Eddie Mahan, the former Harvard
all-round player; and the Great Lakes team, largely composed of
representative Western gridiron stars, played a series of games on the
fields of the East and the Middle West, which lifted, temporarily, the
curtain which seemed to have fallen on the college football heroes when
they passed into naval service, and allowed the sport-loving public of
America to again see them in athletic action.
During the winter the value of the athletic department of the Commission
on Training-Camp Activities to the Navy became clearer as the indoor
programmes, which were organized by Commissioner Camp and his
lieutenants, the athletic directors, were carried out. Boxing,
wrestling, swimming, hockey, basket-ball, and other athletic instructors
were appointed to develop every kind of indoor sport until there were no
nights when, in the large auditoriums of the navy stations, some
programme of winter sport was not being given for the entertainment of
the thousands of young men in camp.
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