Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/83706
tion period, but when the group issued its scathing final report in October 1928, Penn State was cited among 130 schools as the prime offenders in overemphasizing sports to the detriment of academics. The report warned of "commercialization" in college athletics bordering on "professionalism," includ- ing the use of slush funds to pay or subsidize athletes, and an atmosphere of "deceit and chicanery" with a "negli- gent attitude toward the educational opportunity for which the American college exists." No mention was made of Penn State's reforms. Later, at Hetzel's urging, the foundation issued a correction to the document in an obscure footnote, but no one apparently noticed. As far as the public was concerned, Penn State was guilty of everything in the Carnegie Foundation report. That also sounds a little too familiar these days. Of course, the athletic program at Penn State and the school itself were much smaller than they are today. En- rollment in the 1926-27 academic year was about 4,000; 10 years later it had climbed to nearly 6,400. There were 12 intercollegiate sports in 1926, but eight were considered "minor" sports, more like the club teams of today, in- cluding the only women's sport: rifle. That second-rate status didn't change until the early 1930s. Most of the scholarship athletes Photos courtesy of the Paterno-Pattee Archives However, in the mid-1920s, Penn State's leaders, including the adminis- tration, board of trustees and even prominent alumni, instigated everything because they had become concerned that academics had become subservient to athletics. They were not alone in the nation's higher-education commu- nity. As the elimination of scholarships and other restrictions were being dis- cussed at Penn State in early 1926, a nationwide study funded by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advance- ment of Teaching began examining the place of athletics in an academic colle- giate environment. Just before the ar- rival of a new president, Penn State reduced its athletic scholarships from 75 to 50. Then in August 1927, at the recommendation of new president Ralph Hetzel and others, the board of trustees eliminated the rest of the scholarships, starting with freshmen entering in the fall of 1928. They also banned scouting of opponents, reduced spending in all varsity athletic programs and began taking steps to place the supervision of athletics within a restructured De- partment of Physical Education, which was to place a greater emphasis on ac- ademics. A team from the Carnegie Foundation visited the campus during this transi- played for more than one team, and the prime example of that trend was Steve Hamas, a co-captain and fullback on the 1928 team. Hamas set a school record by earning nine varsity letters – a record that has been duplicated just once since then – and he remains the only Penn State athlete to earn letters in five sports. He might have had more if freshmen had been eligible. As a sophomore and senior, Hamas won the intercollegiate heavyweight boxing championship and went on to become a prominent professional boxer. He defeated Max Schmeling when the famous German heavyweight was in his prime and came within one match of fighting heavyweight champion Max Baer for the title. That was the match Jim Braddock received instead. Brad-