Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1922-09-10 | Page 7 | Russian Football

RUSSIAN FOOTBALL . Russia again is taking great interest inter-est in outdoor sports, especially football. foot-ball. This news is in a letter from Dr. Boris Bogen. New Yorker, with tbo American famine relief forces working out of Odessa. The revival of sports is one of the gurest signs yet that. Russia is definitely defi-nitely on the road back to normal. 8ports are national safety valves. When people expend their surplus energy and dissipate their nervous emotions in sports, there is not much left for the war spirit to feed on When war seethes In the blood, there is little time and attention for games except as part of the physical hardening for battle. One reason Americans are not warlike war-like la because they vent their energies en-ergies and emotions on outdoor sports An insurrection in our country could be nipped in the bud by rushing a couple of big league baseball teams to the center of trouble How much chance would a general have running competition with baseball? None. A peculiar thing observed by Dr. Bogen, about the revival of football In Russia, 1s, the absence of team work Each player tries to win the game by himself. Individual prowess Is also the main thing with the spectators, says Bogen. "The people take sides not so much with one team or the other, but with the individual player." The pendulum swings back to Individualism. In-dividualism. Russians were "fed up" with team work by the boluheviks. The instinct of individualism still 13 stronger in man than the social Instinct In-stinct That was the chief bet over-Bin over-Bin looked by the red leaders. On the heels of Dr. Bogen's letter comes announcement from bolshovlk headquarter that soviet Russia is planning to stage its own "Olympic" -football, wrestling, prize lighting, tugs 'of war and field sports. Russia never was pronouncedly keen ;on outdoor sports That its reaction Ito recreation is In sports Instead of the ballet suggests that a new virility "is rising In the national arteries of the Russian nation When Russia comes bark, she'll be stronger than ever.