Winning in the Workout

WINNING IN THE WORKOUT By Louis W. Larsen "But the finest part of the race you didn't see!" The words startled me. They fell from the lips of a famous athletic coach. I was in the locker rooms at the time, congratulating a boy on his brilliant and victorious finish in a hundred-yard dash. Several others were there, too, lavishing words of praise on the panting hero. "But I watched the race from the crack of the gun till the in- stant the broken ribbon went fluttering in the air. Just what do you mean? What part of the race did I not see?" I was keen to know what the trainer had meant. His words had piqued my curiosity. He smiled for a moment and exchanged an understanding look with his victor. These two seemed to know perfectly what he had meant, and were not a little amused at my ignorance of the game. "You seem a bit puzzled at my remark," the mentor went on. "Listen, you men, I'm going to say something stranger still: Jim here had already won that dash when he stripped for action and took his place on the get-away line!" This was truly astounding. We stood looking at him with wide wondering eyes, mouths agape. "Oh, you mean it was a frame-up among the contestants — de- cided in advance who should win?" one of us ventured. "No, nothing of the sort," laughed the coach. "He won the race squarely enough. But let me repeat: that boy was already vic- torious before he got down on the line to listen for the gun. We have a slogan around here. Every fellow knows it well. It's posted in the gym, the locker rooms, the shower booths — it's every- where! I can repeat it for you in four crisp words: 'Win in the Workout!' " Then he paused and smiled at how readily we grasped the idea once he had given us so promising a lead. We listened to him, eagerly, while he spoke about training in these words: "Yes, the workout's the thing. Let me watch the training of contestants, in any sort of game, and I'll tell you who is going to win. We expect every fellow to do his best on the day of the meet sure; but we know mighty well that the cards are stacked against him, if he isn't trained right up to the last notch. ..,. ."Why< men- the contest's only an incidental thing, a little ex- hibition for the diversion of the spectators. The big contest, the real contest, is waged when the bleachers are empty and there's no one around to cheer. It's not so much a matter of native speed as it is of hard grilling. He wjns who jg the most patient, the most persistent,

WINNING IN THE WORKOUT 5 1 the most dogged in following the rules of training. The final clash is always a thriller to the 'sidelines;' but to a sober, hardened old coach like me, the dash is only an indication of which side has made the best job of its preparation. Why, I don't even cheer when my boys win; I've done my cheering all along, during the workout." That sermon set me pondering. I had never thought it out in just that way. "Win in the Workout!" — what a beautiful slogan. And how it applies to any sort of contest, even outside the sphere of athletics. That coach had taught me about the most vivid lesson I had ever learned. It came to me all in a flash that life itself is a contest and that its greatest victories must be won in the workout. Every young man can take the lesson home. It is not mere sentiment. It's a fact — a fact of immense practical importance. If it doesn't teach youth that preparation for one's life work is more important than luck, accident of birth and "pull" all combined — then youth is incapable of a serious thought and will deserve to come limping across the line when first, second and third places have been brilliantly won. Every man's youth is a workout, and what folly to expect vic- tory unless he settles down to a hard, hard grind before it is spent. Some day he will be in the final clash, pitted against a rival for a coveted position; and no amount of heroic competition then can take the place of training now. His friends will be there to cheer him out, but their applause will reach his ears as echoes of mockery if he goes down to defeat because he is undertrained. Somewhere, boy, you have a rival. He is headed for the same bright goal as you. Your paths lie wide apart now, but they will draw nearer and nearer as the years pass. Perhaps this rival of yours will not come actually into view until you are both within a few yards of the finish; but it's no less a race on that account. The workout, remember, is a part of the contest. Indeed, a very crucial part! This rival of yours is in training — now. The light of hope is in his face, fierce determination is stamped on his brow. His eyes, if you could see them, would flash you a confident challenge. He is a dangerous rival, a rival to reckon with, and he's playing the game fair. May be the problem in algebra you sit up half of this night to solve will be the bit of mental discipline you can some day point to as the deciding factor in your triumph. Who knows? Train hard, young man, spare no pains in the workout. Is this mere talk, fanciful juggling of words, a little more futile sermonizing? No, far from it! It is a grim warning. Let us see now how it applies in a literal way. One day, in some town or city, when the hands of the clock indicate a certain hour, a decision is going to be made that will de- termine whether or not you are going to be given the position you

52 IMPROVEMENT ERA have applied for. If you win, the names of the other applicants, your competitors, will be tossed into the waste-basket. But if you lose, one of those rivals of yours will get the glad word, and your name will go into the discard. Yes, that is one of the coming events, as cer- tain to arrive as the proverbial tax notice. And those rivals are not ethereal creatures, non-existent, to be reckoned with lightly. They are real flesh-and-blood fellows like yourself, about your age and dreaming the kind of dreams that fill your life with promise. They are striving and dreaming somewhere now, this very hour. So, it is a real personal matter with you. These young men are after the job that you've got your heart set on. If you could see the enthusiasm they put into their work, the long hours they toil, the faith they have in the outcome, you would tremble with a feeling of insecurity and buckle down to the hardest grind of your life. Who is going to win? The workout will tell! You are going to have a business of your own, you say? And will ask no odds of an employer? Let us see how that will work out. That business of yours will be at such a number, on a certain street of a town or city that is somewhere on the American map. You will have competitors, to be sure. Your success will depend on a number of things, but mostly on your ability to conduct a business in the face of keen rivalry. There's the rub — rivalry! You cannot escape that in this age of freedom and specialization. No matter what line you choose, you will have competitors, alert and keen men, who will put you to the test. The rule of survival of the fit holds in business too. So it comes to this: if you are one of the fit, it will be because you have got well prepared for the business you enter. Everywhere you come plump against the hard fact of winning in the workout or not winning at all. In the professions it is the same. Rivalry, competition, brains and skill pitted against skill and brains. And the best brains are the ones best trained for the task essayed. There is no escape from the inexorable law of struggle, elimination, survival. There are pro- fessional men by the scores who make barely enough to go on exist-, ing, while others command all the bounties and luxuries of modern living. Which class will you enter? That depends on how seriously you weigh the problem before you, on the kind of decision you reach and the kind of energy you display in the workout. Maybe the fel- low who will prove the hardest contender for the place you will want to fill is sweating in the laboratory, somewhere, at this very moment. It is the same in every field of endeavor. Youth is the period of the workout. Remember the wise words of the athletic coach: "The finest part of the race we do not see at all!"

TAKING A CHANCE By H. J. Johnston Gambling is a vice worse than drink and nearly as bad as drugs. It lures with false promises and in a short time destroys the work of a lifetime. It makes honest work seem not worth while. It kills ambition. You see the poor victims of games of chance hanging around dens and pool halls, race tracks and other places of ill-repute. To quote from Willis: "Temptation hath a music for all ears." In their case the music is all discord. The men who encourage gambling, and are looking for more suckers to trim, will point out some man who has been winning and call him a lucky dog, but they never show you the man in the gutter who was once a "lucky dog." The man they now point out for you may seem lucky, but rest assured, he is on his way to the gutter just as surely as the sun arises in the east. Money won in a game of chance is won without effort. What comes without effort does not stay and brings no happiness. Gambling leads to destruction and misery. It destroys honor, and the man who indulges in it shows a weakness, shows a lack of courage to make a fight and gain his money by honest effort, shows conceit — for he is sure he can win where all others have failed. There are many forms of the vice. Speculation, get-rich-quick schemes of all kinds. A wildcat oil company offers you stock at a dollar per share and promises you that it will jump to ten dollars a share. They know the human weakness for games of chance and prompt you with an offer of ten dollars for one. If you buy that stock you are making a leap in the dark, you are making a blind bargain, you are taking a gambler's chance, you have been lied to, you have been bilked, for if there was any chance of a share of stock going to ten dollars they would keep it themselves. Don't fool your- self into thinking that these promotors are losing sleep in trying to make money for you. If they had such a good thing as they offer you in glowing terms you would never get a look in. All the sleep they are losing is when they think that there is a sucker born every minute and that one might escape them. Men and women who claim that they haven't the time to attend church or look after their spiritual welfare will spend many hours throughout the year at card playing. Some of our ladies think it quite the proper thing to have card playing clubs where prizes are given for the best scores. If you mentioned to these ladies that they were gambling, and were just as guilty as if they played for money they would be highly indignant. They are just as surely gambling as if they played with money, for the prize has a value and is the

54 IMPROVEMENT ERA stake for which they play. It cost the hostess money to put the prize there. The lucky winner of the prize will soon find it her turn to buy a prize. Some day she must return the party. In the end it has cost all members of the club real money, and that is not all; they have wasted so much valuable time which could have been used to their advantage at something worth while. The card table has been the scene of many quarrels, many murders and the start of lifelong hatreds. Too often it has engendered in the hearts of players a lying, cheating spirit. It encourages trickery, for the players measure their success by ability to win, and in many cases figure out dark and devious ways to gain their end. To those who find an excuse for cards as an innocent form of amusement I would say that cards are the perfect and cleverly worked out instruments of the gambler, and the companionship of cards is not like that of innocent games; for the cards lead to the haunts of the gambler. Any game that leads to questionable society, because it is the chief pleasure of such a class, should be excluded from the home. There are plenty of innocent games. Gambling is forbidden by law and looked down upon by the self-respecting element of society. Still the demon stalks throughout our land in various disguises. Raffling and guessing contests; punch- boards and the hundreds of devices one can see at fairs and carnivals are merely the beckoning talons of the demon of chance appealing to the gambling instinct which seems to be hidden deep within a large per- cent of us mortals. The desire to get something for nothing is pernicious. Young people in search of amusement should look for something that will not injure them morally or physically. There seems to be a belief among some of our young folks that the only enjoyment worth while is something which will be detrimental to both body and spirit. Such a belief is a fallacy. We should train ourselves to find pleasure in the things which stimulate us and lead to higher things. We must keep away from the recreation which stunts and dulls our intellect. Gambling is a stupid thing; it shows weakness; it shows conceit, and it takes you away from the worthwhile things of life. A man with a hundred dollars, on his way to a gambling table, is figuring out a way to get another hundred from some other gambler. He wastes the whole night and in the morning finds him- self fagged and without money. If he had put as much effort into planning a way to invest his hundred he would have added to his independence which comes from steady, honest effort and saving. Don't listen to the music of the tempter of chance. When you earn your money be wise. Put it where it will grow honestly and stay with you. Don't take a chance with the milkers, the usurers who fatten on your loss and ruin. Don't take a chance. Tobar, Nevada