Debating sports at the 92nd Street YMHA, by Ari Sclar

Eliot’s comments also received attention at the 92^nd Street YMHA, where a Bulletin editorial agreed that, “our Jewish young men are not sufficiently developed physically,” and claimed that the relatively few Jewish athletes served as “the best proof of this.”  The solution would be for “the Jewish philanthropist to remove the stigma by giving larger support than heretofore to institutions like the YMHA,” which was “engaged in the all-around development of young men.”[1]  Officials extended the YMHA’s commitment to competitive sport in the 1908 annual report. “We hope some day to see some of our own boys take a prominent part in athletic competition and thus disprove that our people do not give proper attention to our physical development.”  Finally, in October 1908, a Bulletin editorial stated: “Let us therefore from now on determine to win honors in the athletic world…the Association will do its share toward encouraging athletics in the building.”[2]

Institutional officials blamed the lack of athletes on the absence of communal support for institutions interested in “all-around development.”  The YMHA hoped to illustrate that it offered programs unavailable elsewhere in organized Jewish communal life, and thus deserved more attention, finances, and support.  Yet, only months before Eliot’s speech, the Atlas Athletic Club had decided to “sever its connection…as a subordinate society of your Association,” and established for itself an independent clubhouse in the Bronx.  Atlas president Henry Lang, who served on the AAU’s Metropolitan Basketball Committee during the mid-1900s, explained to the YMHA Board of Directors that, “the fostering of athletics, with the hope that some day might see Jewish athletes gain recognition and merit (as Jews have done in other fields of life) has been the goal we have been striving to attain.”  Lang lamented “the inability of the Association to specialize in the direction of and cater to athletics; at the same time, we have held together in the Association, hoping that some day the hand of fortune might shower on you to enable you to augment Jewish athletic prowess.”[3]  Despite Lang’s complaint regarding the YMHA’s “inability” to provide financial support for athletic specialization, “unwillingness” may have been a more fitting word.  Atlas’s hope for a YMHA athletic culture had produced no appeal to ‘philanthropists.’  Eliot’s comments, on the other hand, raised an immediate cry for help and appear to have been the necessary catalyst to produce a cultural change at the YMHA.

One must be careful in drawing too broad a conclusion regarding the 92^nd Street YMHA’s response to Eliot’s comments.  YMHA officials remained silent regarding Atlas’s departure, which allowed them to blame the broader community for Jewish physical deficiencies.  They could therefore justifiably demand more support in their (not Atlas’) fight to “remove the stigma.”[4]  Yet, the YMHA had supported, ideologically if not financially, Atlas’s desire to produce Jewish athletes.  At the formal opening of Atlas’s new clubhouse in the Bronx, YMHA Superintendent William Mitchell foreshadowed what would become the YMHA’s project only months later, but at the time, seemed to be the exclusive property of Atlas: “it is necessary that you stick to your resolution to do purely athletic work.”  Mitchell explained that even if Atlas did not develop champions, “your work will not have been in vain.  I am a great believer in young men, in young Jewish men, and in physical sport, as a builder of manhood and character.”[5]

Mitchell unified his concept of manhood with ‘character,’ which indicated the influence of the American Physical Education Association (APEA) on the YMHA gymnasium program.  Although physical educators had various levels of commitment toward sport, including some opposition to it, the APEA promoted a manhood of self-control that produced a symmetrical body and the harmonious development of the whole person.  Educators generally did not equate health with muscles or physical size, which provided the YMHA with an attractive model with which to build its physical education department.  Yet, the YMHA still had to conform to an external ideal and APEA manhood remained informed by the racial superiority, if not the physical size and strength, of the Anglo-Saxon male.  The APEA model also could not provide an adequate defense to counter charges of Jewish weakness.  When Charles Eliot spoke of Jewish physical inferiority, the YMHA decided that ‘all-around’ development would no longer be enough to produce masculine Jews.  Rather than forcing the Jewish man to live up to the physical ideal of muscular size and strength, the YMHA opened a dialogue with dominant conceptions of athleticism and became determined to ‘win honors in the athletic world.’[6]  The YMHA had sought to avoid any engagement with the stereotype of the non-athletic, weak Jew. 

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[1] “Are the Jews Really Inferior,” Y Bulletin, February 1908.

[2] Young Men’s Hebrew Association, Thirty-Fourth Annual Report, 1908 (New York: 1909).  The Report was re-published in the Y Bulletin, March 1908.  “Athletics in the YMHA,” YMHA Bulletin, October 1908.

[3] Henry Lang to the Board of Directors of the 92^nd Street YMHA, March 20, 1907, Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York; According to information found in the Atlas minute book, the club was repeatedly denied use of the YMHA gymnasium for basketball practice.  In response, Atlas began practicing at other area gymnasiums and furthered their separation from the YMHA. Club members also consistently asked the Association to purchase or rent a running track, but were ignored or denied.  According to the Atlas Athletic Club minute book, the club began looking for a new ‘home’ in January 1905.  The Bulletin announced Atlas’ departure and focused on the lack of “outdoor training quarters” since the “Association did not cover this phase of athletics.”  See “Jewish Athletic Club,” Y Bulletin, May 1907. Lang’s name was listed as a member of the AAU Committee, “Basket Ball Leaders Purifying the Game,” New York Times, December 15, 1906.

[4] Additional funding in the late 1900s permitted the hiring of an “athletic coach,” though one official complained that, “too much stress was being placed on athletic work.”  See Minutes of Class Committee, March 19, 1910, Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.  Young adult males had an additional outlet in the late 1900s.  In 1906, the City Athletic Club was formed to “promote athletics and sociability.”  Though the vast majority of its members and leaders were Jewish, it was not considered an exclusively Jewish club.  On the City AC, see Riess, “Sports and the American Jew,” 10; “The City Athletic Club,” American Hebrew, November 20, 1908.

[5] For Mitchell’s speech, see “Jewish Athletic Club, Y Bulletin, May 1907. Lang remained a life-long YMHA member, which is likely why the Atlas records are located at the 92^nd Street Y Archives.   In the letter to the Board of Directors, Lang referred to the lack of a Jewish athletic tradition, but did not discuss the Jewish body.  He thus legitimized one aspect of the stereotype (non-athleticism), but would have likely argued against the other (physical weakness).

[6] On the APEA and physical educators, see Park, “Healthy, Moral, and Strong,” 148-154. See Mrozek, Sport and American Mentality, 36-41. On the football player as athletic ideal, see Oriard, Reading Football, 189-273 passim.  On Jewish discomfort with aspects of physical or athletic aggressiveness, see Eisen, “Jewish History and the Ideology of Modern Sport,” 512-514, 520-521.  Some physical educators like Luther Gulick worked closely with Progressive reformers while others had little interest or contact with reform efforts.  Debates over competitive sport generally revolved around the need for good management as a bulwark against it succumbing to unhealthy competitive or commercial pressures.  The APEA studied muscular activity, symmetry; anthropometry, and other ‘sciences.’  As a member of the APEA, YMHA physical education director George Schoening would have been keenly aware of the studies, debates, lectures, and symposiums occurring throughout the country.  Schoening first appeared in the membership role of the APEA in 1903, the year after becoming the YMHA physical education director.