The University Tournament

Since the University Tournament sytsem began in 1902 it has expanded so greatly that the time has come for a reappraisal of the functions of the two tournaments now in existence. It can truly be said that there is no activity controlled by the New Zealand University Students' Association which so directly affects the average student as the Easter and Winter Tournaments. But what began purely and simply as a festival for sports actively participated in by students from all Colleges has now developed into a grand get-together for all and as many students who can get to the tournament centre. Such sports as Drama, Debating and Oratory have become appended to the Tournament programme, and Law students are at present agitating to have their moots accepted as a further sport. Nor is this the end of the problem. Not only Law students, but also yachtsmen, women's rowers and women's golfers are after full Tournament status. Who knows but that next year there may be weightlifters, cyclists, women's wrestlers and darters clamouring at the door. These points must add weight to my argument that we have to reconsider the present set-up.

As stated above, I believe that the Tournaments were originally devised to allow for the participation in inter-university competition of men and women who played sports that were actively supported in all the major colleges. It has been argued that the proper function of a Tournament is merely to allow as many students as possible to meet and take part, and, therefore, as a corollary of this, new sports should be allowed into the programme to encourage those people keen enough to interest themselves in widening the sporting facilities available to students. Worthwhile as this may be, surely the proper place for such encouragement is at the local college level. When it has been shown that the sport is receiving some reasonable measure of support from all the colleges, then, and then only, should the sport be allowed into Tournament. Further, even forgetting the principle involved, which I consider to be a strong enough argument by itself, there are the practical problems involved which have to be faced by every host college. Foremost of these is that of billeting. We can presume that in the past, because of the pressure on them, successive Billetting Controllers have made exhaustive enquiries into every possible source of billets, and therefore proposals to search for further sources appear over-hopeful and rather useless. The problem to be faced at the present time is not one of extending Tournaments, but of restricting them. It must be page 46 realised that sooner or later sports at present in the maturing stage will become strong enough to demand full Tournament status. When that happens they will have to be admitted, so let us now look for ways in which we can prepare for the future.

One positive proposal to clear the way for the entry of new sports is to discard those cultural activities which do not rightly belong in a University sporting festival. This year V.U.C. put before the New Zealand University Students' Association a proposal to investigate the possibility of holding a separate Arts Festival. This festival could be built around the nucleus of Drama, Debating, Oratory and possibly Law Moots, and it could be developed by allowing for the inclusion of other cultural activities"—literary, musical, etc. Such a festival, held annually (possibly in the May vacation) at a different college from those who are to be Tournament hosts for the year, would furthermore allow the Drama Clubs to stage more ambitious productions than has been possible with a necessarily limited Tournament cast, and thus answer a long-felt grievance of the drama followers in our universities.

Once this festival has been established on a firm footing it would then be possible to consider with a more kindly eye the entry of new sports into the Tournaments. While the practical difficulties of staging a separate festival may appear insurmountable, it is believed that the experienced organisation now existing in every college to deal with the present Tournaments is fully capable of dealing with the extra work involved if this idea was put into practice. The time for the consideration of such a proposal as this is now"—we cannot afford to let the present problems increase until one college finally finds itself unable to cope with the ever-growing burden that comes from being the host college to the University Tournament.