League Island eleven, captained by Eddie Mahan, the former Harvard
all-round player; and the Great Lakes team, largely composed of
representative Western gridiron stars, played a series of games on the
fields of the East and the Middle West, which lifted, temporarily, the
curtain which seemed to have fallen on the college football heroes when
they passed into naval service, and allowed the sport-loving public of
America to again see them in athletic action.

During the winter the value of the athletic department of the Commission
on Training-Camp Activities to the Navy became clearer as the indoor
programmes, which were organized by Commissioner Camp and his
lieutenants, the athletic directors, were carried out. Boxing,
wrestling, swimming, hockey, basket-ball, and other athletic instructors
were appointed to develop every kind of indoor sport until there were no
nights when, in the large auditoriums of the navy stations, some
programme of winter sport was not being given for the entertainment of
the thousands of young men in camp. Mass sports were favored, the
general rule being laid down that the chief value of every game lay in
accordance with its ability to attract a larger or a smaller number of
participants or spectators.

Among the sports which were tried, boxing proved its value as the chief.
Attracting crowds limited only by the size of the auditoriums, the
boxing-bouts which were held, usually semi-weekly in all the stations,
were a most diverting feature of winter life in camp. One reason for
their popularity can be directly traced to their enforced use in the
physical training of the stations. Lending themselves ideally to mass
instruction, the boxing exercises were taught to classes usually
numbering between 150 and 200 persons, and the fact that every marine
studied boxing contributed to the size and the interest of the crowds