Abstract
It has been the belief of many people, including coaches, that participation in athletics develops the skeletal muscles and stimulates growth of young boys. It has been widely accepted that the muscles that were used in athletics would grow larger and stronger than they would have had they not been used in athletics. As a result the athlete would be better able to cope with the stresses and strains that ordinary living places upon the individual. There has even been some lamenting the fact that youth has been growing "soft" because of insufficient amounts of "rugged" athletics. It was also generally held that some forms of athletics stimulated muscle and body growth to a greater degree than other forms. It was the purpose of this study to gather some concrete evidence as to whether or not these rather common beliefs were true. The plan was to measure boys who engaged in two forms of high school athletics and compare these measurements with those of boys who did not participate in athletics.