It was a rainy day outside and the boys in Coach Collins' 1937 freshman gym class were sick and tired of calisthenics. He decided that it was time for one of his Health and Hygeine lectures.

He had heard some of the boys grumbling about being required to wear athletic supporters, so, he decided that it was time to explain why.

"I assume that, by now, all of you know the 'facts of life', that you've heard all about the birds and the bees and you know where babies come from. You know what your testicles are for and you've probably learned from experience that they're almost incredibly sensitive to pain.

Situated where they are, they are perilously vulnerable and the natural mechanisms which are supposed to protect them from injury don't work very well.

For thousands of years, men have recognised these facts and have worn tight-fitting loincloths to support their testicles. Until recntly, the American Indians wore them. There are wall paintings in the Palace of Minos on the island of Crete which show ancient Cretan athletes over 3,000 years ago, wearing loincloths which look amazingly like modern athletic supporters.

There are passages in the Bible and other ancient writings which say of men about to go into battle 'They girded up their loins.' which means that they put on their loincloths, or, as we'd say, they put on their athletic supporters. Evidently, they had some good reason to do so.

So, let's consider a few points about male anatomy which explain why support is needed. The testicles hang in a sac of skin called the scrotum

which is supposed to support them and does a poor job of it. It works well in 4-legged animals, so, perhaps the reason it works poorly in humans has something to do with our upright posture.

There are muscle fibers in the scrotum which pull it up and let it down. They are not strong enough to support the weight of large testicles. The testicles are more effectively supported by a sheath of muscle fibers enclosing each testicle and the spermatic cord which connects the testicles to the interior of the body. This is called the cremasteric muscle.

But, what on Earth are the testicles doing out there in the first place ? Why aren't they inside the body with the rest of the organs, where they'd be safe ? Testicles can function properly only in a narrow range of temperatures. 98.6º., blood heat, is too hot and temperatures in the 30's are too cold.

The testicles are inside the body before birth and descend into the scrotum at birth. If they fail to do so before age 18, they will not produce sperm., The man will be sterile; he can never have children.

If the testicles get too cold, the cremasteric muscles pull them up closer to the body for warmth. If they are hot, the cremasteric muscles relax, lowering them away from the body's heat.

The cremasteric muscles have another function which often does more harm than good. If the testicles are hurt slightly or threatened, the cremasteric muscles contract to pull them up out of harm's way.

The spermatic cords pass into the body through muscular rings called the inguinal rings, whose actual function is to hold in the intestines and prevent them from falling down into the scrotum.

The cremasteric muscles tend to over-react to pain in the testicles or even the threat of injury to them, They go into a spasm and slam the testicles against the inguinal rings, bruising them and causing intense pain. Worse yet, they can pull the testicles into the rings which can crush them or force them up into the abdomen.

Usually this injures them enough to cause swelling which prevents them from passing through the inguinal rings again back down into the scrotum where they belong. Yet, they must not stay in the abdomen because it's too hot for them in there.

There are several ways of bringing them back down. They can be seen as lumps in the groins like small hernias. Pressing downward on them is supposed to force them through the inguinal rings and back down into the scrotum. Maybe, if they aren't swollen, this might work, but my experience with it is that it causes intense pain and doesn't work.

What does sometimes work is to seat the young man on the floor, or a hard surface outside, lift him by the shoulders, and drop him on his behind. This sometimes jolts the testicles through the rings and down into the scrotum. If it doesn't work by the third try, it isn't going to, and surgery is the only answer.

By giving the cremasteric muscles little room to contract, a supporter helps to prevent them from going into a spasm. Sometimes, if the testicles don't pass through the inguinal rings, the cremasteric muscles, unable to pull the testicles up, will pull the abdominal wall down, tearing it and causing a hernia. This is not a common cause of inguinal hernias, but it is the only one which wearing an athletic supporter can prevent.

Another accident which can happen is torsion of the spermatic cord.

Torsion means twisting. How this happens is not well understood. Somehow, the cord gets twisted, pinching the artery and shutting off the blood flow to one testicle. The pain is unbearable and the victim may collapse and go into shock, which, if untreated, can be fatal. Torsion is a medical emergency which requires immediate hospitalization.

It has been observed to occur in activities involving twisting of the upper body, such as golf, tennis, and wrestling, and in some dances. An athletic supporter helps to prevent it.

HOWEVER, there is one thing from which a supporter will NOT protect you at all, and may even increase the risk, and that is IMPACT.

For protection from impact, you need something more substantial than cloth and elastic. You need a protective cup. [Holds up protective cup.]

Protective cups are made of steel, sheet aluminum, or bakelite. Steel cups are best and most expensive. They cost about $1.50 versus about 60¢

for aluminum or bakelite. Aluminum cups can collapse under a really hard impact. Bakelite cups tend to shatter. Both give you a false sense of security and can actually worsen the damage done by impact.

Skimping on quality in your protective cup is not merely false economy, it can be deadly dangerous. Impact injuries to the testicles can be a matter of life and death. I'm not exaggerating and I'm not over-dramatizing.

I told you that your testicles are more than just baby-makers. Right now, your bodies are changing from boys' bodies to men's bodies. Some of you have hairy legs. Some of you have probably already started shaving. Most of your voices are changing. All of these changes are caused by your testicles.

If, heaven forbid, you should lose them, your bodies would stop changing and never develop into men's bodies. But, the testicles are also needed to maintain a masculine body.

If a man loses his testicles, he will lose half of his strength. His muscles would soften and become sheathed in fat. His beard would stop growing. All of the hair on his body, except for the top of his head, would fall out. He would become grossly fat and, one of the worst changes from a man's viewpoint, feminine breasts would grow on his now hairless chest.

Of course, he could never have any children and could never lead a normal life. It isn't clothes that make the man; it's testicles that make the man.

Losing half of your strength is not a trivial matter. Suppose an athlete can curl and press 180 pounds., Then he loses his testicles in an accident. Afterward, he can curl and press only 90 pounds. A eunuch, a man who has lost his testicles, is about as strong as a woman.

You all know that being struck in the testicles causes intense pain. The harder the blow, the worse the pain. That is pain that can KILL. The pain that is caused by injury to the testicles is accompanied by life-threatening shock, known as neurogenic shock. Strong men have dropped dead from it.

As you can see, I have set up a lantern-slide projector and a screen. I have some slides of men and youths who were not wearing protective cups and experienced serious injuries to their testicles. Some of these pictures I took myself; others were sent to me by friends.

The first two slides were taken of a high-school baseball gameby a professional photographer using a Big Bertha camera with a 28" lens from a tower above the fence behind the shortstop at Ranger Field, so he is looking downward toward the batter and the pitcher from behind the shortstop.

The pitcher had just thrown a beanball that narrowly missed the batter's right temple and could have killed him. The batter returned the next pitch as a line drive through the pitcher's box. I doubt that any batter could aim a hit in a particular direction that closely. Either the pitcher got distracted or he didn't react fast enough. This is what happened.

Ss you can see, the ball, probably travelling at about 150 m.p.h., hit the pitcher squarely in the privates. I did a lot of soul-searching and worrying about whether I should show the next slide . I decided to give

you fair warning about what you would see, and let you decide if you wanted to close your eyes.

It is shocking, ghastly, gruesome, and heart-rending. Here it is, [The slide showed the pitcher lying on his right side with his eyes open, rolled back, showing only the whites, obviously dead. Mr. Collins did not linger on it but quickly switched to a black slide which he had loaded into the other carrier. There were cries of horror and dismay and screams from the boys. ]

Yes, he was dead. Only seventeen years old, at the beginning of his life. The best that can be said is that he didn't suffer. Death was instantaneous. No one knows why he wasn't wearing a cup which would have saved his life. Don't let this happen to you.

There are no more death scenes among these slides. The next slide shows a promising young Middleweight boxer, Billy Papa, who never got to be a papa. As you can see he is receiving a low blow which was hard enough to lift his feet off the canvas.

Boxers are supposed to wear foul protectors, extra heavy duty leather-and-steel cup supporters. Billy wasn't wearing one. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

This next slide is a vacation shapshot taken in 1935, at the beach, of

Matt Clevenger, a quarterback on our football team. He was a very masculine 16-year-old with hairy legs and hair on his chest.

One of the spectators took this photo of Matt blocking a kick by flying at the kicker with his body horizontal . He certainly blocked the kick. You can see the ball on the ground. The kicker was so rattled that he missed it entirely. But he couldn't stop his kick in time to keep it from catching Matt in the groin. Matt survived the kick, but his testicles didn't .

The last slide is another vacation snapshot of Matt in the summer of 1936. In the first snapshot in 1935, Matt was six feet tall and weighed 175 pounds. In this photo, he weighed 275 pounds, most of it fat. He was so weak that he could hardly drag his great weight around. As you can see, most of the weight is on his hips and thighs, giving him a figure like a woman, to go with the obvious breasts on his chest.

His life is ruined. He can never marry or have children. He can't do anything strenuous, and he looks like a woman. He is miserable and told me that he wishes that he had died.

So, why didn't he wear his protective cup as all players in body-contact sports are required to ? He just forgot to slip it into the pocket in his supporter. A moment's absent-mindedness ruined his life . This could happen to YOU. Don't let it.

OK, I've given you enough to think about. Class dismissed."