Irving thought he was.

The sports went on; not many of the runs were as exciting as that with
which the afternoon had opened. Irving passed back and forth across the
field, helped measure distances for the handicaps, and tried to be
useful. His interest had certainly been awakened. Twice in college he
had sat on the “bleachers” and viewed indifferently the track contests
between Yale and Harvard; he had had a patriotic desire to see his own
college win, but he had been indifferent to the performance of the
individuals. They had not been individuals to him—merely strange figures
performing in an arena. But here, where he knew the boys and walked
about among them, and saw the different manifestations of nervousness
and excitement, and watched the muscles in their slim legs and arms, he
became himself eager and sympathetic. He stood by when Scarborough went
on putting the shot after beating all the other competitors—went on
putting it in an attempt to break the School record. Unconsciously
Irving pressed forward to see him as he prepared for the third and last
try; unconsciously he stood with lips parted and eyes shining,
fascinated by the huge muscles that rose in Scarborough’s brown arm as
he poised the weight at his shoulder and heaved it tentatively. And when
it was announced that the effort had fallen short by only a few inches,
Irving’s sigh of disappointment went up with that of the boys.

At intervals the races were run off—the two-twenty, the quarter-mile,
the half-mile, the high hurdles, the low hurdles. Irving started them
all without any mishap. The last one, the low hurdles for two hundred
and twenty yards, was exciting; the runners were all well matched and
the handicaps were small. And so, after firing the revolver, Irving
started and ran across the field as hard as he could, to be at the
finish; he arrived in time, and stood, still holding the revolver in his