In the interest of the development of skydiving as a major sport at the Summer School, the Summer News is pleased to reprint the following article, published earlier this year in the Harvard Crimson Review. James R. Ullyot is a former sports editor for the Crimson.)

For me, and, I think, for most beginners, sport parachuting isn't actually a sport.

It's a mad test of courage during which you often find yourself considering, "What am I doing?" But tremendous curiosity wins out over tremendous fear, and the result is an adventure so intense that you become, for a while afterward either romantic or philosophical. As for the curiosity, just ask someone who hasn't jumped, "Skydiving must be a real thrill, don't you think?" Then ask him, "Would you like to try it this weekend?" And so you see the fear. For before he answers, he'll think of violent death--as do most people when they're asked to go parachuting, when they imagine themselves-not others-falling through space from out of a plane.

That's the beginning of the experience, when you imagine the anger, and make the decision. It isn't easy. Most people say no; some say yes. Others respond as I did: "No, I don't think so... Where do you do it?...What's it like?...is it really safe?...When are you going?"

Thus, if you do as I did, you enter one of the most difficult parts of the parachuting experience, the period of mental preparation. It's frustrating because reason fights with emotion. You are convinced of the safety, but you can't avoid the fears.

This period of soul-searching may be difficult, but it is essential to the experience. As one parachuting enthusiast from the Harvard community points out. "The adventure is especially unique because it is 'internalized."

"This is a most intellectual sport," he asserts in a vivid description of the internal conflict that he experienced during his first jump. "On the one hand is the fact of its safety: you grasp this easily and firmly with the mind. But on the other hand is the emotion of fear. It is so strong that you might want to call it an instinct. It is not, of course. This fear is very useful, and you have learned it from your earliest days of falling out of your high-chair.

"This fear in us is deep and indispensable--indispensable when we are climbing mountains or looking out windows, and so deep that we react to its promptings instantaneously and without thought.

"The problem and excitement of jumping is to follow mind rather than emotion. Will reason win, or ancient fear? This is the beauty of the sport: it strips off everything incidental and lays bare this one great question."

And when reason wins out, you go through the Moment of Truth. For four frightening seconds, you lose every last bit of control over yourself. And, as you speed toward the earth, you stop introspecting.

As my more imaginative friend describes it, "Some famous wit--was it Dr. Johnson?--said of a sentence of hanging that 'it concentrates the mind wonderfully'. So also jumping--in particular that delirious moment of exit--concentrates consciousness in a blindingly bright, diamond hard point. Mind has triumphed; this is the moment of pure reason.

"All the other concerns of daily life--your job, your sweetheart, your bank-account, your social standing--fall away and are 'put in their place'. I can guarantee this: if you have any troubles--and I mean any troubles--you will totally forget them, at least for four seconds."

You won't think of your troubles when the canopy opens, wither. I can guarantee that. You'll be too overjoyed, as I was when I heard the soft "pop" and felt the firm tug of the chute.

A feeling of glorious relief overtakes you, and then you relax. You are alone in the sky, and all is quiet.

You look up, and you feel like shouting. And then you look down. You kick your feet. You steer the chute, and head toward the target, but you don't really care about hitting the spot. Not on your first jump, anyway.