{"id":1312,"date":"2016-08-13T01:27:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-13T01:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/?p=1312"},"modified":"2016-09-08T12:22:35","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T12:22:35","slug":"youth-football-lineage-and-debate-pre-1900-news-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/?p=1312","title":{"rendered":"Youth Football Lineage and Debate: Pre-1900 News Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opposition to schoolboy\u00a0football rears in the 1890s, Victorian Era America, as\u00a0the college\u00a0game\u00a0faces abolition threat<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Matt Chaney<\/p>\n

Posted Saturday, August 13, 2016, ChaneysBlog.com<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a92016 for historical arrangement by Matthew L. Chaney<\/p>\n

1862\u00a0 Nov 13<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cCamp Lyon [Va., Union Army,] presents quite a winter-like aspect this morning, and the season is being speedily introduced by a severe snow storm. It looks gloomily enough about the camp, and every body is glad to keep indoors, and hug the stove as lovingly as he would a fair friend at home. Nothing of very great importance has transpired in the regiment since I wrote you last\u2026 on Saturday afternoon we have\u00a0 game of amusement for exercise in the stead of a battalion drill, in the shape of a foot ball match [English soccer], which is considered a very favorable substitute. To be sure, barked shins are quite numerous, but notwithstanding, all seem to join in the fun and enjoy it amazingly\u201d\u2014\u201cCHAS.<\/strong>,\u201d infantryman correspondent, Pittsfield Berkshire County Eagle<\/em> MA<\/p>\n

1872\u00a0 Oct 20<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cWith the same blood running in his veins, the healthy American ought to be the peer of the athletic Englishman. \u2026 Surely Young America will not quietly sit down and excuse itself for its shortcomings to the athletic world on the ground that our climate is deteriorating to the Anglo-Saxon race as physical beings! \u2026 The finest thing for the young men of this country would be the establishment of thousands of athletic clubs before next Summer. Till we have them we must be content to be\u2026 physically inferior race to our cousins on the other side of the water\u201d\u2014New York Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

1873\u00a0 July 3<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cFOOT-BALL, according to the newspapers, is becoming a popular game all over the country. Boston girls claim to be the most skillful.\u201d\u2014Pulaski Citizen<\/strong> TN<\/p>\n

1876 \u00a0autumn<\/strong> \u00a0Incoming college freshmen Walter Camp<\/a> and Theodore Roosevelt arrive at Yale and Harvard, respectively, destined to become key\u00a0opinion leaders on tackle football for boys and men in America. Camp plays football for Yale, but young Roosevelt avoids the rough game<\/a> to become fervent fan instead, donning\u00a0a Harvard\u00a0jersey<\/a> he secures from a varsity player<\/p>\n

1876\u00a0 Nov 22<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cPrinceton College in a circular to Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, asks them to send delegates to Springfield, on the 22d, to form an International Foot-ball Association\u201d\u2014newspapers report<\/strong><\/p>\n

1878\u00a0 Oct 14<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cAt Lake City a son of Dr. Adams, aged 10 years, had one of his legs broken above the knee by the accidental kick of a boy, while playing foot-ball\u201d\u2014Saint Paul Globe<\/strong> MN<\/p>\n

1880\u00a0 March 20<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThey are playing football down at Medicine Lodge. The Cresset says: \u2018Legal fraternity, physicians, druggists, merchants and cowboys may be seen at almost any time swinging their lily white hoofs in frantic attempts to kick the seductive football\u2019\u201d\u2014Kinsley Valley Republican<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1882<\/strong>\u00a0 Athlete-managed \u201cfootball associations\u201d at four eastern universities\u2014Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Columbia\u2014establish the Intercollegiate Football Association [IFA]. The evolving tackle sport is now based on English rugby, but American rules set a line of scrimmage between opposing teams, ball possession for one side at a time, and loss of possession for failure to advance five yards in three downs. Consequently, linemen and backs form \u201cinterference\u201d or blocking schemes to lead ball-carriers, disallowed in rugby, and ramming becomes prevalent in American football<\/a>. Injurious collisions are reported routinely by newspapers, especially of the \u201crush line”<\/p>\n

1882\u00a0 Nov 12<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cA fine game of foot-ball was played Saturday afternoon between the [Washington] High School and Columbia College teams, which resulted in a tie, each securing one goal. The goals were kicked by English for the High School, and Davidson of the Columbias. A High School player had his knee sprained by being jumped into by one of the Columbias\u201d\u2014Washington Sunday Herald<\/strong> DC<\/p>\n

1883\u00a0 Nov 15<\/strong>\u00a0 Schools should offer physical training and athletics, a doctor recommends at convention for the American Public Health Association convention. \u201cExercise is necessary to health. [Dr. Charles Lundy] spoke of the debilitated appearance of school children, and remarked that if we wished to preserve the highest type of manhood and womanhood in this country, we must devote more time to exercise and less to book knowledge. He favored the appointment of a physical trainer\u2026 Throughout the schooling period, physical sports and games, such as running, jumping, hare-and-hounds, base ball, foot ball, cricket, lawn tennis, lacrosse and boating, under proper guidance and restrictions, are admirable, and should be encouraged\u201d\u2014Detroit Free Press<\/strong><\/p>\n

1883\u00a0 Nov 23<\/strong>\u00a0 IFA rules ban \u201cbutting,\u201d officially defined as striking a man with the shoulder or head<\/em><\/a>, along with \u201chacking, throttling, tripping up, tackling below the hips or striking with closed fists\u201d\u2014New York Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1883\u00a0 Nov 24<\/strong>\u00a0 Anti-butting policy helps \u201csafeguard\u201d American football, the forward-colliding sport \u201cestablished as firmly as baseball at many colleges\u201d\u2014New York Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

1884\u00a0 Oct 7<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cDr. Dudley A. Sargent, director of the gymnasium at Harvard, says that greater attention than ever will be given to athletics at the college the coming year. The report that the faculty will forbid football, he says, is without foundation. \u2018The fact is,\u2019 he says, \u2018the members of the faculty are just as much interested in Harvard’s success in athletics as the students are themselves\u2026 the Harvard faculty simply tried to take some action that would make the football association change their objectionable rules. The rules for 1884, just issued, disqualify a player for a single foul, and the result is accomplished.\u2019 Dr. Sargent says that the physical examinations of college athletes will be much more thorough and strict this year. He says: \u2018Last year there were men in the crew, in the base ball nine, and in the football team, who had no business there. They didn’t keep the rules of training, and were not manly enough to let the people know about it until it was too late. I shall see that nothing of that sort happens again. Heretofore I have examined the athletes two or three months before the various contests came off. Hereafter I shall examine them at short intervals up to the day of the games and races. If they are not in good condition they cannot take part in the contests’ “\u2014Wilmington Morning News<\/strong> DE<\/p>\n

1884\u00a0 Nov 26<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cW.B. Phillips, one of the most popular Harvard students and leader in college athletics, is lying at the point of death from injuries received in playing football. The committee on athletics have announced their intention to ask the faculty to prohibit football after this season\u201d\u2014newspapers report<\/strong><\/p>\n

1885\u00a0 March 6<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cAn interesting game of foot ball was played yesterday between fifteen boys of the Macon school, and fifteen of the graded school. The score made was 4 for Macon school and 3 for the graded school. The game lasted three hours\u201d\u2014Charlotte Observer<\/strong><\/p>\n

1885\u00a0 Nov 2<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cYesterday afternoon on the Lehigh University Athletic grounds the Lehigh and Lafayette elevens played a match game of football. Lehigh forced the ball near the Lafayette goal and by good playing kept it there for forty minutes, when Pierce, Lehigh’s centre, [butted] into Davidson, Lafayette’s half back. Referee W.C. Posey, of the University of Pennsylvania, ordered Pierce off the field. Lehigh claimed that this was an unjust decision, as the collision of Pierce and Davidson was purely accidental. The Lehigh faculty ordered the men off the field, whereupon the referee, as compelled by the rules, gave the game to Lafayette\u201d\u2014Wilkes-Barre Times<\/strong> PA<\/p>\n

1885\u00a0 Nov 15<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cBut few of the objectionable characteristics of modern college foot ball have as yet been eliminated from the game. … The fact is, the American college game of foot ball is not foot ball [soccer] at all, but simply a game in which a foot ball is used as the medium for a series of wrestling encounters in which mere weight of muscle turns the scale in awarding victory or defeat, and skillful strategic play finds but a limited field for exercise. As to the danger of the sport the recent death of a Yale student in New York, which was caused by an injury sustained in a foot ball match last week, is but one incident in the chapter of accidents arising from the dangerous roughness of the game as played under the existing rules of allowing the ball to be handled\u201d\u2014Brooklyn Daily Eagle<\/strong><\/p>\n

1886\u00a0 Oct 11<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Yale men are hardening themselves by butting their heads against trees and fences, while Harvard’s forces prefer dropping iron anvils upon their toes. Altogether the football outlook is most promising and the ambulance driver will soon have lots of work\u201d\u2014New York Morning Journal<\/strong><\/p>\n

1886\u00a0 Nov 25<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cA chilling rain fell during the afternoon, but the people, armed with umbrellas and horse blankets, never minded the [Thanksgiving] elements. Hodge [of Princeton] and Wallace [of Yale] indulged in a slugging match in which blows were exchanged, and even butting with the heads was resorted to\u201d\u2014New York Sun<\/strong><\/p>\n

1886\u00a0 Dec 5<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cTown of Princeton, the center of what is supposed to be college refinement and the best educational influences of New Jersey, was the scene of the display of low, vulgar brutality and rowdyism which marked the occasion of the match between the fighting and wrestling teams of Yale and Princeton. … This is nice kind of work for college students claiming to be gentlemen. It is simply vulgar wrestling encounters, with slugging thrown in. The sooner the college clubs drop their game and substitute regular foot ball under the English Association [soccer] rules the better. Such a scene as that at Princeton on Thanksgiving is a disgrace to both Yale and Princeton\u201d\u2014Brooklyn Daily Eagle<\/strong><\/p>\n

1887\u00a0 March 27<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Inter-Collegiate Foot-ball Association met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel to-day [in Manhattan]\u2026 A general opinion was expressed that some means would be adopted to stop the extreme roughness of the game as played on some fields, but the only thing done in this direction was to pass a resolution expressing the sense of the convention that referees should more strictly enforce the rules in future than in the past and pledging the captains of the teams to use their strongest personal influence to prevent their men holding in the rush line, slugging and all other objectionable features of the game. The convention will meet again in May\u201d\u2014Philadelphia Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

1887\u00a0 Oct 10<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cOutbursts of temper in play cannot be guarded against, for slight \u2018spats\u2019 often occur in practice games. In a regular game there are twenty-two players nearly all of whom are at work all the time, and on the rush lines where fourteen big fellows are constantly blocking each other’s movements, it is not to be wondered at that hot-headed men in their great anxiety to do all within their power to win the game, occasionally lose their heads and try to \u2018put a head\u2019 on the fellows opposite. The [newly sanctioned] second referee has long been needed and will undoubtedly improve the game\u201d\u2014New York Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1887\u00a0 Oct 10<\/strong>\u00a0 Despite anti-butting and further rules, football\u2019s necessary collisions include head-ramming reported in virtually every newspaper\u2019s play-by-play accounts. IFA leaders, pressured by faculty and advisory committees, convene to address \u201cbrutal playing that has unfortunately marred the sport in the last five or six years\u201d and promise \u201cpracticable and sensible measures\u201d\u2014newspapers report<\/strong><\/p>\n

1887\u00a0 Nov 20<\/strong>\u00a0 “Yale beat Princeton to-day at foot ball on the Polo grounds by 12 points to 0\u2026 As it was, over 5,000 persons were present, and the foot ball enthusiasts and experts were unanimous, and justly so, in the opinion that the game on the whole was the sharpest, best-tempered, and most reputably played between the two colleges since the present championship series began. The Yale team work was a model of snap and vigor. The rush line stood up like a stone wall, and the Princeton players tired themselves out butting blindly against it\u201d\u2014Chicago Inter Ocean<\/strong><\/p>\n

1887\u00a0 Nov 25<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cA large crowd went to the [New York City] Polo grounds this morning to witness the foot ball match between the University of Pennsylvania and Wesleyan college teams. These colleges were tied for last place in the college tournament. It was a very rough game, and slugging was freely indulged in. In some cases actual knock-downs occurred. Referee Walter Camp, of Yale, and Umpire Richard Hodge, of Princeton, tried in vain to keep the game within proper limits\u201d\u2014newspapers report<\/strong><\/p>\n

1887\u00a0 Nov 26<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Emerson Institute team defeated the second eleven of the [Washington] High School yesterday by a score of 8 to 0\u201d\u2014Washington Evening Star<\/strong> DC<\/p>\n

1888\u00a0 spring<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cInterference\u201d or blocking is finally sanctioned under IFA rules, along with \u201clow tackling\u201d above the knees. Tacklers now duck legally for thighs of a ball-carrier, aiming to strike \u201ceyes open\u201d with head up and held aside<\/a>\u2014per coaches\u2019 specific instruction\u2014and absorb impact with shoulder and chest. Football coaches discuss new head-up theory in newspaper accounts complete with artist illustrations of \u201cproper\u201d tackling. Some coaches, widely known as \u201cfootball experts,\u201d write for the popular press of newspapers and magazines<\/p>\n

1888\u00a0 circa<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe history of college football in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is a chronicle of rules constantly evolving in large part to outlaw tactics the old rules had inadvertently permitted\u201d\u2014Michael Oriard, Oregon State University, author and former NFL player<\/a>, in his Reading Football: How The Popular Press Created an American Spectacle<\/em> [1994]<\/p>\n

1888\u00a0 April 25<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Bush murder trial is nearing its end. The prisoner sat behind his attorneys quiet, pale, and holding his hands to his face. \u2026 Dr. S.V. Clevenger said that he had given the prisoner much thought since the trial began, and had come to the conclusion that he was suffering from traumatic insanity\u2014produced by wounds. The doctor also believed that the prisoner had inherited his affliction. Traumatic insanity also disclosed itself in suicidal and homicidal tendencies. \u2026 He concluded by saying that in his opinion the prisoner was not responsible for the murder of his wife\u201d\u2014Chicago Daily Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1888\u00a0 Nov 18<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cOne of the prettiest foot ball games ever played in this vicinity was that at Princeton today between that college and Harvard, which the Jersey men won by a score of 18 to 6. \u2026 \u00a0Harvard was surprised to find that her rush line, strong as it was, could not make an impression upon Princeton’s line of giants. … The powerful Tigers sprang at Harvard’s rush line, and beat it out of shape. Cowan, Cook, Irvine, and George began to butt away at the Harvard rushers like human pile-drivers\u2026 Mr. Camp\u2019s work as referee was excellent\u201d\u2014newspapers report<\/strong><\/p>\n

1888 \u00a0Nov 30<\/strong>\u00a0 IFA referee, rule-maker and coach Walter Camp is ridiculed for lax penalty enforcement in the violent game between Penn and Wesleyan on Thanksgiving, when numerous players suffered head wounds and\/or brain trauma, among injuries: \u201cboth teams endeavored to find out which possessed the most force as battering rams, and they were ramming away most cheerfully when time was called, at 4:45, just as it was growing too dark to see\u201d\u2014New York Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

1888 \u00a0Nov 30<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cUnfortunately there was considerable unfair playing and \u2018slugging\u2019 [between Penn and Wesleyan]. It is hard to say which side began it. Only one man was disqualified when there should have been half a dozen\u201d\u2014New York Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1888 \u00a0Dec 1<\/strong>\u00a0 Referee Camp, of Yale, under fire for the Penn-Wesleyan game, blames players for failing to \u201ctackle properly\u201d\u2026 \u201cThe tackling, as Walter Camp says, was generally disadvantageous to the runner and often \u2018laid him up\u2019 \u201d\u2014newspapers report<\/strong><\/p>\n

1889 \u00a0March 11<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cIt was a current rumor that a bill would be introduced to prohibit football playing in North Carolina! Of all absurd things\u2026 It was said last night that [legislator] Mr. Walser proposed to introduce the bill, but had concluded not to do so. What a storm of ridicule that passage of such a bill, or its mere introduction, would have aroused\u201d\u2014Durham Tobacco Plant<\/strong> NC<\/p>\n

1889 \u00a0March 21<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Boston Globe publishes the following amendments to the rules governing intercollegiate foot-ball… Rule 27. A player will be disqualified for hacking, striking with closed fist, or unnecessary roughness. For intentional tackling below the knees, butting, tripping and throttling, the other side gets twenty-five yards or free kick\u201d\u2014newspapers report<\/strong><\/p>\n

1890 \u00a0September<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cOf all college sports foot-ball has proved most attractive to the spectators. It has suffered more rebuffs at the hands of the press than any other game, but these rebuffs were attributable to ignorance of the rules and customs, and as the sport became better known the adverse criticism decreased until it has now almost disappeared… No game has shown such a remarkable vitality in the face of all opposition. It has steadily increased the number of its supporters, and it has no deserters. Every convert becomes an eager advocate of its merits, and although it is only fifteen years old in America, nearly every school and college has a team.\u201d\u2014Walter Camp<\/strong>, the multi-entrepreneur as Yale football director, IFA rule-maker and field referee, football consultant and children\u2019s author, sportswriter and medical technician, in his Foot-Ball Rules and Referee\u2019s Book<\/em> annual published by A.G. Spalding & Bros. equipment company<\/p>\n

1890 \u00a0September<\/strong>\u00a0 Walter Camp omits the term \u201cbutting\u201d<\/a> from his football rulebook, as he has for editions since 1888, published by his business associates at A.G. Spalding & Bros. With various rule printings in circulation, confusion and lax enforcement will continue regarding field colliding, especially for striking with or at the head<\/p>\n

1890\u00a0 Nov 6<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cIs it not possible to play the game without the exercise of quite so much muscle? If not, it is time for some kind philanthropist to step to the front with a contrivance for the protection of the players. How would a tin suit do?\u201d\u2014Brooklyn Daily Eagle<\/strong><\/p>\n

1890\u00a0 Nov 16<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cHarvard has not yet learned to \u2018tackle low,\u2019 but it is a proverb at Princeton \u2018never to tackle a Yale man low\u2019 “\u2014New York Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1891 \u00a0Sept 24<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cA fifteen-year-old\u2026 in Talbot County, Ga., whose favorite sport was butting heads with other boys, has been sent to the lunatic asylum. It is thought his insanity was caused by the concussion of the brain received in his contests\u201d\u2014Salina Daily Republican<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1891 \u00a0Oct 13<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Cook County High-School League met at the Grand Pacific yesterday afternoon. It is composed of these schools: Evanston Township, Englewood High, Manual, Hyde Park High, and Lake View High\u201d\u2014Chicago Daily Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1891\u00a0 Nov 27<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cTen thousand shivering enthusiasts saw the Chicago university club eleven beat Cornell today [Thanksgiving], by 12 to 4. It was a great game, won by Chicago’s splendid work. Cornell was a strong team, but not so good individually. Her best player, Galbraith, was hit in the face by Alvord [of Chicago] and compelled to quit early in the last half, hopelessly weakening the rush line. Two Chicago men were ruled off for foul tackles, and altogether the team distinguished itself by disregard of the rules. Scarcely a member of the New York team escaped injury of some sort, and nearly every one of them closed the day with blood on his face\u201d\u2014Los Angeles Herald<\/strong><\/p>\n

1891 Nov 29<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cTo tackle a man by the head or neck is not in any way foul, and an umpire should always ask himself the question when a foul tackle of this nature is claimed, \u2018Did the tackler shut off the man’s wind?\u2019\u2014for a man who is being throttled cannot breathe\u201d\u2014Walter Camp<\/strong>, writing for newspapers<\/p>\n

1892 \u00a0March 6<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cCracked skulls, broken fingers, shattered teeth, dislocated ankles and bleeding noses were the only things in order at Central Park yesterday. The announcement that football teams of the Berkeley and Oakland High schools would play in the morning and the teams of the Berkeley Gymnasium and the San Francisco High School in the afternoon did not tend to draw much of a crowd. … The [Berkeley-Oakland High] game was very tame, the players showing that they knew very little of the rules governing the different points. They seemed to take special delight in butting into one another, and the player who could spill the most blood was considered the best player\u201d\u2014San Francisco Chronicle<\/strong><\/p>\n

1892\u00a0 Oct 30<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe star of the Pennsylvania team is one [Arthur] Knipe. A homely genius is Knipe. He is one of those stocky sons of toil with a foundation under him that would make the Chicago Post office a useful edifice. His head is his distinguishing member, however. It is inordinately large to start with and is covered with a growth of bushy hair\u2026 when he starts down the field and gives the wind a chance at it he is a sight once seen not soon to be forgotten. When he ducks that huge top piece of his and starts at the anatomy of the rush line he generally relieves the man he hits of whatever surplus wind he has in his lungs. Long hair is the fad here and that on the heads of the Pennsylvania team, if shorn, would fill a mattress\u2026 The ball would be handed [Knipe]\u00a0and that huge bunch of moss on the top of his head would go butting through the line for rapid gains. Finally, with the ball at the ten-yard line, he went through left tackle and end for a touchdown, and Thayer kicked goal\u201d\u2014Chicago Daily Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1892\u00a0 Nov 14<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cGarfield university’s eleven won a game of foot ball Saturday afternoon from Lewis academy by a score of 34 to 0. The game was closely contested at times but the superiority of the Garfield eleven is team work and weight was noticeable. The [prep] academy players complain bitterly of the treatment they received, declaring that foul plays characterized the university’s game and were overlooked [by] the too lenient referee and umpire. The boys say they got very much the worst of it in all the decisions. They claim to have suffered a great deal from foul tackles\u201d\u2014Wichita Beacon<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1892\u00a0 Dec 19<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cTen or fifteen thousand people went to the [Cal-Berkeley] football game on Saturday and appeared to enjoy it hugely. It was a new sensation, for there is rather more excitement in football than in baseball. \u2026 The team which can make the strongest rush generally wins, on the Napoleonic principle that fortune is on the side of the heaviest battalions. \u2026 For the idea of the modern football captain is to fling such a force upon the holder of the ball that he shall be knocked down, and probably knocked senseless, then to carry off the ball without meeting with the like experience from the opposite captain\u201d\u2014San Francisco Call<\/strong><\/p>\n

1893\u00a0 Jan 27<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cJohn. L. Herget, better known as ‘Young Mitchell,’ the famous San Francisco boxer, was a spectator in the [California] Senate yesterday. He is doing some quiet lobbying against the bill which proposes to prohibit glove contests and other sports that are liable to produce bodily injury. \u2026 The bill, he says, will prohibit football and other similar games, if it becomes law\u201d\u2014Sacramento Record-Union<\/strong> CA<\/p>\n

1893\u00a0 Oct 22<\/strong>\u00a0 During the coming week [Cal-Berkeley] Coach Heffelfinger will strive to remedy the great defect of the team at present\u2014high tackling. Work on the tackling-bag will be in order. This bag is a plush-covered arrangement, with soft interior, and is about the height of a man. Suspended by rope and pulley in the gymnasium it will be put into motion and the men be practices in diving at it on the fly as it were\u201d\u2014San Francisco Call<\/strong><\/p>\n

1893\u00a0 Nov 8<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cOne week from Saturday the Kansas State University and the University of Nebraska teams will butt heads at Lincoln\u201d\u2014Topeka Daily Capital<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1893 \u00a0Nov 27<\/strong>\u00a0 A Brooklyn football referee for schools and colleges writes that \u201cboys usually claim a foul tackle if a player is caught about the neck. No umpire in this section was ever known to give twenty-five yards penalty under the rule, which probably forbids only choking direct by grasping a player’s throat with the hand. An arm thrown around the neck from in front or one side produces no throttling [call] that should be forbidden. Who ever heard of a player being disqualified for \u2018unnecessary roughness?\u2019 The line between disabling a player and killing him is only a line in width, and has been too often passed. Here the fault lies with the umpires, not the rules\u201d\u2014New York Sun<\/strong><\/p>\n

1893 \u00a0Dec 1<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThere is a great deal of interest in army and navy circles [of Washington] over the coming football contest between the cadets of West Point and those of Annapolis tomorrow. Anxious mothers, sisters, sweethearts and some fathers have sent letters to both Secretary of War Lamont and Secretary of the Navy\u00a0 Herbert beseeching them to prevent the game\u201d\u2014Allentown Leader<\/strong> PA<\/p>\n

1893 \u00a0Dec 3<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe boys at the [St. Paul] Central high school are in mourning, and it is all on account of the attitude of Prof. J.N. Greer, the principal, who opposes football playing on the ground that it is attended with too much brutality. In speaking of the subject yesterday he said: \u2018I am thoroughly disgusted with football as it is at present played. The game resembles a prize fight in which there are eleven men on a side instead of two as in the genuine fight. It is every year growing worse, and the people of the city can rest assured that next year I will use every effort within my power to prevent the organization of a team among the Central high school boys, if the game continues to grow in roughness.\u2019 \u2026 It is probable that the subject will receive an airing before long at the hands of the board of education\u201d\u2014Saint Paul Globe<\/strong> MN<\/p>\n

1893 \u00a0Dec 3<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe [Pittsburgh] police authorities have declared against football playing under the present rules, and say tonight that in future no such degrading and brutal exhibitions as has been witnessed on the football field during the past season would be permitted in this city. They say further that they have information that the authorities in other cities will take similar action\u201d\u2014Chicago Inter Ocean<\/strong><\/p>\n

1893\u00a0 Dec 10<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cI think there should be two umpires instead of one\u2014one at each end of the line. This is from personal experience. With this addition of officials there would be no possible excuse for questionable work. Foul tackling is universally allowed at present. I have not seen a foul tackle given against a team this year\u201d\u2014W.D. Osgood<\/strong>, University of Pennsylvania player, in New York World<\/em><\/p>\n

1893 \u00a0Dec 19<\/strong> \u00a0\u201cFootball, as at present played, is at least fifteen years old, and it is only within the past three months that we have had all this fuss about the danger of the game. Doubtless boys have been hurt at it from the day it was first played, as they are liable to get hurt at almost any game in which they engage\u2014unless it be croquet, as we have suggested recently. … This question of football is a matter of family government rather than the public’s business. If the parents are willing for the son to play football and take chances, it is none of the public’s affair. After the player passes 21 years, it is nobody’s but his own\u201d\u2014Charlotte Observer<\/strong><\/p>\n

1894\u00a0 Jan 3<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cL.F. Deland of Boston, who is an expert counselor to businessmen, was the inventor of the \u2018flying wedge\u2019 in football, which has caused so much havoc among college teams. Mr. Deland never played a game of football in his life\u201d\u2014newspapers report<\/strong><\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0Jan 6<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe game of football at the city school Monday drew a big crowd. The game was quite interesting to those who understood it, but for the outsider he could size it up as a \u2018butting game\u2019 “\u2014San Bernardino Weekly Courier<\/strong> CA<\/p>\n

1894\u00a0 Jan 30<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe football reform movement at last begins to assume a tangible shape. \u2026 The University Athletic Club has decided at the request of Yale and Princeton, the remnants of the Intercollegiate Football Association, to shoulder the take of preparing the new rules, or rather taking steps to see that they are prepared. In order that this may be done the plan which has frequently been outlined will in all probability be adopted, and that is to appoint a committee of five football experts, who will gather in opinions and suggestions of other experts, and from these select the\u00a0best from which to draw up the new rules\u201d\u2014New York Evening World<\/strong><\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0February<\/strong> \u00a0U.S. President Grover Cleveland calls a White House summit on football, joined by his cabinet members to hear player injuries and more issues involving the teams at the Naval Academy and West Point. \u201c[Navy] Surgeon Harvey made the report, and it showed that twenty-seven [Annapolis] men playing football received thirty-seven injuries; while 198 men exercising in the riding hall received twenty-six injuries in the same period\u2014three months. The 101 men exercising in the gymnasium in the same period received ten injuries. The time lost by students on account of injuries was divided in this way: Through football, 106 days; through riding, seventy-one days; through gymnasium work, fifty-eight days. \u2026 Gen. John Schofield said football ‘requires some essential modifications. The required modification will be difficult to enforce,’ he continued, ‘for the reason that the objectionable features are those which contribute most to success in a contested game. They are those features which are most dangerous to life and limb, and may be said to most resemble military operations. They are more or less objectionable on that account. While it is undoubtedly true that experience in actual war is the best possible military training, modern civilization does not permit the making of war simply for the purpose of training an army’ \u201d\u2014Salt Lake Tribune<\/strong> [1897 Nov 28]<\/p>\n

1894\u00a0 Feb 2<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThere is some consternation among lacrosse and football players [in Canada] from the fact the insurance companies are disposed to refuse applicants who have been injured at any time in their athletic career by a blow on the head\u201d\u2014Manitoba Morning Free Press<\/strong><\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0Feb 21<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cProfessor [Woodrow] Wilson [of Princeton] made the familiar plea that [football] developed moral qualities\u2026 We think the defenders of the game as now played would do well to omit the ‘moral qualities’ argument. It is really a little too much”\u2014New York Evening Post<\/strong><\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0Feb 27<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201c[War and Navy] Secretaries Lamont and Herbert have decided that there shall be no contests at football between cadets of Annapolis and West Point. This action is taken because of a conviction that the inter-academic matches are a detriment to discipline and to the studies of the cadets\u201d\u2014Columbus Republic<\/strong> IN<\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0March 26<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cA surgeon visited [West Point Military Academy] several weeks ago for the purpose of gathering statistics to show that football, as it is now played, is a dangerous sport. In his statement, published in a medical magazine, he gives the percentage of accidents due to football as being twenty-six times\u00a0as great as in riding, and fifty times as great as in gymnasium exercises. He concludes by saying that, in his opinion, football is a needlessly dangerous sport. It is evident that the doctor does not understand\u2026 [the injuries] amounted to nothing more than a slight inconvenience. The statistics as published do not give a correct idea of the casualties from football play at West Point\u201d\u2014New York Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0May 8<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cWalter Camp has finished his investigation into the dangers of football. He has sent over 1,200 letters to players all over the country, including principals of preparatory schools and physical directors of universities, and has received in answer replies from over 1,100 persons. In nearly every case the answer made is that the game is not considered brutal, although it is admitted to be rough. Principals of fitting schools place themselves on record as stating that with the proposed changes the game will be an ideal form of American sport. The statistics received establish the fact that only a small proportion of players received permanent injuries, and that in an overwhelming number of cases the hurts were simple bruises or sprains. Most of the sprains were not obtained from contact with players, but were owing to uneven ground\u201d\u2014New York Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0May 30<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe foot ball rules have been revised and the game is now deemed much safer. However, people who are on the lookout for new drawing room amusements for the children need not expect to adopt foot ball just yet unless the furniture is insured\u201d\u2014Fort Scott Daily Monitor<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0Oct 13<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cPrincipal Frederick Partington of the Staten Island Academy sent a circular letter on Monday last to the parents of the male students denouncing football as a brutal, rough sport, and asking the parents to do all their power to arrest the growth of interest in the game among their sons. Principal Partington declines to assume any responsibility for the students who engage in the games. The letter caused no end of talk among the parents, students, trustees, and stockholders of the school. Those who have expressed their views are against any interference with the sport. Principal Partington, it is said, is a very good instructor, but he knows nothing of the merits, or demerits, of football. \u2026 One of the students on the team said to a reporter yesterday that no attention had been paid to Principal Partington’s letter, and that none of the parents of the members of the eleven had shown any signs of complying with the principal’s request\u201d\u2014New York Sun<\/strong><\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0Dec 3<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe whole matter is one of business, not confined to universities, but more strikingly illustrated in the preparatory schools. It is notorious that the schools excelling in athletics, especially football, attract the largest number of scholars. Hence an encouragement of the games by the teachers. I could cite many instances. Only last week one of the masters of a leading Boston classical school rebuked a strong boy for not playing football, although he was out of condition and had been forbidden by his father to enter the game. Lessons are subordinate to athletics, and examinations are made easy for him who upholds the prowess of the baseball nine or the football team\u201d\u2014William Lloyd Garrison, Jr.<\/strong>, social reformer, in\u00a0letter to the editor, New York Evening News<\/em><\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0Dec 7<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cIn sentencing two youths to pay a small fine for engaging in a fight at a football game, [Washington municipal] Judge Miller took occasion yesterday to make some spicy comments on that knock-down-and-drag-out sport. \u2018There seems to be a spirit of fight manifested throughout these contests,\u2019 he said. \u2018People get hurt and killed and much malice is shown. Everything seems to be done by force. If the games are to be conducted in the future as in the past then players should go out into the woods [like illicit pugilists]\u2019”\u2014Washington Times<\/strong> DC<\/p>\n

1894\u00a0 Dec 9<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cTo all the State Legislatures: Pass laws prohibiting football, or repeal the existing laws prohibiting prize-fighting\u201d\u2014St. Louis Globe-Democrat<\/strong><\/p>\n

1894\u00a0 Dec 13<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe captivating game of [American] football has recently received such a severe blow in the east that there is danger of its doom being speedily sealed. The press in the eastern States is making a heavy drive at it\u2014especially intercollegiate football. The change of rules since last year, abolishing \u2018the flying wedge\u2019 and other forms of mass play subject to abuse, was expected to result in less rough playing and fewer casualties this season. The expectation has not been realized. … And the game is seriously threatened. For it is impossible to ascribe the violence of the contest to any special kind of tactics. Last year the flying wedge and momentum plays were made the scapegoat for all the accidents of football. The public were easily deceived in that matter, even those who were the bitterest critics of the game, and when the playing rules were revised last winter, with momentum plays prohibited, the critics at once claimed a great victory for milder football. Such was the irony of fate that the most violent contest seen in years [Yale-Harvard Thanksgiving game] was played under those revised rules, and, moreover, with the chairman of the revision committee [Walter Camp] as umpire. Another journal referring to the same game says, it was undoubtedly the worst exhibition of recklessness and brutality that has been publicly made since the days of the Roman gladiators\u201d\u2014Winnipeg Tribune<\/strong> of Canada<\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0Dec 17<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cIs football essential to manly sports? Certainly not for physical culture; for our gymnasiums and athletic clubs afford every facility. We have baseball, cricket, and polo; bicycling, boating, and swimming, running, fishing, and hunting; all of these offer delightful recreation\u2026 It is a lack of real moral manliness on the part of the governing powers. There is a mania and rivalry for large numbers on the college rolls which makes presidents timid and under a compromising policy. It is a betrayal of a holy trust\u201d\u2014Rev. J.J. Tobias<\/strong>, Episcopalian, in Chicago Daily Tribune<\/em><\/p>\n

1894 \u00a0Dec 18<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cI think President Eliot’s attitude in some respects a very unfortunate one for the College [Harvard]. His opposition to Athletics and his efforts to Germanize the methods of teaching work real harm. The main product we want to turn out of our colleges is men. Incidentally let them be professors, chemists, writers, anything you please, but let them be men first of all, and they can’t be turned out if we don’t have the instructors themselves men, and not bloodless students merely\u201d\u2014Theodore Roosevelt<\/strong>, Harvard alumnus, football booster, federal official and outdoors writer, in personal\u00a0correspondence<\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Feb 14<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cWhat matters a few broken bones to the glories of football as an intercollegiate sport? Is there a boy in college that would not gladly risk a broken bone for the honor and glory of being on one of the great teams? I say I am the father of three boys. I do not know whether they are going to make athletes in college or not, but I will say right here that if I thought any one of them would weigh a possible broken bone against the glory of being chosen to play on Harvard’s football eleven, I would disinherit him!”\u2014Theodore Roosevelt<\/strong>, U.S. Civil Service commissioner, ardent Harvard grid fan since a freshman student at Cambridge in 1876, in newspapers<\/p>\n

1895\u00a0 Feb 21<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cHarvard men have talked about nothing else today except the action of the Harvard faculty last night. T. Jefferson Coolidge, a member of the Harvard overseers, said that he was personally opposed to this movement to abolish the game of football. Col. William A. Bancroft, Mayor of Cambridge and also a Harvard overseer, also intimated to-day that he would not support the faculty. But he would like to see the game limited to youths of twenty [and older] and would also have the gate money abolished\u201d\u2014New York World<\/strong><\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Feb 27<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cA brutal game is no great feeder of the intellect and is not the sure way to literary honors. President Eliot, of Harvard, denounces the game as played. This leads Civil Service Reformer, Roosevelt, a regular foot ball crank, if not a foot ball savage, [to extol the sport]\u2026 Roosevelt is a corker. Has he brains enough to be reformer of any sort?\u201d\u2014Wilmington Messenger<\/strong> NC<\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0April 12<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Harvard overseers [soon to appoint Roosevelt], as had been anticipated, refused to sustain the faculty yesterday in their anti-football decree, and gave the game a lease of life for at least another year\u201d\u2014Boston Post<\/strong><\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Sept 26<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cMany friends of foot ball would resent having their favorite sport classed with pugilism, which is termed \u2018degrading and barbarous.\u2019 The admirers of pugilism have nothing good to say of foot ball. If knocking men down is barbarous in the prize ring, why not in a foot ball game, where hitting below the belt and butting are the rule and not the exception? \u2026 foot ball games are a terror to the community. The Pittsburgh Comet publishes a list of casualties in foot ball and prize fighting for the last five years. Foot ball games have caused 133 deaths, fractured 281 legs, broken 294 heads, broken 75 arms and 117 bones, maimed for life 212 persons and caused 377 other injuries. In the same length of time prize fighting has killed 3 persons and broken 5 bones\u201d\u2014Greenville Record-Argus<\/strong> PA<\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Oct 15<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cLine up, boys. Line up, quick. Better let us sell you your football toggery. No danger when you get our armor on. Have you been in this athletic department? Come in, look around, whether you want to buy or not. Football goods, golf goods, boxing and fencing goods, and pretty much anything you can ask for in the way of gymnasium paraphernalia. Probably the most comprehensive stock of its kind in the city, and from 15 to 25 per cent under the others’ prices\u201d\u2014Parker, Bridget & Co.<\/strong>, advertisement, Washington Times<\/em> DC<\/p>\n

1895\u00a0 Oct 17<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Berkeley School football team [of Manhattan] played a match game at Berkeley Oval, Fordham Heights, yesterday afternoon with a team from Betts Academy of Stamford, Conn. During the game Frederick Mynders, eighteen years old, Captain of the Betts team, was caught in a scrimmage and seriously injured internally. \u2026 He was trying to rush the ball through centre when he was downed. Mynders, instead of holding his head down and butting the crowd in front of him, held his head bolt upright. When the crowd downed him his head was thrown backward and his body was twisted in the scrimmage\u201d\u2014New York Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Oct 19<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cHenry Dobson was run into by the \u2018flying wedge\u2019 of the Eastern High School football team, and, as I am told, was unconscious nearly two hours. It is a wonder that he was not killed, and it seems to me that football rushes should be prohibited on the common playground\u201d\u2014Dr. H.A. Dobson<\/strong>, letter to editor, Washington Times<\/em> DC<\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Oct 19<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cWhile the whole country is congratulating the Governors of Texas and Arkansas for their valiant stand against incursions of prize fighters and their friends it might be well for someone to suggest to other governors that it would save life and limb and promote public decency if extra sessions of the legislature were called to enact laws prohibiting football. It is long years since any such brutality has been exhibited in the prize ring as that which attends almost every game of football\u2026 due not to accident, but to sheer, brutal intention\u201d\u2014Washington Evening Times<\/strong> DC, opinion page<\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Oct 19<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cWhen the misfortunes of last year on the gridiron were fresh in the minds of the people it was freely predicted that football was done for in this vicinity. That prediction has fallen. There was probably never as many football teams in this locality as there are this season. There is the Columbia Athletic, the Potomac, the Gallaudet, the Orient, the teams of the various high schools, the Kendall Green, the Georgetown teams, the business college, the colored high school team, the Shamrocks and a half dozen or more other teams, all in full blast, and others coming on. There was never more interest taken in the game than there is at present. Fortunately nothing up to this hour has happened to put a damper on the sport. All of the boys and many of the men, and not a few of the gentler sex are bound up in it, and it is to be hoped the season will go through pleasantly and without casualties of a serious kind\u201d\u2014Washington Evening Times<\/strong> DC, sports section<\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Nov 3<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cLieutenant Leonard Mr. Prince, Second Infantry, U.S.A., died at the [Chicago] Presbyterian Hospital yesterday from injuries received in the famous army and navy football game at Annapolis in 1892\u201d\u2014Charlotte Observer<\/strong><\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Nov 15<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cAs to the dangers of the game, let me make some suggestions. Many lives are lost among bathers. Should bathing be abolished? People are constantly thrown out of buggies, limbs broken and lives lost. Should buggy-riding be abolished? Two Sunday school scholars were killed by their teacher? Should Sunday schools be abolished? Children fall out of trees. Shall tree climbing be stopped, etc., etc. That there is little real danger in football is proved by the fact that the game goes on in all the colleges, and many of the schools, towns, villages and cities every day for many weeks, tens of thousands of players, and in proportion to the numbers engaged the serious accidents few\u201d\u2014Anonymous \u201cprominent gentleman,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0in Raleigh Observer<\/em> NC<\/p>\n

1895\u00a0 Nov 22<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Yale men wore more headgear and harness than has ever been seen in this city. The backs wore leather helmets with ear protectors and rubber nose masks, so that their friends were utterly unable to recognize them from the grand stand\u201d\u2014New York Post<\/strong><\/p>\n

1895\u00a0 Nov 29<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cIf Moss, [local school] full back, would duck his head like Puck Dixon when he makes his rush through the center, there are but very few elevens that he could not go through. When Moss starts through the center, he holds himself erect and as a result twenty-one men pile on him. … If he ducked his head and made his rush he would go through the line like a shot as soon as he got on to it. \u2026 Puck Dixon as a half back is all right. He is better than any billy goat at butting\u201d\u2014Arkansas City Daily Traveler<\/strong> AR<\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Nov 29<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe crusade against football which was inaugurated last year has proved a complete failure and everyone might as well realize that fact. The people of this advanced day seem to like reminder of the gladiatorial combats of medieval ages and the fiercer they are the more the populace howls in glee. Who is there now who has strength enough to tear the chrysanthemum-headed youths from their pedestals of glory and stem the tide of favor which runs so strongly towards football! Not one! The anti-football man seems to be\u2026 desolate and deserted\u201d\u2014Columbus Evening Dispatch<\/strong> OH<\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Dec 1<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cTraumatic insanity\u201d is caused by brain lesions of head impacts and jarring, \u201ca fracture of the mysterious network of filaments whose continuity is as essential to normal mental activity as is the continuity of a wire charged with electricity in order to the transmission of the electric fluid. A lesion may be compared to a melted fuse in an electric lighting system. Lesions of the brain are necessarily obscure, because invisible. The skull is an impenetrable covering. Where death occurs, as the sequel of insanity, an autopsy, if made, often reveals a large cerebral abscess, involving extensive tracts of the brain. In other post-mortem examinations the lesion is so minute as not to be discoverable without the aid of the microscope\u201d\u2014Frederick Howard Wines<\/strong>, theologian, hospital chaplain and prisons expert, writing for newspapers<\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Dec 5<\/strong> \u00a0\u201cWhat are the tendencies of the present \u2018game\u2019 of football? What elements of character does it have a strong tendency to develop and strengthen? What propensities and passions does it nourish and encourage? \u2026 We believe our board of education should [prohibit football]. Of course, they cannot control the actions of individual players when the schools are not in session; but they can absolutely control the conduct and relations of teachers in their employ with reference to this game. They can also control all organizations and associations among the pupils as such. In other words, they can free the schools of the city from the disgrace of countenancing and encouraging this species of pugilism\u201d\u2014Belle Plaine News<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1895 \u00a0Dec 22<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cA college president in this State says it is idle to \u2018kick\u2019 against football; that the game is here to stay, and that even the second class colleges have teams. \u2018Don’t fight the game,\u2019 he added, \u2018it is no use\u2019 “\u2014Charlotte Observer<\/strong><\/p>\n

1896 \u00a0March 6<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cIt is a deplorable fact that football has spread to the public schools of the various states, and it is to be feared that ere long the standard of character and good behavior in these schools will not be much above that in the average college and preparatory school. We don’t know why it is, but there seems to be something about the game of football that promotes rowdyism\u201d\u2014Brown County World<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1896 \u00a0March 27<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cEvery individual fellow owes a debt of gratitude to a man who has the qualities of mind and body to make the team and who plays for Harvard. He reflects honor on us all and holds the interests of all of us in his hands\u201d\u2014Theodore Roosevelt<\/strong>, Harvard athletics overseer, speaking to students and fellow alumni on campus in Cambridge<\/p>\n

1896\u00a0 Oct 18<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe football eleven of the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons played the college team to a tie today and the crowd saw probably the closest contested game ever witnessed in Beloit and one of the wickedest in the matter of slugging that was ever played anywhere. The doctors outweighed Beloit [College] and seemed to want to kill someone and do it quickly and so began slugging from the start and it was not long before the rough work was not confined to one side by any means. … As the game was drawing to a close Hansell, one of the doctors, who had put up a fine game as left half back, began to act queer and was taken off the field, when he became unconscious and lay in that condition for several hours, but is recovering now. Some think he suffered from concussion of the brain\u201d\u2014Chicago Daily Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1896 \u00a0Nov 1<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cBaine, the Indian halfback, did great work for Kansas [University] until he was laid out by a fierce tackle early in the first half. After that he did not know what he was doing. He played out the first half and then retired, Crooks taking his place. Baine was in bad shape and needed medical attention. The doctors said he was in a bad way and feared concussion of the brain. He certainly looked like a very sick man when he left the field\u201d\u2014Kansas City Journal<\/strong> MO<\/p>\n

1896 \u00a0Nov 7<\/strong>\u00a0 William Baine, concussed KU halfback, plays against Nebraska with head protection later described as an early anti-concussion \u201chelmet.\u201d<\/a> Bert Kennedy, KU quarterback who became a Lawrence dentist, would later recall: \u201cBlaine, a Sioux Indian youth we found at Haskell Institute, was our star. Despite the fact he had no more than a fourth grade education, we enrolled him in the school of law and kept him eligible. He suffered a slight concussion of the brain in practice before the Nebraska game and we fashioned a padded canvas headpiece to protect him. It was the first football helmet I ever saw. Blaine made K.U.’s first touchdown in the first half. We were trying to stall and I called a right end run merely to get the ball in the middle of the field. The Indian protested that his head ached and he couldn’t run. But he traveled 60 yards to a touchdown so fast the Nebraskans never laid a hand on him”\u2014The Associated Press<\/strong> [1944 Oct 20]<\/p>\n

1896 \u00a0Nov 29<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThere may be some kicking among the football players at the decision of the school board to discourage the game, but parents will generally endorse the board\u2019s action. The frequent occurrence of fatal accidents in the game has caused a prejudice against football that can only be overcome by radical changes in the rules. Athletic sports should be encouraged, but this does not necessarily mean football; there are other games in which the boys will find plenty of amusement and ample exercise\u201d\u2014Sedalia Democrat<\/strong> MO<\/p>\n

1896 \u00a0Dec 1<\/strong> \u00a0\u201cI believe it is a most brutal sport, and I am not sure but that it is a matter demanding legal restraint. \u2026 If the same sporting element followed football games as follows prize fighting, it would have been suppressed long ago. It is the gamblers and sports who support prize fighting that have brought public sentiment in opposition to it. In the case of football, a respectable part of society has countenanced it. College men play it, and the people receive it as legitimate sport. And, besides, the young ladies seem to look with special favor upon football heroes. I have no doubt in my mind that many a young man plays most vigorous football because he knows his lady friends are looking at him, and after the game he hopes to bask in the sunshine of their smiles\u201d\u2014Gov. Claude Matthews<\/strong>, Indiana, in Chicago Inter Ocean<\/em><\/p>\n

1896 \u00a0Dec 19<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cModern football players believe in protecting their heads. \u2026 The rubber nose mask, which covers the mouth as well, and the leather helmet are devices that seem almost indispensable. The helmet that is in use now not only covers the top of the head with a cap of hard leather, but protects the ears with two big muffs made of thick felt\u201d\u2014Chicago Eagle<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Jan 5<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cAn act of cruelty I would not permit for one moment, but I do very emphatically believe in boxing and football, and in all forms of rough, out-of-door, manly sports. \u2026 Somehow or other we must see that as men grow gentle and more honest, they do not grow weak or cowardly, and it will be a bad day for this Republic when we let the bad men monopolize the physical courage and rough energy of the community\u201d\u2014Theodore Roosevelt<\/strong>, New York City police commissioner, in New York Tribune<\/em><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Jan 23<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cWhile the college Presidents are considering the matter of changing the rules of football so as to make the game less hazardous, the [Indiana] Legislature has taken the matter in hand and promises to do away with the game entirely in this State. Representative E.L. Patterson, a Franklin County doctor, today introduced a bill to that effect, and it was the first measure thus far proposed that has met with applause when its title was read. Dr. Patterson has witnessed many games, including the big annual events in the East, and makes the declaration that more men have been killed by football than by pugilism\u201d\u2014Chicago Daily Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Jan 30<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cSeveral Harvard football players said recently in regard to the anti-football bills introduced in Indiana and Nebraska, that it was their opinion that such legislation could not be but the work of cranks. Arthur M. Beal, the quarterback, expressed his condemnation of the proposed legislation as being senseless and practically illegal\u201d\u2014Chicago Inter Ocean<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0May 12<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cCollege students and athletic associations in Michigan are considerably agitated over a pending measure in the Legislature of that State to prohibit football contests\u201d\u2014Angola Herald<\/strong> IN<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Oct 2<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe style of game for this [football] season will be varied somewhat but only in the details. Much of kicking will be done. Not only does it make the game a better one for the spectators, but it is a sure, safe game, and especially on a windy day is the winning game. The line work will be more open and easier to watch\u2026 doing away of mass plays\u201d\u2014Lincoln Courier<\/strong> NE<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Oct 19<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cNinety-nine out of every 100 patrons of the Harrodsburg graded school will say \u2018Amen\u2019 to Prof. Bell’s good judgment in prohibiting football on the school grounds, says the [Harrodsburg] Democrat\u201d\u2014Stanford Interior Journal<\/strong> KY<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Oct 20<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe clerical reformers have entered on a new crusade against football. And yet some of our divinity students have been the fiercest and sturdiest of football players while fitting themselves to fight the devil\u201d\u2014San Francisco Call<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Oct 27<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cAndrew Hasche died in the Astoria Hospital [Tuesday]. His neck had been broken in a football game at Casino Beach, L.I., on Sunday afternoon. He was a finely built fellow of nineteen years\u2026 Hasche was taken to the Astoria Hospital and attended by Dr. James F. Trask and Dr. W. Baldwin Wayt\u2014the latter being particularly interested in the case, as he was recently a member of the University of Virginia eleven and had seen two deaths on the football field. In the hospital Hasche was put to bed with sandbags ranged beside him to keep him in position, and particularly to prevent his head from rolling. The physicians said it was a hopeless task. … \u2018It’s a pity,\u2019 Dr. Wayt said. \u2018The young man had a superb physique. I do not see how anybody can be blamed. It was the game. The post-mortem has not yet been held, but it will show undoubtedly that there was a fracture dislocation of the sixth cervical vertebra of the spine.\u2019 … The unfortunate player was running with the ball, his head down and his neck extended\u2026 the exact position which would make a blow fatal\u201d\u2014New York World<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Nov 1<\/strong> \u00a0\u201cVon Gammon, one of the players on the University of Georgia football team, died this morning from injuries received in a game\u2026 Gammon never regained consciousness after a scrimmage at the beginning of the second half. \u2026 His death has stirred prejudice against the game among the members of the State Legislature, which is now in session. A number of legislators expressed themselves today as bitterly opposed to the game, and it is probable that a bill will be passed in a few days making it a misdemeanor to engage in a game of football in this State\u201d\u2014Pittsburgh Daily Post<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Nov 9<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cAlderman Platke, author of the theater hat ordinance, will introduce at a special meeting of the City Council, called for this afternoon, a measure to prohibit the playing of football anywhere within the limits of the city of Chicago. In speaking of his anti-football ordinance, Alderman Platke said: \u2018I’d rather see a prize-fight any day than a game of football. It teaches school children to be brutal\u2019 “\u2014Oakland Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Nov 10<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe jury in the Costello-Winston case returned a verdict for the defendant. The action was brought by M. Costello of Duluth against P.B. Winston, the Minneapolis capitalist, to recover $50,000 damages. In a high school game at Duluth Mr. Costello’s son was thrown out of a flying wedge and permanently crippled. He contended that Mr. Winston’s son threw him out. The defense did not attempt to show that rough character of the game\u201d\u2014Humeston New Era<\/strong> IA<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Nov 14<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cAn ordinance prohibiting football was introduced in the [St. Louis] house of delegates by ex-Speaker Lloyd at the meeting of that body last night. Mr. Lloyd says the game, as played, is worse than prizefighting, and while he presents the measure by request, it is in accordance with his own views\u201d\u2014newspapers report<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Nov 16<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe governor of Arkansas strongly urges the president and trustees of the state university to prohibit football. When football or anything else gets too bad for Arkansas to endure, it is surely time to stop and think about it\u201d\u2014Lawrence Daily Journal<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Nov 19<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cStatistics have been carefully kept by a Philadelphian since the last uproar against foot ball in 1894 and proved the absurdity of branding foot ball the most dangerous of sports and one to be abolished. Since April, 1894, he records the fatal accidents due to swimming at 1,350. Boating has the next place, with a list of 986, of which 354 occurred to followers of fishing. Of the men who would a-hunting go 645 have failed to return, and the past year alone charges up to the bicycle the death of 264 persons. Horseback riding claims 333; ice boating, 22; base ball, 6; tennis, 4, and golf, 2. Against these, foot ball, which by its immense patronage is proven to be the most popular game of the century, stands alone arraigned with a list of fatal accidents amounting in four season to 11\u201d\u2014Wilkes-Barre Record<\/strong> PA<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Nov 20<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cA conservative medical journal, the Philadelphia Medical Record, makes a weighty deliverance against football. It is a high authority on medical matters, and what it says should have a great influence. \u2026 Says the Medical Record: \u2018Short of actual death on the field, not much account is taken of the hundreds of young men who are oftentimes injured for life as the result of the rough-and-tumble methods of the match. The trainers explain the number of injuries by the lack of requisite physical preparation for the contest, but, in reality, the more the footballers are trained the more dangerous becomes the game. It is certainly time we should look the matter fairly in the face. If we want to develop pluck, courage, endurance and strength we can do so in more healthful and safer ways\u201d\u2014Pittsburgh Daily Post<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Nov 21<\/strong> \u201cIn a football game between Hughes high school and Walnut Hills high school, Cincinnati, O., there was a riotous free fight. \u2026 This town is in a state of mind to-day against juvenile football and is likely to prohibit it altogether. \u2026 [A] grammar school has taken on the appearance of a miniature hospital. Several of the boys of the town have hobbled about for days and attended school only with the aid of crutches. Others have appeared with bandaged limbs, and scratches and bruises have been and are now a very common sight. What makes the aspect of affairs more serious is the knowledge that these boys in nearly every instance are from 10 to 15 years of age and not as yet out of the grammar grades\u201d\u2014Kansas City Journal<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Nov 21<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe agitation of the [Springfield] grammar school football question some time ago has resulted in making it very improbable that there will be any grammar school league next year. \u2026 One principal, Miss Harriet C. Emerson, of the Burrows school, has said definitely that her school boys will not be allowed to remain in the league. She has decided that the game is not suitable for grammar school boys, not only for the physical danger, but because of the mental distraction to the pupils in the match games and in the ill feeling that grows out of it\u201d\u2014Springfield Republican<\/strong> MA<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Nov 24<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cBicycling and Football\u2014A St. Louis man killed himself yesterday, his mind having been affected, so it is stated, by injuries received in a bicycle accident. According to the notion of the anti-football zealots, this would afford sufficient excuse for the Legislature of Missouri to enact a law forbidding the use of wheels in this state\u201d\u2014Kansas City Star<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Dec 2<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe [Richmond] city union of the King’s Daughters will meet tomorrow to prepare a petition to the Legislature asking it to prepare a petition to the Legislature asking it to prohibit football in this state\u201d\u2014Richmond Dispatch<\/strong> VA<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Dec 4<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cOf course the true spirit of football does not animate every boy\u2026 It is the same spirit that nerves the country boy to catch the wild colt, ride and master it; it is the same spirit that stirs the school fellow on the playground to take the side of the weak; it is the same spirit that prompts the trained swimmer to attempt the rescue of the drowning when the onlookers stand with blanched cheeks; it is one and the same spirit that gives us our leaders, whether in war or peace. \u2026 No boy should be allowed to play in any game with any constitutional defect or any inability, and even [if] sound, without being in condition; and even then, mere youths, immature and undeveloped, no matter what their skill and spirit, should not be allowed to contend with giants in strength and stature. According to age and weight they should be classed as light, middle and heavy weights, and this will be done, but that is not the work of any legislature; it is peculiarly and wholly the duty of the guardians of the boys, whether at home, school, college or university\u201d\u2014T.P. Branch<\/strong>, letter to Georgia governor, reprinted in Atlanta Constitution<\/em><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Dec 6<\/strong>\u00a0 Ultimately no state will outlaw tackle football, although Georgia comes close in a bill that reaches the governor\u2019s desk for signature. \u201cGovernor Atkinson has decided to veto the anti-football bill, and is preparing a statement to be sent to the Georgia Legislature explaining why he has decided to withhold his approval from it. \u2026 The bill was passed in the hat of prejudice against football caused by the killing of young Von Gammon, of the University of Georgia team on the gridiron last month, and the legislators felt that they were avenging his death by promptly providing against future accidents of a similar nature. It turns out that Von Gammon comes from a Spartan family and that neither his relatives nor his friends are seeking that sort of vengeance. It is his own mother who has induced the Governor to veto the bill. Mrs. Von Gammon, in a petition to the Governor, states that football was her son’s favorite game, and that if he could be consulted he would join in the request of his fellow students for the defeat of the bill. She calls the Governor’s attention to the fact that two of her son’s schoolmates, William Reynolds and Arthur Goetchins, recently met accidental deaths, one by falling over a precipice and one by falling downstairs. Mrs. Von Gammon asks if it is not as sensible for the Legislature to abolish precipices and stairways on account of these deaths as it is to abolish football because of the death of her son\u201d\u2014Baltimore Sun<\/strong><\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Dec 10<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cNo very drastic measures need to be taken to remove the principal ill of modern football, that of mass plays. … The element of danger can never be removed from the sport, no matter how the rules are altered, any more than that element can be taken away from polo, hunting, basket-ball and many other games, which are just as dangerous as football\u2014provided the mass play is eliminated from the latter game. No contest where men run at full speed in-and-out in confined space can ever be otherwise than dangerous, so far as bumped heads and bodies bruised by collision are concerned\u201d\u2014Rochester Democrat and Chronicle<\/strong> NY<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Dec 15<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201c[Washington] Public School Trustee Wilson fired the first gun at football so far as it affects pupils under the jurisdiction of himself and his colleagues last night. He introduced a resolution at the regular meeting of the board, placing certain restrictions on the game as played by the local high school teams. \u2026 First\u2014No boy shall become a member of any school football team against the wishes of his parent of guardian after notification to the principal of the school. Second\u2014All contests shall be confined to teams of about total average weight. Third\u2014Games shall be played only with teams connected with some educational institution. Fourth\u2014Each team shall be supervised by some school official, to be designated by the school principal, who shall have absolute power to decide upon all questions of its membership, the proper clothing and physical condition of its members, and no match game shall be played without his authority\u201d\u2014Washington Times<\/strong> DC<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Dec 24<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cSince legislation has been aimed at foot-ball, the [officials] of the game have met in convention and decided to adopt new rules, leaving out some of the butting-ram and thunder-and-lightning features, so that playing foot-ball in the future will not be much more dangerous than breaking wild Mexican broncos\u201d\u2014Crawfordville Gulf Coast Breeze<\/strong> FL<\/p>\n

1897 \u00a0Dec 31<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cIf the new football armor makes the game perfectly safe, the public will be sure to lose all interest in the sport\u201d\u2014Washington Star<\/strong> DC<\/p>\n

1898 \u00a0Jan 5<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cA player is killed in a football game. There is plenty of law to cover the case. But nobody thinks of applying that law by arresting, indicting and trying somebody for manslaughter\u2026 It is absurd to pass a law prohibiting football only for the sake of preventing manslaughter and mayhem on the gridiron because, for the accomplishment of that object, such a law is entirely superfluous\u201d\u2014Rochester Democrat and Chronicle<\/strong> NY<\/p>\n

1898 \u00a0Jan 27<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cAssistant Secretary of the Navy [Theodore] Roosevelt received the ovation that is always his when he comes before an audience of Harvard men. He spoke slowly and forcibly, as he always does, receiving generous applause throughout. He said: \u2018I don’t suppose there is a man here among the graduates who does not have a feeling, no matter what part of the country he is in, of personal interest in Harvard athletics. \u2026 I am a great believer in athletics, a very great believer. I feel that the university should do more than merely develop intellect. Intellect is a good thing, but there is something better, and that is character, force, strength of will power to hold one’s self, to bear one’s self as a man among men, and athletics, no less than study, help to develop the character. \u2026\u00a0 I have not got the least objection to field sports with the element of personal contact in them. I trust that we shall develop men, and plenty of them, and when they buck up against the man opposite they will go through him and play for every ounce that is in them as gentlemen\u2019 \u201d\u2014Boston Daily Globe<\/strong><\/p>\n

1898 \u00a0Nov 9<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cA new helmet for football players has been placed upon the market and is pronounced complete by experts. \u2026 The new helmet completely protects the head and ears. The crown of it is made of tough sole leather, filled with air holes and lined with soft felt. It has stout earlaps of leather, with holes in them so that the wearer can bear the signals, and a strong elastic band, which buckles under the chin and keeps the new headgear firmly in place\u201d\u2014Logansport Pharos-Tribune<\/strong> IN<\/p>\n

1898 \u00a0Nov 12<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe board of education has decided to prohibit football playing on the school grounds\u201d\u2014Salina Daily Union<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1899 \u00a0April 10<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cI wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph\u201d\u2014Theodore Roosevelt<\/strong>, New York governor and press hero of the American \u201cwar\u201d with\u00a0Spain in Cuba, from\u00a0his speech “The Strenuous Life<\/a>”<\/p>\n

1899 \u00a0June 29<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cGeorge Miller, son of J.S. Miller, living near Doniphan, was declared insane as a result of a blow received in a football game while he was playing with the Midland college [team] in Atchison a year and a half ago\u201d\u2014Columbus Weekly Advocate<\/strong> KS<\/p>\n

1899 \u00a0Oct 15<\/strong>\u00a0 Popular music is banned at the University of Chicago while officials sanction head-knocking football as educational. At the game with Cornell: \u201cThe University of Chicago band played \u2018There’ll Be a Hot Time in The Old Time Tonight\u2019 and went un-rebuked, although that is a tabooed melody at the university, its moral tone not being considered altogether compatible with scholastic life. [Then running back] Slaker’s hooded head broke through the Cornell line for a short gain\u2026 Slaker’s battering-ram head was again sent hammering away at Cornell’s line and another touchdown counted\u201d\u2014Chicago Daily Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1899 \u00a0Oct 22<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Elgin High School football team defeated the Lake Forest Academy team 27 to 0. During the game Trumbull, quarter back, of the Lake Forest team, received a blow on the head which caused temporary insanity. He raved several hours before he could be calmed. It is feared he suffered concussion of the brain\u201d\u2014Chicago Daily Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1899 \u00a0Oct 29<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cHow to Tackle Safely: Now about tackling. The reckless boy who is playing for the grand stand will often get his head just where the runner’s knee will strike it and there is a severe shock. The best way to learn tackling is with a dummy with head thrown to one side. That saves your head. The moment you have a grip on the runner pull him toward you with all your strength. That is the secret of good tackling. Another point is to go at your man without hesitation and in doing this you may have to overlook the rule about keeping the head to one side. The softest place to put it is in the other man’s stomach. That makes a pretty tackle, too”\u2014F.C. Armstrong<\/strong>, MD and football coach of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, writing for newspapers<\/p>\n

1899 \u00a0Nov 16<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cJames Franks, Captain and right half back of the Lewis grade school football eleven [in Englewood, Ill.], is in a critical condition, the result of injuries received in a gridiron struggle with the Normal park school team. \u2026 Frank has suffered greatly and has been kept continuously under the influence of opiates. The nature of his injury is such little food can be given him. \u2026 The accident has aroused considerable feeling among parents of the Englewood pupils antagonistic to football. \u2026 Parents are saying as a part of grade school training football is too severe. Miss Vreeland, teacher of the eighth grade, to which Frank belonged, will endeavor to stop the play among pupils of the Lewis school\u201d\u2014Chicago Daily Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1899 \u00a0Nov 24<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cAfter spending several more days investigating the death of John Wright, right tackle of the football team of the Christian Brothers’ college, who was injured November 11, in a game with the St. Louis university eleven, the [city] coroner’s jury today returned the following verdict: \u2018We, the jury, find that the game was played strictly according to Rugby rules; but we believe the game is dangerous, and should be prohibited’ \u201d\u2014newspapers report<\/strong><\/p>\n

1899 \u00a0Nov 26<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cBumping along down the field the [Princeton blockers\u2019] orange and black striped legs flashed along, warding off the [Yale] blue legged runners perfectly, while the stocky [Princeton ball-carrier] Reiter, with a head armor that looked like a coal scuttle, kept going\u201d\u2014Chicago Daily Tribune<\/strong><\/p>\n

1899 \u00a0Dec 9<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Strenuous American Approaches: The days of the politician who depends upon the old, threadbare subterfuges are about numbered, and the athlete in statesmanship is about to leap into public favor. \u2026 Heretofore our so-called statesmen have relied almost exclusively upon their lung power for propulsion and maintenance. In the future we are to have the opportunity to contemplate and admire the public man who brings all his physical self into play. The man who calls to arms all sections of his anatomy when he engages in battle. \u2026 It made its appearance [in Congress] this week when the Hon. William Eaton Chandler introduced a bill providing for the increase of the efficiency of the West Point and Annapolis Academies by physical training instead of excessive mental education. Mr. Chandler\u2019s bill provides that the higher mathematics and languages shall be succeeded to a certain degree by what he is pleased to term \u2018the game of golf, bicycling, baseball, and football.\u2019 \u2026 We have no doubt that Mr. Chandler will be magnanimous to concede that he was prompted to move in this direction by the achievements of the Hon. Theodore Roosevelt. The man who could don the uniform of a rough rider, mount a prancing steed, and perforate the atmosphere with [bullet] lead and shouts in such a forcible manner as to ride into the New York governorship and the affections of the book publishers is worthy of emulation\u201d\u2014Washington Post<\/strong><\/p>\n

1899\u00a0 Dec 9<\/strong> \u00a0So-called government football is fully restored at Army and Navy academies while a federal \u201cIndian School\u201d in Pennsylvania, Carlisle Institute, rises as gridiron power. Carlisle is coached by affable, shifty Glenn \u201cPop\u201d Warner, reputed for rules-skirting and head-ramming teams he builds of Native American men and boys. \u201cWhen they go to Carlisle for the five-year course they do not know the difference between a football and a pumpkin, as their manager [Warner] expresses it. When the Indian team has a new player he is a real novice. \u2026 In view of the fact that the highest class in the Indian School is no further advanced than the first year of an ordinary high school, the Indians’ claim that the four-year-college playing limit should not have many arguments in its favor, for the status of the school is not above that of an ordinary preparatory institution where many future varsity players engage in football for four or five years before they enter college. During their six seasons the Indians have played about ten games a year with different colleges. \u2026 Dash and unity describe the Indians’ style of play. The linesmen tear forward the instant the ball is snapped, and seem trained to jump through and break up the opposing play before it is well started. Metoxen, the full-back, rated the greatest line bucker on an American gridiron this season, smashes forward head down, low and with terrific force\u201d\u2014San Francisco Chronicle<\/strong><\/p>\n

1899\u00a0 Dec 21<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe full armored football player of to-day bears a striking resemblance to the knights of the middle ages in battle array, minus his spear and his sword. \u2026 The result of the great advance in the science of football has been to do away, first of all, with the dangers of the game. All the tricks that made football so dangerous a few years ago have either been discarded or have been prohibited. Teams all over the country are now playing the old-fashioned open game, with lots of punting and runs around the end of the line. This game, however, is harder than the game of a dozen years ago. Interference, diving tackles, line bucking and formation plays make the players more liable to cuts and bruises. For this reason, the armor of football has not been discarded. On the other hand, it has been added to from year to year. All sorts of devices have been tried to protect the players from hard knocks and bruises. \u2026 Every physical trainer has his own little kit of tools, medicines and bandages, which he applies according to his own ideas. Every big team is haunted by dozens of specialists with new devices for protecting the players, new kinds of foods for making boys strong, and every sort of mechanism that might have been useful in a tilting tournament\u201d\u2014New York Herald<\/strong><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a92016 for historical arrangement by Matthew L. Chaney<\/p>\n

Matt Chaney is a writer, researcher and consultant on public issues in sport, specializing in American football for three decades. Chaney, an MA in media studies, is a former college football player and coach whose books include\u00a0<\/em>Spiral of Denial: Muscle Doping in American Football<\/a>, from his Four Walls Publishing\u00a0in<\/em>\u00a02009<\/a>.\u00a0Chaney\u2019s study for graduate thesis, co-published with the University of Central Missouri in 2001, analyzed print sport-media coverage of anabolic substances\u00a0in football from 1983-1999. Email him at\u00a0<\/em>mattchaney@fourwallspublishing.com<\/a>\u00a0or visit the website for more information.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opposition to schoolboy\u00a0football rears in the 1890s, Victorian Era America, as\u00a0the college\u00a0game\u00a0faces abolition threat By Matt Chaney Posted Saturday, August 13, 2016, ChaneysBlog.com Copyright \u00a92016 for historical arrangement by Matthew L. Chaney 1862\u00a0 Nov 13\u00a0 \u201cCamp Lyon [Va., Union Army,] presents quite a winter-like aspect this morning, and the season is being speedily introduced by … Continue reading Youth Football Lineage and Debate: Pre-1900 News Line<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[260,259,3],"tags":[268,144,265,95,162,264,273,203,40,66,62,8,278,271,272,277,58,89,270,261,262,267,266,139,130,87,131,5,218,276,138,43,36,163,275,37,204,274,238,263,49,70,269,6,240,27],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ywFp-la","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1312"}],"version-history":[{"count":48,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1365,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions\/1365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourwallspublishing.com\/BlogMChaney\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}