Changes

{{Mediawiki:kindleoasis}}

At the time that meant college football. The National Football League was fifteen years away from forming in a Canton, Ohio Hupmobile dealership. There were semi-professional and club football in the first decade of the 20th century but those were local games played by grown men and that was a different matter. College football, however, was drawing tens of thousands of spectators to games, joining baseball and horse racing as the biggest sports of their day.

==College Football in the Early 1900s==

Immediately upon learning of the news, New York University Chancellor H.M. McCracken wired Charles W. Eliot, the President of Harvard University, and called for a "meeting of heads of universities, with the object of reforming or abolishing the game." <ref>”Union College Man Dies of Football Injuries,” ''Los Angeles Herald'', November 26, 1905, page 1</ref> The "game" in 1905 would be scarcely recognized as football today. There was no forward passing and so the ball itself looked more like a watermelon. Only five yards was required to make a first down and the typical strategy was to bludgeon the opposition in an attempt to gain that precious fifteen feet of territory. The most popular technique was to lead the ball carrier into the line with a flying wedge, where players would interlock arms and form a battering ram. Players sported no padding, no helmets, no protection of any sort.

==Roosevelt Takes Action==

Roosevelt made his first initiative to clean up football on October 9, 1905 by summoning the coaches and administrators of Harvard, Yale and Princeton - the big three collegiate powers - to Washington for a summit. He admonished his guests to "set an example of fair play" for gridiron behavior across the country. Roosevelt may have even threatened to ban football with an executive order if they failed to comply with his wishes. It also possible that Roosevelt pointed out the need to fix football immediately and pointed those in charge in that direction to ensure that young men could receive quasi-militaristic training. The schools issued public statements pledging to clean up the games and denounced the brutality that had been embedded into the game.

As the season played out in 1905 the deeds on the field did not match the words. That year's Harvard-Yale game was especially egregious. Harvard's Francis Burr was knocked unconscious after he was cold cocked after fair catching a punt return. The blow was precipitated Harvard President Eliot's announcement that Harvard would no longer play Yale in football. <ref>Benson, Mark, ''T.R and Football Reform'', ''College Football Historical Society'', May 2003</ref> By the end of the season Duke, Northwestern and Columbia had dropped football completely. Stanford and California decided to play rugby instead of football.

==The Aftermath==

[[File:1906PassMariettaVsOhio.jpg|thumbnail|250px|52 yard TD pass in 1906 between Marrietta and Ohio]]

So did Theodore Roosevelt really save football? 1905 represented a point of no return for football. The arbitrators of the sport had a choice to either "change or die." Roosevelt forced the leaders of college football to address their problems and, as president, Roosevelt had sufficient gravitas to force the college football to change. His action provided an impetus for football to move beyond its brutal 19th century origins and try to reform itself.

==References==

<references/>

[[Category:Wikis]]