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==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.