Transcript Football 1900-1909 - Hatboro

Football 1900-1909
• During this decade, football lacked a professional
league and existed only as a supposedly amateur
sport.
• It was the primary sporting vehicle for upperclass elite colleges such as Yale, Penn, Harvard,
and Princeton.
• Deaths occurring during games plagued the
sport.
• By the end of the decade football's place in
American sporting life remained tenuous and was
threatened by both rugby and soccer.
Football 1900-1909
• Football entered the decade increasing its
popularity as evidenced by the rising number
of collegiate teams adding the sport to their
athletic programs.
• However, as popular as the game was within
these college communities, it also suffered
from controversies and scandals.
Football 1900-1909
• Professionalism, recruiting violations,
ineligible players, financial benefits, and slush
funds provided ample material for the media
to question the game's popularity.
• However, many university leaders realized that
great prestige and notoriety could come to a
university through a successful football team.
Football 1900-1909
• University of Chicago President William Rainey
Harper hires Amos Alonzo Stagg.
• Stagg creates a top-notch football program at
the mid-western school which competes with
the likes of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton both
academically and athletically.
Football 1900-1909
• As winning became more and more important
for schools, a renewed focus on tactics and
strategies developed.
• The mass play in which
teams would line up
guards and tackles in
the backfield and use
their momentum to
propel the ball carrier toward the first down.
Football 1900-1909
• Football became a mass of bodies slamming
into one another and, in the close quarters,
many illegal acts such as punching, kicking,
choking, and biting would occur, out of the
officials' sight.
• Newspaper reports of deaths and injuries
increased, raising public skepticism of the
merits of the game.
Football 1900-1909
• Schools formed athletic leagues within
geographic regions.
• One of the most powerful leagues was the
Western League, which would become the Big
Ten, led by Stagg’s University of Chicago and
Michigan's Fielding Yost.
• The Western League adopted a more wide-open
style of play, divorcing itself from reliance upon
mass-momentum plays favored by the Big Three,
Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Football 1900-1909
• As these leagues matured, claims arose as to “national
championship” status.
• In 1901 Michigan claimed the title by recording an 11-0
record, outscoring opponents by 550-0, and defeating
Stanford in the first-ever Rose Bowl 49-0.
• Harvard, who believed that winning the eastern
championship accorded them the national title,
contested the claim.
• The battle over a true national champion played out in
the media and between fans throughout the decade.
Football 1900-1909
• The following season (1902); Yost's Michigan
team again posted a perfect record in their
eleven games 11-0
• University of Nebraska went 9-0
• And Princeton University went 11-0
• Debates continue due to these different
schools from different conferences posting
perfect seasons
Football 1900-1909
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The 1904 season created even more chaos
No less than 5 teams finished the season undefeated
Michigan claimed its 4th straight national title
Fellow Western Conference foe Minnesota also claimed the honor
with their 13-0 record
The University of Pennsylvania went 12-0
Vanderbilt University and Auburn University also completed
undefeated campaigns.
This debate over national prominence demonstrated that, while the
eastern colleges believed that they controlled the sport, others
were willing to challenge that status.
The stage is now set for bowl games to answer the perennial
National Champion question
Football 1900-1909
• In 1905 Union College and New York University (NYU)
played in New York City where Union end Harold
Moore died from an injury sustained in the game.
• The rules of the game cried out for changes
• The Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee, headed
by Paul Dashiell and controlled by its secretary, Walter
Camp, held its regularly scheduled meeting to create
and make some rule reforms to the game.
• Dominated by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Penn, this
committee struggled to find common ground for rule
changes.
Football 1900-1909
• Creation of the NCAA (1905)
• Palmer Pierce of West Point was the 1st president
of the Inter-Collegiate Athletic Association (ICAA),
whom headed a rules change meeting.
• Significant changes included the forward pass, a
neutral zone between the opposing teams, and—
Camp's favorite—the extension of a first down to
ten yards.
• Other proposals called for stronger penalties
against roughness, brutality, and insulting talk.
Football 1900-1909
• Season Final 1905: Traditional rivalry game
University of Chicago vs. Yost's Michigan
(58 straight win streak, seeking its 5th national championship, outscoring
opponents 495-0 during the season)
• Stagg's University of Chicago was also undefeated and had only
given up 5 points to opponents
• Stagg's team held off Yost's Michigan men 2-0, scoring on a
safety in a classic defensive Thanksgiving Day battle handing
Yost’s Wolverines their 1st loss in four years!!!
• LAST Thanksgiving Day Championship, and the LAST traditional
rivalry matchup for the Western Conference.
Football 1900-1909
• College Football then underwent severe
changes to the game.
• Rule changes were evident and many
institutes felt football impeded academic rigor
and that cheer practice and the fanaticism
surrounding big games distracted the
attention of students.
• College football would survive
Football 1900-1909
• The desire to win led teams to recruit athletes who
might not have been admitted to the universities under
normal circumstances – AKA – tramp athletes.
• Many ethnic minorities who possessed great athletic
ability had opportunities to play and attend classes in
schools where they would possibly not have been
welcomed if not for their athleticism.
• African American athletes, (Dartmouth's Matthew
Bullock and Ohio University quarterback Arthur D.
Carr) were sprinkled throughout college football, but
were banned from professional baseball.
Football 1900-1909
• The reforms around the country reflected
reform movements occurring in business and
industry throughout the nation.
• The American public viewed these reforms as
the connection of sport to the culture at large.
• Abuses needed to be addressed, whether
brutality in factory conditions or on the
gridiron.
Football 1900-1909
• 11 players died in college football in 1909 (many
from prominent eastern schools)
• Blagden Report passed - the forward pass was
liberalized to make it a more effective play,
pushing and pulling were outlawed
• Backs, and ends, were eligible to receive passes.
• The rules changed the game from the rugbyinfluenced style of the 1890s into the modern
game of American football.
• The end of the decade was the dawning of a new
era for American football.
**The game had survived 2 major crises and came through
them not only changed but also reinvigorated.**
Football 1900-1909
• Changes in the game included more than the
rulebooks and the playing field.
• The gender roles represented in the game also
changed dramatically. While the game had always
been a male bastion on the gridiron, females played
a prominent role in leading cheering sections.
• Progressive fears about the feminization of America
altered that relationship during this decade.
Football 1900-1909
• Schools took Theodore Roosevelt's call for masculine
identity characterizing American nationality to heart.
• Schools with large female populations feared that they
would be viewed as women's colleges. Some banned
women from their campuses; others used strong
football teams to proclaim their masculinity. Still others
banned women from participating in the cheering
sections.
• In 1903 the University of Washington established a
separate section for women to sit and cheer, apart
from the men's cheer section. AND -