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 upper-class 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 whichteams would line upguards and tackles inthe backfield and usetheir momentum topropel 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• 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 rugby-influenced

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.

• 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 -

(Cheerleading is born)

Football 1900-1909