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Chapter 12 The Intercollegiate Football Spectacle

The Age of Crisis

1890-1913

• College Football’s existence is threatened due to heated conflicts with:

• Injuries

• Deaths

• Eligibility

• Recruitment

• Payment to players

“The spirit of the American youth, as of the American man, is to win, by fair means or foul”

What was the English way as previously discussed?

The Age of Crisis

“Tramp Athlete”

James J. Hogan (27 year old captain of the Yale team)

• Free Tuition

• Free suite in the swanky Vanderbilt Hall

• $100 Scholarship

• 10-day paid vacation to Cuba

• Monopoly of American Tobacco Company products on campus

The Age of Crisis

Power is taken away from the students, and is gained by the university faculty/administration

• Players like to win

• Paid coaches need to win

Athletics is starting to be ran more like a business than a student/amateur sporting activity

• Paid Players

• Non-student players

The Age of Crisis Greatest Outcry

• Deaths and Injuries “Flying Wedge/Trick V” and other lethal formations

• Bloodied Heads

• Broken Limbs

• Unconscious Players

Teddy Roosevelt

• Supporter of vigorous athletics and the father of a Harvard football player

• Invited a select group to the WH “to get them to come to a gentlemen’s agreement not to have mucker play”

• http://www.cc.com/video-clips/bodctu/drunk-history-teddy-roosevelt-saves- football

The Age of Crisis

After another death of a player, NYU president Henry B. McCracken called together a group of university presidents who decided to form a new rules committee

• Intercollegiate Athletics Association (IAA)

• National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)

This change revoked the power of Walter Camp and allies in the game of football

NCAA gave the power to colleges to formulated standards of conduct and to create rules committees

Formation of Conferences

Governing the game was tricky

• In theory, the college should have been able to establish a level playing field by joining together, establish a set of common rules and imposing harsh penalties on one another’s violations

• Continued allegiance to amateurism

• NOT a commercial enterprise

As a result, many colleges turned to regional associations or conferences to bring cohesion to the game

Formation of Conferences

1895 - Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives

• Western Conference

• B1G TEN

“King Football”

Beginning in the 1920’s, attendance at college games doubled, and gate receipts tripled $$$

• Construction of colossal stadiums from Ohio to California

• 1920 – only one stadium held 70,000 spectators

• 1930 – seven held more than 70,000 spectators

• National press of college football more than doubled

• Newsreel companies offered film footage in theaters of the previous Saturday’s game

• Dozens of games on radio, 48-full length films, football stories in circulation magazines

“King Football”

Small cities that hosted football programs reached the highest levels of fandom

• Lack of significant history, great civic monuments, or remarkable physical scenery only made this bond with college football stronger

The “Big Three”

• Harvard

• Yale

• Princeton

Influential sports writers could generate great exposure for an unknown school if they played and even won against one of the Big Three

“King Football”

Style of play mirroring the culture of the regions from where they came

• Midwest – Rock-’em, sock-’em style of power football (running game)

• Southwest – Wild West Shootout Spirit (passing game)

• Deep South – Defensive game from the spirit of the antebellum Old South

The media “played up” the regional style of play, but it was actually dictated primarily on weather conditions, not culture of the region.

“King Football” Football programs gave states or groups a sense of national identity and pride

• Alabama – 3 National Championships between 1923-1931

• Alabama Governor Bibb Graves

• “We have been hampered industrially by an unfair picture the world seems to have of Alabama as a state of undersized, weak people from the swamp lands full of malaria and tuberculosis

• Army/Navy Football

• Fandom fueled by recent WWI and WWII gave birth to a national following of supports of the military

• Those who wore khakis in the war supported Army, bellbottoms supported Navy

• After WWII, Big Three de-emphasized football, whereas the Army/Navy game became the event to tune in for.

• 2017 – Army/Navy Game Intro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tjhw- 0H6FI&feature=emb_logo

“King Football”

Which team had the largest boom of fan support in the 1920’s?

Roman Catholics (minority) had something to rally around amongst the Protestant majority in America

The Football Coach as Hero

Unlike baseball where players reached the highest level of heroism, in football it was the coaches

• Heroic status flowed, largely to the belief that good coaching made the difference between victory and defeat

• The stakes involved and importance in coaching, football coaches typically made more money than the highest paid professors

Knute Rockne

• Embodied the narrative of the self-made man

• Norwegian immigrant

• Protestant among Catholics (later converted)

• ND Student/Player -> Chemistry Professor -> Assistant Coach -> Head Coach

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--QypgIu0Ng

Continuing Controversies

Most football fans worried little or not at all about the commercial or semi-professional character of the game

A small, but loud group of intellectuals were voicing their opinion of education and athletics

• Purpose of college/university?

• Student Amateurs with little regard for academic qualifications or performance

• Athletes leaving college early for the Pro’s (Red Grange)

• Scholastic aspects were secondary to on field victories and financial success

The most intellectual schools started de-emphasizing football and their importance