The Near-Death Experience of Football

Carla Killough McClafferty 
illuminating lives from the past, impacting lives in the present

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     Every fall, the smell of popcorn and hot dogs fills the air as fans make their way into stadiums to cheer for the home team.  Football is such a big part of our world that it is hard to imagine life in America without the sport.  

    But in 1905, football was nearly cancelled—forever.  By the end of the year, nineteen boys  had died as a result of playing football.  Because of these deaths and the many injuries that occurred during the season, Columbia University in New York City decided they would no longer have a football team.  Other colleges considered banning their football teams too.  

     At the time, Teddy Roosevelt was President of the United States.  He was a football fan and believed young Americans should live a “strenuous life” filled with hard work and physical activity.  President Roosevelt did not want America to lose football, but he also understood the game needed to be less brutal that it was.  So he called a meeting between the coaches of Harvard, Yale and Princeton on October 9, 1905.  The coaches joined Roosevelt at the White House to discuss how to make football safer.  

    As the season drew to a close, the future of football was still in question.  In December Walter Camp, the man who invented American football, led a group called the Intercollegiate Rules Committee to make rule changes.  As part of the changes, the Committee wanted officials to enforce rules against kneeing, kicking and punching on the field.  For the first time football would include a forward pass.  They also changed the distance it would take for a first down—it had been five yards, but the new rules changed it to ten yards.      

    The rule changes of 1905 are still part of football today, and so is Walter Camp’s Committee.  Today it is known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) which still governs the rules of college football.

This cartoon titled “Next! A President Who ‘Does’ Things.” depicts President Theodore Roosevelt and includes an injured football player on the right side. Image: Library of Congress

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Did you know that football was almost banned in 1905 because nineteen players were dead and countless others injures?  Carla McClafferty has written a book that balances the love of America’s most popular spectator sport with a hard look at its costs for players.  This is a must read for players and coaches. 
     Carla McClafferty is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom,  a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam.  Click here to find out more.

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MLA 8 Citation
McClafferty, Carla Killough. "The Near-Death Experience of Football."
     Nonfiction Minute`, iNK Think Tank, 1 Feb. 2018,
     www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
     the-near-death-experience-of-football.