Letter to the editor
The views stated here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors of this newspaper.
Phil Devlin’s interesting article concerning “Widespread Deaths in Football…” (August 30th issue) reminds me that while the Ivy League around 1908 was asked by President Teddy Roosevelt to tone down violence in college football, on the West Coast, Marge DeBold’s University of California at Berkeley, and my Stanford, plus a number of other West Coast universities, actually gave up American rules football for Rugby beginning in 1906.
The color and drama of intercollegiate athletics, particularly football, had caught the public eye. Reflecting the growing commercialization of football, educators across the country increasingly called attention to the rule of athletics in college life. Critics pointed to the growing professionalism of athletes, to coaches who willfully ignored scholarship requirements, to betting and payoff scandals, to the growing number of injuries and violent warlike atmosphere on the field.
In 1906, Stanford, Cal, and a number of other universities out West turned to rugby, influenced by exhibition games performed by visiting Australian and New Zealand teams. Cal returned to American rules football in 1915 and Stanford in 1919. Stanford’s return to football was aided by changes nationally to the sport, especially in refereeing and harsher penalties, and important campus changes in coaching, training, and financial management.
In regard to commercialization of football in university life, do readers detect some similarities to the high cost of college education in Connecticut today?
The original article can be found HERE.
submitted by Stew Gillmor, 8/30/19
