The Big Scrum

Here are some thoughts I had while reading The Big Scrum, How Teddy Roosevelt saved football by John J. Miller.

This book I thought was more about the history of football rather than how Roosevelt saved the game.
The book starts out describing the early game of football.  The author quotes several accounts from the early Renaissance period that describe a game that was called "football."  The early accounts called it "football" because the ball was actually kicked with the feet, and the touching of the ball with the hands was against the rules.  The game then was vastly different then the one we now know.

The author also chronicles the life of Theodore Roosevelt as well.  It is well known to historians that Teddy was a sickly child, suffering from frequent asthma attacks.  But with hard work, and a lot of excercise, Teddy overcame the illnesses that often beset him as a child. 

The author also describes a book written in England by Thomas Hughes called Tom Brown's School days.  The book is about a boy named Tom.  Tom is small for his age, and he becomes an easy target for bullies at school.  So Tom learns to fist fight.  Many adults are appalled at the violence of these fights, but Tom doesn't care what the adults say.  The author writes these words: "From the cradle tot he grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the buisness, the real, highest, honestest business of every son of man.  Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in himself or spiritual wickedness in hight places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom or Harry, who will not let him live his life in quiet til he has thrashed them."

While Tom Brown's School days  is about fist fighting, it inspired Teddy Roosevelt and many others to realize that the health of their bodies is important.  Many of the great men of the world until the late 19th century were scholars, people who read books, wrote essays and thought great thoughts.  Until about this time athletics were frowned upon.

In England, a comentator called Tom Brown's School days an example of "Mascular Christianity."  The label comes from a novel written by Charles Kingsley, who wrote this statement: "A healthful and manful Christinity; one which does not exalt the feminine virtues to the exclesion of the masculine."  This phrase was made popular by Thomas Hughes. 

The movement of Mascular Christianity sought to combine Christian spirit with physical vigar.  Hughes and others understood that God gave us bodies for a reason; they were to be used to our pleasure, not abused and neglected.  Hughes inserted these ideas into Tom Brown's School days, which made them extremely popluar. 

So what does Mascular Christianity have to do with how Teddy Roosevelt saved football?  I was also wondering this.  When we understand what the motive was for people to play football we can thus better understand its' history.  When people realized that our bodies had a divine purpose, they began to excercise.  This movement not only helped the creation of football, it helped start professional baseball and other sports.

The first intercollegate football game played in the United States was played in 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton.   This game is vastly different than the one enjoyed by millions on the fall weedends.  The forward pass and running the ball were illegal, there were 25 players on each team, and the rules were not standardized.

So with this beginning, other colleges around America soon started to play football.  It gained in popularity with each passing year, and soon the game became so violent that many called for its total abolishment.  But not even deaths could keep Americans away from the games.  Soon, however the forces working to abolish football did succeed in a small measure, but banning it at several of the leading colleges:  Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton.

President Roosevelt was a huge supported of football.  He knew that something had to be done to phase out the violence of the the game.  So in 1905 he called Walter Camp, and other leading officers of the game to come and discuss what could be done. Nothing of note was accomplished at this meeting, but this first meeting led to other meetings where rules were standardized.  Soon these meeting led to the establishment of the National College Athletic Association, or the NCAA.  This became the governing body for all College Sports. 

It does not appear that President Theodore Roosevelt had much of an impact on saving the game of football.  But many of the people that were present at the first meeting at the White House swore that without that first meeting, football might not have survived the movement to abolish it.  Bill Reid, who coached Harvard for many years and was at the meeting wrote, "except for this chain of events there might now be no such thing as American football as we know it.  You asked me whether Teddy Roosevelt helped save the game.  I can tell you that he did."

I love this book!!  It helps me see what things were done in history that influence the way the people of today see the world.  Now millions of kids each year play the game.  We have all kinds of different sports now.  Now I understand the reasons people have for playing it.  I recommend that anyone who loves history read this book!