April 4, 2019 • 23 mins
In recent years the public has become increasingly aware of the long-term dangers posed by sports injuries -- but at the turn of the 20th century this wasn't the case. Football players didn't wear protective gear, and in 1905 alone more than 15 players died from game-related injuries. Universities were on the verge of banning football entirely. President Roosevelt, himself a life-long fan of the sport, knew something must be done. Listen in to learn how the 26th President of the US may just have saved modern football.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
The following episode is going to be of uh. You know,
so it's going to be about something ridiculous, but it's
also going to be a peek into US culture for
a lot of our fellow ridiculous historians listening outside of
the United States. We are today talking about football, American football,
(00:46):
American football, and there's going to necessarily be some roughness
in this episode. Necessary roughness. No, what was necessary rough
It was just a raunchy like nineties American football comedy.
I believe who are you? Oh? I'm Noel uh and
I am an aficionado of raunchy nineties football based comedies. Yes, yes, yes,
(01:08):
that's how we met. I did my undergrad in that.
Actually all facts. I am ben and this is ridiculous history.
But it would not be ridiculous history without our super producer,
Casey Pegrop. I just want to acknowledge that American football
also a great band. YEP kind of h what is
what would you call him? It's a little emo, kind
(01:29):
of emo, but way more on the tolerable side as
far as I'm concerned. No, they're good. They're kind of jangly,
they don't like, they don't wind scream, and it's kind
of a little more low key, and the guitars are
kind of jangly and our peggio e kind of I
dig it. And they have reunited after many years dormant.
They have a third album coming out. I will say
this though, for some reason, the name American Football, it's
(01:50):
just very bland sounding. It sounds like they'd be a
very bland kind of vanilla band. And they mean it's
approachable emo. That's what I would call it. Casey on
the case. Well, today's story actually has a pretty cool
Atlanta connection, which is where we find ourselves right now.
Back in eight seven, there was a fullback um at
(02:13):
the University of Georgia named Richard von Gammon, and he
was playing um with his team against the Virginia team,
which is a college team. And in those days, it
was quite common for players to be brutally injured, and
(02:33):
this was no exception. He was rushed and dogpiled on
and was at the bottom of this heap of humanity
and he started he received this this hit and then
began to vomit blood and he they realized that he
was dying on this football field. They eventually realized what happened.
(02:57):
The team doctor pop the guy with a syringeful of morphine.
And then notice the blood was coming from Richard von
Gammon's head. Von Gammon, you see, had suffered a skull
fracture and a concussion. He was placed in a horse
drawn carriage headed for Grady Hospital and he died in
(03:18):
the hospital overnight. Yeah, and that scene that we're describing,
a medic basically coming out and stabbing a football player
with a syringeful of morphine sounds more like something akin
to what you see on a Vietnam battlefield or you
know what I mean. This is this is a college
sport for fun, right right, he was not wearing headgear. Today,
(03:42):
football is still hazardous. According to CDC estimates here in
the US, one point six to three point eight million
sports and recreation related concussions occur each year in the US.
Of all contact sports, athletes sustained concussion each year, brain
injuries caused more deaths than any other sport injury, and
(04:06):
in American football, brain injuries count forget this, sixty five
to nine five of all fatalities. And this is with
all the equipment that people have today. Back in these
days that we're talking about, they didn't have helmets. They
barely had any padding. Um. A little later, there's a
movie called leather Heads that started a guy played Jim
(04:27):
in the Office and George Clooney, where you can see
the relatively minor changes that were made in football by
nine and there were some pretty small helmets, a little
bit more shoulder padding. But in these days, when this event,
this death of this young man, really polarized the nation
against the sport, very little protective measures were put in
place for these, uh, these young men that were out there.
(04:48):
I am delighted because we knew a lot about each other.
This is news to me, folks. I am delighted. Noel,
by your by your fascination with these these like turn
of the twentie century football films, you know, nineties to
early two thousand's, is at your wheelhouse? Did my dissertation
(05:10):
on varsity blues? You know, looking back, it all makes
sense in retrospect, and that's something that we see today.
You know, if you've ever watched a US football game,
you can see the tremendous amount of damage these folks
are dealing out to one another. And then you can
look back at pictures of footballers of yesteryear and see
(05:33):
that they were doing the same thing with much less protection.
This has been an ongoing debate in this country. Was
football a proper pastime, people are asking in the wake
of Von Gammon's death, or was it as violent and
deadly as quote the gladiatorial combat of ancient Rome Ivy League.
(05:57):
University presidents argued about this, along with reformist muckraking journalists
and politicians. As we learn through a great Smithsonian article
called score one for Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt himself intervened
because you see, in addition to being president, he was
(06:18):
a huge football fan and had been from the start.
And he even schooled his young son who comes into
play in this um and saying that the very thing
that makes us love football is the very thing that
makes it so utterly brutal and dangerous. At the time,
they I'm not a football okay, man. Now I'm showing
(06:38):
him to be my hand a little bit. I am
not an expert on the sport itself, just more its
portrayal in cinema. But they didn't even have the forward
pass you had. It was all about the rush. It
was all about having an individual holding the ball rushing
it physically not throw throwing the ball and having it intercepted,
you had to actually physically hold it, and that would
open you up to much more um potential to be
(07:01):
hit or dog piled on. And that is how the
game was played in those days. And this put Roosevelt
in an interesting position because he loved the game ever
since he was a kid. He publicly presented himself as
a fan. But there was a little bit of what
pr folks would call optics to play here, because this
(07:23):
bravado in his public presentation of himself was meant to
distract from his severe asthma, his terrible eyes, sight, and
the other physical challenges he had growing up as a
sickly child. He was too slender and frail to play
varsity football himself, but that did not diminish his love
for the sport. Roosevelt called American football the greatest exercise
(07:46):
of fine moral qualities such as resolution, courage, endurance, and
capacity to hold one zone and stand up under punishment.
He also wrote that in life, as in a football game,
the principle should be don't foul and don't but hit
the line hard. Furthermore, he said, I will disinherit ady
son who does not play college sports. Yeah, and this
(08:08):
comes into play in just a little bit. But he
also was quoted as saying in a public address in
nineteen o three that he didn't feel any sympathy for
people who got battered, even a great deal, as long
as it was not fatal um. And the thing is,
these injuries that were happening, they didn't always result in deaths,
but they were gruesome and they had long lasting UH ramifications,
(08:31):
even if it wasn't clear right away. It was this
death in clear view of everyone basically that really changed
the conversation. But we are talking about punctured lungs from
ribs that are broken, we are talking about head injuries.
We are talking about rented spines, broken legs, all kinds
of stuff because of the lack of safeguards in this sport, right.
(08:55):
And we also have to consider that at this point
in time, a lot of people were not aware of
the long term damage posed by concussions, you know what
I mean. They wouldn't notice something wrong necessarily until several
years had passed. Historians will tell us that by the
(09:21):
time Roosevelt entered the White House as president in nineteen
o one, the gridiron had turned into a killing field
because of these harsh rules. One Princeton player explained to
the journalist Henry Beach need him that we're coached to
pick out the most dangerous man on the opposing side
(09:42):
and put him out in the first five minutes of
the game. In nineteen o five, the Chicago Tribune reported
that nineteen people died playing college, high school, and sand
lot or amateur football that year, and Roosevelt was getting unsettled.
He didn't like this. He's pres resident, so the press
is always going to be, you know, at least partially adversarial, right,
(10:05):
And being a shrewd politician, he saw trouble on the horizon,
and he didn't like these journalists talking bad, talking smack
about football. He was determined to save football somehow. He
also knew on the on the side of the Ivory
Towers that several officials at Harvard and other universities were
(10:28):
determined to abolish the game altogether, at least bannit from
their campuses. Roosevelt referred to this as the Baby Act
in that period that Ben you were just describing. In
in the nineteen o five football season, the Chicago Tribune
coined a pretty excellent expression for it. They called it
the death Harvest. Yeah. Yeah, So we see Roosevelt at
(10:51):
a crossroads, right, the colleges want to end the game,
the journalists are describing the horrors of physical injury in
lurid detail. Maybe now we reintroduce his son, Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
It was in that year of the Death Harvest that
(11:11):
Ted Roosevelt, as Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Was known, Was playing
for his alma mater of Harvard against Yale, and that
was when he got an illegal hit that left him
with a broken nose and a pretty bloodied face, and
some conjecture that they this was done to him on
(11:32):
purpose because no one else had been seriously injured in
in that game and in that But here's the thing.
In that same afternoon, another football player by the name
of Harold Moore, who played for Union College, he died
of a cerebral hemorrhage when he was kicked in the
head while attempting to tackle an n y U player. Um.
(11:55):
And this was all during that year, and it was
kind of an eye open thing for President Roosevelt because
he wasn't he certainly didn't want to give his son
special treatment. But I think he it opened his eyes
to how there needed to be some kind of change
that wouldn't rob the sport of what made it good,
but also would have some protections for these young men
(12:17):
who were in Ivy League schools and had bright careers
ahead of them outside of the sport. You know, they
didn't want to I didn't want them to have like
brain injuries and be so seriously injured that they couldn't
pursue their dreams. I mean, I think, what do you
think made it click for him Ben? Because he certainly
didn't seem someone that would pamper his son. He wanted
him to, you know, be in this rough environment and
kind of learn and you know, stand on his own
(12:39):
two feet. There are multiple factors. We know that he
was very very close to his children, but he also
expected a lot out of them. We know that he
wrote to his son and said that the very things
that make it a good game make it a rough game,
referring to football and even and he seemed a little divided.
(13:02):
He definitely wanted his children to play, but he was
also as any father would be, concerned. And then you know,
you have the media angle and then you have the
inarguable fact that children are dying. They're dying preventable deaths,
and they're dying as a result of participating in this sport.
(13:24):
On October nine, Roosevelt convenes a football summit at the
White House. A lot of people are there, athletic directors,
ivy league coaches, Secretary of State at LEI, who root
and Roosevelt says football is on trial because I believe
in the game. I want to do all I can
to save it. And so I have called you all
(13:46):
down here to see whether you won't all agree to
abide by both the letter and spirit of the rules,
for that will help. And Ben, if I'm not mistaken,
this summit, or this intercollegiate collective a conference, I guess
would ultimately become what is now today known as the
n C Double A. Yeah, the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
(14:08):
This happens. So it makes this speech on nineteen o five,
same years the death Harvest. The next year, March nineteen
o six, sixty two institutions become members of the n
C Double A. And this included a codified set of
rules of engagement, much like any kind of international agreement
between nations on what constitutes fair war tactics. I mean,
(14:32):
this was very much along those lines. They changed some
of the rules. Remember earlier was talking about how they
didn't allow the forward pass. You had to run with
the ball. Now they allowed the forward pass, which would
cut down on the opportunities for um runners to be tackled.
And not to mention, they changed some more specific things.
Then you might have a better grasps with this than me,
but I'm gonna do my best to explain it. They
(14:55):
changed they had a neutral zone between offense and defense,
and they actually so a neutral zone would be a
zone where you are less likely to get hit? Is
that right? So in American football, and I had to
look this up. In American football, the neutral zone is
the length of the football from one tip to the
(15:17):
other when it's spotted placed on a certain spot on
the field prior to the snap of the ball during
a scrimmaged down. Okay, so there's that again. I feel
like you just got wish. I got wish. We got
wish big time. So legalize the forward past that one.
I understand neutral zone And then they also um doubled
(15:37):
the This is from a history dot Com article about
how Teddy Roosevelt say football. They doubled the first down
distance to ten yards, so I guess you didn't have
to rush quite as far. Oh, you know what, in
the amount of time. That makes sense. Also, I was
getting two in the weeds with that neutral zone definition.
(15:58):
Let's just think of it as an area where no
members of either team can go other than the person
holding the ball. That makes sense. It makes a little
more sense. We're unwooshing ourselves. And this didn't completely change
the nature of the game, which was by design. They
wanted to keep it rough. They didn't want to like
(16:19):
I mean, it's a little bit of a pejorative very
much as but Roosevelt said. They didn't want to make
the game be played quote onto lady like a basis.
So it certainly wasn't because yeah, it certainly wasn't becoming
touch football or flag football or something. But uh, fatalities
declined to eleven per year instead of the nine team
that we saw in that death harvest here, which to
(16:40):
me isn't quite good enough. Still progress, I guess you
could say that Harvard's football coach at the time, William Reid,
said that Roosevelt had helped save the game. A ban
against the sport by colleges and universities would have prevented
most likely would have prevented the development of professional football.
(17:02):
And although this this ends the main branch of our tail,
and it is true that if you are a football fan,
you should ardently thank President Theodore Roosevelt. I have to
say there is one thing about football that always trips
me out. More and more recently, it's the Super Bowl
halftime show. Man, Yeah, which is its own bag of badgers.
(17:25):
It's own ball of wax or weird string or I
should say ball of lip sync abbreviated performances. Totally. We
have the Super Bowl in Atlanta this last game, and uh,
people were talking more about the halftime show than they
were about the game. Apparently it was a bit of
a snooze fest. But it was funny when there were
things that happened as part of the game the telecast.
I could go outside and hear like the Blue Angel
(17:46):
Jets flying overhead. That was funny to be able to
experience those things in real time. Yeah, you know, I
I know that there are amazing Super Bowl halftime performances,
and I know that there are people who just tuned
in to watch that. But I gotta say I the
last one didn't really didn't really move me, you know
what I mean? Who was that Maroon five number in five,
(18:09):
Adam Levine with his Adam Levine and his TACKI tattoos.
I heard the bigger controversy was him showing a nipple
and not getting nipples and not getting in trouble. Which
multiple nipples, yeah, for just the one. Yeah, it's definitely
a bizarre double standard. So let us know what you
think of American football. I'd especially love to hear what
(18:31):
you think if you are not from this country, because
here in the US football is tremendously popular. It's a
billion dollar industry, and for outsiders looking in the rules
of football can seem as inscrutable as the rules of cricket.
Do you know the rules of cricket? Absolutely not? Don't
(18:53):
bad neither do I I know the bats called the
wicket right now? No? Sorry and no no, it's the
uh the I I don't know the name of the
bat in cricket, but the wicket is one of the
two sets of three stumps at either end of the pitch, know,
like a wicket in croquet. So what's the sticky wicket? Uh,
(19:16):
sticky wicket? If I'm just speculating, here is a wicket
where it's tough to knock down the horizontal parts the bails.
I give up, don't give alright, I won't give up.
I'll send you. I'm gonna send you a great sketch
from Mitchell and Webb, my friends about cricket. I would
really love that ban because I love Michell and Webb,
(19:37):
and I apparently am completely ignorant on on the rules
of cricket and American football because you know what, Ben,
they don't really talk about the rules in the movies,
the football movies. They just assume that you already know.
And it's mainly about the Oscar moments speeches right to me,
it's about the Oscar moment. It's about it's about like,
Rudy is a good one. I like Rudy the underdog story.
I really like for you. I know, I know, I
(19:58):
usually go for the deeper cuts, but um, it's it's
an important one. Remember the Titans, do you remember them?
Remember those Titans? I don't remember those Titans. I know
the name of the film, but I haven't watched it.
It's a very, very inspiring tale of underdoggedness. I'm more
into weird presidential history and trivia, and I think this
(20:20):
episode qualifies for that. I think this episode is the
beautiful ven diagram betwixt those two disciplines them right right,
I agree with you, knowl and this ends our story today. Yeah,
let us know if American football is popular outside of
the US, it's probably never gonna be as popular as
(20:42):
soccer or you know what the rest of the world
calls football. Furthermore, let us know what you think of
the concussion controversy. A few years back, we got together
at work and did what I think is is a
pretty stand up video, a documentary on concussions. Do you
remember that, Casey, I do remember that we went to
(21:04):
or I didn't go, but somebody went to like a
conference or something about it, right, Yeah, Football Hall of
Fame or something like that. Maybe we can post that
on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians. It's it's an excellent
way to learn a little bit more about the current
science combating concussions today. While you are on the internet,
(21:27):
feel free to check us out on Twitter. You can
also find us on Instagram. And you can check out
some more of knowles I'm certain deep dive research into
nineties era football films on his own Instagram. Yep, you
can that is at Embryonic Insider, where you know, you know,
I'll post pictures and video clips of me at various
(21:51):
nineties pop culture conferences and symposiums, symposiums and talks, and
you know, Ted talks all the different guy talks. And
you can find me at Ben Bolan, where I am
your faithful correspondent providing a visual travelogue of the various
strange countries that I that I get kicked into and
(22:15):
kicked out of. North Korea. I'm looking at you. Here's
looking at you, North Korea. I like that, Ben, I
really gotta go. Um. Thanks to super producer Casey Pagraham,
as always Alex Williams who composed our theme, research associated
Gabe Loesier, and Ben you, Thanks Noll and Hey, and
thank you too. Thanks to Theodore Roosevelt for introducing us
(22:36):
to the term rough riders, for being president, for making
football a little less lethal and allowing the game to
continue for its millions of fans across the country and
the world. And thanks for listening. I have one last question.
I'm squeezing one last question for everybody. What's the weirdest
sport you know about? Yeah, that's not folks. Talk to
(22:57):
you soon.
The following episode is going to be of uh. You know,
so it's going to be about something ridiculous, but it's
also going to be a peek into US culture for
a lot of our fellow ridiculous historians listening outside of
the United States. We are today talking about football, American football,
(00:46):
American football, and there's going to necessarily be some roughness
in this episode. Necessary roughness. No, what was necessary rough
It was just a raunchy like nineties American football comedy.
I believe who are you? Oh? I'm Noel uh and
I am an aficionado of raunchy nineties football based comedies. Yes, yes, yes,
(01:08):
that's how we met. I did my undergrad in that.
Actually all facts. I am ben and this is ridiculous history.
But it would not be ridiculous history without our super producer,
Casey Pegrop. I just want to acknowledge that American football
also a great band. YEP kind of h what is
what would you call him? It's a little emo, kind
(01:29):
of emo, but way more on the tolerable side as
far as I'm concerned. No, they're good. They're kind of jangly,
they don't like, they don't wind scream, and it's kind
of a little more low key, and the guitars are
kind of jangly and our peggio e kind of I
dig it. And they have reunited after many years dormant.
They have a third album coming out. I will say
this though, for some reason, the name American Football, it's
(01:50):
just very bland sounding. It sounds like they'd be a
very bland kind of vanilla band. And they mean it's
approachable emo. That's what I would call it. Casey on
the case. Well, today's story actually has a pretty cool
Atlanta connection, which is where we find ourselves right now.
Back in eight seven, there was a fullback um at
(02:13):
the University of Georgia named Richard von Gammon, and he
was playing um with his team against the Virginia team,
which is a college team. And in those days, it
was quite common for players to be brutally injured, and
(02:33):
this was no exception. He was rushed and dogpiled on
and was at the bottom of this heap of humanity
and he started he received this this hit and then
began to vomit blood and he they realized that he
was dying on this football field. They eventually realized what happened.
(02:57):
The team doctor pop the guy with a syringeful of morphine.
And then notice the blood was coming from Richard von
Gammon's head. Von Gammon, you see, had suffered a skull
fracture and a concussion. He was placed in a horse
drawn carriage headed for Grady Hospital and he died in
(03:18):
the hospital overnight. Yeah, and that scene that we're describing,
a medic basically coming out and stabbing a football player
with a syringeful of morphine sounds more like something akin
to what you see on a Vietnam battlefield or you
know what I mean. This is this is a college
sport for fun, right right, he was not wearing headgear. Today,
(03:42):
football is still hazardous. According to CDC estimates here in
the US, one point six to three point eight million
sports and recreation related concussions occur each year in the US.
Of all contact sports, athletes sustained concussion each year, brain
injuries caused more deaths than any other sport injury, and
(04:06):
in American football, brain injuries count forget this, sixty five
to nine five of all fatalities. And this is with
all the equipment that people have today. Back in these
days that we're talking about, they didn't have helmets. They
barely had any padding. Um. A little later, there's a
movie called leather Heads that started a guy played Jim
(04:27):
in the Office and George Clooney, where you can see
the relatively minor changes that were made in football by
nine and there were some pretty small helmets, a little
bit more shoulder padding. But in these days, when this event,
this death of this young man, really polarized the nation
against the sport, very little protective measures were put in
place for these, uh, these young men that were out there.
(04:48):
I am delighted because we knew a lot about each other.
This is news to me, folks. I am delighted. Noel,
by your by your fascination with these these like turn
of the twentie century football films, you know, nineties to
early two thousand's, is at your wheelhouse? Did my dissertation
(05:10):
on varsity blues? You know, looking back, it all makes
sense in retrospect, and that's something that we see today.
You know, if you've ever watched a US football game,
you can see the tremendous amount of damage these folks
are dealing out to one another. And then you can
look back at pictures of footballers of yesteryear and see
(05:33):
that they were doing the same thing with much less protection.
This has been an ongoing debate in this country. Was
football a proper pastime, people are asking in the wake
of Von Gammon's death, or was it as violent and
deadly as quote the gladiatorial combat of ancient Rome Ivy League.
(05:57):
University presidents argued about this, along with reformist muckraking journalists
and politicians. As we learn through a great Smithsonian article
called score one for Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt himself intervened
because you see, in addition to being president, he was
(06:18):
a huge football fan and had been from the start.
And he even schooled his young son who comes into
play in this um and saying that the very thing
that makes us love football is the very thing that
makes it so utterly brutal and dangerous. At the time,
they I'm not a football okay, man. Now I'm showing
(06:38):
him to be my hand a little bit. I am
not an expert on the sport itself, just more its
portrayal in cinema. But they didn't even have the forward
pass you had. It was all about the rush. It
was all about having an individual holding the ball rushing
it physically not throw throwing the ball and having it intercepted,
you had to actually physically hold it, and that would
open you up to much more um potential to be
(07:01):
hit or dog piled on. And that is how the
game was played in those days. And this put Roosevelt
in an interesting position because he loved the game ever
since he was a kid. He publicly presented himself as
a fan. But there was a little bit of what
pr folks would call optics to play here, because this
(07:23):
bravado in his public presentation of himself was meant to
distract from his severe asthma, his terrible eyes, sight, and
the other physical challenges he had growing up as a
sickly child. He was too slender and frail to play
varsity football himself, but that did not diminish his love
for the sport. Roosevelt called American football the greatest exercise
(07:46):
of fine moral qualities such as resolution, courage, endurance, and
capacity to hold one zone and stand up under punishment.
He also wrote that in life, as in a football game,
the principle should be don't foul and don't but hit
the line hard. Furthermore, he said, I will disinherit ady
son who does not play college sports. Yeah, and this
(08:08):
comes into play in just a little bit. But he
also was quoted as saying in a public address in
nineteen o three that he didn't feel any sympathy for
people who got battered, even a great deal, as long
as it was not fatal um. And the thing is,
these injuries that were happening, they didn't always result in deaths,
but they were gruesome and they had long lasting UH ramifications,
(08:31):
even if it wasn't clear right away. It was this
death in clear view of everyone basically that really changed
the conversation. But we are talking about punctured lungs from
ribs that are broken, we are talking about head injuries.
We are talking about rented spines, broken legs, all kinds
of stuff because of the lack of safeguards in this sport, right.
(08:55):
And we also have to consider that at this point
in time, a lot of people were not aware of
the long term damage posed by concussions, you know what
I mean. They wouldn't notice something wrong necessarily until several
years had passed. Historians will tell us that by the
(09:21):
time Roosevelt entered the White House as president in nineteen
o one, the gridiron had turned into a killing field
because of these harsh rules. One Princeton player explained to
the journalist Henry Beach need him that we're coached to
pick out the most dangerous man on the opposing side
(09:42):
and put him out in the first five minutes of
the game. In nineteen o five, the Chicago Tribune reported
that nineteen people died playing college, high school, and sand
lot or amateur football that year, and Roosevelt was getting unsettled.
He didn't like this. He's pres resident, so the press
is always going to be, you know, at least partially adversarial, right,
(10:05):
And being a shrewd politician, he saw trouble on the horizon,
and he didn't like these journalists talking bad, talking smack
about football. He was determined to save football somehow. He
also knew on the on the side of the Ivory
Towers that several officials at Harvard and other universities were
(10:28):
determined to abolish the game altogether, at least bannit from
their campuses. Roosevelt referred to this as the Baby Act
in that period that Ben you were just describing. In
in the nineteen o five football season, the Chicago Tribune
coined a pretty excellent expression for it. They called it
the death Harvest. Yeah. Yeah, So we see Roosevelt at
(10:51):
a crossroads, right, the colleges want to end the game,
the journalists are describing the horrors of physical injury in
lurid detail. Maybe now we reintroduce his son, Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
It was in that year of the Death Harvest that
(11:11):
Ted Roosevelt, as Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Was known, Was playing
for his alma mater of Harvard against Yale, and that
was when he got an illegal hit that left him
with a broken nose and a pretty bloodied face, and
some conjecture that they this was done to him on
(11:32):
purpose because no one else had been seriously injured in
in that game and in that But here's the thing.
In that same afternoon, another football player by the name
of Harold Moore, who played for Union College, he died
of a cerebral hemorrhage when he was kicked in the
head while attempting to tackle an n y U player. Um.
(11:55):
And this was all during that year, and it was
kind of an eye open thing for President Roosevelt because
he wasn't he certainly didn't want to give his son
special treatment. But I think he it opened his eyes
to how there needed to be some kind of change
that wouldn't rob the sport of what made it good,
but also would have some protections for these young men
(12:17):
who were in Ivy League schools and had bright careers
ahead of them outside of the sport. You know, they
didn't want to I didn't want them to have like
brain injuries and be so seriously injured that they couldn't
pursue their dreams. I mean, I think, what do you
think made it click for him Ben? Because he certainly
didn't seem someone that would pamper his son. He wanted
him to, you know, be in this rough environment and
kind of learn and you know, stand on his own
(12:39):
two feet. There are multiple factors. We know that he
was very very close to his children, but he also
expected a lot out of them. We know that he
wrote to his son and said that the very things
that make it a good game make it a rough game,
referring to football and even and he seemed a little divided.
(13:02):
He definitely wanted his children to play, but he was
also as any father would be, concerned. And then you know,
you have the media angle and then you have the
inarguable fact that children are dying. They're dying preventable deaths,
and they're dying as a result of participating in this sport.
(13:24):
On October nine, Roosevelt convenes a football summit at the
White House. A lot of people are there, athletic directors,
ivy league coaches, Secretary of State at LEI, who root
and Roosevelt says football is on trial because I believe
in the game. I want to do all I can
to save it. And so I have called you all
(13:46):
down here to see whether you won't all agree to
abide by both the letter and spirit of the rules,
for that will help. And Ben, if I'm not mistaken,
this summit, or this intercollegiate collective a conference, I guess
would ultimately become what is now today known as the
n C Double A. Yeah, the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
(14:08):
This happens. So it makes this speech on nineteen o five,
same years the death Harvest. The next year, March nineteen
o six, sixty two institutions become members of the n
C Double A. And this included a codified set of
rules of engagement, much like any kind of international agreement
between nations on what constitutes fair war tactics. I mean,
(14:32):
this was very much along those lines. They changed some
of the rules. Remember earlier was talking about how they
didn't allow the forward pass. You had to run with
the ball. Now they allowed the forward pass, which would
cut down on the opportunities for um runners to be tackled.
And not to mention, they changed some more specific things.
Then you might have a better grasps with this than me,
but I'm gonna do my best to explain it. They
(14:55):
changed they had a neutral zone between offense and defense,
and they actually so a neutral zone would be a
zone where you are less likely to get hit? Is
that right? So in American football, and I had to
look this up. In American football, the neutral zone is
the length of the football from one tip to the
(15:17):
other when it's spotted placed on a certain spot on
the field prior to the snap of the ball during
a scrimmaged down. Okay, so there's that again. I feel
like you just got wish. I got wish. We got
wish big time. So legalize the forward past that one.
I understand neutral zone And then they also um doubled
(15:37):
the This is from a history dot Com article about
how Teddy Roosevelt say football. They doubled the first down
distance to ten yards, so I guess you didn't have
to rush quite as far. Oh, you know what, in
the amount of time. That makes sense. Also, I was
getting two in the weeds with that neutral zone definition.
(15:58):
Let's just think of it as an area where no
members of either team can go other than the person
holding the ball. That makes sense. It makes a little
more sense. We're unwooshing ourselves. And this didn't completely change
the nature of the game, which was by design. They
wanted to keep it rough. They didn't want to like
(16:19):
I mean, it's a little bit of a pejorative very
much as but Roosevelt said. They didn't want to make
the game be played quote onto lady like a basis.
So it certainly wasn't because yeah, it certainly wasn't becoming
touch football or flag football or something. But uh, fatalities
declined to eleven per year instead of the nine team
that we saw in that death harvest here, which to
(16:40):
me isn't quite good enough. Still progress, I guess you
could say that Harvard's football coach at the time, William Reid,
said that Roosevelt had helped save the game. A ban
against the sport by colleges and universities would have prevented
most likely would have prevented the development of professional football.
(17:02):
And although this this ends the main branch of our tail,
and it is true that if you are a football fan,
you should ardently thank President Theodore Roosevelt. I have to
say there is one thing about football that always trips
me out. More and more recently, it's the Super Bowl
halftime show. Man, Yeah, which is its own bag of badgers.
(17:25):
It's own ball of wax or weird string or I
should say ball of lip sync abbreviated performances. Totally. We
have the Super Bowl in Atlanta this last game, and uh,
people were talking more about the halftime show than they
were about the game. Apparently it was a bit of
a snooze fest. But it was funny when there were
things that happened as part of the game the telecast.
I could go outside and hear like the Blue Angel
(17:46):
Jets flying overhead. That was funny to be able to
experience those things in real time. Yeah, you know, I
I know that there are amazing Super Bowl halftime performances,
and I know that there are people who just tuned
in to watch that. But I gotta say I the
last one didn't really didn't really move me, you know
what I mean? Who was that Maroon five number in five,
(18:09):
Adam Levine with his Adam Levine and his TACKI tattoos.
I heard the bigger controversy was him showing a nipple
and not getting nipples and not getting in trouble. Which
multiple nipples, yeah, for just the one. Yeah, it's definitely
a bizarre double standard. So let us know what you
think of American football. I'd especially love to hear what
(18:31):
you think if you are not from this country, because
here in the US football is tremendously popular. It's a
billion dollar industry, and for outsiders looking in the rules
of football can seem as inscrutable as the rules of cricket.
Do you know the rules of cricket? Absolutely not? Don't
(18:53):
bad neither do I I know the bats called the
wicket right now? No? Sorry and no no, it's the
uh the I I don't know the name of the
bat in cricket, but the wicket is one of the
two sets of three stumps at either end of the pitch, know,
like a wicket in croquet. So what's the sticky wicket? Uh,
(19:16):
sticky wicket? If I'm just speculating, here is a wicket
where it's tough to knock down the horizontal parts the bails.
I give up, don't give alright, I won't give up.
I'll send you. I'm gonna send you a great sketch
from Mitchell and Webb, my friends about cricket. I would
really love that ban because I love Michell and Webb,
(19:37):
and I apparently am completely ignorant on on the rules
of cricket and American football because you know what, Ben,
they don't really talk about the rules in the movies,
the football movies. They just assume that you already know.
And it's mainly about the Oscar moments speeches right to me,
it's about the Oscar moment. It's about it's about like,
Rudy is a good one. I like Rudy the underdog story.
I really like for you. I know, I know, I
(19:58):
usually go for the deeper cuts, but um, it's it's
an important one. Remember the Titans, do you remember them?
Remember those Titans? I don't remember those Titans. I know
the name of the film, but I haven't watched it.
It's a very, very inspiring tale of underdoggedness. I'm more
into weird presidential history and trivia, and I think this
(20:20):
episode qualifies for that. I think this episode is the
beautiful ven diagram betwixt those two disciplines them right right,
I agree with you, knowl and this ends our story today. Yeah,
let us know if American football is popular outside of
the US, it's probably never gonna be as popular as
(20:42):
soccer or you know what the rest of the world
calls football. Furthermore, let us know what you think of
the concussion controversy. A few years back, we got together
at work and did what I think is is a
pretty stand up video, a documentary on concussions. Do you
remember that, Casey, I do remember that we went to
(21:04):
or I didn't go, but somebody went to like a
conference or something about it, right, Yeah, Football Hall of
Fame or something like that. Maybe we can post that
on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians. It's it's an excellent
way to learn a little bit more about the current
science combating concussions today. While you are on the internet,
(21:27):
feel free to check us out on Twitter. You can
also find us on Instagram. And you can check out
some more of knowles I'm certain deep dive research into
nineties era football films on his own Instagram. Yep, you
can that is at Embryonic Insider, where you know, you know,
I'll post pictures and video clips of me at various
(21:51):
nineties pop culture conferences and symposiums, symposiums and talks, and
you know, Ted talks all the different guy talks. And
you can find me at Ben Bolan, where I am
your faithful correspondent providing a visual travelogue of the various
strange countries that I that I get kicked into and
(22:15):
kicked out of. North Korea. I'm looking at you. Here's
looking at you, North Korea. I like that, Ben, I
really gotta go. Um. Thanks to super producer Casey Pagraham,
as always Alex Williams who composed our theme, research associated
Gabe Loesier, and Ben you, Thanks Noll and Hey, and
thank you too. Thanks to Theodore Roosevelt for introducing us
(22:36):
to the term rough riders, for being president, for making
football a little less lethal and allowing the game to
continue for its millions of fans across the country and
the world. And thanks for listening. I have one last question.
I'm squeezing one last question for everybody. What's the weirdest
sport you know about? Yeah, that's not folks. Talk to
(22:57):
you soon.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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