| If you are interested in football, especially in | | | | addition to Woodrow Wilson, who served as a |
| college football, read on to learn some interesting | | | | part-time coach at Wesleyan, an English instructor |
| insight into the roots of the game. | | | | at Oklahoma who had recently come from |
| In the 1890s college football had already created | | | | Harvard, Vernon Parrington, taught the |
| strong emotions of love and hate. Big-time | | | | fundamentals of football on the windswept |
| eastern football had demonstrated that it could | | | | practice field in Oklahoma. At Miami University of |
| draw large crowds, create alumni support, and | | | | Ohio the president called upon all able-bodied |
| build an identity that would attract new students. | | | | members of the faculty to go out for football. In |
| The fact that it had little to do with classical | | | | a game between North Carolina and Virginia a |
| education bothered only the traditionalists on | | | | member of the North Carolina faculty scored the |
| campus and a handful of crotchety purists | | | | winning touchdown. Often the faculty proved |
| elsewhere who wrote critically of football in | | | | helpful to the budding football programs in other |
| magazines, newspaper articles, and official college | | | | ways such as giving athletes passing grades or |
| reports. | | | | writing articles arguing that football built intellect. |
| Outward appearances may have changed, but the | | | | Only a handful, like Wisconsin's Frederick Jackson |
| gridiron problems in that era appear remarkably | | | | Turner, made a determined effort to root out |
| similar to the present. In the 1890s big-time | | | | the abuses in the culture of college football such |
| recruiters and alumni contacts scoured the | | | | as the intense media attention given to the sport |
| eastern prep schools for talented juniors and | | | | and its tendency to cushion star athletes from |
| seniors ready to entice them to Harvard, Yale, or | | | | academic requirements. That was more than a |
| Princeton. Occasionally, unscrupulous alumni | | | | century ago. When we turn to the 1980s and |
| convinced students to quit high school before | | | | 1990s what do we encounter? Outward |
| they graduated in order to enroll at an institution | | | | appearances of football may have changed, but |
| with a big-time team. Boosters funneled tuition | | | | the problems appear hauntingly similar. Big-time |
| money to poor but athletically talented boys from | | | | football teams induce players to attend their |
| the coal fields of Pennsylvania and the industrial | | | | institution with offers of cars and money as well |
| towns of the Northeast to preparatory schools in | | | | as running booster operations to funnel cash to |
| order to prepare them for big-time college | | | | blue-chip players. Players who obtain special |
| athletics. Some of these young men were in their | | | | admission or enter the institution fraudulently do |
| mid-twenties when they finally entered college. | | | | so only to play football and often leave without |
| Other athletes went from school to school selling | | | | graduating. Schools manage to keep their players |
| their services, phantom players who had no | | | | eligible by manufacturing credits or by easing |
| academic ties with the institution. | | | | them into simple courses in which they are |
| Big-time alumni football entrepreneurs-the | | | | assured of receiving passing grades. Some |
| counterpart of today's athletic directors-arranged | | | | coaches engage in violence toward players in |
| a schedule of games which began with weak | | | | practice and even try to drive them out of school |
| teams and worked up to big money games held | | | | so that they can use their scholarship slot. |
| in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Gridiron | | | | Athletic departments and institutional officials have |
| profits supported stadium building, sumptuous living | | | | become obsessed with the potential for profits |
| quarters and training tables for players, as well as | | | | from televised big games or bowl games. Big-time |
| Pullman cars for retinues of trainers, massagers, | | | | teams in the NCAA try to manipulate the |
| alumni coaches, and other hangers-on who | | | | organization so that they will be able to have |
| followed the team to the big games. What was | | | | more coaches, scholarships, and only minimal |
| left over went to support an array of lesser | | | | academic requirements. Players commit acts of |
| sports that big-time football had eclipsed. | | | | violence and brutality, then manage to avoid the |
| At the major football schools critics complained | | | | consequences. College presidents whose salaries |
| that football players became the campus elite, | | | | and prominence fall far short of the head football |
| admired by their fellow students and regarded | | | | coaches dutifully show up at football games and |
| skeptically by many faculty. In the absence of | | | | related alumni events, treading cautiously around |
| professional football, players basked in the | | | | the mire of big-time college athletics. |
| attention of the media, and the names of the | | | | All of this has added up to major athletic scandals, |
| gridiron stars appeared regularly in the sports | | | | most of them involving big-time football. Scandals |
| pages of big city newspapers. Even college faculty | | | | such as the pay-for-play violations at Southern |
| and presidents had to be properly worshipful of | | | | Methodist and Auburn from the late 1970s to the |
| football and its elite because they knew that | | | | early 1990s man-aged to create internal |
| football advertised their schools and helped to | | | | disruptions and negative publicity at numbers of |
| retain the loyalty of alumni. As a result, they | | | | big-name institutions. Yet, in spite of the obvious |
| often ignored or remained blissfully unaware of | | | | flaws in college football, it continues to enlarge its |
| scams to admit unqualified students, play athletes | | | | grip on the major universities. The athletic |
| who never enrolled, or resort to stratagems to | | | | foundations persist in enlarging their massive |
| keep weak players eligible. | | | | gridiron complexes, selling the rights to buy tickets |
| Though booster organizations did not exist outside | | | | for upscale luxury boxes and suites, and then |
| of alumni groups, booster alumni and townspeople, | | | | collecting additional revenues for the sale of |
| student managers, and even faculty engaged in | | | | high-priced tickets. The major teams have |
| unethical acts. A Princeton alumnus named | | | | created indoor facilities out of donations that |
| Patterson entertained football players and made | | | | might have gone to deserving but impoverished |
| every effort to entice them to his alma mater. | | | | non-athletes for scholarships. While |
| Authorities at Swarthmore lured the huge lineman, | | | | quasi-professional student-athletes play the game, |
| Bob ("Tiny") Maxwell, from the University of | | | | ordinary students have little to do with the sport. |
| Chicago and arranged for the president of the | | | | In an atmosphere of highly specialized career |
| college to pass his bills to a prominent alumnus. | | | | coaches, publicists, trainers, and tutors, college |
| Professor Woodrow Wilson, a fanatic Princeton | | | | football reflects more than ever the |
| enthusiast, shamelessly used football when he | | | | professionalism that reformers long ago set out |
| spoke to alumni organizations and vigorously | | | | to de-emphasize. |
| opposed football reform in the 1890s and early | | | | No one would deny that football constitutes one |
| 1900s. In contrast, Theodore Roosevelt, a | | | | of the most entertaining and enjoyable spectator |
| Harvard graduate, who gloried in the strenuous life | | | | sports. In the early days some faculty believed |
| and strongly supported Harvard football, turned | | | | that the student enthusiasm for football would |
| against football brutality in 1905 and initiated the | | | | enable the institutions to alleviate the pervasive |
| first efforts in his capacity as president to reform | | | | antisocial behavior of undergraduates. Being aware |
| the spirit in which big-time football teams | | | | of its appeal, most athletic critics and reformers |
| competed. | | | | attempted to change football rather than to |
| We know that the prototype for athletic | | | | abolish it. The few colleges that dropped football |
| organization began at eastern institutions in the | | | | did so it because the school had no choice or, |
| 1880s and 1890s. Yale's Walter Camp, "the father | | | | occasionally, because a college president happened |
| of American football," became the model for the | | | | to wield unusual power at a critical moment in |
| coach and athletic director. While pursuing a | | | | football's history. Far and away the largest group |
| business career, he also acted as Yale's de facto | | | | of thoughtful gridiron critics have attempted to |
| vice president for athletic operations, who | | | | reform football and to reshape it in such a way |
| dominated the rules committees and ceaselessly | | | | that it fit more reasonably and appropriately into |
| publicized the game. From the profits of big | | | | the spirit and life of the university. Why have |
| games in Boston and New York, Camp created | | | | they not succeeded? |
| an ample reserve fund that supported lesser | | | | Beginning in the 1890s and continuing into the |
| sports, afforded lush treatment for athletes, and | | | | 1990s, reformers have spent tens of thousands |
| provided the money that eventually went toward | | | | of hours attending meetings and conferences, |
| building Yale Bowl, the first of the modern football | | | | devising new rules to solve the latest problems |
| stadiums. By making Yale into an athletic | | | | that have cropped up, and generally trying to |
| powerhouse, Camp built the school's reputation, | | | | work out better systems for their own |
| making it second only to Harvard. Because he | | | | institutions; in the early 1900s moderate |
| succeeded so well, Camp became the first | | | | reformers founded the NCAA to deal with deaths |
| big-name foe of sweeping football reforms-and an | | | | and brutality and to put football securely under |
| especially hard-core opponent of the forward | | | | the thumb of the faculty and college presidents. |
| pass. | | | | Again in the early 1950s, in a groundswell of |
| By the turn of century the deaths of players in | | | | outrage against cheating, gambling, and subsidies |
| football led state legislators to introduce laws | | | | for athletes, college presidents and faculty |
| banning the gridiron game. Players for big-time | | | | members tried to create stricter standards to |
| teams, critics charged, were coached to injure | | | | reduce the greed and professionalism in football |
| their opponents or "put them out of business." | | | | rather than to drop it altogether. In the 1980s and |
| The nature of the game, with its mass | | | | early 1990s an outbreak of scandal in big-time |
| formations and momentum plays, made football | | | | football resulted the same response of temporary |
| less an athletic contest than a collegiate version of | | | | uneasiness and halting reforms which had become |
| warlike combat. Eventually the violence in football | | | | by then a pattern in the history of college football. |
| led to attempts to reduce its brutality through | | | | The outbreak in the 1980s once again clearly |
| reforms. New rules put a strong emphasis on | | | | emphasized the failure of reform to bring about |
| better officiating and on less dangerous | | | | real change. In three major periods of gridiron |
| formations, but they did not necessarily improve | | | | upheaval the colleges have been unable or unwilling |
| the athletic environment. | | | | to eliminate the causes of chronic cheating. While |
| The deaths and brutality presented an excellent | | | | political reforms by Congress and the states have |
| opportunity to root out the worst excesses of | | | | achieved some enduring success, football and |
| the runaway football culture. In the 1890s and | | | | big-time athletics generally have had to face the |
| early 1900s, responding to public opinion, | | | | same issues again and again-much like Sisyphus |
| professors and presidents spent a great deal of | | | | repeatedly pushing the stone uphill. Why does |
| time talking about the overemphasis of | | | | big-time football manage to be almost constantly |
| intercollegiate athletics-and, in some cases, passing | | | | in a state of crisis? Is there some quality about |
| rules at the conference and institutional level to | | | | football, or college sports generally, or a flaw in |
| regulate college sports. Why, then, did college | | | | higher education which causes this turmoil? If the |
| presidents and faculty, who had far more | | | | Greek ideal of education stands for the training of |
| authority over their students than their modern | | | | body, spirit, and mind, why have the colleges |
| counterparts, fail to control the gridiron beast? Put | | | | failed so abysmally at their mission? |
| differently, why did school presidents and faculty | | | | Good question, isn't it? But the answer is beyond |
| often themselves become part of the athletic | | | | the subject of this article - and, unfortunately, |
| problem? | | | | beyond the expertise of the college football |
| . One problem might be that faculty members | | | | experts. |
| played major roles in introducing early football. In | | | | |