Football kills people. Since the 19th Century when the game was played, measures were gradually made to make the game safer. At the turn of the 20th century, America’s football gridirons were killing fields. The college game drew tens of thousands of spectators and rivaled professional baseball in fan appeal, but football in the early 1900s was lethal. The forward pass was illegal, and players would lock arms in mass formations and use their helmet-less heads as battering rams. Players were dying.
According to a Washington Post article from 1905, former President Teddy Roosevelt summoned coaches and athletic advisers from Harvard University, Yale University and Princeton University, the football powerhouses of their time, to the White House to discuss how to make football safer. Roosevelt's conference was in response to early football games, which often resulted in injuries or death, prompting some colleges and universities to close their football programs. In 1905 alone, at least 18 people died and more than 150 were injured playing football. According to the Washington Post, at least 45 football players died from 1900 to October 1905, many from internal injuries, broken necks, concussions or broken backs. Additionally, President Roosevelt’s son was injured while playing football for Harvard.
President Roosevelt's conference resulted in the formation of The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS) which was established to reform the rules and regulations of college sports. This organization is now known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), it still establishes and reforms the rules and regulations of college sports for almost every college athletic program in the United States. The exceptions to this for college football are schools which are part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association (NCCAA), and the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA).
In 2014, President Obama held a White House summit on sports concussions, reflecting a growing concern over head injuries sustained by athletes. President Obama’s conference focused on concussions suffered by football players, but no significant changes were made to the game of football in that conference. National Public Radio reported that 19 kids died playing high school football during the 2015 season.
This is a brief history. For more information on this subject, read Reading Football by Michael Oriard. Also, read more books.
