The Art of Manliness - Episode #37： The Big Scrum with John Miller

00:00:00.000 welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast while it's now america's favorite pastime

00:00:22.160 football was actually on the verge of extinction as soon as the game was developing around the turn

00:00:26.700 of the 20th century severe injuries and even death were common in the early days of football as

00:00:31.140 players used little or no protection when they played and the rules of the game encouraged

00:00:35.960 ruthless play many university presidents and other social leaders called for the game's prohibition

00:00:41.040 and they came really close to getting their way that is until president teddy roosevelt stepped in

00:00:47.000 our guest today has written a book on how tr helped saved american football his name is john miller and

00:00:52.860 his book is called the big scrum how teddy roosevelt saved football well john welcome to the show

00:00:59.040 thanks glad to have you here so let's talk about the state of american football at the turn of the

00:01:05.380 20th century this is right when the very beginning of the sport when it's first developing um but right

00:01:11.020 from the get-go the game had its critics and there were people actually calling for its elimination

00:01:15.900 you know why were so many people why do so many people hate football at this time what was going on

00:01:21.700 football was an incredibly violent sport a century ago a little more than a century ago

00:01:27.860 we hear a lot about violence in football today with concussions and long-term health issues and so on

00:01:36.180 and so forth the problems of today are dwarfed by the problems football had in uh at the turn of the

00:01:44.420 century in 1905 18 people died playing football wow uh dropped dead from the college level to sandlot games

00:01:55.240 18 people died playing football and then of course there were there were all kinds of injuries on top of that

00:02:01.580 they had concussions back then too broken bones uh it was a really violent game it was more like rugby than the

00:02:07.880 game we know today a lot of pushing and shoving and big piles of men uh giving each other elbows and uh

00:02:13.960 and so on and so forth equipment was different but it was it was it was a it was a violent sport

00:02:18.740 and so this this prohibition movement springs up to outlaw football it's led by charles elliott

00:02:30.140 who's the president of harvard university one of the most important men in the history of higher

00:02:36.120 higher education it would when we think of harvard as a great american university maybe the great

00:02:40.860 american university it's really because of this guy who was president of harvard for 40 years

00:02:46.120 apart from anything he did in the classroom and and and and and with academics and so forth

00:02:53.240 he hated football he thought of the terrible sport the game not fit for gentlemen he was joined

00:03:00.540 in this anti-football prohibition effort by uh the nation magazine by muckraking journalists

00:03:09.880 uh by a number of others who who looked at these casualty figures the the and the fact that people

00:03:16.180 were dying playing the sport they compared it to gladiatorial combat in the roman amphitheater

00:03:22.620 and they wanted to outlaw football wow so a lot of these guys were part of the progressive movement

00:03:28.360 right yeah so this this was in many ways uh an early progressive movement cause uh and and we find

00:03:37.680 that it that it it's impulses are aggressive in the sense that it identified what it took to be a

00:03:43.920 social problem and its solution was simply to outlaw to ban it and uh uh that's what they tried to do

00:03:52.720 uh so you said that in one year alone 18 men died uh but during this time when football was kind of

00:03:59.940 up in the air i mean it was like from the late 18 late 1800s to like 19 whatever when the final

00:04:06.020 rule changes were made how many men actually died playing football well it's it's it's it's hard to get

00:04:11.920 a precise number but in in in the back of my book i have a i have a chart and i was you know 1905 was

00:04:19.440 18 people 1906 it was 11 so we're seeing we're seeing you know deaths of of a dozen being kind

00:04:26.240 of typical at this time and and it you know it ranged from from from big football programs like

00:04:33.600 georgia where there was a very prominent player death in in the late 1800s uh to sandlot games played

00:04:41.100 by kids um so the statistics are are we have something to throw some numbers around but the

00:04:48.440 bottom line is that guys were guys were dying playing this game and what's that compared to

00:04:53.480 like deaths with football today i mean well it still happens today yeah but these are more freak

00:05:01.060 accident types of injuries you know there was there was the heat exhaustion death in the nfl a few years

00:05:06.240 ago uh you know i remember when i was uh younger mike utley from the detroit lions had his neck broken in

00:05:14.140 a game i was not a death but it was a pretty pretty serious injury you also have to recognize that that

00:05:20.120 that today millions and millions of people play football back then it was a popular sport it was it

00:05:28.480 was becoming extremely popular but there were very many fewer players yeah so you you had more people

00:05:36.920 dying and fewer players compared today where there's a lot more players and although there are still

00:05:41.920 freaking injuries um it's much less of a problem now okay so uh football at this time there was a lot

00:05:49.560 it could have been snuffed out uh there's a lot of criticism a lot of pressure on to you know to

00:05:54.880 prohibit it and this is when president theodore roosevelt steps in um why was football uh so

00:06:03.000 important to roosevelt i mean he was president why was this such a pressing national concern for him to

00:06:07.660 actually get involved and throw his hat in the arena and try to help it out well that's the story

00:06:12.700 of the book roosevelt attends his first football game in 1876 he was an 18 year old harvard freshman

00:06:21.840 he gets on a train in cambridge with a bunch of his friends they travel down to new haven connecticut

00:06:28.140 and they watch the second ever football game played between harvard and yale uh this is of course one

00:06:34.340 of the great story rivalries in in college athletics he he attends the second ever game first time he's

00:06:40.720 ever seen football and he likes it he likes this sport he's still learning a lot about it he's actually

00:06:46.360 he he he suffered the agony of defeat because harvard loses that day everyone thought they were

00:06:51.760 going to win i really thought they were the better team but but yale with this sort of upstart school

00:06:57.080 beats him that day and this frustrates roosevelt he writes a letter to his mother in which he expresses

00:07:02.680 his uh his frustration but he likes football he thinks this is a neat sport he doesn't play it himself

00:07:09.500 because he's too small he also wears glasses so he's not a he's not fit to play the game himself

00:07:15.060 he does other things but uh but he enjoys it as a spectator and he kind of grows up with the sport

00:07:22.500 in the 1880s 1890s a lot of colleges are starting to adopt the game more and more people are showing

00:07:29.180 up the thanksgiving the thanksgiving day football game is starting to become a tradition tens of

00:07:35.560 thousands of people turning out for big games between harvard and yale or yale and princeton or

00:07:40.620 or or what have you and in roosevelt is just just a part of this trend he loves the sport

00:07:47.100 he also knows that it it has a problem with violence but he says he says we need to recognize

00:07:55.720 that rough sports are good they're good for boys they help turn boys into men in fact he believes

00:08:01.240 in rough sports and and football so much that when he goes off to recruit the rough riders

00:08:07.620 in 1898 he he he leaves washington dc goes out to san antonio and we know the story where he

00:08:14.860 where he recruits cowboys and westerners and so forth to become the rough riders and and he does that

00:08:20.700 but if you read his memoir on that period just book simply entitled the rough riders he also points out

00:08:27.080 that he's looking for football players and he in fact recruits a number of them to become rough riders

00:08:32.440 with him and they go and into cuba and and have their have their great moment of victory there

00:08:38.120 roosevelt becomes a war hero elected governor of new york as a result and he gives a speech on the

00:08:45.740 strenuous life maybe the most famous speech he ever delivered uh in his life the strenuous life in which

00:08:52.600 he says it's important to lead a vigorous life an active life it's it's good for people but more

00:08:57.680 important it's good for america if it's made up of men who lead strenuous lives who don't shirk

00:09:03.440 responsibility who embrace challenges and lead a strenuous life this is very fake in the speech he

00:09:10.300 gives he delivers in chicago he then takes his speech and he translates it for children in a children's

00:09:17.420 magazine called called saint nicholas is a very popular children's magazine at the time

00:09:21.480 widely read and in in uh in that in that magazine when he's when he's giving the kids version of the

00:09:29.420 strenuous life he told boys he's go go play football he says it'll help make you great men

00:09:33.960 help you make make you great americans so he's a he's a true believer in football he likes it as a

00:09:39.860 as a fan he thinks it's good for america because it turns boys into into into men and it turns them

00:09:45.920 into good men who can fight wars who can defend their country make america great well when he's

00:09:52.600 president the problem of violence in football continues and this movement to ban it gains some

00:09:59.920 momentum so in 1905 he summons to the white house the three coaches from the biggest football programs

00:10:10.600 in america at that point uh yale harvard and princeton the coach of yale was walter camp the

00:10:16.140 legendary walter camp who is the the sort of the founding father of football the abner double day of

00:10:21.660 the game in some ways um so walter camp is at this white house meeting the other coaches are there as well

00:10:28.440 and and roosevelt says football is on trial and he says to these coaches you guys need to do something

00:10:34.460 to save it he doesn't tell them exactly what to do but they leave the white house they agree that

00:10:42.300 they're going to try something or other they weren't entirely sure what the season continues this meeting

00:10:47.500 was in october of 1905 they they finish out the season that winter they create the organization that

00:10:54.420 becomes the ncaa and they pass a series of rule changes the most important which is the forward pass

00:11:01.980 up to that point quarterbacks couldn't throw the ball downfield to receivers that was an illegal play

00:11:08.900 you could you could toss it laterally backwards to it to a running back but you could not throw it

00:11:13.480 down the field there was no such thing as a wide receiver well this changed the game it transformed it

00:11:18.520 it it transformed it from a sport that that that looked like rugby into the modern game that americans

00:11:27.320 know and love today and there was roosevelt at the center of it making it possible we're going to

00:11:31.960 take a quick break for a word from our sponsors and now back to the show and were any equipment

00:11:38.960 changes that that start taking place around this time as well because before they really didn't wear

00:11:43.600 they just like wore bandanas on their head and maybe some leather that's right yeah i mean did they

00:11:47.640 the the era of the leather heads was a little bit in the future but this was a transitional period and

00:11:55.600 and football originally nobody wore any kind of protection then you started getting players who would

00:12:01.880 grow their hair extra long because it was a little bit extra padding or they would do you know

00:12:07.500 little things to their jerseys and and and and you know what one one one one team had had had it had

00:12:15.980 its players so um handled from from suitcases onto onto their jerseys so they could grab each other and pull

00:12:26.080 each other forward through lines i mean there were all these innovations and and there was actually a

00:12:30.680 little little while where where we're spalding the uh uh the equipment company started making nose

00:12:37.180 guards they were kind of like shoe horns on your nose that's sort of ridiculous and there's a there's

00:12:41.900 there's a picture of one of these in in the book um and and sort of face mask and helmet but but there

00:12:48.560 was there was a there's a bit of a stigma attached to players who would put on these things right they

00:12:53.300 would they they weren't man enough to to play without without this equipment but but over time

00:12:59.140 this became more and more accepted and and and pads were introduced but but in the era we're talking

00:13:04.340 about we're moving from basically no equipment no gear no protection to uh to to modest forms of it

00:13:11.360 and uh um over time their football players began to look like the the players we see on tv today

00:13:19.420 something i thought was really interesting too is that roosevelt wasn't the only u.s president that

00:13:24.200 kind of had a hand in helping football along uh the other one was woodrow wilson which was kind of

00:13:30.740 surprising because you know when we a lot of people when they think of woodrow wilson they kind of

00:13:33.780 think of him as this pencil pushing nerd uh kind of pacifist right um but he he like he was a fan of

00:13:39.820 the game as well um exactly i was really surprised to learn that when i started working on this book

00:13:45.480 i knew that roosevelt would be at the center of a great advocate of football that i knew he'd be the

00:13:49.640 main character of the book and i i knew the contours of the story that i was going to tell but as i did

00:13:54.240 my research i discovered that woodrow wilson was a huge football fan he went to princeton as we know

00:14:01.420 a school that had a had a vigorous football program an ambitious football program it wanted to be the

00:14:08.720 best in the country and as people criticized football there was woodrow wilson in the 1870s

00:14:18.000 writing editorials in the student newspaper about why football was great and and and this was actually

00:14:26.520 a major he didn't just write one editorial he wrote a bunch of them defending football from its critics

00:14:32.840 and he continued to do that he graduated from princeton became a professor

00:14:36.600 and when he went to different schools he was he was affiliated with with the football club he would

00:14:43.120 he would uh help out the team he'd show up at the games he'd cheer for them uh he eventually when he

00:14:49.800 went back to prince as a professor and and we know it came of him um he began to disengage from that a

00:14:55.740 little bit just because he was getting so busy but he was a he was a public defender of football he

00:15:01.160 would engage in in debates in front of city clubs and they you know they they would have groups would

00:15:07.340 have debates and you know it's football too violent should it be banned and and and wilson would show

00:15:12.960 up and he would he would he would argue no it's a great sport and we need it but you're right it's it

00:15:18.120 plays against type this is this is not what you would expect of of the woodrow wilson we know of

00:15:25.080 primarily from his presidency i thought it was a little interesting too that it took the you know two i guess

00:15:30.600 big progressive leaders at the time roosevelt and wilson they're the ones who were defending

00:15:35.820 football from the other progressives really that's right now wilson was not as directly involved in

00:15:41.460 in the sports uh salvation he was a he was a fan of it and in you know he he did cheerlead and he

00:15:49.060 engaged in debates it was it was roosevelt who really played played the key role here and say what

00:15:55.580 you will about roosevelt's politics we give a long debate about that and his progressiveness

00:16:00.580 and so forth the the roosevelt who defends and and and football is is is is this great manly

00:16:12.000 character this this red-blooded american and you can just you know it's everything we love about

00:16:17.640 roosevelt uh his praise of rough sports his belief in outdoor life the vigor of life the need to lead a

00:16:25.680 drain you his life it's it's completely consistent with um with his beliefs yeah so let's fast forward

00:16:32.680 to today 100 years later it seems like it's deja vu um we're having the same conversation about

00:16:39.440 football whether it's too dangerous and if we need to make changes to the rules um both this happened

00:16:45.320 both in the nfl and in the ncaa and what do you think after doing writing this book and kind of getting

00:16:52.540 um acquainted with roosevelt and his view of football how do you think tr what what would

00:16:59.040 you think tr would think of this conversation we're having about football today he would think

00:17:04.100 for one thing it's got nothing on the controversy he was dealing with football's problem today is

00:17:11.660 nothing like the problem it was 100 years ago um you know football has a problem i suppose with

00:17:18.200 concussions and and so forth and and and there may be some there may be a debate worth having about

00:17:24.000 this but but he would he would fundamentally say football's a rough sport and we cannot eliminate

00:17:29.360 all risk from our lives and that and that it is the risk that you take in playing the sport that is an

00:17:35.420 essential part of what it is and and we cannot ever lose sight of that um we cannot make it totally 100

00:17:42.380 safe for everybody who plays and this is just a part of living it's true when you walk across the

00:17:48.520 street you can't be completely guaranteed of your safety when you walk across the street but yet we

00:17:53.120 need to do that from time to time in our lives and and football teaches great things to kids all sports do

00:17:59.920 really um it teaches them teamwork it teaches them uh uh how how to put up with adversity it teaches

00:18:08.760 them how to deal with defeat teaches them all kinds of things in fact we know things today that that

00:18:14.640 roosevelt didn't know back then modern research teaches us that kids who play sports in high school

00:18:25.060 earn more as adults they're more likely to vote as citizens later on in life there are a series of

00:18:32.400 benefits that that that are that are that are that that that that social scientists can track back to

00:18:37.940 participation in sports when when as a parent when we talk you know i have i have kids who play a bunch

00:18:44.880 of different sports and we talk about why do we have them do it i often say that you know the reasons

00:18:52.560 are easy well there's physical fitness that's good for them we also talk about these intangible

00:18:56.580 characteristics you know we think it makes them better people they learn about teamwork they learn

00:19:01.180 all kinds of sports teaches them all kinds of things that they can't learn in a book and here's the

00:19:06.140 evidence that actually there is a payoff later on you earn more money as an adult why is that because

00:19:11.460 maybe they're maybe maybe they learn how to compete and in america it's important to learn how to

00:19:16.320 compete i don't know i don't know what the reasons are but but we have we have data that actually

00:19:20.840 suggests this is this is good for kids and roosevelt knew that intuitively as the way i think we all

00:19:25.860 kind of know intuitively that sports can be can be great for kids and it teaches life lessons all right

00:19:31.700 well john we're at the end of our our time but thank you very much it's really fascinating

00:19:35.920 um john's book is called the big scrum how teddy roosevelt saved football and i'm guessing it's

00:19:41.940 going to be available april 12th it is available april 12th everywhere everywhere so go out and get it

00:19:48.580 well john thanks again for your time it's been a pleasure thank you very much

00:19:52.640 that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:20:00.920 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and until next time stay manly

00:20:22.640 you

The Art of Manliness - April 04, 2014

Episode #37： The Big Scrum with John Miller

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