Читать книгу Alternative Models of Sports Development in America. Solutions to a Crisis in Education and Public Health онлайн

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In 1905, a nationwide call for college football reform led to the first steps toward creating a governing body for intercollegiate athletics. Collaboration among institutions was initiated not to address academic, booster, or even recruiting abuses, but to regulate college football on the playing field and reduce the numerous injuries and lack of consistency in the rules (Grimes and Chressanthis 1994). The call for reform in the rules of the game came from President Theodore Roosevelt himself. In the eyes of many, college football, with its mass-momentum formations, few rules, and anything-goes philosophy, had reached an unacceptable level of violent play that resulted in several deaths. President Roosevelt used the prestige of his office to try to calm the fears of a majority of the public about the growing sense of lawlessness surrounding college football, including the abuse of institutional academic requirements now pervasive in intercollegiate athletics. Many colleges and universities, fearing overemphasis on sports and seeing the dangers of the game, eventually suspended football, including Columbia and Northwestern. Harvard president Charles Eliot threatened to totally abolish the game on his campus (Grimes and Chressanthis 1994; Zimbalist 1999).