The Creation of the NCAA

The Creation of the NCAA     

     College football is the favorite national past time of many people in the United States, today it is still played with the same passion as it was in the late 19th century when the first colleges started playing the sport. The sport of football was appreciated by more of the elite upper class males in the United States. The morals of College football became corrupt many universities would hire tramp athletes called "ringers" to come and represent the certain university on the gridiron.  

     The sport became known for its gang tackling and mass formations and became known nationally as one of the nations most dangerous sports. Although some people did not believe that the game was not dangerous to the health of the athletes, like one man said in a newspaper article, "Football is anything but a hazard and we will gladly insure any number of football players who come up to the standard in other respects. It would be really ridiculous to consider Football a hazard. Just consider the fact that there are thousands and thousands of men playing football in the country today and yet football accidents are very few." But most of the nation sided with the fact that the game was dangerous to the health of the players. Some of the injuries that were published in newspapers at the time, were reports of displaced shoulder blades, sore arms, week ankles, dislocated shoulders, twisted knees, fractured skulls, broken collar bones, broken legs, broken ribs, losing conscience, and even death. An astonishing fact 48 deaths occurred in a 4 month period of time during the college football season. One report of death was, "William Moore right halfback of the Union College Football Team died from injuries playing New York University, 19 Years Old." These types of injuries set off an alarm inside the heads of the population of the United States. 

     In 1896 a man by the name of Amos Alonzo Stagg, athletic director and coach at the time at the University of Chicago led in forming the nations first conference the Western Conference or better know today as the Big Ten. This creation led to some minor rule changes but still left many very hungry to reform the game of football. 

     The wave of shock and alarm sent the whole nation in panic. A man had to step up and change the rules of the game to settle the commotion down. Theodore Roosevelt summoned many leaders of the college football world to the white house to encourage rule changes and reforms of the game of football. In early December of 1905, the chancellor of New York University Henry M. MacCracken met with 13 other colleges and universities to talk about possible rule changes in the game of football. Later on in December, 62 different Universities and colleges met in New York City and decided to become members of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS). This committee created the 10 yard rule where you have to gain 10 yards in three plays to gain a first down and many other rules that reformed the game of college football to the way we know it today. The IAAUS changed its name to the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) in 1910 to the name it still holds today. 

Theodore Roosevelt

NCAA Headquarters located in Indianapolis, IN

Henry MacCracken of New York University

Sources:

The NCAA Official Website

The St. Louis Republic November 11, 1900

The San Francisco Call November 3, 1900

Los Angeles Herald November 26, 1905

The Times and Democrat November 9, 1909

Peninsula Enterprise November 23, 1895

Faces Of America

     In the TV series Faces Of America, I learned about how important it is to learn about your ancestors and heritage of your family. I learned that even if you dont think that you have a lot of history in your family that if you looked into it more that you can find a lot about where your ancestors came from. I learned that many families from around the world came to America for a new oppertunity.
     Being a Nation of immigrants means that you have a huge melting pot of diversity and backgrounds.

William H. Vanderbilt

     William Henry Vanderbilt was a very self made man, he did not have much help from anyone including his father his father regarded him as incompetent and not hardworking. The only way that Vanderbilt would change his fathers opinion would be if he showed that he could work hard at something and bring it to the success that his father Cornelius had done in his lifetime. William was given the opportunity when he gained control of the Staten Island Railroad from 1857 - 1863. William inherited a bankrupt Staten Island Railroad and then he took it to a very successful Railroad. His father had been proven wrong about his son and that he could work hard and    he could be successful at things that he did in life.

William H. Vanderbilt

     His father with his new opinion about his son gave him the great title of Vice President of the New York and Harlem Railroad in the year 1864, which his father Cornelius Vanderbilt was the President. He then won his fathers full respect with the success that he showed his father at the New York and Harlem Railroad. 

     When his father died in 1877 he was given the position of President of New York Central. But then he hit a rough patch and fell into a little bit of down spiral  "and was only able to get himself out of the down spiral by securing his position as President by giving favorable treatment to commercial customers, and covered his tracks with bribes to officials investigating the preferential treatment." William also contributed to many other organizations like the YMCA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a few examples. 

     When he did retire in 1883 as President of New York Central, he had doubled his family fortune, thus proving that his father was wrong.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0772002.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/622945/William-Henry-Vanderbilt

The Unconquered Seminoles

The Florida State Seminoles are one of the most feared athletic problems in the NCAA. Their mascot is a Seminole Chief (Chief Osceola), and he rides onto the field before every home game on his trustful horse Renegade. One of the things that the student body is known for is doing the tomahawk chop during the whole football game but in reality the war chant was not real and has no association with the Seminole Tribe. The Seminoles are a very well built football team and the whole student Seminole nation supports the football team with all their hearts through thick and thin. One thing that the students of Florida State had to go through was the possible change of their team name and change of their mascot. In early August right before football season, the NCAA committee included Florida State on a list of 18 colleges that used "hostile/abusive" American Indian references. After a large dispute and a lot of national media attention, the NCAA granted a waiver in the first challenge to a new policy, removing Florida State from a list of colleges whose sports teams where said to be "hostile or abusive" towards native american names and images. One main reason Florida State was accepted was that the Seminole Tribe officially sanctioned Florida States use of Seminoles as a nickname and Chief Osceola as a mascot. Max Osceola, Chief and General council President of the Seminole Tribe of Florida stated that it was an "honor" to be associated with the Florida State Seminoles.

This was not enough for the president of Florida State T.K. Wetherell. He knew that the student body knew that Chief Osceola was the mascot of the football team but Wetherell and the history teachers of the University of Florida State wanted students to know more about the origins of their football teams mascot. They wanted them to know that Osceola was a real man, the resistance leader of the Seminole Indians, not just a football mascot. 

In March, T.K. Wetherell and his history teachers met with leaders of the Seminole Tribe of Florida to discuss a new course that was going to be inducted into the university's history department. Both sides of the meeting agreed that students should learn the Seminoles' history in larger context of the Southeast, and U.S. policies towards them. 

Now the University of Florida State is offering "History of the Seminoles and Southeastern Tribes, Pre-contact to Present." An undergraduate course for up to 45 students. This interaction between the University and the Tribe formed a bond between each other. Now when the students of Florida State are doing the tomahawk chop throughout the duration of the football game they are doing it for a good reason and understand why there is a man riding around on a horse acting as a mascot.

The NCAA should take this as a lesson, that you should not change the name of the team but encourage the organization/university to learn why they are named what they are named. And this will strengthen the bond with the players the coaches and the university, like it did in the case of Florida State. The Mighty Unconquered Seminole Tribe once and always again.

Unconquered Statue Located on Florida States Campus

Chief Osceola Performing Pre Game Rituals

Seminole Controversy

War Chant