Wisconsin School for the Deaf - Tattler Yearbook (Delavan, WI)

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THE STORY OF FOOT-BALL By Arthur Szablewtki Foot-ball, next to base-ball, is the moat popular athletic game in the world. It is played principally in the United States and the British Empire. The Indians in North America and ahorignes of the Pacific Islands played a game much like it. The Greeks seem to have taught it to the Romans and the latter, through their soldiers, to the Britons and other races of the North. The game was played at Rome by opposing teams and was handed down to the Italians. A famous foot-ball field was in existence in a square at the end of the Church of Santu Croce, the Westminister Abbey of Florence. There judges, former players of renown, sat in a commanding position three on each side of the field to render decisions. Of the twenty-seven men, fifteen were runners, five interferers, four half backs and three full backs. The ball was kicked over a goal. The names of the Medicis and other noble families appear in the lists of players. In Germany. France and England, the bladder of the hog was used much by children as a foot-bnll after it was dried and inflated. In the British Isles, in the Middle Ages, foot-ball was ployed by whole communities who kicked the ball without clear design through the streets and over the meudows. This game became so rough that it was forbidden by law. In 1314 Edward II issued a proclamation: “For as much as there is great noise in the city caused by hurtling over large balls from which many evils might arise, which God forbid, we forbid such game to be used in the city in the future.” Various monarchs objected to football as it tended to cause archery, of greater military vulue, to be neglected. In 1457 the Scottish King. James III, decreed that “foot- balle and golfe be utterly cryed down and not to be used.” while his successor with equally queer spelling gave orders that “In na place of this realme ther be used futeball, golfe, or other 8ik unprofitable sportes.” James I of England declared foot-ball Meeter for lameing than making able the users thereof.” Never-the-less the game was for centuries u favorite pastime throughout Great Britain. When it ceased to be a pastime for men at festivals and fairs, it was kept alive by school boys. It was not until the nineteenth century that it became an organised game, with fixed numbers on each side and a definite method of keeping score. Weight, physical fitness and endurance are requisites in players, but quick thinking is very necessary. It was at the great English schools like Rugby, Harrow and Elton, that foot-ball was first made practical. The boys’ playground at Rugby was largo and there was plenty of room for running and tackling. At other schools the game was confined to kicking and bunting the ball. Two distinct types of football have developed, namely; Rugby, which permits running with the ball, and soccer or association which prohibits tunning with the ball. Rugby includes English, Canadian and American Rugby, three distinct styles of play. The name, American Rugby, sounds strange to foot-ball players in the United States, but it is the correct name for the game. The early Virginia colonists brought the older English games to America, and soon after 1830, students at several eastern collges began to play them. Ten years luter at Amherst, Brown, Harvard. Trinity, and Yale, there were inerciass games something like the class rushes which some colleges still have. These games became

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one of the most popular men in the institution. After two years in Hiram College he went to Williams College, Massachusetts. When twenty-five years old he graduated from Williams College and returned to Hiram as a professor, and the next year became its president. A year later he married Lucretia Rudolph, one of his pupils. In 1858 Mr. Garfield was elected State Senator. Later, in 1861, he was chosen Colonel of the -12nd Ohio regiment and left the Senate to lake part in the Great Civil War. Nearly one hundred Hiram College students went with him. In January 1862. he with his men. fought the battle of Middle Creek driving General Marshall with five thousand men out of Kentucky. The battle lasted five hours. As a reward ho was made a Major General. In the summer of 1880 Mr. Garfield was elected United States Senator and in 1881 was elect- ed president of the United States. Four months after his inauguration while going with Mr. Blaine, Secretary of State, to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad station in Washington he was shot by Charles Guiteau. a disappointed office seeker. For this crime Guiteau was hanged. Garfield lingered till September 19th when he passed away, the whole country mourned his death and when Queen Victoria of England heard of it she sent Mr . Garfield her sympathy. Two days Inter his body was taken to the capitol to lie in state. Thousands of people went there to sec him for the last time. After that his body was brought to Cleveland for burial. Rev. I. Errett, I). D. of Cincinnati, Ohio, preached the funeral service. Mr. Garfield was greatly revered by all and especially by the deaf us during his short term in office he greatly aided Gallaudet College, the only college for the deaf in the world.

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so rough that in I860 the faculties of Yale and Harvard prohibited foot-ball. At Princeton a more orderly game was played somewhat like the English “association game. In 1861 the fit at inter-collegiate game took place between Princeton and Rutgers nnd in 1871 foot-bull was revived at Harvard with rules which permitted running with the ball us in Rugby. Not long after this, McGill College in Montreal challenged Harvard to a match. On May 15, 1874 these two teams played the first intercollegiate Rugby match in America. The McGill pluycrs were used to English Rugby rules and the Harvard ployers to their own version of them So. on the day before the game, the two teams courteously coached each other in tactics. On the 15th a game was played under Harvard rules, Harvard scoring three time . The next day under the McGill rules, neither side was able to score. This mude Rugby more populur. In 1875 Harvard and Yale played a game under a compromise set of rules which permitted both running with the ball und batting the ball with the hand, but the compromise was unsatisfactory. In 1876 Columbia, Princeton, and Yale abandoned this form of foot-bull in favor of straight Rugby. A code of rules much more complex but permitting a far higher development of team play has gradually taken the place of the original Rugby rules. Every year since li 06, coaches from different colleges nnd universities have met to make rules to emphasize good sportsmanship, to do away with unnecessary roughness, and to give the spectator better opportunity to watch the movement of the ball while in play. Today college, university, and amateur teams play football from the opening of the fall term till about Thanksgiving time, and few games have ever attracted wider attention or been played with greater interest and vigor by the youth of any land.