Letter from Walter Camp

                                                      

As far back as the early 1880s, there was a concern over the violence and brutality of college football as the sport transitioned from a soccer style to a “rugby style” game. There were constant examples of this alarm in the press, and the administrative bodies of many colleges and universities were speaking out against football publicly, weighing the pros and cons of the sport, and at times calling for the abolition of the sport all together. At several points during the next three decades, the furor became such that many schools, at least for a time, did abolish football or withdrew from intercollegiate play. Charles Eliot, President of Harvard University during much of this period, was a well known and outspoken critic and detractor of football. He argued that football led to physical injuries, interfered with academics, and played a negative role on a player’s character. President Roosevelt himself became involved in the fray in the early years of the twentieth century, and in 1905 he summoned representatives from the “big three” - Harvard, Yale, and Princeton - to Washington, where the President insisted on changes being made to what was seen as an increasingly violent sport. Roosevelt went so far as to threaten the existence of college football altogether if reforms were not made. Football during these early years was a sport of perpetual change: rules changes and reforms, politics and the press, the introduction and later abolishing of mass plays, and the formation and dissolution of different football associations were all part of the early evolution of the sport.

The first major attempt at changing public opinion and countering charges made in the press concerning not just the violence and injuries, but the suggested negative emotional or mental and scholastic effects of football came in 1893. A committee, or as it was also referred, a body of investigators, was chaired by Walter Camp and was to send a questionnaire to the head master and faculty members of Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Also, all players on the college football teams of these universities were to receive this questionnaire, as well as every player on the Harvard, Princeton and Yale teams since the introduction of the Rugby game in 1876. Camp sent an explanatory letter with an accompanying, mostly blank sheet containing a few basic questions that inquired as to the physical effects of the game. These questions asking whether the player benefited or sustained injuries while playing football, and asked about the nature and seriousness of any injuries sustained when playing football. The sheet also questioned as to the mental effects of the game and asked if the player had benefited from football or had, alternatively, experienced any negative ramifications due to the game.  In 1893, Camp received 359 responses to this inquiry from the current players and administration of the “big three” and 337 responses from former players of these universities.

An actual copy of Camp’s letter, the only one we know of that has surfaced to date, accompanies this article, and was originally sent to Princeton All-American William Church. We surmise that its scarcity is due in part to the fragility of the paper on which it was printed. In order to make the number of copies that were sent out and to reproduce the exact letter in the hand of Camp, it was necessary to use a lithographic duplicator, or more likely an Edison Mimeograph machine. These were manufactured since 1887 and had come into routine use by the time this letter was written.  It appears that either an inferior paper was utilized in this process, or that the process itself led to a decrease in paper integrity.

The results of the analysis of the responses to the questionnaires were published as a book titled “Football Facts and Figures; A Symposium of Expert Opinions on The Game’s Place in American Athletics”, compiled by Walter Camp and published in 1894.

 The letter that was sent to players was in Camp’s hand and read as follows:

"My Dear Sir,

Enclosed is a brief statement of the work undertaken by an old Oxonian at a time when charges against boating in England were even more serious than those against foot-ball in our own country. With the cooperation of those of us who are old players it seems possible at this time to perform a similar work for American college foot-ball as did Mr. John E. Morgan in 1873 for English University Rowing. The captains of our old teams have gladly written quite fully in reply to questions and if the individual players will on behalf of the game sacrifice enough time to write something of their experiences in answer to the enclosed questions the results will be well worth laying before the college world. The writer fully appreciates the fact that it is asking much of a man to request him to do this but relying upon the fact that the old foot-ball men have always stood together in defense of their sport hopes that you will favor us with an answer sometime during the coming week or ten days.

Yours very sincerely,

Walter Camp

New Haven Conn 

February twenty third

March eighth"

The book compiled by Morgan of Oxford two decades earlier, referred to in Camp’s letter, served as the template for Camp’s compilation. Camp borrowed from the study design, format, and intent, fully acknowledging Morgan’s work.

Published in 1873 by John E. Morgan, M.D., “University Oars: Being a Critical Enquiry Into After Health of Men Who Rowed in The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race From the Years 1829 to 1869, Based on Personal Experience of The Rowers Themselves”, sought to dispel through statistics and firsthand accounts that “excessive muscular activity” led to those athletes being “prematurely used up”.  The study found that favorable comparisons were made for life expectancies of rowers versus non rowers, scholastic achievement (Honors gained), and weight in proportion to height between rowers and non-rowers.

Camp’s book, as with Morgan’s, makes for some fascinating reading. In particular, the “Letters From Captains” and the “Letters From Players” that were chosen to be reproduced, which comprise separate chapters of the book. Many are from players whose names are recognizable to those versed in the early years of football. Captains such as Moffat, Sears, Cowan, McClung, Corbin, Beecher, and King all responded, as did other well known players of the day, including the likes of Trenchard, Heffelfinger, S. Johnson, Poe, Remington, Edmunds, and O.D. Thompson.

Unlike Morgan’s work, Camp’s work is certainly flawed and biased, and the statistics are questionable. Camp’s love and defense of football may have allowed for certain liberties to be exercised with the information that was available. Questions were raised as to whether Camp in fact took into account all of the negative responses, and he likely did not.  This may have been justifiable in part by Camp, since opponents of the game were not above exaggeration and misuse of influence. In both works the respondents on the whole were loyal to the sport.

Ironically, following the publication of Camp’s work was the “Bloodbath at Hampden Park”, a brutal game between Harvard and Yale in November of 1894, which was highly publicized in the press and led to the end of football contests between the two schools until 1897.  

The sport was yet to be truly reformed, however, and in the coming years further changes would be needed to quell the uproar over what was seen as violence in football.

As a footnote to this article, mention was made in the editorial section of the February 3^rd 1917 edition of Sporting News, that Dr. James Naismith (of basketball fame, and the head of the Department of Physical Education at the University of Kansas at the time) conducted his own assessment of the safety of football. In an attempt to gauge the physical “affects” of college athletics in the years following the cessation of such activities, Naismith decided to draw conclusions for his study based upon a sport that was considered a worst case scenario in terms of its physicality and potential for injury: football, college sport’s most physical and “violent” game.  Naismith sent letters to football players that had played up until the year 1907, assuming that since at least ten years would have passed since they had played the game this ten year period would be sufficient time to be able to evaluate  the “after affects “ of the college football. Eighty five replies were sent back of which roughly half declared no injury had occurred during their playing years. The other half listed the predominant injuries as those to the nose, knee and ankle. Seven percent wrote that he had never recovered completely from injury sustained while playing football. As with other studies, the positive physical and mental aspects for those taking part in football were assessed and their accounts varied. Although greatly limited in scope, this inquiry would not seem to support the conclusions of Camp’s earlier work.