Word: brutality
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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...FACULTY OF HARVARD COLLEGE, GENTLEMEN :-On the 22 of Nov., 1883, the Committee on Athletics, believing that the game of foot ball had begun to degenerate into a brutal and dangerous contest, informed the Captain of the Harvard eleven that the team could not be allowed to take part in any further inter-collegiate match games until substantial changes in the rules had been made. According to the rules then existing, a player could back, throttle, butt, trip up, tackle below the hips. or strike an opponent with closed fist three times before he was sent from the field...
...every one of these games there was brutal fighting with the firsts where the men had to be separated by other players, or by the judges and referee, or by the bystanders and the police. We say one such case in the Harvard-Princeton game, two in the Harvard-Yale game, three in the Yale-Princeton game, and three in the Wesleyan-Pennsylvania game...
...Rugby game of foot ball under the present rules, might perhaps be played with advantage where public opinion was strong enough to make deliberate attempts at unfair, or brutal play, impossible. There is, unfortunately, no such controlling sentiment among college students...
...four games which we attended, there were but two cases where a player was punished for brutal or unfair play. In several cases the team was punished by having a "down" given to the other side, but only twice was a man disqualified...
...best game we have for physical development, and perhaps the best in its man making influences. Foot ball, as it has come to be played, first by Yale, then in self defence by Princeton and other colleges, and to a slight extent even by Harvard, is needlessly dangerous, is brutal and demoralizing. Harvard students, must not be allowed to play such a game; therefore inter-collegiate foot ball must cease for us, at least for the present. But it is to be hoped that a careful consideration and revision of the rules and of the game during the winter...