The Homicidal Pastime: How Teddy Roosevelt & Harvard University Saved American Football in 1905
University of Virginia Halfback Julien Hill takes a handoff at the start of the second half of a game that is being touted as the southern championship of American football. It is October 30, 1897 and up to that point the much more talented University of Virginia team has been dominating its rivals from the University of Georgia on their own home turf in Atlanta. The Georgia faithful are becoming disappointed and fast losing hope. Prior to kickoff the University of Georgia student newspaper The Red and Black had called this game, “the greatest athletic event that has ever occurred in the south.” In that same article the student newspaper also went on to say, “Every man on both teams realizes the fact that there is much at stake and each one will enter the game with a determination to win or die.” To Win or Die...little did the undergraduate journalist who penned that article realize how prescient those words would become on that Saturday afternoon in October of 1897. Hi...