Camp, Walter, 1859-1925

President Roosevelt has sent H. L. Williams’s letter regarding football to Harvard head coach William T. Reid and Walter Camp, but says that he is unable to take an active part in reforming football. Roosevelt thinks that Williams’s best suggestion is that referees should be chosen by a body different from the one that governs coaches and players, to remove the risk of their facing enmity from players and coaches.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-12-11

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt believes the changes suggested by J. William White are good, although he is not an expert in the matter. He encloses a telegram from the Chicago Tribune that shows that radical changes are needed to save football and asks if White can contact Ira N. Hollis, Walter Camp, and others to see if they will join in some sort of action.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-27

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt agrees with Stephen V. R. Crosby’s statement about the football game, especially with what he says about the rules. He does not want the sport to be stopped at Harvard and believes that Louis Adams Frothingham is “just the type of man” who should be promoted in American public life.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-25

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt tells Alexander Lambert that his son Archie has his heart set on having either the picture of Skip on the snow or Skip on the horse. He asks whether it was Lambert or Philip Battell Stewart who took them. He also discusses the recent Harvard football game.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-27

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt sends Nicholas Murray Butler the text of a memorandum drawn up by his guests in which they promise to “carry out in letter and in spirit the rules of the game of foot ball relating to roughness, holding and foul play.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-10-11

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt asks John B. Fine, head of the Princeton Preparatory School, to attend a meeting at the White House to discuss “certain football matters.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-10-02

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt asks Arthur R. T. Hillebrand of Princeton University to attend a meeting at the White House to discuss “certain football matters.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-10-02

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt asks Edward H. Nichols of Harvard University to attend a meeting at the White House to discuss “certain football matters.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-10-02

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt asks William T. Reid of Harvard University to attend a meeting at the White House to discuss “certain football matters.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-10-02

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Kermit Roosevelt tells President Roosevelt about an upcoming football game which he is confident his team will win. They needed a referee for the game and Walter Camp and Charles Dudley Daly were unavailable, so they have Harvard coach, Joshua Crane. He explains to Roosevelt his plans to take up boxing next year, because he wants to learn how to use his fists. He also mentions that Bishop Charles Henry Brent is visiting and has invited him to stay with him in the Philippines.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Kermit, 1889-1943

Endicott Peabody, headmaster of Groton School, writes to President Roosevelt, regarding Kermit and Hall’s absence for Alice Roosevelt’s wedding. It is the school’s policy to not allow students to leave for cousins’ weddings as they are so frequent. However, because Hall was orphaned and very close to the Theodore Roosevelt family, Peabody believes it appropriate. Peabody also discusses cheating allegations of Harvard and Yale football teams.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-01-25

Creator(s)

Peabody, Endicott, 1857-1944

Endicott Peabody believes that the new football rules are reaching the point where Harvard may consider allowing undergraduates to participate in it. He tells President Roosevelt at length about a visit from Roosevelt’s son Ted Roosevelt, during which Ted expressed some concerning ideas and positions regarding morality. Peabody tells Roosevelt so that when he sees his son he can “help him to a more sane point of view,” but asks Roosevelt not to tell Ted that he wrote about him.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-01-30

Creator(s)

Peabody, Endicott, 1857-1944

Secretary of War Taft has no objection to President Roosevelt sending Mr. Sawyer’s letter to Harvard; and he has received Roosevelt’s letter with the enclosure from Walter Camp.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-12-13

Creator(s)

Taft, William H. (William Howard), 1857-1930

In his review of John J. Miller’s The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football, Duane G. Jundt notes that Theodore Roosevelt does not figure prominently in its discussion of the problems facing college football in the early twentieth century until relatively late in the book. Jundt praises Miller for providing a well-written examination of the place football occupied in American culture, but he contends that Miller relies too much on speculative language in describing a football summit organized by Roosevelt, and he also asserts that Miller overstates Roosevelt’s role in saving football from those who would have banned it. 

Photographs of the football coaches of Yale and Harvard and the front cover illustration from The Big Scrum supplement the text.

An article in the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine calls for a break in athletic competition between Harvard and Yale, asserting that Yale focuses too much on athletics and not enough on academics.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-28

Creator(s)

Unknown