Reid, William T. (William Thomas), 1879-1976

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 encloses for Paul Joseph Dashiell letters from Harvard President Charles William Eliot and Richard Henry Dana about brutality in football. Dana’s letter specifically discusses a recent game that Dashiell umpired, where Dashiell failed to properly penalize a brutal play. Roosevelt urges Dashiell to “take severe measures” against brutality in games in the future.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-12-05

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt tells Harvard President Eliot that he has written Paul Joseph Dashiell to get his explanation of an incident that occurred in a football game he was umpiring. Roosevelt would like to discuss football with Eliot this winter. Three of his sons play football and he believes it has done them good, and he wants to save the sport and eliminate the brutality of it. He believes that officials should be hired who will not tolerate brutality, even if it is done under the rules. Finally, Roosevelt asks Eliot for facts about an alleged incident in the Harvard-Yale game.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-12-05

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt mistakenly believed that Horatio S. White was the White who William T. Reid was bringing to a meeting about football today. He tells White that he is not committed to anything regarding the circular that was sent out, but has only made general statements. He would like White to see Reid and have him repeat some of the conversations he had with Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-12-05

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt asks Harvard University President Eliot to show the enclosed copy of Paul Joseph Dashiell’s letter to Harvard football coach William T. Reid, William Roscoe Thayer, and Mr. Dana. Roosevelt also includes a letter from a man from Buffalo that should be shown to the same people. It appears that the Yale football team believes just as much as Harvard that its team has “nearly a monopoly of the virtue.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-12-09

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 Walter Camp, a Yale football player, to attend a meeting at the White House to discuss “certain football matters.” He asks Camp to also bring his head coach or the man “nearest to what the head coach will be.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-10-02

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

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.