Congressional Digest

Excerpt

In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt summoned football coaches from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale to a White House conference and told them, “Football is on trial. Because I believe in the game, I want to do all I can to save it.” Roosevelt was concerned about the sport’s brutality. That year alone, there had been 19 deaths and 100 major injuries on the field.

Roosevelt’s efforts and those of prominent educators led to the establishment of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to formulate safety rules for intercollegiate sports “in order that the athletic activities in the colleges and…