DBWI: What if Teddy Roosevelt hadn't banned Gridiron Football?

[CDurham]

I was studying sports in the past for a histroy project and decided to do what was called American Football or Gridiron Football.

Although it is now just an interesting sport of the early 20th Century, at one time it looked like it would become a very popular sport. Unfortunatly it was also a very dangerous and even deadly one. After 18 college players died in 1905 TR successfully introduced legislation to ban the sport. (In OTL, he mearly threatend to do so if they didn't do something to improve safety) Although with plastics and other modern safety equipment it might have been relatively safe today, how might things have turned out if TR hadn't banned the sport.

 

[HueyLong]

I don't really think it would hit anything major- the game is too stop-go for most Americans. Best to stick to baseball, in my opinion.

 

[mishery]

Also, I don't see how a sport that is limited to colleges could ever become a national pasttime. I mean he didn't ban basketball and that is a fast exciting game but that didn't make it into the mainstream either. Also, without the international competition that football, hockey and (and to a lesser extent) baseball has, I don't see how "gridiron" football could have ever been a major sport in the US.

 

[Beowulf2005]

I don't know - baseball survived for quite a long time as a fairly regional sport before it gained the global popularity it enjoys today. I think a sport like gridiron football could have survived here. Cricket hasn't spread much beyond the British Isles, and it's still popular there.

 

[zoomar]

Actually, you may not know this, but gridiron is enjoying a bit of a resurgence as a "club" sport in the New England area. I read in University Sport Today last week that a match between Harvard and Yale was even televisored on local access in the New Haven area.

Also, there is some talk that gridiron clubs in the upper Midwest have taken to throwing the ball forward and penalizing the flying wedge to open things up. Sounds like a stupid idea to me; the resultant game would only appeal to sissies and girls.

Check www.gridironfun.net for a good summary of this odd relative of rugby and why it is coming back.

 

[Tyr]

I've vaguely heard of this...Isn't it that one where its like rugby played by hooligans with no respect for laws?
I mean IIRC in gridiron you can throw the ball forward, closeline and kick opposing players when you have the ball, attack opposing players when no one has the ball, etc...

But anyway...hmm...If such a game did arrise what would happen to football in America? Would it have the interest it does today? America is probally 4th after Britain, Brazil and Italy for how seriously it takes the game...I even hear that 'sporting nationalism' in the SW is what caused California and Northern Mexico to go off on their own- the hispanics in the southern US felt more affiliation with the Mexican team then the predominantly black and white north easterner US team.

Oh well. If America didn't play football it would certainly be good for my team- we'd have won the World Club Championship back in '97 rather then having those cheating bastards from Boston bribe the ref. IT WAS A HANDBALL YOU BLIND FOOL!

 

[Xen]

Oh well. If America didn't play football it would certainly be good for my team- we'd have won the World Club Championship back in '97 rather then having those cheating bastards from Boston bribe the ref. IT WAS A HANDBALL YOU BLIND FOOL!

Oh get over it already its been almost 10 years, one bad call doesnt change the 2-1 score, face it your team beat itself, they just knew they had the game locked up, and came into the stadium with big heads, and left with their tail tucked between their legs.

Anyhow the Gridiron game probably would have attempted a major league, but I doubt it would be as big as Football or Baseball, more on the same level as Lacross. It might have done alright on the college level, mostly with students and the locals who have nothing better to do. Hmm could you imagine a gridiron game between Harvard and Yale every Labor Day? I wonder would Harvard have the same success in gridiron ad they do with football? I mean 32 championships, and being ranked in the top 3 for nineteen straight years is hard to top.

 

[1940LaSalle]

All of the above overlook one big thing: the impact of the challenge match between a group of students from McGill University and a group of cadets at West Point in January 1906 on a frozen cove of Lake Champlain near Burlington, VT. That touched off the national fervor for hockey that has made college hockey and the National Hockey League as huge as they are today. Admittedly, it took a while to REALLY get up and running--it wasn't until the 1924-25 Philadelphia Flyers became the first American-based team to win the Cup that hockey fandom skyrocketed--but the challenge match was what started it all.

Then one has to consider the second big shot in the arm hockey received: the shift of the New York Americans to San Francisco and the shift of the Montreal Maroons to Vancouver in time for the 1938-39 season. That made hockey the first major professional league established on both coasts, and spurred the relocation of the St. Louis Browns to Los Angeles and the Boston Braves to San Francisco for the start of the 1940 baseball season.

 

[The Man]

Is Lacrosse as popular as the violent go-to sport for americans? The whole world right now is divided into Lacrosse and Baseball fans!