The Rise of Football and its Effect on American and Campus Cultures

The Rise of Football and its Effect on American and Campus Cultures
Patrick Lyall
Siena Heights University
Dr. Pat McDonald, History of Higher Education

The Rise of Football and its Effect on American and Campus Cultures

Introduction
The collegiate lifestyle is a fixture of American culture. From television shows to the big
screen, the chaotic, self-indulgent, and transformative period of every under graduates life has
been the setting for countless tales. It is expected that young men and women will go to a college
or university and develop into useful individuals in their respective fields. However, this stage in
every productive citizens life was not always an integral part of their development.
The American Dream of a career, a spouse, and a home became attainable by earning a
collegiate degree at the start of the twentieth century, between 1890 and 1920 the American
public became fascinated with undergraduate collegiate life. (Thelin 157) The media coverage
of fight songs, school colors, and intercollegiate rivalries helped to foster the connections
between campus culture and the nations popular culture. (Thelin 157) Collegiate football
helped to build this fascination.
Early Football
Collegiate athletics had humble beginnings. Originally, players ran every aspect of the
varsity teams, Logistics of travel, scheduling, and maintenance of facilities and equipment were
coordinated by student managers. The student captain acted as a playing coach. Alumni who
were former players often volunteered to help with training and practices. (Thelin 178) Even the
athletic associations which, were financed by student fees and other donations remained
controlled by student officers. (Thelin 178)
Early intercollegiate rivalries became widely publicized by newspapers, In exchange for
providing dramatic subject matter, the college teams gained local and national publicity, which
increased interest among alumni, paying readers, and the general population. (Thelin 178) This

The Rise of Football and its Effect on American and Campus Cultures

started the highly profitable symbiotic relationship between higher education athletics and media
coverage, college football and the newspapers mutually enhanced one another. The varsity
football teams became the object of extended coverage by eager reporters, commanding front
page headlines day after day. (Thelin 178) A relationship that continues to this day, media
coverage has steadily grown, with multi-million dollar television contracts for many NCAA
conferences. The media gets captivated viewers and readers, while colleges acquire national
prospective students and the prestige that comes from victory.
As the newspaper coverage grew and crowds swelled, major rivalries such as the YalePrinceton game on Thanksgiving Day were played in metropolitan arenas, such as the Polo
Grounds in New York City. (Thelin 178) Eventually, universities began to build larger and
larger stadiums. These stadiums became a facet of the American college campus, Intersectional
football games and the dedication of a sparkling new stadium became a symbolic rite of passage
for an ambitious university claiming newfound stature. (Thelin 208) The big game every
Saturday became the thing to do, not just for college students, but for rabid fans who had never
stepped foot in a lecture hall as well.
The Evolution of the College Tribe
Intercollegiate football rivalries also helped to develop the various cultures on different
campuses. The period of 1890 to 1910 were when colleges adopted institutional colors and
mascots. Harvards Crimson and Dartmouths Green became familiar symbols both to students
and to football fans. (Thelin 159) To help differentiate schools from their opponents, teams and
their fans began to wear colors to signify their allegiance and or alma mater.

The Rise of Football and its Effect on American and Campus Cultures

During the 1900s it became the standard for colleges and universities to have a color
scheme of their own and many even took on mascots to distinguish themselves even more.
each campus staked a claim to a mascot whose attributes personified the virtues of its
varsity athletic teams. Ferocity was the order of the day, as suggested by Princeton
Tigers, the California Golden Bears, Columbias Loins, Michigan Wolverines,
Wisconsins Badgers, and Yales Bulldogs. (Thelin 159)
The media even had a hand to play in branding a few colleges. Sometimes a mascot was
inspired by a sportswriter who reported, for example, that the University of Southern Californias
team fought like Trojans or that the University of Kentuckys team fought like Wildcats.
(Thelin 159) Other schools evoked imagery or history of their state, such as the Ohio State
Buckeyes, the Indiana Hoosiers, or the Virginia Cavaliers. (Thelin 159)
College students and readers bought into these school colors and mascots. As a culture of
rivalries and school pride evolved, students and recent graduates wrote alma maters and college
hymns. They also devised special songs and cheers designed to make one feel part of a campus
tribe at athletic events and reunions. (Thelin 160) Supporting your team even after graduation
became the norm. In many ways, college sports extended alumnis relationships with their alma
mater. Traditions such as homecoming became a part of the pageantry of the autumn games, a
ritual that offered alumni a reason to return and grow relationships with the undergraduates.
Eventually, these celebrations and the socializing of graduates and current students gave rise to
alumni associations.

The Rise of Football and its Effect on American and Campus Cultures

Changes in Faculty
The faculty of colleges and universities had undergone major transformations as a result
of intercollegiate athletics. By 1910, as sports became more popular and winning became more
profitable and useful to colleges, the prototypical athletic association underwent a
transformation: professionalization of the staff, namely, the hiring of an athletic director and
coaching staff. (Thelin 178) At Yale, Walter Camp redirects money from other sports and dumps
it into their football program. He also uses a syndicated football column to start the All
American team selection. It was an entrepreneurial strategy that allowed a coach and athletic
director to gain leverage over both student and academic officials. (Thelin 179) Camp uses an
inversion of the medias and higher educations relationship, unseen up until this point. As
opposed to the media using sports to attract readers, Walter Camp uses the media to attract
potential student athletes, by showcasing his school as a producer of top tier athletes. Camp was
the first to use this strategy as a media savvy athletic director, but by no means was he the last.
Amos Alonzo Stagg was an assistant coach at Yale under Camp. He left that position to
become an athletic director and football coach at the University of Chicago. Stagg held both
positions for forty years at Chicago and perfected the athletics department machinery. He sensed
that the university president, William Rainey Harper, subscribed to the proposition that a winning
football team could bring many benefits to a new university. (Thelin 179) This model of a
strong athletic director and a well-funded varsity football program is now the standard in many
colleges, Camps model of intercollegiate athletics administration at Yale spreads along with
Yales football system to other universities. (Thelin 179) To this day, football, more often than

The Rise of Football and its Effect on American and Campus Cultures

not, is an enduring part of university campuses and the surrounding towns and cities. At big
schools, athletic directors and head football coaches are regarded as celebrities. (Thelin 180)
Formation of Conferences
As faculties began take control of their athletic programs with stronger athletic directors,
colleges began to band together to form the precursors of modern day conferences.
In the period between 1895 and 1914, eight major conferences or athletics associations
were formed, including the precursors to the modern-day Big Ten, Southeastern, Missouri
Valley, and Western Athletic Conferences (Savage, 1929). The conferences were
comprised of the faculty athletics representatives from member institutions.
These colleges and universities grouped themselves in an effort to help standardize the rules of
intercollegiate athletics and improve how they managed themselves. As time passed, the power
of these conferences increased, they gained the ability to penalize offending universities and
even investigative control. (Barr 1999)
When American vets returned from World War II, public interest expanded even more
dramatically than it had in the past. Increased interest, not surprisingly, led to even greater
commercialization of intercollegiate athletics.(Smith 2000) As more people saw higher
education as an option, enrollment in universities and colleges rose to record numbers. Naturally,
as America went to college, more people became enthralled by sports rivalries. Again, the
commercialization of intercollegiate athletics changed to slake the thirst of the masses. With the
advent of technologies like the radio and television, and a larger viewer base than ever before,
colleges and media outlets again mutually benefited each other to tremendous gains.

The Rise of Football and its Effect on American and Campus Cultures

Concern for ethics and the wellbeing of student athletes helped to cause the rise of
conferences and athletic associations as well. In the report on collegiate athletics, the Carnegie
Foundation came to the conclusion that,
Commercialism in college athletics must be diminished and college sport must rise to a
point where it is esteemed primarily and sincerely for the opportunities it affords to
mature youth under responsibility, to exercise at once the body and the mind, and to
foster habits both of bodily health and of those high qualities of character (Cowley
1930)
College sports and the media were so linked that there was cause for alarm. Following the
Carnegie Foundations report, universities and colleges came together more frequently to
hammer out rules and regulations, both to even the playing field and to maintain the prestige of
their own colleges.
Conclusion
The rise of football helped to craft what is now considered the college experience. School
colors, fight songs, and mascots were stimulated by intercollegiate athletic rivalries. Stadiums
gave universities a social meeting place and a sense of pride. The very concept of a college
degree being the path to a lifelong career was born of the medias coverage of collegiate life,
the Collegiate ideal emphasized character and teamwork, varsity sports flourished
as a visible, highly valued component of that ideal. From the start, intercollegiate
athletics had been a source of intense enjoyment and rivalry among students. Over time,
the games also soared as a matter of public interest, in terms of both paying spectators
and news coverage.(Thelin 177)

The Rise of Football and its Effect on American and Campus Cultures

which was profoundly reinforced by Americas obsession with college sports.

Collegiate athletics helped build Americas fascination with campus culture and the
collegiate ideal. The growth of collegiate athletics has changed the landscape of campuses by
raising huge facilities and stadiums. It has also seen the growth of new faculty positions such as
the athletic director. The popularity of football was also the catalyst for intercollegiate governing
bodies such as conferences and athletic associations. College students, athletes, faculty, the
media, and fans all influenced and developed what is now considered the standard for collegiate
culture and in many respects American culture.

The Rise of Football and its Effect on American and Campus Cultures

Works Cited

1. Barr, Carol. History of Faculty Involvement in Collegiate Athletics, The Faculty Athletics
Representative: A Survey of the Membership, 1999.
https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/History%2Bof%2BFaculty
%2BInvolvement_final.pdf
2. Cowley W. H., Athletics in American Colleges, The Journal of Higher Education Vol. 1, No.
1 (Jan., 1930), pp. 29-35
3. Smith, Rodney K. A Brief History of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Role in
Regulating Intercollegiate Athletics, Marquette Sports Law Review Volume 11 Issue 1 Fall
Article 5, 2000.
http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1393&context=sportslaw
4. Thelin, John. A History of American Higher Education, Second Edition. John Hopkins
University Press, 2004