Back when football was banned at BYU – and almost in the entire state

                    Rice Stadium, The University of Utah football stadium.

By Lynn Arave

“OPPOSED to the game of football” was a headline in the Deseret News on Dec. 8, 1905. Too many injuries and even the death of a Utah football player in a game during the 1900 season combined to create a ban on football at the Provo school.

Football was played at BYU, when it was named Brigham Young Academy, from 1896-1903. But, about the same time as the Brigham Young University name came along in 1903, the sport of football was discontinued there, for some 16 years.

In fact, “Mormon Church is against football” was a Nov. 18, 1908 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune. This report stated that all schools operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would now also ban football. The matter had been under review for a year and many students petitioned for football, but it was considered too violent and too injury prone.

This wasn't just an LDS Church stand against football. Institutions all over the U.S., like Harvard and Columbia, were also against the sport for its brutality.

"Not for gentlemen" was a common saying at schools which banned football.

"Football is a hospital feeder," was another slogan against gridiron play.

Nation-wide, there were at least 45 deaths and hundreds of serious injuries reported from the 1905 college football season.

President Theodore Roosevelt that year met with sports officials from Harvard, Yale and Princeton to hopefully get football injuries reduced. President Roosevelt’s sons played the game and he wasn’t out to halt the sport, just make it safer to play.

“Present football is too dangerous” was a Nov. 19, 1909 Tribune headline. Schools in New York State banned all football games in 1909, citing, “bones were broken and pupils otherwise injured.” By 1910, the University of Kansas also banned football.

Some football rules had been changed in the early 1900s to try and make it safer, but numerous injuries still continued.

                 College football could have been banned at Utah in 1909.

The Utah State Legislature had House Bill 165 proposed in 1909, that would have halted all football play in the State – especially at the University of Utah and the Agricultural College. However, the bill was finally withdrawn before a vote.

In BYU's case, it was the General Board of Education of the LDS Church, which prompted the ban on football. According to the Deseret News, some students left BYU, or didn't attend there, because of this ban.

(Of course, no one dreamed back then that BYU would ever be the national champion in college football, as it was in 1984, some 64 years after the ban was lifted.)

Since football was banned at BYU during those years, a church-wide ban meant the sport was also halted at Weber Stake Academy (forerunner of Weber State University).

Finally, more rules were changed and advances in football equipment both helped make the game safer for players.

Football returned to BYU in 1919 as an intramural sport. The next two seasons BYU had limited college play and finally the Cougars had a full football season in 1922, though the team’s record was a dismal 1-5.

-Football was perhaps its most brutal in the late 19th Century. The Ogden Standard-Examiner reported this in 1885 about the Ogden High Football team:

“The boys have laid in a good supply of shin plaster, and for a week or past, they have had a carpenter busily engaged in manufacturing crutches. Several competent surgeons have been retained for the occasion (upcoming game) and will be in attendance.”

-It also wasn’t just brutality that cancelled football games in the early 20^th Century either. An October 3, 1908 game of the University of Utah’s freshman team against Ogden High was cancelled due to bad weather. A few years later, a soggy, wet field also cancelled a game.

Also, a November 1907 gridiron contest of West High School against Ogden High was cancelled by the Board of Education due to rowdy, public disturbances caused by Salt Lake players in their improper advertising of the upcoming game.

-Finally, yes, college teams routinely played high school teams in Utah during the early 20^th Century. In October of 1912, the University of Utah Freshman Team whipped Ogden High 56-0. With a shortage of other prep teams in the area back then, preps even played college teams as far away as Montana.

(-Originally published in the Deseret News on Nov. 21, 2017.)

Back when prep and collegiate players met on the gridiron

EVER wonder how Utah’s best high school football team would fare against Utah’s college teams?

Back in 1907, such games were a reality. Since there were few high schools around, grid contests were regularly played against prep schools from as far away as Montana and yes, sometimes even vs. college teams.

Ogden High had the best prep football team in the state 107 years ago. It lost to the University of Utah 19-0 and to the Agricultural College at Logan 6-0 that year.

“All Hallows defeated by Ogden” was a Nov. 19, 1907 headline in the Standard-Examiner, as the Tigers captured the state prep grid title for the second year in a row.

“My, what a surprise!!” the Standard story stated. “The boys with the tiger striped sweaters cavorted around Cummings field yesterday afternoon, while two thousand fans, dyed in the wool Salt Lakes, sat on the bleachers aghast. When finally the game was ended they filed out without making any noise, or comment. The score was 33 to 0.”

(All Hallows was a small Catholic college that existed in S.L. from 1886-1918 and that somehow was a member of the Utah high school football league in that era.)

After its impressive victory in S.L., it was hoped that Ogden High could play against the best team from Chicago, Ill., but that didn’t happen as travel costs would have been a pricey $1,500 (more than $36,000 in today’s dollars) for the visiting team.

Prep football fans in Salt Lake also had some sort of wild demonstration that season.

“High school rowdies in Zion.  They are to be severely dealt with. Worst of the disgrace has not been made public, it is said,” was a Nov. 8, 1907 headline in the Standard.

The story stated was that some Salt Lake High School students had paraded in a rowdy manner and were simply lawless before the start of the Ogden vs. Salt Lake High School football game.

 (Back in 1907, there was only ONE Salt Lake public high school and that was West High School, though many simply called it “Salt Lake High.”)

Ogden beat Salt Lake High 10-5 in one 1907 game.

-What was Thanksgiving Day like, back in 1907?

 “Thanksgiving Day, How it was spent, Ogdenites observe the day in the most elaborate manner – Union services held by churches –Students have the streets illuminated at night,” was a Dec. 3, 1907 headline in the Ogden Standard-Examiner.

(The last Thursday of November, Nov. 28 that year,  was designated as Thanksgiving, until 1942, when the fourth Thursday became the current standard.)

Thanksgiving morning in 1907 was described as quiet, like a Sunday. The First Congregational Church did hold special services, with a large congregation.

The Salvation Army reported feeding many needy families and baskets of food were delivered to others.

“There is not a home in Ogden where there is found any poverty that is not remembered by the Salvation Army every Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year,” the Standard reported.

The Weber County Jail served special chicken dinners to its residents. Meanwhile, inmates at the State Industrial School received turkey dinners.

Ogden area high school boys got street lights turned on, that had not been lit for weeks. There were also some bonfires, as many people headed to the theaters, parties, ice skating or dancing.

-Twenty years earlier, in 1887, Thanksgiving Day was on Thursday, Nov. 14, as designated by the Territorial Governor of Utah, as a day of “thanksgiving and prayer.”

-Utah’s first-ever Thanksgiving was technically celebrated Aug. 10, 1848, following the first harvest of wheat.

(-Originally published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner on Nov. 20-21, 2014 by Lynn Arave.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net