Fans developed their own meanings for the game and its stars. Football was also cited as a way to as a way to rally pride around the performance of a team, whether at the ethnic, neighborhood, or city level. As early as 1903, an amateur football league also had been organized with divisions in various weight classes and teams composed of former high school and college players.Īs the 1920s approached, football in Cleveland became more of a spectator sport, with local businesses sponsoring the teams for advertising purposes. Case reigned as the state's football powerhouse between 1902-11 under the strong guidance of athletic association president FRANK VAN HORN. At Western Reserve College, an athletic association composed of students and interested alumni and faculty controlled the sport until 1919, and at Case until 1947. Organizations such as the Senate and the OHSAA brought order to the sport but did little to support the individual school's football program as late as 1940, the financial management of local high school football programs rested with the faculty manager, coach, or principal in each school, and only 4 of the 17 Senate teams had their own playing fields. In 1936 the high school Senate expanded participation to include PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS and additional public schools and reorganized itself into East and West divisions to improve competitiveness and help schools maintain self-supporting athletic programs. In November 1904, the Athletic Senate, made up of school administrators, adopted new eligibility rules and academic standards to govern athletics in the elementary and high schools. Locally, the chaotic scheduling of the 1890s had become more ordered: high schools, colleges, and athletic clubs no longer played one another-there were separate leagues for each. In 1907, the Ohio High School Athletic Association was formed to regulate high school sports. By 1912, the game more closely resembled today’s game, with legalized forward passing, 4 downs to make 10 yards in order to retain possession of the ball, and touchdowns worth 6 points. New rules were adopted to reduce formations like the flying wedge, which emphasized strength and force and led to injury or even death. Five years later, it was renamed the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Safety became a major issue, and in 1905, at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt, the International Athletic Association of the United States was formed to govern collegiate football and make it safer. In the early 1900s, critics had raised serious objections to the violent nature of football. In the first decade of the 20th century, two organizations were formed to provide oversight of the sport. Another problem was "ringers" who played for money. Players formed football clubs with little regard for eligibility rules or game schedules arranging games through the newspapers was a common practice at various levels into the 1900s. But problems emerged during the early years as the sport remained informal and rough. By 1895 a number of schools and athletic clubs in the area had 1 or more football teams, and by 1900 local newspapers were giving extensive coverage to the daily practices of high school and college teams. These games included the first high school game in the city's history (25 October, University School 20, Central 0) a series of games between UNIVERSITY SCHOOL, Central, Case, and Adelbert College and a charity game that attracted 1,500-3,000 spectators to National League Park to watch the Crescent football club of New York defeat a team from Cleveland. Several important games in 1890 promoted and popularized football locally. Newspapers provided general coverage of eastern college football, which had grown in popularity through the 1880s, but locally the game remained a little-known sport until 1890, when graduates of eastern colleges living and working in Cleveland shared their knowledge of football rules and strategies with local men and boys. In the first game in Cleveland, a CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL team defeated a group of freshmen from Case School of Applied Science (See: CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY). FOOTBALL. The first organized football game in Cleveland was reportedly played in 1887, 18 years after the first college football game was played in the United States, between Rutgers and Princeton.
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