re: Missouri Realist Expectations

He is serious. We all want to know more about the dynamics of Mizzou football.

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He is serious. We all want to know more about the dynamics of Mizzou football.

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Little did Missourians realize in 1823 that the actions of a schoolboy in England would shape MU athletic history. In that year, an English soccer player picked up the ball, instead of kicking it, and ran with it. This new approach led to the creation of the sport of rugby, which with many changes in rules and plays became American football. Rugby football spread across the globe, but the lack of precise rules and the complexity of the sport discouraged many players. American football continued to be played more-or-less by rugby rules until 1905 when outrage caused by injuries and deaths related to collegiate football brought about an extensive revision of the American version of the game. Thus, American football as we know it was born.

"Foot ball" fever stuck the MU campus in the Spring of 1890. Encouraged by an MU Professor, Dr. A. L. McRea, the sophomore class of the "Academic School" (now the College of Arts and Science) formed the University's first football team. This team immediately challenged a team of Engineers and the MU football dynasty began. This first MU football game, played in the slush and mud of April was a far cry from the modern game played today.

Judge John Hinton, President of the Board of Curators from 1889-1891, stated "I favor anything that will improve the students mentally, morally or physically." The Board of Visitors, appointed by Missouri's Governor in 1890, agreed: "A very healthful and hopeful tendency of the age is toward development of the whole man, physical as well as mental. . .", but concluded ". . .Where its varied and beautiful forms of exercise are not offered, the yearnings of nature will be apt to seek gratification in base ball, foot ball, or in other games not in every respect wholly commendable." A stronger critic the Reverend S. F. Taylor, President of Stephens College, later stated "I think that any man who will play football is a fool, and any college President or Professor who encourages such a brutal and degraded sport is encouraging brutality and a spirit of crime. All men are naturally strong . . . [playing football causes] development of a lot of extra muscle that will only be a burden to him in later life . . . I tell you there is not an athlete or gymnast in the United States today who will live to the age of sixty."

Interest of University of Missouri students in the new sport of "foot ball" was, however, not to be denied. On October 10, 1890, a meeting was held and the Foot Ball Association was formed. Within days teams were formed by the Schools of Law, Engineering and Academics. Members voted that a team be organized to play Washington University, in St. Louis, on Thanksgiving Day, 1890. The game, played in front of a crowd of 3,000, was a disaster for the MU team. The Washington University varsity team had been playing for several years and after the first ten minutes, they were within five yards of the MU end zone. Although the MU team put up what resistance they could, as Columbia supporters wildly cheered "M-i-s-s-o-u-r-i Ah!", the final result was Washington University 28, MU 0.

Another disadvantage, according to the MU fullback Burton Thompson, was that the Tigers "had been taught that our only defense must be with shoulders and arms or by interference with the body. We had been strictly warned not to use our hands, open or closed, in warding off a man; but, alas!, the umpire and referee observed no such rules of the game...what we had first imagined was slugging, we very soon found out was a perfectly proper method of defense and offense on their part." Following its sound trouncing in St. Louis, MU's varsity was challenged, upon their return home, by the School of Engineering team. The Engineers suggested that they could have made at least one goal against the Washington University team. The ensuing game, which was played with a badly leaking ball, ended with a final score of MU Varsity 80, MU Engineers 0, an outcome which must have salved the bruised egos of the varsity football players.