Published in The Harvard Advocate, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3 (Oct. 17, 1879).
Theodore Roosevelt ’80 reflects on the intercollegiate context of Harvard football in a short contribution to the October 17, 1879, edition of The Harvard Advocate. He was an editor at the time.
The rugged individualism that would later define Roosevelt, the trust-busting, rhino-slaying, Bull-Moose president, already shines through in his repeated appeals to the unmatched potential of hard work. “Nothing but very hard work will enable our men to win the victory,” he declares, the first word almost spontaneously italicizing under its own stately weight.
Whether Roosevelt’s “hearty praise” made a lasting contribution to the Crimson’s spirit is lost to history; later in 1879, the team began an ambivalent streak of eight ties against Yale. What certainly lasted was Roosevelt’s zeal for football, which led him to rescue American football during his presidency when its ghastly injury rate threatened to bring about its end—or at least its “emasculat[ion],” in his words.
By Patrick Lauppe ’13
