Unrecognized Legacy

Camp semiretires from the NHCC in 1923, relinquishing the presidency and general management to younger men and becoming chairman of the board. The change comes after the company experiences strong sales through the war and through 1920, then endures a difficult countrywide recession in 1921 and 1922, before beginning a good recovery in late 1922 and into 1923. Camp dies March 14, 1925, from a sudden heart attack during the night between two sessions of a New York rules-committee meeting. As a Camp memorial, Yale Field is renamed Walter Camp Field, and a large colonnaded gateway is erected at the entrance to the field, paid for by substantial contributions from the Yale community as well as from colleges, universities, and preparatory schools and high schools around the country. Contributions come from 224 colleges and universities. But the finest memorial could be the game itself, testifying to Camp contributions that still define and benefit the game, worthy of an occasional remembrance of the game’s “father” and most prominent contributor.

Tipping Point

Two deaths occur in American football on November 25. Henry MacCracken, chancellor of New York University, where one of the fatal injuries occurred, invites the nineteen colleges NYU has played since 1895 to a conference on December 8, aiming to abolish or at least reform American football. Camp persuades the rules committee to meet December 9, the day after the MacCracken conference, and develops a plan for Yale’s position during that meeting. While Camp is out of town, Alice communicates the plan to Yale’s President Hadley, who summarizes it in a memo and apparently approves. Roosevelt meets with Harvard’s coach and appears supportive of unspecified actions being taken at Harvard (possibly, as later events suggest, proposals being developed by Harvard’s special committee).

Pax Intercollegiata

Camp and Harvard’s W. A. Brooks negotiate an agreement finally completed in February 1897 that reinstates Harvard-Yale athletic relations. Separately, the University Athletic Club in 1896 helps lead a reconstitution of the 1894 rules committee with Cornell added and Dashiell from Navy included later. In making rules for 1896, the new rules committee bars momentum plays (only one man on offense can be in motion, and he must be moving toward his own goal line) and restricts mass play (by requiring five men on the line at snapback).

Failure Achieved

The ruptured Harvard-Yale relations of chapter 33 come in the midst of a series of unpleasant experiences for Camp in addition to his mother’s death: In March 1894, NHCC borrows heavily, and the company’s board votes to place the company in the hands of a receiver if the borrowed funds are exhausted. In June 1894, Camp angrily writes Caspar Whitney about allegedly inadequate payments from Harper’s Weekly; further angry exchanges follow before Whitney agrees to pay an added 50 percent. In late spring 1895, while Camp is trying to obtain peace between Harvard and Yale to allow the rules committee to meet, the Yale football captain under pressure from Yale graduates sends an inflammatory letter to Harvard that dooms Camp’s efforts. Camp immediately resigns from the Yale athletic advisory committee and in October leaves for California and a month of rest, “for his health,” with coaching at Stanford. Meanwhile, the rules committee splits, with Cornell added to Harvard and Pennsylvania in one group, while Princeton and Yale remain in the IFA group; the two groups produce two different sets of rules.

Starting from Scratch

Proceeding with working groups, the amalgamated rules committee’s open-play working group (Camp, E. K. Hall of Dartmouth, Reid) rejects forward passing across the scrimmage line. But at the next full rules-committee meeting, Hall individually proposes passing across the line under certain limits—for example, loss of possession if the passed ball strikes the ground, untouched by a player. His proposal becomes the basis for full committee approval of forward passing along with Camp’s ten-yard rule (plus a neutral zone separating opposing lines). A Central Board of Officials is also created, with Camp a member, to instruct officials, develop a roster of satisfactory officials, and on request appoint officials for games. St. Louis University, coached by Edward Cochems, uses forward passes extensively in 1906. Cochems writes an article on passing for Camp’s How to Play Football booklet. Camp successfully uses a pass against Harvard in 1906 for the winning points. By 1908 a number of Midwest teams are using the forward pass ten or more times per game.

Football as We Know It

In 1910 proponents of forward passing again face strong resistance. Camp continues to resist and the vote is close, but the rules committee approves forward passes if completed within twenty yards of the line of scrimmage. Other 1910 changes: anywhere on the field, the offense must have seven men on the line at snapback; pushing or pulling of a runner by offense is no longer allowed; a fourth down is added, as advocated by Camp, making the downs-and-distance rule “ten yards in four downs.” In 1912 additional basic changes are made: The field is reconfigured to be one hundred yards long between goal lines, with ten-yard-long end zones added beyond the goal lines. Passes can be completed across the goal line in the end zones. The twenty-yard maximum on passes is removed. Specifications are enacted for the ball.

“The Game I Have Worked So Hard For”

With a public clamor growing against mass play in American football, Camp proposes to force more open play by requiring an advance of ten yards instead of five yards in three downs. Other rules-committee members argue additional game methodology is needed to make ten yards more attainable, such as weakening the defense by requiring defensive ends to be five yards back of the line at snapback, which Camp rejects as artificial and ineffective. Others suggest forward passing, which Camp also opposes. With unanimity required by the rules committee in its rules decisions, meaningful committee action is prevented, and the committee is severely criticized. At Harvard, in an effort to keep football alive in spite of new Eliot criticisms, a special committee is formed to propose rule changes.