Omaha daily bee., 1909-12-26
lie. A. A. US. GROWING FAST
Now Influences Sixty-FOur Leading
Colleges.
FOURTH ANNUAL MEET TUESDAY
Organization Has Control OF a stu
dent Population of Consider
ably More Than Eighty
Eight Thousand.

Ieeiate Athletic Association OF the United
States, to give in full the impressive title
OF that organization which by the way has
Just been Joined by Harvard, will meet
next Tuesday in this city TO consider prob
lens of college athletics. The organization
was begun late In 1905, mostly by chance,
and has lived through a period Of being
laughed at until now It is a most import
ant, body in college athletics.
Curiously enough It Is an association OF
colleges which controls nothing and pre-
tends to CONTROL nothing. In spite Of that
IL forced a reform OF foot ball in 1906, the
first year Of It's existence. and since then
has been extending a reformative nflu-
enco to other sports.
Those colleges which are members OF the
association-and they number now some
thing more than ~sixty-are not ~ nd to
subscribe to any legislation enacted by the
intercollegiate Athletic Association Of the
United statesh. The colleges which do
not care to act in accordance with any
law made by the majority have only to
file formal notice of their objections.
Its Effect in Foot Bail.
In 1905, as many folks recall, there was
q great cutlery against the American col
lego game OF football, much as there has
DGtH Lnlb nNNoOns 2 CIV 9OhAO ANohA
tiles on the gridlron that brought the pub
lie attention keenly to the amount Of
danger that there is in foot ball, and
there were also many accidents. The cry
was to lessen mass play and to make the
game a better thing for player and spec
tator. The rules committee, at that time
a self-perpetuating body of seven men,
old time mysterious rulers of the game
VINO met with dignity and iesisiated In Sc
crecy, had given no sign that they were
going to do anything about IL. The gen.
yral impression was that they weren't
going to do much.
The death Of Hard Moore, a backfield
player of Union college, in a game against
New York university in this city. and the
action OF Columbia in abollshing the game
made New York the center OF the storm.
Chancellor Henry M. MacCracken Of New
York university called a meeting of col
leges and universities to be held here
with the idea Of abolishing foot ball gem
orally. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn
sylvania, Cornell and Others did not send
delegates to the meeting, and there were
not many universities of the first import
ance represented.
Columbia had a delegate there, but as
Columbia already had abolished foot ball
that didn't make much impression. The
New England colleges were represented
pretty strongly. Altogether about sixty in
stitutions had delegates, but after all their
Importance and influence were small.
Reform Comes from within.
The meeting in December. 1906, started
out with a hurrah to destroy the Ameri-
can college game. OF a sudden, out of
the mass of undigested advice and talk
came the sound and safe plan, of the
United States Military academy. Captain
Palmer y. Pierce, chief delegate of the
Military academy, outlined a plan to have
the association form a rules committee
TO fuse with the other body with the idea
of discovering whether something couldn't
be done to reform the game. This tenn
perate advice proved to be just the thing.
and the meeting that began with the idea
of ripping boot ball to pieces ended with
having a committee appointed to reform
and save the game.
The fusion with the old rules commit
tee was made and the changes that for
so long were called new foot ball were
made. The game started out on its 1906
course and the hastily summoned group
Of colleges were masssd into the i. C. A.
A. U. 3d., to meet annually in New York
to consider problems of college athletics.
Captain Pierce Is the first and only presi-
dent Of the 1. c. "A. A. u. s., thu far. He
will remain at the head of 1t in all proba-
bility just as long as he cares to or as
long as the government interposes no OBJ
lection.
The first annual meeting of the organi-
cation In 1906 was not promising. Twenty
eight colleges sent delegates and nine did
not, although members. Minnesota was the
only one of the conference colleges that
could be got, and Pennsylvania, although
a member, sent no delegate.
The big colleges still hung aloof, and
there was a sprinkling in the membership
OF the smaller institutions which made tn,
roll long, but not significant, The mem.
bers then were: