Word: brutalize
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...FACULTY OF HARVARD COLLEGE, GENTLEMEN :-On the 22 of Nov., 1883, the Committee on Athletics, believing that the game of foot ball had begun to degenerate into a brutal and dangerous contest, informed the Captain of the Harvard eleven that the team could not be allowed to take part in any further inter-collegiate match games until substantial changes in the rules had been made. According to the rules then existing, a player could back, throttle, butt, trip up, tackle below the hips. or strike an opponent with closed fist three times before he was sent from the field...
...every one of these games there was brutal fighting with the firsts where the men had to be separated by other players, or by the judges and referee, or by the bystanders and the police. We say one such case in the Harvard-Princeton game, two in the Harvard-Yale game, three in the Yale-Princeton game, and three in the Wesleyan-Pennsylvania game...
...best game we have for physical development, and perhaps the best in its man making influences. Foot ball, as it has come to be played, first by Yale, then in self defence by Princeton and other colleges, and to a slight extent even by Harvard, is needlessly dangerous, is brutal and demoralizing. Harvard students, must not be allowed to play such a game; therefore inter-collegiate foot ball must cease for us, at least for the present. But it is to be hoped that a careful consideration and revision of the rules and of the game during the winter...
...committee say in their report, that they have attended four games of foot ball this autumn, the Harvard, Yale and Princeton series, and the Pennsylvania vs. Wesleyan,. The Yale Harvard game was the least objectionable, while the Wesleyan-Pennsylvania was the most so. In all there was brutal fighting with closed fists, and men had to be separated in the field: there was in general great lack of gentlemanly spirit. Premeditated and concerted off side play was rarely punished: it is hard to be detected by the referee and not always recognized as such by the audience. The committee find...
...charges of brutality are altogether exaggerated. That only is brutal which is entered into in a brutal spirit. In any contest of rough strength in which great ends are at stake, the players are easily roused into a state of great excitement, under which they treat not their opponents only, but themselves, without much thought of results, But it is always in most thorough good feeling. However fierce the game may have been, we can recall no instance of a player bearing personal animosity toward any opponent after the game had ended...