This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
It was probably a good thing that the Lutheran Fathers of the Augustana Synod put football in the same category as dancing back in 1894—and banned both of them. Otherwise, Augustana College might well have become a girls' school.
Augustana's football team was only a year old. Several students had decided to have a team in 1893. The boys learned the fundamentals of the game from a coach at Northwestern University. After they had memorized six plays—all versions of the flying wedge—they invited St. Ambrose over from Davenport for the first game. St. Ambrose brought along a brass band and tin horns for spectators, but it did no good. The Augustana team called one signal—their only one—before each of the six plays, which they executed in the same order over and over. They hid their moves from the St. Ambrose players by jabbering in Swedish.
By half time, with Augustana leading 18 to nothing, St. Ambrose had had enough; they packed up and went home. Just as well. Most of the Augustana players were on crutches by then.
The remnants of the team regrouped and traveled south to play Monmouth College next. "The bloodiest game in Augustana history," said the newspaper, as Monmouth won. Nearly all the remaining players were now in the hospital. The few left could hardly navigate.
Augustana played its last game that first year against the University of Iowa, in six inches of snow. In spite of the ball being lost in the snow, Augustana won, 6 to nothing.
By now the church fathers had been alerted by faculty members worried about having any male students left. The Augustana Synod banned students from all participation in intercollegiate football, inspired by an impassioned elderly pastor who said he "was against dancing of all kinds, even this new-fangled football."
To understand this rather odd comparison between dancing and football, you have to understand that this was a very elderly church father who lived at a time when dancing, like football, was a contact sport.
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
