Overview

Tim joins us to tell of the celebrity attraction of President Theodore Roosevelt's son, Teddy and his college football career and the way the people flocked to see him.

We have video out on this story too! Check it out at Taylor & Travis Phenom Compared to a Football Celeb From a Century Ago with Timothy Brown.

Transcript

Darin Hayes
Hello, my football friends. This is Darren Hayes at pigskindispatch.com. Welcome once again to the Pigpen, your portal to positive football history. And it is time for some great gridiron information from yesteryear. Timothy P. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com joins us to tell us about one of the recent articles he's posted on the website. Tim, welcome to the Pigpen.

Timothy Brown
Thank you for having me here. As always, I look forward to chatting with you tonight.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, and this is very relevant to the last month, anyway, of this article that you wrote. You had it titled Travis Taylor and Teddy Roosevelt. And I know that at least two of those names were ones that my wife and daughter became interested in watching, at least the AFC side of the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl, where at least one of those names was interesting.

Timothy Brown
So how do that, at least the Travis and the Taylor I'm thinking of, and Teddy Roosevelt tie together in this piece you wrote? OK, I'm a little surprised you're familiar with Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift. That's that's interesting because, you know, a lot of people wouldn't even know who they are. But you're just kind of tuned in to this stuff, I guess.One of the things that just struck me is, you know, people going all gaga, not Lady Gaga, but just people going nuts about Travis and Taylor, some, you know, angry about it for some reason or another. And others are just excited because they're big Taylor fans, the Swifties. So anyways, it just, you know, got me thinking about, OK, what are some similar kinds of situations in the past in the sports world where somebody who is a love interest or familial interest kind of brings, who's from another field, you know, brings some kind of excitement. So I was thinking about Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, right? That's an obvious one you think about, right? But then I went to Teddy Roosevelt and his son Teddy. So, you know, back in 1905, you know, President Teddy Roosevelt has this meeting with Princeton, Yale, and Harvard and says, you know, you got to get your act together, get the football communities to act together, this game's too dangerous, do something about it. And then he sends them away and... But the interesting thing about it was, I mean, Roosevelt was a big football fan. He was too late, or he's too old to have ever played the game because it didn't appear until he was out of college. But, you know, he was a rough and tough guy. And so, you know, his oldest son, Teddy Jr., was a freshman at Harvard in 1905. And he had played, I think he went to Joe, but, you know, he went to an Eastern prep school, and yet had not played much because he was pretty, he was like 5 '8 by the time he got to Harvard, but he's pretty lightly built, or slightly built. So he goes out for the freshman team, you know, and it's one of those things, you know, the president's kid, you know, everybody's pretty doubtful about him. He's not the biggest guy in the world. And it turns out that he was a pretty tough little nut. And so, I mean, everything I read just said, you know, people kind of came off the field, his opponents would come off and go like, you know, he's not the biggest guy, but he's pretty tough. And so anyway, they play whatever, a five or six-game schedule. And somewhere early in the year, I think they were playing like Worcester Polly or somebody like that, you know, they broke his nose in a game early in the year. And so then, you know, it gets better. I don't know if he wore a noseguard or not. However, the final game of the Harvard freshman season is against the Yale freshmen. And, you know, it's a big deal. And so, in that game, and I should say that you know, just like everything was getting documented, and there were paparazzi, you know, surrounding Travis and Taylor, the same thing happened with Teddy Jr. Here, people are taking pictures of him everywhere he goes. Reporters are trailing him. So the kid just, I mean, he's struggling to have a normal college freshman life because his dad's the president of the country. And so, he's apparently handled all that well, too. So in the lead-up to the Yale game, the Yale folks are all like, hey, I want to play. I want to play the right end in this game because Teddy was the left end for Harvard. And you know, those were days you played both ways. So it turned out that, you know, they just, Yale didn't change their lineup, but the guy who was their Yale's right end on the freshmen team was kind of the captain of the freshmen and then as a senior, he was a. You know captain of the of the ELI team so he's a real good ball player and so he's up against Teddy the whole game and you know sounds like he was kind of beating Teddy's butt but you know he hung in you know Teddy hung in there he made some pretty good tackles made some good plays but in the course of the you know towards you know somewhere like in the second half he apparently broke his nose again and had you know big black eyes and um and so he he left the game with a few minutes left uh you know to play and um so then you know but it was written up you know a syndicated article shows up in you know newspapers nationwide there were pictures of them in these newspapers there were cartoons about him um and so then you know season ends and then he actually started gaining a little bit of weight and as but as a sophomore he went out for the and they still tell now you're too small you know you can't play with you can't play with the big boys so you might have played for his class team or something but uh then as a junior he goes out again and i think you know sounded like he was kind of holding his own uh but then he you know was injured during the preseason and that basically that was the end of his playing career so the only the other thing that was interesting about him he was like i think he was like president or ceo of american express i mean he he had a big you know business career i mean he is obviously well connected person but you know nevertheless sounds like you know pretty pretty stellar guy and um so pretty bully guy huh yeah yeah that's yes so he uh so he ended up um when world war two you know came around he had volunteered i think he had served in world war one as well um any uh Anyways, he was on the, he was in general, and he was on the, he was on the first wave that D -Day was, you know, kind of, there's stories that, you know, he was inspiring guys to try to get over, over the sandbars and, you know, keep moving. So he was, you know, trying to coordinate a lot of that effort. And you know, as a result of that, he was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross. And then, but he ended up dying of a heart attack two weeks later. And so they ended up awarding him the Congressional Medal of Honor, you know, instead. So, they upgraded the DSC Medal of Honor. You make it through probably one of the most stressful situations in world history on D-Day. And two weeks later, I'm sure, I'm sure things weren't pleasant for him then. But still, you would think D-Day would be the stressful part of that. I want the irony of it. So anyways, I mean, you know, I mean everything I can tell you know pretty much of a guy to be admired. Yeah, you know, he just Tried to be as normal a person as he could Despite who his father was. Yeah, when you're living in that big of a shadow, that's Probably a lot rougher than most normal people have ever experienced, and I'm sure it's good. It's an easy thing to overcome, and it's very interesting.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, great story. Now. It almost reminds me a little bit. I interviewed Craig Cole, who quit just a little while ago, and he ended up playing for the University of Tennessee in college right before his junior year. That's when Johnny Majors Left Pitt won the national championship with Tony Dorsett and then went to Tennessee took over the program and that's where he's from And of course and I can remember, you know I was a youngster them but watching and you know Lee Majors was a six million dollar man at that time and he was always on the sidelines and of course his wife was Farrah Fawcett she was under so we talked a little bit about but that and you know Craig was a punter So he wasn't you know, he only had to worry about a few handful of plays each each game and he told me he goes Yeah, he goes that was distracting goes But the worst thing was on the sideline is you know, Johnny Majors loved to have celebrities there He was friends with Jimmy Buffett and Jimmy Buffett would be on the sidelines and you know wearing forget whose Jersey he was wearing I think one of the receivers or something that Name escapes me the guy played for the Patriots after we had a great career in the NFL but he would always wear his jersey and he said Jimmy Buffett was always like where the special teams was and you know, of course the fans and everything we get you know, we're trying to you know look and see Farrah Fawcett and Lee Majors, I'm like, I can't even imagine that on a sideline today and especially in college football You know these coaches are so stoic you would never see Nick Saban allow something like that or something like that.

Timothy Brown
But yeah, well, you know, it's, Um, yeah, for a while, the NCAA was going to make a move to reduce the number of people that can be on the sidelines. Still, you know, when you see like the USC UCLA game, there's always one of the games where there's always celebs, uh, just, you know, because of the location and some of their alums. So yeah, it's exciting enough to see as former players have played for that school show, you know, Joe Burrow shows up on the LSU sideline or, you know, that's kind of cool to see that, you know, the guys that have made it. And, uh, you have any of these Hollywood stars showing up. That's all different, and Taylor Swift has a different story. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's amazing; I mean, that whole phenomenon is just amazing to me. I mean, I'm, I'm, I don't have any. I'm not a fan of hers. I don't, I'm, I'm just indifferent, right? But yeah, obviously admire, you know, what she's done from a career standpoint. And then, the influence she has, I think, you know.

Darin Hayes
I mean, good for her, right? And I think the NFL likes the extra exposure to new audiences. They watch their products. So yeah, brilliant. It is not fun as a traditional football fan to go to the stands after every play, but the NFL for ratings and, you know, cause the NFL needs the money.

Timothy Brown
So they got to get that, you know, they do it, you know, mother's sisters, you know, all the stuff. I can't think of the guy's Name, the former quarterback at Notre Dame. And they always had his sister and his girlfriend, and yeah, I mean, if they think there's a story there, they're going to play it up and, you know, they do all those, let's step away for a minute and listen to the story of, you know, Bobby Joe Smith, right? It's like in the Olympics, they do that all the time because nobody knows who the speed skater is, but, you know, they step away into the profiles. And yeah, it's pretty, it's kind of the same thing. Yeah. It's all in the ratings. All in the ratings. Well, Tim, that was a great story. And, you know, taking us back, you know, a hundred and some years ago and tying into some modern stories of football. So that's, uh, you know, brilliantly done and a great story. And I appreciate you letting us know and filling us in on Teddy Jr. a little bit and, you know, his heroics on the football field and the battlefield and, uh, you know, somebody that should be honored and remembered.

Darin Hayes
And I appreciate you doing that. And you do a lot of that where not only people are remembered and preserved but also, you know, events and little intricacies of the gridiron on your football, archeology .com website. And maybe you could tell the listeners how they can partake in that and enjoy your website. Yeah. Um, so you know, you just go to the site and, uh, you can just go and browse, but the best thing to do is just subscribe.

Timothy Brown
If you subscribe for free, you get cut back. Access to about a third of the content. The paid subscription is five bucks a month or 50 bucks a year. And then that gives you access to everything, including all of the archives. I also post on threads and Twitter. So, if you want to monitor things that way, I've added it as well. All right, well, very good, Tim. We appreciate you coming on and sharing these little bite-sized chunks of football history over a hundred years.

Darin Hayes
But these are different instances, and we appreciate it. We would love to talk to you again next week about some more great football history.

Timothy Brown
That's very good. Thank you, Darin.