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Bill Reid '01 by Michele DeAngelis One
could not begin to reflect on the 100 year history of Harvard Stadium
without mentioning Bill Reid ’01, one of the many legendary head coaches
to have been at the helm for Harvard over it’s rich football history.
Reid’s meetings with President Theodore Roosevelt helped put him on
a path to pioneer the sport across the country, ensuring its competitiveness, integrity
and most importantly, its safety. He was instrumental in saving
football at Harvard in the early 1900’s and was highly influential to
the development of the modern day game. With these accomplishments to
his credit, he carved his place in collegiate football history as not
only a coach, but as one of the first pioneers for college athletics. Whether as a player or a coach Reid exhibited an ever-present
philosophy that a successful season is one in which you beat Yale. “I
don’t see how a man can help feeling that hardly anything is more important
than to beat Yale,” he was quoted as saying in the book Big Time
Football at Harvard 1905. For Reid “success” came quite often during his undergraduate
days. He served for four years as a catcher on the baseball team, recording
three wins over the Eli’s in those four years. On the football field
he scored two touchdowns in an unprecedented 17-0 win over Yale in his
sophomore year. This was an
accomplishment never before achieved against a Yale team and the win
marked only the second time in 18 years that the Crimson defeated Yale.
This mentality would not end after his playing days were over.
In 1901, while working on a Masters of Arts degree, Reid was
selected to serve as head coach of the football team. In the early days
of Harvard Football it was common to have a recent alum serve as head
coach. At only 22 he led the Crimson to a perfect 12-0 season that included
a season-ending 22-0 win over the arch-rival Yale program, which had
only suffered ten losses in a quarter-century of play. With that win
he marked his place in Harvard history by becoming the first coach to
ever beat Yale as both a coach and a player. After that season Reid would forego his football coaching duties
until the spring of 1905 when he was asked to return to Cambridge to
become Harvard’s first salaried coach at the young age of 26. He worked very hard from the beginning to set
up practice schedules, recruit players and gather equipment. He also
faced many constraints imposed by his medical staff that would prohibit
players from playing with what would be considered only mild ailments
today. His hard work that year foreshadowed what was to come for coaches
over the course of the next century.
Recruiting, eligibility rules and medical treatments were prevalent
then and remain among the top concerns for modern day coaches. The 1905 season also marked a turning point for intercollegiate
football. The sport, over the course of the late 1800’s-early 1900’s,
although recording record gate receipts, was being heavily criticized
for its lack of ethics and brutality. Over the course of the season
the brutality hit its peak with 18 players killed and 159 seriously
injured on the field. It was being dropped in schools across the country
and facing elimination at many other colleges, including Harvard. The
harsh criticism that came about because of this raucous brutality forced
President Roosevelt to invite representatives from Harvard, Yale and
Princeton to the White House to review ways to enhance the ethical principles
of the game across the country. The group left the White House with
a pledge to clean up the game of football at their respective schools. “Brutality and foul play should receive the same summary punishment
given to a man who cheats at cards,” President Roosevelt told the group,
according to the Second H Book of Harvard Athletics. Reid would again be called to the White House later that season,
this time alone. President Roosevelt wanted to address the matter of
Harvard’s apparent violation of the pledge.
After a 12-6 loss to Penn, Harvard’s center had been thrown out
of the game for slugging a Penn player.
Roosevelt asked the young coach why he would allow his captain
to punch the Penn player. Reid responded to the President by stating,
“what would you say if I told you that the Penn lineman was kicking
our man in the groin?” The President replied, “What I would say would
not be fit to print,” according to David Mittell ’39 who would hear
the story first hand from Reid. Reid
left the meeting with the President after assuring him that he was working
hard to help reform the game. At the end of the 1905 football season Reid would become part
of a reform group formed from 68 colleges across the country. This group
would later become known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association
(NCAA). Reid would be centrally involved in the NCAA’s structure, serving
as Secretary for the Football Rules Committee, a crucial power sub-committee. At Harvard he also formed an alumni committee
that would eventually merge with the Football Rules Committee. He worked diligently with the newly merged
committee to establish standardized rules for football. He informed
them that unless these new rules were adopted Harvard would not be playing
football in the future. “Either these 19 rules go through or there will be no football
at Harvard; and if Harvard throws out the game, many other colleges
will follow Harvard’s lead,” he was quoted as saying in the book Big
Time Football at Harvard 1905.
Harvard would eventually accept the rule changes set forth by
Reid and the Football Rules Committee and the game at Harvard was renewed
for the fall 1906 season. These
rules resulted in a sort of national reinvention of collegiate football. Harvard and Reid became pioneers for the sport
and would go on to change the game across the country. Coincidentally, Harvard Stadium also played a central role in
the rule changes being made to football.
One of the changes being discussed was possibly widening the
field of play. Since Harvard Stadium had just been built (in 1903) widening
the field seemed to be an impossible task. Therefore, the committee
dropped that idea and instead established the forward pass, “to remove
the premium on mere weight and to develop greater opportunity for speed,
agility, and brains,” according to the Second H Book of Harvard Athletics.
Additional changes included a 60-minute time limit on games, the establishment
of the neutral zone, the outlawing of interference with a player attempting
to make a fair catch, and the concept of having to gain 10 yards in
three attempts in order to maintain ball possession.
With these changes in place the game, and Harvard, seemed well
on its way to becoming a legitimate college athletics program. After a devastating 6-0 loss to Yale in the final game of the
1906 season Reid would leave coaching and Harvard. Despite his final record of 30-3-1 (including his 1901 season),
Reid deemed his coaching time as a failure since he failed to beat Yale
in both the 1905 and 1906. The Yale game seemed to be the only game
that really mattered to Reid and he would walk away from Cambridge with
disappointment. Reid and his wife Christine
retreated to California where he became headmaster at the prestigious
Belmont School, a preparatory school his father founded in 1885. The couple later returned to Massachusetts
in 1910. The next decade for
Reid and his family were quiet as he pursued a career as a bond salesman
and he and Christine raised their four children (Patrick, Edith, Christine,
and Charles). In 1924 Reid lost his wife Christine but he
would later remarry in 1931 to Cornelia Hinchman. He and Cornelia lived in Brookline over the next few decades where
Reid became consumed with local politics. As he grew older Reid remained active in Harvard Athletics,
assisting on the baseball coaching staff, where he would again face
losses to Yale. In 1970 his
football accomplishments were finally recognized on a national level. At 91 The College Football Hall of Fame voted
Reid in as a Pioneer member. “With all that he did for the evolution of football, saving
it has to be the most important,” remarks Mittell. A pioneer for Harvard and football, Reid’s “unsuccessful” two
seasons as head coach helped to solidify the future success of Harvard
Football. That accomplishment alone has given many student-athletes
the opportunity to be part of an historic program that has helped to
produce future senators, businessmen, Hollywood actors and NFL superstars. It’s amazing to think that success to Reid
meant only a victory against Yale.
If only he could see how successful he truly was.
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