Nearly 150 years after its beginnings college football season is in full swing. The sport has attracted countless players and even more fans, and presidents have belonged to the ranks of both.

Although Theodore Roosevelt never played collegiate football because of his nearsightedness, he had more impact on the sport than any other president. In the early 1900s he joined growing group of people who were alarmed by the viciousness of the college game. In an era without helmets or face guards, with no neutral zone between teams and no limit to how many players could be on the line at once, football could be fatal; almost 40 college and prep school players died from injuries during the 1904 and 1905 seasons.

On October 9, 1905 Roosevelt summoned representatives of Harvard, Yale and Princeton to the White House to talk about the future of college football and he told them that unless the game was reformed it would be outlawed—perhaps by an executive order from TR himself. Partly in response, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States was formed in 1906 and it instituted rule changes, such as allowing the forward pass, which made football safer and more popular.