The Brutal Football Rivalry of 1903
A Whitman College football player is publicly shamed in the Seattle press for alleged dirty tactics against the University of Washington.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Because he was able to work a smooth trick on the University of Washington football team in the game last Saturday, Lasater of the Whitman team has been the target for considerable abuse from the University of Washington team, which has taken the matter up in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The article was instigated by J. C. Knight, coach for the University of Washington team. Lasater barefacedly confesses to having stolen the ball four times after it had been fairly downed, and glories in the fact. His statement is confirmed by the Washington players, and Fred McElmon, one of the Washington men, has a sprained wrist caused by Lasater wrenching the ball away from him after the referee's whistle had blown. Lasater, moreover, boasts that he went into the second half of the game with the deliberate intention of putting Speidell out of the game by so injuring him that he could not play. Speidell was laid out time and time again in the second half, having been kicked in the head and side repeatedly. Lasater was heard to remark during the course of the game that he had laid one man out.
“This may be called good football in some places, but we do not teach that kind of play in Seattle.”
The intense, often violent rivalry between Washington's colleges was a staple of early 20th-century sports reporting. Today's college athletics are governed by strict safety regulations, but the question of 'dirty play' vs. 'competitive spirit' remains a constant, heated debate in modern collegiate sports media.
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