40 percent that of any professor on the faculty-got word that the trustees had secretly decided to abolish the sport. Reid and four allies hatched a plan to save their game-openly condemning its brutality and recommending that it be "radi- cally changed." Harvard's president, Charles W. Eliot, was skeptical.
But Reid persisted, trying to persuade other college coaches to agree to Harvard-proposed rules changes. He predicted that without reforms, Harvard would abolish the sport and that...