1906–1917 Stanford rugby teams
Despite the team's success, it became clear that other schools were not adopting rugby in large numbers, and after rival California returned to football in 1915, Stanford faced a limited number of potential opponents; and after a year of playing neither sport officially due to World War I, the school returned to American football in 1919.
American football in the early 1900s had become increasingly violent; with no forward pass, the ball carrier would be typically pushed and pulled up the field by his own players in massive formations that often resulted in serious injuries.
[1] Despite the planned changes, a number of universities banned the sport for the coming year, including Columbia, NYU, and Northwestern.
[3] At the time, the future of football was very much in doubt and these schools believed that rugby would eventually be adopted nationwide.
[3] The schools scheduled games against local club teams and reached out to rugby powers in Australia, New Zealand, and especially, due to its proximity, Canada.
[3] California's return to football increased the pressure on Stanford to also change back in order to maintain the rivalry.
[3] The onset of World War I gave Stanford an out: in 1918, the Stanford campus was designated as the Students' Army Training Corps headquarters for all of California, Nevada, and Utah, and the commanding officer, Sam M. Parker, decreed that football was the appropriate athletic activity to train soldiers and rugby was dropped.
[7] With no experience playing or coaching rugby, Lanagan initially offered his resignation, but Stanford insisted he stay on, so he traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia to study the sport.
Stanford won its second Big Game rugby match, earning a second straight tournament in British Columbia.
[7][9] In the 1911 season, Stanford went 10–3 and added USC to the schedule, as the school dropped football in favor of rugby.
Stanford finished with an 8–3 record, including its first Big Game win in five years, led by Danny Carroll, who had won a gold medal in the 1908 Summer Olympics as a member of the Australia national rugby union team and who was now earning a degree in geology from Stanford.
The following year, Stanford president Ray Lyman Wilbur canceled all intercollegiate athletic events due to students' enlisting in the military for the war, and due to Stanford's designation as the regional headquarters of the Students' Army Training Corps.
[3][7][9][10] When Stanford reformed a team in 1919, the school returned to American football as its major gridiron sport.
