Roosevelt got the college leaders to agree to rule changes to address brutality and to legalize the forward pass, which added grace to the sport while reducing all-out collisions. The presidential initiative also played a role in the 1906 founding of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which is today condemned as a guardian of the status quo but was originally conceived as a reform organization.

How much credit Roosevelt deserves has been debated — some commentators think he saved football, while others say that his primary concern was ensuring his beloved Harvard stayed in the sport. Whatever the case, no president has had similar involvement since.

That needs to change. Football is the king of sports, the most popular game in the world’s leading country. But it also has deep-seated problems that few of the organizations involved, from youth leagues to the professional level, seem prepared to face in full.

For a decade, evidence has been accumulating that helmet-to-helmet contact in football causes long-term neurological harm. Spectacular highlight-reel hits are not the only problem; the accumulated effect of many routine hits may be as bad for the brain.