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Kirby: Remembering when Utah tried to outlaw football, before lawmakers were told to take a hike.

History — particularly Utah history — is a favorite pastime. I love reading old newspapers as a way of seeing what everyday life was like in earlier times.

A lot of the news wasn’t pretty. Crime, racism, religious spats and other behaviors were alive and well in a society that, like today, was similarly incapable of getting over itself.

Dire warnings issued by religious and social experts predicted all sorts of calamities if women were given the vote (or even allowed to become doctors), if miscegenation were permitted, and if vagrancy were decriminalized.

Of particular interest to me is Utah’s 1909 attempt to outlaw football.