June 13

In this episode we discuss the evolution of the playing field and the legend of Red Grange and Jack Riley. We will provide you with a little bit of football nostalgia. This daily football history segment features the Great events, Franchise formation anniversaries as well as the birthdays of notable Hall of Fame players, coaches or anyone else in our great game and many more  Legendary stories of the Gridiron.

The picture in the banner above is from the US Library of Congress' collection and was contributed by Bain News Service circa 1909 and is titled " Robinson, Yale varsity on the field ."

It is a slow news day for June 13 in the realm of the pigskin so we will go into a deep dive on the podcast on the history of the field itself! We have an entire article dedicated to the Field Size Evolution in the Football Fun Facts section of Pigskin Dispatch that corresponds to the podcast above! Learn how and why fields once looked like this:

The Newspapers.com Football History Headline for this edtion comes from the Fall Rivers Daily Herald in Fall River, Massachusetts on October 3, 1903 when they wrote about the:

New Football Rules

Starting in the 1903 season the filed looked like the diagram above, a giant checkerboard, as it was described in the article back in the day. he piece goes on to say that the new goal line to goal line lines in 1903 were for a rule revision of the era that would not allow the quarterback to run withing five yards either side of the center. Sorry Tom Brady, No QB sneaks back then! 

One big worry was that runners and defenders alike would confuse the interior longitudinal lines with the sidelines creating all kinds of havok. In 1908 the lines were removed and eventually replaced with the hash marks and nine yard marks over time.

June 13, 1903 - Red Grange  is a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame as well as the College Football Hall of Fame. He was a multiple offensive position early star of the NFL. Known as the "Gallopping Ghost" and the "Wheaton Iceman" Grange became the face of the early NFL. His professional career was predominantly with the Chicago Bears, although he did spend a season with an ill fated New York Yankees Football team in 1927, which was an endeavour by Grange and his agent C.C. Pyle when they tried forming a rival league, the American Football League. The AFL only lasted one season and then Red Grange returned to Chicago to play out the remainder of his career. Red's prolific college career at the University of Illinois made him legendary and the signing with George Halas' Chicago Bears gave legitimacy to the fledling league. He was a 3 time consensus All American selection and in 1924 was the only All American running back selected that was not a member of the Famous Notre Dame Four Horseman backfield. In 2008 ESPN named Grange to be the best college football player in history.

June 13, 1909 - Chicago. Illinois - Jack Riley the fine Northwestern tackle from 1929 to 1931 was born. According to the NFF, Riley was one of four brothers to play football for Northwestern University. He was a key man in the school's glory years when Northwestern had a 20-5-1 record and won two Big Ten championships in his time there. After his stellr play during the 1931 season he was named to the All-America team. Jack was also a great crew member on the rowing team and a fantastic wrestler as he was the national collegiate heavyweight champion in 1931 and 1932. He also won a silver medal in wrestling in the 1932 Olympics. In 1988, Jack Riley's accomplishments on the collegiate gridiron were memoralized in the College Football Hall of Fame.  After college Riley played pro football two years with the Boston Redskins then went into pro wrestling.      

For more stats on football people born on June 13th check out Pro Football Reference.

See something that happened on this date that we missed? Please let us know via email at PigskinDispatch@gmail.com.