When was the First Time Uniforms Were Worn in Football?
November 13, 1875 - Hamilton Park in New Haven, Connecticut: The Harvard-Yale game is the first college football contest with players wearing uniforms, according to the connecticuthistory.org website. Before that, teams took the field wearing every mismatched garment under the sun. The article goes on to say that soccer and rugby rules gave early football some inspiration for its attire from the first American rugby uniforms. These consisted of long pants tied tightly at the ankles, a jersey, and an almost stocking-type hat. The long pants evolved into knickers that fit tightly to the skin. At that first Harvard Yale match, Yale wore dark pants, blue jerseys, and yellow hats while Harvard sported crimson knee breeches, shirts, and stockings. The game was also the first time the schools met in what has become an annual rivalry. Yale guaranteed Harvard $75 to play, and with tickets selling for 50¢ each, 2,000 spectators filled the park.
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons of an 1875 wood carving depicting a football game of the era in Melbourne, Australia.
Flag Football Innovation
November 13, 1962 - The patent for a detachable streamer for use in flag football was issued. According to an article on sportsrec.com, flag football officially dates back to 1933, but it didn’t really gain popularity until it became quite popular on U.S. military bases in the 1940’s. The military brass loved it because America could not send football-battered soldiers into combat which is what would occur if tackle football without pads was played. So tackling a ball carrier was simply replaced with the safer practice of grabbing and pulling off a flag attached to his clothing. When the flag was taken, the player was downed. When the fellas went home after fulfilling their duties they took the game of flag football back home with them. Civilian popularity for flag football then grew too and in the 1960’s a league formed called the National Touch Football League. This group did away with the flags though and used the method of touching with two hands to replace the tackle. Touching with two hands was often a very disputable judgement when in the heat of battle on the gridiron. “You only got me with one hand!” was a common argument on the fields of touch football. One man that must have recognized this issue had a resolution, a guy named F. E. Steinkamp filed for US Patent 3,063,718 on November 13, 1962 for the detachable streamers for the means in the use to play touch football. It was about a decade later when they became popular when in the 1970’s the flag football returned and spread across college campuses. The article goes on to say that the University of New Orleans hosted the first National Collegiate Flag Football Championship in 1979. Two years later, in 1981, the sport opened up to allow schools to play each other when the inaugural National Collegiate Flag Football Championship took place in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Texas Western (UTEP) battles Utah to the End
November 13, 1965 - Salt lake City, Utah - Texas Western University defeated the University of Utah, 20-19. Just for clarity Texas Western is now under the name of UTEP in today’s football landscape.The NFF’s website story on this game tells us of the final play of the game: Miners quarterback Billy Stevens tossed a miraculous 92-yard touchdown pass to Bob Wallace with 16 seconds for the go-ahead score, it was basically a walk-off win! Wallace also scored the first points of the game on an 89-yard punt return for a touchdown in the second quarter before the Utes leapt to a 19-7 edge on two rushing touchdowns by tailback Ben Woodson. On the defensive side of the ball, Fred Carr led the Miners with 15 tackles.
