Penalty Flag History

They may be the most hated and dreaded items found on the football field, the little yellow penalty flags. We want to give you the rundown on the history of these little yellow beauties as they celebrate a very significant anniversary.

We know from the Pigskin Dispatch Football History Headlines that on April 15, 1965 that the NFL changed its official’s penalty flag from white to bright gold. There were a few reasons that this change occurred. The first was that the majority of the officials wore white hats back then and these hats were used as a tool to mark spots of fumbles, out of bounds etc… With the advent of television broadcasts of games becoming more and more common and spotters in the stands would have an easier time discerning between a marker of a spot and that of a foul. A recent article on ProFootballTalk.NBCSports.com tells us that a second reason was that sometimes littered paper from the stands, mostly white in color, were often confused with penalty flags. I would imagine that games played on a snowy day would be an impairment using the color white as well.

There are a variety to claims on how the penalty flag was first introduced to the game by officials. We know there was a similar hanky used on the field in the stocking-cap era of football.  According to an interview with Coach John Heisman found in Frank Menke's "Encyclopedia of Sports" via Allison Danzig's book "Oh, How They Played the Game", it was stated that there were not five yard stripes going across the field. The statement goes on to say;

"There were no linesmen, and no line sticks. The Referee kept track of distance by just dropping a handkerchief where he guessed the ball as last put into play. The Players of both sides would slyly try to move that handkerchief, while some teammate engaged the referee in a discussion of the rules. So we varied action by kicking a handkerchief as well as a football."

Timothy P. Brown in his great book How Football Became Football: The First 150 Years of the Game, says that guy that was an offical at the high school level  used flags on the field in the mid-1930s. Tim also says there are newspaper reports in the state of Florida in 1940 that commented on how often one of the officials on a game was dropping their handkerchief.

The American Football Database shares that the idea for the penalty flag came from Youngstown State coach Dwight Beede and was first used in a game against Oklahoma City University on October 17, 1941. Prior to the use of flags, officials used horns and whistles to signal a penalty. Author Tim Brown adds that Coach Beede's wife swed together some weighted flags from old Halloween costumes, bed sheets and some drapery weights, sitting in the family closet for the Oklahoma City at YSU game there in 1941. Somehow Beebe convinced the on field officials for the game to use the red and white striped "flags" for the fouls they would see in the game. The idea caught on as the officials, fans and coaches loved the concept. One of that game's officials Jack McPhee kept his flag and used it in other games as well. Jack was a Big 10 official and he spread the news about the concept to his fellow field officials.

Official adoption of the use of the flag occurred at the 1948 American Football Coaches rules session. At first the idea was to throw the weighted marker towards the offending team's sideline so that everyone knew who the foul was on. Now flags are to be directed at a certain yard line that a foul is committed at, and this works great for spot fouls. In dead ball fouls such as offsides or false start and the like, it is common for wing officials, the guys near the sidelines on the scrimmage, who call many of these, to toss their flag on the side of the ball of the offending team. A coach in Salt Lake City in early 1967 suggested a thought about one colored flag for the offense and a different color for the defense, but thankfully this never caught on. Coach Paul Winther suggested the idea of green flags for offense and red ones for defense to remove all angst from anxious fans when the hankies fly during a play.

02 Jan 1967, Mon The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah) Newspapers.com

The National Football League first used flags on September 17, 1948 when the Green Bay Packers played the Boston Yanks. The college game used red colored flags until the 1970’s and the striped rules enforcers in Canada carry an orange flag. 

There have been many occassions where flags have been remembered in a game. In the NFL, Cleveland Browns lineman Orlando Brown was struck by a flag and it did serious damage during a December 19, 1999 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Brown was accidentally hit in the right eye by a penalty flag weighted with ball bearings thrown by referee Jeff Triplette. Triplette immediately apologized to Brown. The big man was forced to sit out the entire 2000 NFL season waiting for his right eye to heal up from the damage of the flag. Cleveland released him after the season. In 2001, he sued the NFL for $200 million in damages. According to reports, he settled for a sum between $15 million and $25 million in 2002. Needless to say it was strongly encouraged to officials at all levels not to toss the flag at where the offense occurs but wo a yardage line adjacent to where the foul occurred, and not near players to prevent any further accidents like the one with Brown.

From an Ref's point of view where to store the golden penalty markers is a matter of preference. I have seen zebras hold them in each of the four pants pockets. I tried them all myself but found that having it tucked into my waist of my pants, with the weight hanging over my belt to be the most comfortable and accessible. I used to wrap the weighted end with black athletic tape and wear it so no yellow was showing on my person, only the black end jutting out blending with my belt. My theory and that of others that do this is that a conceealed flag promotes the black and white of neutral playing fields and diminishes the negativity of an officials job. When it is time to show the dreaded gold hanky, it will be used for the foul marker, but when not needed, hide it away.

The picture in the banner above is from my own collection of one of my officiating penalty flags, wrapped in black athletic tape and all!

Special thanks to Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com and the most wonderful book by Larry Lester and Wayne Stivers, The Negro Leagues Book, Volume 2.