Football 1903

In this edition of the Football History Rewind, we discuss how football became known as the gridiron as well as many more on the season of 1903.

When we last left this series in Part 19, a challenge was issued as to why football is called the "gridiron."

How did you do with the challenge? My
experience with different search engines in trying to find the answer to this question was only partially answered.

The best answer was that after lines were added to the fields five yards apart in 1882 to negotiate the new line to gain rule of obtaining five yards in three downs, someone high in the stands exclaimed that the field looked like a giant gridiron. How gridiron became associated with football This was part of the truth but not the whole story. The fields in 1882 had twenty three horizontal lines including the goal lines (the fields were 110 yards long in those days, goal to goal).  There were only two lines, the side lines which were perpendicular to the other twenty three. A gridiron has much more of a grid pattern to it which means there would need to be many more vertical lines to intersect the horizontal ones to give it a grid-like pattern.

The picture above is from Wikipedia Commons of the 1905 Michigan versus Wisconsin game, and is a great photo of the grid pattern that the field lines made, hence the name "Gridiron."

Many vertical lines were added to football fields prior to the 1903 season due to a rule change meant to make the game a bit more wide open and thus
reduce some of the roughness. The rule was that the player receiving the snap could for the first time in history advance it forward providing that he cross
the line of scrimmage at least five yards away from the point where the "snapper-back" initiated action on that particular play. Prior top ths rule only
players receiving the ball second or more after the snap could advance the ball forward towards an opponent’s goal line. This five yards distance was a
difficult one for the three officials to determine without assistance so the wise innovator of the rule, Walter Camp, requested eleven additional vertical lines
to the sidelines be added spaced evenly five yards apart all the way from one goal line to the opposite goal line.

The field was fifty-three yards wide so Camp did some quick math and had the two inner vertical lines closest to the side lines be only one and one-half
yards away from each side line. The additional vertical lines in conjunction with the already existing horizontal lines made a checker board pattern across
the field of play.  The ball was always placed on one of these vertical lines before the snap in relation to the progress obtained on the previous play. There were no hash marks as in our era of play so in essence a play could start 1-1/2 yards away from one of the sidelines. The person receiving the direct snap, usually the quarterback, could advance the ball now by running only if he crossed the line of scrimmage at least one vertical line or more away from the one where the ball was snapped from. 

More from the Rules Committee; March 1903

The same meeting that produced the forward run by quarterbacks also started a rarely known rule. The rule stated that for the 1903 season the teams would
exchange goals and ends of the field after every point after touchdown attempt and after every goal from the field. Additionally the team that scored
upon had a choice of receiving the free kick or the option to kick it off themselves to the team that scored. I am not totally sure why any team would
have opted for this or even if it was ever done, but there must have been a reason for the rule. Another part of this same rule stated that the teams would
defend the opposite goals to start the second half than they did to start the first half.

Another rule revision of note from the 1903 season was that the lines-man was given the authority to pronounce a player as off-sides, as well as penalizing
players for tripping and unnecessary roughness to a back after a kick. Umpires had to determine if optional head gear was worn that it was made of materials
and construction deemed safe to both player and opponent alike. Head protectors made of sole-leather and even papier-mache'were deemed as
illegal materials for helmet construction.

The game was being tamed a bit by the rules makers to help dissolve the public dissension due to it’s excessive injuries in the 1890's. It diffused the hot
topic for the immediate future but trouble still loomed large on the horizon as football and its opponents would cross paths.

1902 Season

The 1902 season saw that the Michigan Wolverines and the Yale Bulldogs were names as champs many years later. Michigan was chosen by Billingsly, Houlgate System and the Helms Athletic Foundation with a perfect 11-0 record. Yale posted an 11-0-1 record and it is said that Parke H. Davis named them as co-champions with Michigan.

At the Professional level many beleive that the Pittsburgh Stars were the best team in America. The Stars played against some strong oncomers including those from Philadelphia in a organized conference called the original National Football League and withstood with the best record. However at an end of the year tournament inside the confines of Madison Square Garden, saw an all-star team representing the Syracuse Athletic Club, defied the odds and won the first World Series of Football.

1903 Season

The best of the pro team in football in 1903 was the Franklin All-Stars, who defeated all opponents including those faced in the second World Series of Football.

The 1903 Princeton Tigers Football team courtesy Wikimedia Commons, by an unknown photographer

Princeton was the best collegiate team in the nation in 1903. According to the website TipTop25.com:

"Princeton's star and captain, John DeWitt, showed up for their 1903 team photo in his torn-up gameday jersey, and the photographer, disapproving, went to find something else for him to wear. All the photographer could find that would fit is the bulky white sweater with a black P pictured above. Like many potentially irrelevant accidents in college football history, this became a tradition, and thereafter at Princeton, the captain of a championship team was entitled to wear the white sweater. In this same season, the other two national championship candidates experienced their own accident-come-tradition when Michigan left their water jug on the field in Minneapolis.

The national championship came down to an 11-0 Princeton as the Eastern champion, and this time, 11-0-1 Michigan was tied by 14-0-1 Minnesota in the Midwest. As a result, Princeton is a nearly unanimous selection for 1903, even among latter-day selectors:

Princeton was chosen as the best team by the Helms, Parke Davis while the National Championship Foundation later stated that Princeton and Michigan both should be creditted as the Champs.

The story of early football continues next time in our next segment of “Football History Rewind” so please look back soon for part 21.

The picture in the banner above is from Wikipedia Commons of the 1905 Michigan versus Wisconsin game, and is a great photo of the grid pattern that the field lines made, hence the name "Gridiron."