Football History

While Dan Reeves, born in 1912, may not be a household name among casual football fans, his contributions to the sport as an executive were nothing short of revolutionary. He wasn't a star player or a flamboyant head coach; his legacy lies in the quiet yet impactful changes he implemented that continue to shape the NFL today.

Reeves' impact began with the Los Angeles Rams, a team he owned and moved to the West Coast in 1946. He had bought the franchise in 1941 (it started five years earlier under different ownership in a rival league) and ran it in Cleveland, even taking the Rams to claim the 1946 NFL Championship. Notably, he was the first NFL owner to sign a black player in the post-World War II era, Kenny Washington, breaking a racial barrier that had existed since 1933. This move, while met with resistance, was a crucial step towards racial integration in professional football.

But Reeves' innovations extended beyond the playing field. He is credited with establishing the NFL's first full-time scouting staff. Prior to this, teams relied on informal networks to identify talent. Reeves' structured approach ensured a more thorough and systematic evaluation of college players, a practice that has become an essential part of modern NFL operations.

Furthermore, Reeves recognized the potential of television to showcase the sport to a wider audience. He experimented with early broadcasts, paving the way for the robust media coverage that surrounds the NFL today.

Perhaps less well-known is Reeves' initiative dubbed "Free Football for Kids." This program aimed to introduce young people to the sport, fostering a lifelong love for the game and generating future generations of fans.

Despite his innovative spirit, Reeves never achieved the same level of recognition as some of his contemporaries. He didn't win championships or garner headlines. However, his impact on the game's infrastructure and integration is undeniable.

In conclusion, Dan Reeves was a visionary leader who left an indelible mark on the NFL. From breaking racial barriers to establishing scouting networks and experimenting with television, his contributions helped propel the sport into the modern era. While his name may not be etched in Super Bowl history, his legacy as a quiet innovator continues to shape the way football is played, scouted, and enjoyed by millions.

John Banaszak wasn't your typical NFL star. He wasn't a flashy quarterback or a prolific running back. Banaszak's legacy lies in the trenches, where his imposing presence and relentless style of play earned him the nickname "The Enforcer." This essay explores Banaszak's football career, highlighting his dominance as a defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers, his controversial reputation, and his lasting impact on the game.

-From Marine to Menace: A Formidable Force (1968-1976)

Born in 1949, John Banaszak served in the United States Marine Corps before embarking on his football journey. Drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1968, his raw strength and unwavering determination quickly caught the eye of coaches. Banaszak developed into a dominant defensive end, anchoring the Steelers' defensive line alongside future Hall of Famers like Mean Joe Greene. His aggressive style of play, bordering on brutality at times, disrupted opposing offenses and instilled fear in quarterbacks. Banaszak's relentless pursuit and ability to pressure the passer were instrumental in the Steelers' rise to prominence.

-Dominant Play, Questionable Tactics (1968-1976)

While Banaszak's on-field dominance was undeniable, his aggressive style often crossed the line. He was known for his frequent penalties and borderline dirty plays, drawing criticism and fostering a reputation as a villain. His most infamous incident involved a helmet-to-helmet hit that sidelined a Cincinnati Bengals running back for the rest of the season. These controversies cast a shadow over his achievements and sparked debates about sportsmanship within the game.

-A Champion Despite Controversy (1974-1976)

Despite the controversy, Banaszak's contributions to the Steelers' success were undeniable. He was a key component of the Steel Curtain defense, a unit that revolutionized defensive strategy and terrorized opposing teams throughout the 1970s. Banaszak played a vital role in the Steelers' Super Bowl victories in IX and X, showcasing his ability to perform at the highest level on the biggest stage.

-A Life Beyond Football (1976-Present Day)

Following his retirement in 1976, Banaszak transitioned into coaching and various business ventures. He has largely remained out of the public spotlight in recent years.

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The 1905 Chicago versus Michigan football game, played on Thanksgiving Day at Marshall Field in Chicago, holds a significant place in college football history. Dubbed the "First Greatest Game of the Century," this clash between two powerhouse programs captivated audiences and reshaped the landscape of the sport.

Two Unstoppable Teams Collide:

The stage was set for an epic showdown. The undefeated Chicago Maroons, led by the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg, boasted a dominant defense and a well-oiled offensive system. Facing them were the "Point-a-Minute" Michigan Wolverines, coached by Fielding Yost and riding a 56-game unbeaten streak.

A Defensive Struggle:

The game did not disappoint. Both defenses rose to the occasion, showcasing their talent and intensity. The Maroons, known for their "Monsters of the Midway" defensive line, effectively shut down Michigan's vaunted running game. In turn, Michigan's defense, led by Walter Eckersall, held Chicago's offense to limited scoring opportunities.

A Late-Game Twist:

As the game entered the final minutes, it remained a scoreless tie. However, with just over two minutes remaining, Chicago capitalized on a crucial turnover. Quarterback Walter Eckersall orchestrated a last-minute drive, culminating in a 2-yard touchdown run by halfback Ned Snow.

A Shocking Outcome:

Chicago's late-game heroics secured a stunning 2-0 victory, ending Michigan's 56-game unbeaten streak and handing Yost his first defeat as Michigan's head coach. The result sent shockwaves through the college football world and marked the end of the "Point-a-Minute" era.

Born May 7, 1881, in Alpena, Michigan, was the big tackle from the Army teams of 1899 to 1902, Paul Bunker.  The National Football Foundation lends the thought that when you are receiving high praise from an opponent you know you truly have a great player. Navy's star back of the 1900 era, Ralph Strassburger, who also  played defense. Approached Bunker several years after when the two met up on the gridiron, this time it was in the Philippines. "Bunker," Strassburger said, "I hate you. Let's have a drink."

As you can see back in 1902 Bunker had ended his playing career with that season's Army-Navy game, running wild against the Middies and leading the Cadets to a 22-8 victory. He had scored two touchdowns on offense and had spent much of the afternoon punishing Navy's star back which was Strassburger. Walter Camp described Bunker as a battering ram who outclassed all other backs and was a first class defensive tackle. Bunker is one of just a handful of athletes to win All-America mention at two different positions. He won All-America honors as a tackle in 1901 and in 1902 at both halfback and tackle. The College Football Hall of Fame proudly placed a display in honor of Paul Bunker into their legendary museum in 1969.    Bunker continued to be a hero off the field as he died for his country in 1943 as a Prisoner of War.

Being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame is a mark of unparalleled prestige and accomplishment. It signifies that a player has not only excelled on the field but has also left a lasting legacy that transcends generations. This honor is reserved for those who have demonstrated exceptional skill, leadership, and impact in collegiate football, shaping the sport’s history and inspiring future players. Remembering these inductees is not just a tribute to their remarkable careers but also a celebration of their enduring influence on the game. Their stories and achievements serve as a beacon of excellence and a testament to the profound role they’ve played in elevating college football to new heights.

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Our friend historian Timothy P. Brown recently wrote about the exciting variation of high school football played in less populated areas where each team field six players rather than the normal eleven.

Born in the heart of the Great Depression, six-man football emerged as a testament to American ingenuity and the unwavering spirit of small-town communities. Its story is one of adaptation, resilience, and the enduring passion for the gridiron.

-From Necessity to Innovation:

In 1933, the harsh realities of the Depression hit small Nebraska towns like Chester hard. With dwindling student populations, many schools struggled to field full eleven-man football teams. Enter Stephen Epler, a resourceful superintendent who saw an opportunity amidst the hardship. Inspired by basketball and tennis, he envisioned a modified version of football played with six players on each side, allowing even the smallest schools to compete.

-Birth of a Game:

Epler's brainchild quickly gained traction. The first six-man game was played on a crisp September night in 1934, drawing a thousand spectators to witness the clash between the combined teams of Hardy-Chester and Belvidere-Alexandria. The game, a 19-19 tie, proved the concept viable, and six-man football began its ascent across the plains.

-Spreading the Game:

Word of the innovative game spread like wildfire. Texas adopted six-man in 1938, followed by states like Oklahoma, Kansas, and Montana. Soon, the gridiron echoed with the cheers of six-man fans from coast to coast.

-Six-Man Football with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And once again, it's Tuesday, and we love to go into that footballarcheology.com in the mind of Timothy P. Brown, its author, to talk about some great football that might be off a little bit on the beaten path of what we normally get to discuss in the realm of football. But Tim brings it to us so eloquently each and every day with his daily tidbits.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen. Darin, hey, thank you. Thanks for having me back.

And I'm not sure about the eloquence thing, but I definitely like to kind of chase down odd tales. It was on my Word of the Day calendar, so I had to throw it in there somewhere. Well, you used it perfectly.

Okay, I'm glad I pronounced it correctly. That's off to a good start.

That's good. Before I fumble some other words during this, that's the way it usually works out. But Tim, you had one back in mid-January, a tidbit that came out daily that talked about six-man football and some of the origins of that style of play.

And I'd love it if you could chat about that a little bit. Yeah, so one of the things that I like thinking about is how the game can be played differently. So maybe a year and a half, two years ago, I wrote a story about how touch football and flag football developed.

And then you have the Canadian game and whatever. There's different to play this game, the same generic game. And so what was happening is the origins of six-man football go back to the 1930s, so countries in the depression.

And we were still a much more rural country. But not everybody had working vehicles, and there weren't two cars in the household or anything like that. And so people just couldn't get around as easily.

And so the combination of factors led to the fact that there were lots and lots of very small high schools in the country. And so, while schools wanted to have organized athletics for their students, just the sheer numbers didn't always make sense for that to happen. And especially when it came to football.

So I'm going to cite a couple of numbers just because I think kind of reinforces the case. But six-man football was developed by a teacher and coach at a high school in Nebraska, a guy named Stephen Epler. And so Nebraska at the time had 505 high schools, but only 218 or 43% played football.

And so the problem was a lot of them just had about 300 schools with fewer than 100 students. So when you think about that many schools with less than 100 students, then just to get 11 guys, I mean, to scrimmage, you'd need 22. So you need half of the school, 50 kids, 50 males presumably.

And then half of them, you'd want to be out there for practice every day. And it just didn't work out. And it wasn't, you know, Nebraska wasn't alone.

It was like at the time there were 24,000 high schools in the country, 18,000 played basketball, but only 8,000 played football. So it kind of just kind of showed there was an appetite for sports, but football needed a lot of equipment relative to other sports, especially basketball. And the numbers just weren't there for a lot of schools.

So this guy devised a game in this like 33 or 34, I believe it was. So he devises a game with six players, you know, so they played on a field that was 80 by 40. And then like they kick off from the 20.

Teams had to have three players on the line of scrimmage. That meant, and then they had, you know, a quarterback and, you know, two backs. And, like, the quarterback could take the snap, but he had to get rid of it, you know, kind of like the old style of football where the quarterback had a lateral or, you know, pass it to somebody.

And then, you know, initially, the center wasn't eligible, and even the quarterback wasn't necessarily eligible, but, you know, that got resolved pretty quickly. So basically, he had a game where every player was out and became eligible for the pass. Everybody could, you know, you could come up with some kind of play where everybody could run with it.

Everybody was needed on defense, you know, and, you know, in effect, what you had was a center, two ends and three backs. I mean, that's really kind of the way the game was played. So you got rid of four of the real skill positions, the offensive linemen, and then, you know, they just went off and played.

And then the other side of it was that they had, you know, money, which was a real issue because of the cost of the equipment. So a lot of the sporting goods manufacturers, I mean, you know, Epler wanted to devise a game where you didn't need much equipment. At the time, not everybody wore helmets anyway.

And so, and then the sporting goods manufacturers basically came out with a whole line of equipment, and a number of them did this, you know, kind of using lower quality materials to make the helmets, you know, less padding, using canvas rather than moleskin or a lower grade leather, you know, so kind of anything they could do to cut the cost, they did so. But, you know, you look at their catalogs from the 30s, they're just, you know, there's three, four, five pages of just six-man football gear that they sold. So, you know, it ended up that this game became very popular, you know, and it was played in, you know, like 40 of the states eventually, you know, had enough teams to play.

And, you know, so they had high school officials and coaches, organizations, everything, you know, included the six-man game. And then, you know, eventually, I think, you know, there were some places where six men, they were big enough, the school started consolidating, you know, you'd have these schools, and they're named after like the four villages or whatever, you know, a lot of rural schools are like that. And so, they end up, you know, so then there was an eight-man game and a seven-man game, you know, there have been variations, and there still are, you know, teams play, I think, in high school right now, it's anywhere from nine to six-man, you know, games.

I think Michigan, I think we've got eight. Yeah, I think that's still, I know, in the National Federation rule book, at least six years ago, when I got my last copy of it when I was still officiating, there's still a section of back for eight-man football, which is very popular in the Midwest, like you said, Oklahoma, Texas, probably Nebraska, where there's a little bit more rural than up north and east and far west. So, yeah.

And like in Michigan, the upper peninsula, I think, is where a fair amount of that football is played because they just, it's just more difficult to get to other schools, too. Yeah, that's understandable. So, yeah.

So, I don't know, it's just one of those things that's just an interesting slice that gave kids the ability to play football under fundamentally similar conditions, you know, by reducing the fewer guys on a smaller field, the six-man, the original six-man game, there was each player had 10% more square footage than in the traditional 11 man game. And if you compare that, you know, when you include end zones, Canadian football has 40% more space than American football, you know? So, the six-man game was pretty comparable, in many respects, to playing regulation football. So, it's pretty cool.

Yeah. Definitely some cool stuff. Now, I don't know if you've heard this before, but somebody was telling me, somebody, I had on the show probably about a year ago, and I'm trying to place my, I can't remember exactly who was telling me, but they were telling me some of the roots of the eight-man football were from playing on the naval ships because they had limited space and, you know, limited people that could play.

And they were, I think, aircraft carriers or something. They were playing some kind of ball there, and they reformatted, you know, the number of players to fit that. But I don't remember the details; I don't know if you ever heard that or not.

Yeah. Yeah. I've never heard that.

I mean, I've done a lot of, you know, research and writing on military football. And, you know, typically, they just waited until they got into port, you know, and they had all the land, you know, that they needed. But, you know, in the Pacific, you know, a lot of, you know, kind of recreational islands that, you know, troops kind of, you know, went and recovered in Iran, and they had big football leagues and everything going on there, you know, right, you know, during the middle of the war.

So, and there were big teams playing in Hawaii and everything. So anyways, yeah, I've never heard the story. It doesn't mean it, you know, I'll have to look it up and I'll shoot you something on it.

Cause I know, I know I got it somewhere, but look that up. Well, yeah, I'll definitely follow it up too. It sounds interesting.

Yeah. But Tim, before we let you go here, we appreciate the history on six man football and some of the aspects of it. Why don't you share with folks where they can get your daily tidbits like this, like six man football for some of these unique items associated with football each and every day too, so they can enjoy them.

Sure. So I publish every day, seven o'clock Eastern on footballarchaeology.com. And if you subscribe, so you can subscribe for free. I'm more than happy to for the paid subscriptions, too, but you know, you can subscribe for free; check it out.

And basically what's going to happen is you would get an email every day with the story. You can still click on it and go online, or you can go directly to the site to view the today's story or any of the, the archive of stories. The other option is to follow me on Twitter.

And I'm just, you know, still footballarchaeology on Twitter. There's an English guy that has, you know, soccer related stuff using more or less the same name, but mine, football and archeology are merged together. So, you know, you'll find me.

A green logo with a leather helmet on it. That's like 1918 leather helmets embedded in it. It's always good stuff, folks.

It's worth a great read every day at 7 PM. And it's usually a pretty short read, you know, usually a minute or two, maybe tops. So, some great images and quotes and all kinds of great stuff to go along with the great story.

So Tim, we really thank you for joining us here and hope to talk to you again next week. Okay. Very good.

Thank you, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

The football fields on which modern games are played have undergone many transformations over the years. The field has been morphed almost as many times as the rules of the game have been changed.

Our guest, Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology, has admired and brought to our attention the work of a historian who has really captured the evolution of the American Football Field.

James Gilbert has put together an impressive research study on the evolution of the American football field over the years of rules revisions and modifications since 1876, complete with graphics. Enjoy this Substack post that he put out recently.

-Transcribed Conversation on Football Field Evolution with Timothy Brown and James Gilbert

Hello, my football friends. This is Darren Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And wow, we have a great episode coming on tonight.

We have Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology joining us, and we're going to be talking about the football field and some evolutionary changes that have happened to it over the years. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen. Darren, good to see you again, as always.

Thanks for having me. Never want to take it for granted that you're going to let me come onto your show. The invitation is always there, my friend, and I'm never going to take it for granted that you join us each week because it's quite a treat for myself and the listeners.

We get to learn about something new with football or be reminded of something maybe that's been long forgotten. And I think that's kind of typical of what we have tonight. You know, something that we see every single game that we watch, and it's so obvious that we probably take it for granted.

That's the football field itself. You know, without it, there's not much of a game going on. And you came across a friend of yours that you guys wrote a piece together a few years ago on the evolution of the football field, and it's really quite interesting.

And maybe you could talk about that a little bit tonight. Yeah, so this is, you know, the friend that you're mentioning is James Gilbert. And, you know, kind of longtime readers or somebody who's gone back through the archives might remember that back in November 2021, he and I co-authored a story about the University of North Carolina team from 1893.

They were the first Southern team to go to the North and play a game because they played Lehigh towards the end of the season in Manhattan. So, you know, he and I kind of worked together on that. And I forget, even now, how he and I first connected.

But, you know, he's in the kind of old football and just general sports, you know, arcane information, you know, like me. And I had, you know, like in my How Football Became Football, I documented at least the major sequences of how the field and markings changed. You know, goalpost locations, all that kind of stuff.

So, I mean, I took it to a certain level. And, but now, James recently launched a Substack newsletter or blog called James's Newsletter. And one of his first articles is an article about the evolution of college football field.

So basically, he's what he did, and he's been doing this for quite some time. He's been creating, you know, graphics, images of the football field and all the markings at each point in time. So, going back to 1876.

And then, you know, each time that it changed, either the dimensions or the markings, location, this or that on the field, he basically created all these graphics to show this information. And then what he's done now is mirror it in a Substack article. So he's got kind of the description of what was happening, you know, why it changed what was happening, the game led to the change, and then just the detailed description of the change.

And, like, when I did mine, I stopped at 1960, but he carried on to really to the present. So all the different changes that, you know, we sometimes don't think about the things like the size of the coach's box, the size of the team, team's box, how far off the sideline to get back, you know, they get back coach has to get back, you know, all that kind of stuff. You know, he just he's outlined, outlined, he put in detail all this information.

So this is one of these where, you know, normally we talk about my tidbits or an article, but this, I just wanted to make sure there's some attention brought to him and the effort he's gone through. Because it's just, you know, it's a great resource. And I don't know anybody who has documented how the field has, has changed over, you know, 147 years of football history, like he has, you know, so it's just a really neat effort.

He's done a couple of other things as well. Yeah, that's. I know exactly what you're talking about. I did a piece similar to you, where I covered the football field probably two or three years ago. Actually, it was an adaptation of an article I wrote back in 2003.

And I had my son, you know, throw some graphics up there. And but James's article, you know, I had the grid field in the early 1900s, but I had it going, you know, goal line to goal line, which it did. But I had forgotten about the aspect of the back in, and I believe it was 1903.

And we were just talking about it. I ran across an article the other day in newspapers.com, where they went from a 25-yard line to a 25-yard line with the grid. And then it was the normal stripes, you know, outside the 25s or to the goal line. Anyway, so just the detail, he's doing that.

And I can tell you from officiating, you know, the 27 years I officiated at the high school level, there was a field change every single year, you know, as you said, the coaches box changing by the yard or, you know, the teams were allowed to the 20s. And it was a 25s or boundary lines or a hash mark is now, you know, instead of three inches, it's four inches wide or whatever, you know, so I can imagine what the collegiate field has been doing over those years. It's probably every year; there's something small.

So, this is really a Galathian chore that James is doing, and it's much appreciated. We'll have a link here in the show notes, folks, to James's site and Pigskin dispatch.

So you can appreciate his work. You know, that's really going to take a lot of effort on his part. And that's appreciated.

Yeah, you know, the thing about it is like there's so, you know, there's a bunch of times when, um, yeah, there's, well, you and I go on a particular site that sometimes they post a pic, you know, these unidentified, you know, people can't figure out where's this, you know, who's this team in this picture? You know, there's a game in a stadium. Where is this? Who's playing? What's the period? So, a lot of times, you can tell certain things just based on the uniforms or the formations, and you have a pretty good sense of what's going on. But there are other times where, you know, if depending on the angle of the shot, you can see the field markings, and that tells you a tremendous amount.

In some cases, like 1903, it tells you exactly what year the game was played. You know, if you have the right kind of angle or the right kind of shot. So, so anyway, so just anybody who enjoys doing that kind of thing, or sometimes finds themselves looking back at an old photo and trying to figure out, well, when, when was this thing from, you know, his site will be really a great reference, you know because it just collects all that kind of information in one place.

You know, the other, the other thing that, another thing that he does that is interesting is, and he, some of his posts on it, on the, on his newsletter reflect this, where he's a, he's a North Carolina, you know, UNC graduate and fan. One of the things he's done is go back and try to figure out where every North Carolina football game was played. And I don't mean that at a very casual level; I mean out of detail.

And so, you know, like, you can go back, and there are all kinds of sites where there's a site called jhowell.net that I use all the time to find the old scores and where games were played and that kind of stuff. And so it might say the game was played in Milwaukee or New Haven or wherever it was, but it doesn't necessarily tell you the exit or the field. Well, a lot of the old football, you know, especially going further back, you know, in the 1800s, you know, maybe up till 1920, sometimes these games were just played in some local park, you know, and they slapped up temporary stands or the games were played in a minor league baseball park that got torn down 80 years ago.

And now there's, you know, an expressway is sitting on top of it or, you know, a shopping mall or whatever it is. There are all kinds of these past stadiums that just are no longer there. And in a bunch of cases, kind of people have lost track of where they are.

So he goes in, and I don't really understand all the resources that he uses, but I know he uses like these old, there's a bunch of online through like Library of Congress, there's these online insurance maps that used to document, you know, the streets and major cities and all that kind of stuff and which buildings were where. And so I think he uses those kinds of things and all kinds of stuff from, you know, the newspapers telling you, well, it's at the intersection of 42nd and Western or wherever. And so then he finds where this game or where this field was and then plots the field atop, you know, what it looks like today, like in Google Maps.

So it's just really kind of fun. And then he's created some databases that, you know, dig into other information. You know, it's very UNC-specific.

So, I don't necessarily care about UNC, but I really appreciate his digging into it. It's just, you know, just getting the details of a particular topic. But just think about all the fields that it covers, you know, everybody that UNC traveled to play over the years, where their stadium is, you know, you're going to know where Duke played their games when they were, you know, Trinity College or whatever, you know, at the time. So that's some really interesting stuff.

I'll have to add that to my bookmarks and check that out because, you know, you have like the uniform sites, you know, the gridiron uniform database, and you have the helmets, you know, sites that you can go to and see where helmets are from here. Now that having a resource to look at fields of an era and where football stadiums were, you know, that's pretty cool too. So that's why I'm sure a lot of people will be interested in having that information too.

So good job, James. Yeah, no, it's just kind of fun stuff. And, you know, just the, you know, again, as I said, I don't know the method that he uses to get there, but, unfortunately, he couldn't join us tonight.

Otherwise, you know, he wouldn't would have done so. But so anyway, it's just interesting stuff. And, you know, if you're enough of a geek, like you and I are, you know, you can really, you just, you know, it's like you see somebody who's got an interest in this sport or this aspect of the sport, and they dig into it, or they collect, you know, certain things.

It's just one of those things. There's nothing I had thought of, but I just have a really deep devotion to the particular aspect of the game. Yeah. Well, let's use a little bit of James's information.

Okay. Now, you just recently saw this and appreciated it. What's something that jumped out at you that either you didn't realize, or maybe you forgot, and it brought a different light on what James did in his fieldwork?

Yeah. You know, I think the, I don't know that for me it's, it's any one thing. I know he just did it, just did an article.

I think maybe it was today or the other day where, you know, he's pointing out that North Carolina is going to play a game in Charlotte. You know, I think they're playing at the Panther stadium. And so he's, the articles about, Hey, they played, you know, it's the eighth most frequent city that they played, you know, but for them, it's kind of like, you know, they played, they played at a lot of intermediate cities, you know? So, I mean, teams used to do that all the time.

I've got an article that's my Saturday tidbit is about this, where, you know, teams traveling, you know, we've got this big thing about the West coast athletes are going to be traveling to get to the Big 10 schools and all that kind of stuff, you know, with the conference modifications. But back in the day, when people traveled by train, they spent a lot of time on the train, too. And so a lot of times, they find these cities halfway between one another, and both teams would meet there and be a bigger city, especially if they were kind of rural schools.

So they played in all kinds of locations, you know? And so, but in North Carolina in particular, it just seems like they played a lot. They played in a lot of places, you know, a lot of different intermediate towns. And maybe it's just the geography of, you know, where they were in the transportation network at the time. But yeah, it's just kind of interesting, all the different places that they played.

Oh, very cool. All right. Well, why don't you go ahead and if you have James's information, if you want to call it out now, so people can do it.

But again, you know, if you're driving or something, you can go to the show notes and get the link there. But Tim, go ahead and let us know where we can find James. Yeah.

As I said, he's on Substack, which is just a platform. You can find him at jameslegilbert.substack.com. And I checked beforehand, just Googled James Lee Gilbert Substack. And, you know, it's one of the first things that comes up.

Then you'll have the link, you know, the actual link in the show notes. But James Lee Gilbert, Substack, should get you there. All right.

And folks, the graphics are really splendid. You're going to be really pleased, I think, when you see these graphics, especially of the football field evolution that we started talking about. I got to go and check out all these coordinates of where the fields were. I have to go. I appreciate that here when we get done.

So I can't wait to do that. You just added another thing to my to-do list tonight. So, thanks, James.

So far, he doesn't have a lot of those on this site. But you know, he's done a bunch of them in the past. So, I hope you know that he recycles them and republishes them on Substack.

Well, Tim, wow, that is great stuff. Thanks for bringing this to our attention so we can appreciate his work and your work.

Why don't you tell us how folks can get your daily news? Yep, just go to footballarchaeology.com, and you can subscribe. You'll get an email every night at seven o'clock Eastern with today's article. Otherwise, you can follow me on Twitter, Threads, or the Substack app. All right, Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. We thank you once again for joining us, and we will talk to you again next week.

Very good. Thanks.

-Frequently Asked Questions About an American Football Field:

-How long is a football field? A football field from goal line to goal line is 100 yards long with two ten yard deep end zones. Want to know more about the evolution of the playing field, you are in the right place as we covered it here:Football-Fun-Facts/Facts-About-the-Field">Field Size Evolution.

-How wide is a football field? Most levels of American football play on a field that is 53.3 yards wide.

-What are the hash marks for? The hash marks are used for a few different things during a game, but most importantly they are the inbounds spot for the ball to rest fo the next play adjacent to where it became dead on the previous play outside of the hash marks or out of bounds. Here is a great piece explaining the has marks and their history and evolution: The Fumble Fiasco Out-of-Bounds Oddities in Early Football.

Here is a transcript of a conversation Darin had with Dr. Randall Balmer and his book Passion Plays which unveils the history of the influence of religion on football and the other North American Sports.

Darin Hayes
Welcome once again to the Pigpen, your portal to positive football history. We had a very interesting discussion that I think will commence here. We have a gentleman writing a book on a topic I don't think we've ever had here in the Pigpen: football history. His name is Dr. Randall Balmer, and he has written a book called Passion Plays. It's got a very interesting subject and a very interesting theme. I think we'll bring him in right now. Dr. Randall Balmer, welcome to the Pigpen.

Dr. Randall Balmer
Thank you, Darin. I'm happy to be here.

Darin Hayes
Well, we are sure glad to have you here, sir. Before we get into the subject of your book and its title, maybe you could tell us a little about yourself and your background, especially regarding football history.

Dr. Randall Balmer
Okay, well, I grew up as a kid loving sports, trying to play sports, and not doing all that well, I suppose, but I did my best. And so I'm a sports fan; I wouldn't say I'm one of those diehard fans I keep hearing about, but I follow it fairly regularly. And I have my sports allegiances and so forth. And that was part of my background. The immediate catalyst for this book was discovering talk radio sports talk radio in the early 1990s. I taught at Columbia University in New York when W NBC transitioned to W F A N and became a sports talk station. And I was just riveted. I was just fascinated that these hosts could sustain conversations and debates for hours and hours over whether or not Joe Torrey should have lifted the starting picture with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning. And I became hooked. I loved it. The book attempts to understand why Americans have a peculiar passion for sports. I'm aware that there are sports fans elsewhere in the world, especially when the World Cup runs, comes around, and so forth. But it seems to me that we Americans are unusually dedicated to sports. And I wanted to try to understand why that is.

Darin Hayes
Well, that is a lot of truth to that. I can just raise my hand right now and say, you know, I'm, uh, I'm guilty of, of that pleasure. And, uh, you know, of course, having a podcast, you're talking about sports daily. And it is very addictive to listen to or to talk it, or just, even if you're not on the radio, just to have, have, uh, some of your friends or cohorts that you're sitting around, uh, at work or on a cup of coffee, just talking, and the subject always comes up about the latest game where some sports topic. And it's very intriguing to get into this and talk about that. First of all, I guess before we get going here, uh, maybe you could again tell us the full title of your book and where maybe people could purchase it, and we'll talk about it again at the end of the program as well.

Dr. Randall Balmer
Sure, the book is Passion Plays, How Religion Shaped Sports in North America. And it's available, I guess, wherever books are sold. Bookshop .org is a good place to buy books because it supports local booksellers, but also a local bookseller's storefront brick-and-mortar store is a good place. Amazon, of course, has it, as does Barnes and Noble, so it's widely available.

Darin Hayes
Okay, well, let's get into the topic of your book. I guess you sort of gave us your background, and I'm assuming that's probably some of the gist of why it motivated you to write this book as well.

Dr. Randall Balmer
That's right. Yes, in a way, I want to try to understand myself. Why was I so passionate about some of these sports, even though I'm maybe not quite as passionate as those who call into these programs all the time? But yes, I'm fascinated by the fact that in my field, actually my academic field, I probably should say that as well. My academic field is American religious history. So, I have studied religion in North America for a long time. What's distinctive about religion in North America is that historically, we Americans have been off the charts in terms of religious devotion and religious adherence. And I think that's begun to change. I'm one; the polling data suggests that it has begun to change over the last couple of decades. That is, religious devotion adherence and affiliation have been going down over the last several decades. And there are a lot of reasons for that. But at the same time, I think that passion for sports and devotion to sports has been rising. And I think there's probably a correlation between the two.

Darin Hayes
Well, that, you know, you've caught my ear, especially with the title. And I, when I saw this a few weeks back and, you know, cause I'm, I'm a man of faith, and I'm passionate about my faith, but I'm also passionate about my sports. So you have my, my world's colliding two things that I've always sort of considered separate and, you know, don't, don't, uh, cross the streams, uh, you hear to say, but, uh, you know that you are sort of bringing those worlds together and we're very interested in hearing how, how those two merge.

Dr. Randall Balmer
Yeah, what happens? First, I will focus on North America's four major team sports: baseball, football, hockey, and basketball. All four of those sports developed, for the most part, roughly from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. By the middle of the 20th century, those sports had more or less assumed their current form. However, as these sports developed in the 19th century, they developed against the background of the Industrial Revolution. And what's happening in America, North America, more generally, is that men, in particular, are beginning to work outside the home and the farm. They're no longer engaging in subsistence living. They're beginning to work in factories, textile mills, etc. Many of them also work in sedentary office jobs. So, there's a great deal of concern in the Anglo-American world, both in North America and Britain, that men are becoming too passive. That is, they're becoming, they're not getting outside enough. They're not engaging in athletics. They're becoming weak and even "sisified." And several religious leaders are noticing that. And they, very cleverly, I think, try to combine religion, Protestantism, with athleticism. They came up with a movement known to historians as muscular Christianity. That is to say that we want to appeal to men to be athletes, virile, and in the churches. One of the complaints is that the women have been in charge of the church work for a long time. And we must find a way to lure men back to the faith and the churches. Part of the strategy for doing that was to combine religion with sports or athletic endeavors. Probably the best example of that institutionally would be the YMCA, the Young Men's Christian Association, which provided both religion and YMCA were quite religious. They're not less so today, but in the beginning, that was at the core of the YMCA, to combine religion with recreation. For example, it's no accident that basketball was invented by a Presbyterian minister at the YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts, today, of course, Springfield College. His instructor charged him with inventing a game that would occupy young men between baseball and football seasons. So it had to be played indoors, in a very confined space. And, of course, I argue in the book that basketball is a symbolic metaphor for urban life. That is when Americans were flocking to the cities in large numbers in the 1890s when basketball was invented; James Naismith came up with a game that, in many ways, replicates urban life. That is, it is the challenge of maneuvering in a very constricted space without impeding the progress of others, much like walking down Fifth Avenue at lunchtime, Michigan Avenue at rush hour, or Times Square in the evening. And so basketball becomes a metaphor for urban life. As African Americans began to move into northern cities, including Manhattan, including New York City, after the turn of the 20th century, they began to gravitate to YMCAs, which is when they learned basketball and then played it and began to excel at it. So again, I'm not sure where your question got me to this point. So, I need to retrace my steps a little bit.

Darin Hayes
No, you know, you're you're you're laying out the groundwork and telling it very well. So the YMCA sort of that catalyst or that meeting place of religion and sports, that's their vehicle, I guess, to portray what you're saying, you know, during the Industrial Revolution to bring men into getting a little bit fitter. We probably need some revival to this day with the video games going on with our children, everything, too. But, interestingly, you talked about Dr. Smith in Springfield YMCA and, you know, because also one of his students and also want to believe one of the first participants in his basketball game was a young man named Amos Alonzo Stagg, who had quite a bit of the foundation of early football. So it's interesting that you are bringing those two. You have two major sports that are sort of sprouting from that one YMCA building.

Dr. Randall Balmer
Yes, Nate Smith and Ayman Solonzo Staggs were teammates on the football team at the YMCA training school. They were undersized compared to the other football powerhouses at that time, which were Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and the Ivy League schools. The football team at the Springfield School came to be known as Staggs Stubby Christians.

Darin Hayes
Well, I'm sure they could have been called worse, I'm sure. So, well, I expect they probably were very interesting. Okay. So, I mean, I liked the metaphor, how you say that with a basketball sort of being that, you know, going through without getting each other's way and avoiding each other, and that's a very interesting insight.

Dr. Randall Balmer
Well, I want to talk about football in particular. So, let me talk about that as well. Sure. Football, of course, evolved from really two games, rugby and what we know today as soccer. These are also, in their early days, known as mob games. And in fact, all of these games are mob games in that you have a lot of participants. Sometimes, you don't even have delimited fields. And so everybody is just kind of crowding on this onto the field. However, one of the common characteristics in the evolution of these four major team sports is moving from mob games to a more regulated field and rules that govern behaviors. So for example, with football, one of the major points in the evolution of football is when Walter Camp, who's usually called the father of American football, finally persuaded other schools, meaning Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, and others, to reduce the number of players on a team from 15 to 11. He also disliked the rugby scrum. So he got rid of that in favor of a line of scrimmage. And so that's why we have a line of scrimmage in football. And he did that in part to try to mitigate some of the violence associated with rugby. However, I'm not sure that worked all that well because, with the line of scrimmage, the lineman can get a head of steam before they run into the other players. But in particular, he wanted to introduce strategy into the football game.
What's important to remember about the game of football in terms of its history is that football is more or less the current form in which we know it was developed by the sons, brothers, and nephews of Union Army soldiers in the Civil War. So, it developed at Northeastern schools, such as Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and so forth, as well as Penn, in the years after the Civil War. Football is the quintessential war game because it involves the conquest and the defense of territory, much like the battle at Gettysburg, Antietam in the Civil War, or Manassas or Bull Run. These are all battlefields. Again, this is how you determine the winner or survivor in these battlefields who could take the most territory from the opponent. So football is a war game. In the early years, there are all sorts of quotes in the book about this; the war imagery and language used to describe football are just all over the place.
Another characteristic of football, as we know very well, is violence. You have violence in hockey, of course, when you have the fights. But violence in football is scripted into the game itself. So you have a lot of violence, which is part of the reason it's attractive to a lot of Americans. We are a violent society; I think we have to come to terms with that. And football, in many ways, is the quintessential Central American game because because of its violence. So football is war, and we see that to get today. You're watching a football game, and the announcer refers to the quarterback as the field general or the quarterback is launching long bombs or bullet passes. They talk about trench warfare, that is, between the offensive line and the defensive line, much like you would use in military language and other terminology in football, training camp, and scouting. These are all military terms that apply to the game of football.

Darin Hayes
That's, I've never really thought about that way, but you are right. And we, you know, often we hear announced or saying, you know, the, the battle of these two teams on the field or, you know, and it's the strategy, a lot of it, you know, you're trying to outflank your opponent just as you would a platoon in, in battle in a war. So that's a very, very interesting insight.

Dr. Randall Balmer
The other thing is that as the strategies on the battlefield have changed over the 20th century, so have football strategies. That is to say, in the early years of football, it was a running game for the most part. And, you know, you had trench warfare just like you would have in World War I. Beginning in the 1940s and 1950s with the Korean War and the Vietnam War, that's also the time that you had much more passing in professional and college football. So, as warfare strategies changed over the 20th century, football strategies changed in the same direction.

Darin Hayes
We are going more to an aerial game, with aerial attacks in both instances. That is a very, very, very good insight.

Dr. Randall Balmer
And you used the term aerial attack again just now, which is military language.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, you're right. Wow. I guess I've never thought too much about the correlations between them, but I think you definitely are on to something. Doctor, so you, religious part, you said, you know, it started at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Now, how does religion still affect the games of sports, particularly football, to this day?

Dr. Randall Balmer
Yeah, I think it is in many ways. And I wanted to go into the book, I wanted to go deeper into this, but you have these kinds of surface similarities. For example, you have sacred space, right? For religion, it's the holy city of Mecca, or a cathedral or a synagogue. In sports, you've got Fenway Park, or Wrigley Field, or Lambeau Field, or the Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, particularly places that have more historical meaning, more history to them; you have this sort of sense of sacrality in those places. You have rituals, you know; as a football fan, there are certain rituals, such as the national anthem, for example, the players running onto the field amidst all sorts of pyrotechnics with fire and smoke and so forth. Well, in religion, you've got a liturgical procession that begins worship with the bishops and the acolytes and the priests processing, along with the choir, and very often with incense, smoke coming along with them, very similar to what you have in a football game. You have authority, you have a sacred text, you have the Bible or the Quran or whatever it might be. For sports, it's a rule book. And everybody agrees on these premises that this is how the game is supposed to be played. You have authorities: head coach, bishop, cardinal, and priest, and ultimate authority would be the Pope, for example, or the commissioner in baseball. And you even have saints. Certainly, you have saints within religion. But for sports, the saints are the members of the halls of fame because they're the ones who are exemplary and have excelled over the rest of us. So you have those kind of commonalities as well. But again, as I, in the book, I wanted to go a little bit deeper than that and say, look, there are instances in the development of these sports where people with religious convictions were part of the evolution of these sports but also brought those values to each sport.

Darin Hayes
Okay. So, if you take that further, the crowds, fans, and stands would be the congregations. Is that the correct correlation?

Dr. Randall Balmer
Yeah, absolutely. One of the best examples of that is hockey. I think it is because hockey is Canada's game, as we know it. What's interesting about hockey is that it emerges out of lacrosse. Lacrosse is the immediate predecessor to hockey. In lacrosse, there was a big effort in 1867, the year of the Canadian Confederation. That's when Canada became a country rather than a British part of the Commonwealth. There was an attempt in 1867 to designate lacrosse as the real national game of Canada. So you have that connection, and I was going to make another point, but I forgot whatever it was about that, so maybe I'll circle back to it. I apologize.

Darin Hayes
Oh, that's not a problem at all. Okay. So you, you, I mean, you got my wheels spinning here. So you've got, uh, you know, the fans that are, are, are passionate about their teams, just like, uh, you know, parishioners are, are passionate about theirs, their faith and practicing their faith and talking about their faith and, uh, you know, spreading they're, trying to spread their faith onto others and, uh, join the congregation. So I guess that would be like bandwagoning, uh, you know, that we have in sports, so very interesting.

Dr. Randall Balmer
Yeah, and I did remember your comment; it reminded me of the point I was trying to make. So, hockey being Canada's game, the real congregation nationally is telecast every Saturday night during the hockey season, called hockey night in Canada. And you know, it's a kind of call to worship work for Canadians to gather around their television and watch two hockey games as part of their coming together. And that, again, speaks to the need for community. That is, we're looking for some sort of attachment to others. At one time, and it still does for a lot of people, religion was that place of congregation or place of attachment. I think now, more and more, it's tribal loyalties to teams. I mentioned in the book I have a friend here in town who said, in our conversation, that if I'm filling my car with gas at the station, gas station, and a pickup truck comes up alongside me with a New England Patriots bumper sticker, we immediately have something to talk about. Even though we might be very different regarding our socioeconomic background or class, we may have politics utterly opposed to one another. But being Patriots fans, we have that commonality; we have that bond that eludes us, I think, in many other areas of American life.

Darin Hayes
You're right. I guess even if you're the opposition, after this past Sunday and last evening, I'm a Steelers fan, apologetically. And after that, even if I saw a Patriots fan or a Browns fan right now after losing to him, there's still a commonality of discussion that you could have about the game. Maybe it's the opposing sides of an opinion, but you know, you still have a bond between that game and the ritual of the game. Yes, exactly.

Dr. Randall Balmer
you do

Darin Hayes
Well, very interesting. Now, how about, I guess, if we stay in the realm of professional football, you know, Sundays sort of being that holy day where most of the games are played and, you know, it's football Sunday. Is that another one of the correlations that you make?

Dr. Randall Balmer
Yeah, it is. And I think that also provides a way of understanding how we've moved away from organized faith to athletics. Of course, in the early days of each of these sports, there were strict Sabbatarian laws, that is to say, that these games could not be played on Sundays because this was the day for church. You know what happens, of course, is that the owners, in particular, push for the repeal of those laws for their own economic interest and well-being. I use an example in the book of East Lake Community Church, which is in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington. Seattle is in the Pacific time zone, and Sunday morning worship was at ten o'clock, as it is for many other religious groups in America. Well, when the Seahawks were playing in the Eastern time zone against the Bills, the Steelers, the Giants, or whomever, the Dolphins, for that matter. The game time, one o ''o'clock Eastern, is exactly ten o 'o'clock Pacific time. So what are you going to do? And what they did, as is true of many religious groups, was they canceled their ten o ''o'clock Sunday morning worship service and rescheduled it for five o ''o'clock on Sunday afternoon after the games were over. So that's an indication of who is determining or dictating the schedule. And these days, athletic events seem to be taking precedence over religious gatherings.

Darin Hayes
It's interesting, and I'm sure that when they developed Sunday night football, it put another angst into their schedule.

Dr. Randall Balmer
I expected it. I hadn't thought about that, yes, but I expect so.

Darin Hayes
Well, very interesting. Now, how does, with all this going on, and you know, I know they're working around schedules for worship services. Now, is there anything else that religion is doing to embrace or to repel, you know, some of their parishioners and the faithful from going, you know, over the edge and being a total fanatic, and be, you know, stay a fanatic towards their religion. Are there some measures being taken?

Dr. Randall Balmer
That's a good question. I'm not aware of anything. I think many religious leaders are just kind of throwing up their hands and saying, we can't compete. We can't compete with this. It's a major cultural force for so many people that if we try to stand against or denounce it, we'll lose credibility with our followers. And we simply can't compete. Again, like this church out in Washington. And again, that's not an unusual story. A lot of places of worship have made those sorts of concessions. And I think the other way you see this sort of accommodating is that the muscular Christianity movement, which I mentioned earlier, but you also have, for example, among Roman Catholics, the CYO, the Catholic Youth Organization that begins, I believe in the 1920s, don't hold me to that, in Chicago. Again, it provides athletics for young Catholics to participate in this muscular Christian movement. Even among Jews, the young men's Hebrew associations were trying to, in effect, replicate the YMCAs, also offering recreation along with religious instruction. And by the way, this goes way back, and I don't spend much time with this in the book. Still, I do mention it: way back to the ancient Greeks, the ancient gymnasiums that were founded in ancient Greece were a place of athletic pursuits and competition, but also a place where people came to discuss ideas, whether religious or philosophical. It was a place where both the mind and the spirit, as well as the body, were exercised. So this has a long history, even dating back long before muscular Christianity emerged.

Darin Hayes
Okay, now you just brought the, I'm picturing like the Roman Colosseum and I believe I've seen photographs or maybe I've read it where they had statues of the gods that they believed in incorporated into the design or maybe in the arches or something of the Colosseum. Is that what you're also talking about with the Greek arenas?

Dr. Randall Balmer
Yes, I think that would be an example of that sort of thing, but you know that, and the Greeks had this idea. I don't want to get philosophical here because I'm not a philosopher, but Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics argued that individuals can develop virtues within themselves by practicing being virtuous. So, similarly to an athlete, a placekicker becomes a good place kicker by kicking the ball by being a placekicker over and over again. You're building this muscle memory and so forth. And so, the cultivation of virtues was intertwined with athletic development in ancient Greece.

Darin Hayes
Okay, I guess it may be the epitome that comes to my mind today. I think it's probably accidental that this happened, but at the University of Notre Dame, you know, the football field, I believe the one end zone looks at a building with a picture of Jesus with his hands up. They've deemed him touchdown Jesus, who affectionately called around them.

Dr. Randall Balmer
Exactly. And it looks right over the football stadium. Yes, I've been there. It's quite remarkable.

Darin Hayes
Like I said, it might be somewhat accidental, but I'm not sure how exactly that whole thing came about. It's a fact of life in the world of football today. Well, Doctor, I appreciate you coming. This is very intriguing. Now, I guess you said something early on in our discussion about how the mid-century, the 1950s, culminated in where we got to modern athletics and modern sports with the big four. Now, I'm assuming this was a gradual, I guess, competition, maybe for lack of a better word, between, you know, religion and athleticism leading up to that. So, there was some point where they were probably fairly equal. Would that be like the World War II era between World War I and World War II?

Dr. Randall Balmer
Yeah, it probably would be the zenith for American religious affiliation. Religious life was probably in the 1950s in the Cold War era. And I think it's only really been in the last several decades that that's begun, again, to shift more in the direction of athleticism. And again, I, you know, I, I'm not suggesting that the two are mutually exclusive. I mean, a lot of people attend church and then head off to the stadium for force for a Sunday afternoon, watching a baseball game, or whatever, whatever it might be. But it is striking me that the level of religious adherence has dropped rather dramatically over the last several decades, and at the same time, athletic passion, I think, has increased.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, I definitely agree with you. I'm not saying it on an individual basis, but if you're looking at it from 50,000 feet and, you know, studying everything, you're absolutely right. The trends are sort of going in opposite directions, but the similarities are uncanny. I'm glad that you pointed those out and let us know about them. Why don't you let us know again what title your book is and where people can find it again?

Dr. Randall Balmer
It's called Passion Plays, How Religion Shapes Sports in North America. It's available, should be available in local bookstores, but also bookshop .com, I'm sorry, bookshop.org, Amazon.com, of course, Barnes and Noble, and other places as well. I should say that we've been talking about a lot of the elements of this book, but I also try to look into the symbolism surrounding each book. I'm sorry, each team sports. We also already talked about basketball as an urban game. We talked about football as a military game. Hockey is Canada's game for all sorts of very interesting reasons. Baseball is the quintessential immigrant game because it's the only game where the defense controls the ball. And it's the object of the offensive player, the batter, to disrupt the defense's control of the ball. He's outnumbered nine to one, just like the immigrant coming into the country at that time, who was very much outnumbered in his attempts to make a place in American society. And as he looked out into that hostile territory from the batter's box, he saw three islands of safety out there in that hostile territory. And the greatest triumph for the immigrant, as for the batter, is to return home. Therefore, homecoming is a very important part of baseball. And it's also true that immigrants and outsiders have always excelled at the game of baseball. In the 19th century, it would be immigrants from Germany, Italy, or from Scandinavia. Later on, of course, it's African -Americans who finally broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson in 1947. And more recently, of course, as you know, a lot of players are coming from the Caribbean, particularly the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, and now Asia. So it's immigrants who have always excelled in this game of baseball, and the game of baseball itself really replicates the immigrant experience.

Darin Hayes
Well, Doctor, you have a very interesting lens and are very philosophical. It's very, very intriguing. So, folks, I greatly suggest that you get a copy of Doctor Randall's book. Randall Balmer's book is here. Make sure you read this. It's a very compelling and interesting subject matter indeed. Doctor, do you have any before we let you go? Do you have any social media or websites or anything that you'd like people to know about so they can follow what you have going on?

Dr. Randall Balmer
Yes, I do. I have a website. It's www.randlebalmer. I'll try to keep it up. I'm not really good at keeping up on this sort of thing, but I'll try to do that. But the book is listed there.

Darin Hayes
Okay. And folks, if you're driving the car or don't have a pencil or pen, don't worry about it; we're going to put it in the show notes of this podcast. You can also find it on pigskindispatch.com for later reference so you can get connected to Dr. Balmer's information and to his book. And Dr. Rainer Balmer, thank you very much for joining us today and telling us about this very interesting discussion and for recording it in your very interesting book.

Dr. Randall Balmer 
Thank you, Darin. It's been my pleasure.

---

We are so used to scoring in football being a touchdown equating to six-points with the opportunity for another point or two available with a successful PAT. Likewise a field goal is worth three and so on. But what if we learn that football has not always had the tally in that way with points?

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology joins us again this week to educate us on another aspect of football. This week we chat about the evolution of football scoring and the time before the current point-based system. Timothy Brown's FootballArchaeology.com has a daily football factoid that he shares that is really quite interesting in a short read. They preserve football history in a very unique way and we are quite happy that Tim has agreed to join us each week to go over some of his Today's Tidbits. Click that link and you can subscribe for free to receive them yourself each evening.

Of course, this discussion all stems from Tim's original article titled: footballarchaeology.com/p/todays-tidbit-football-before-points?utm_source=publication-search">Football Before Points-Based Scoring.

-Transcribed Conversation on Football Points-Based Scoring with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And we are at our Tuesday event, what everybody's been waiting for: Football Archaeology with author Timothy Brown. Tim Brown, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin; thank you once again. I look forward to chatting and seeing what we find out today. Yeah, no, Tim, you have some really interesting topics that come up on your tidbits and some of the other works that you put out.

And I know you have a lot of different avenues where you're bringing in information for your research. But one of them that I know you've mentioned in the past, and maybe go into a little bit more detail, is the collection that you have of some college yearbooks. And maybe you can share a little bit about how you get information from those.

Yeah, so I actually only have about I probably have about a dozen college yearbooks that I physically own. But I've got a couple thousand that are, you know, PDFs. And then I subscribe to a thing called eyearbooks.com. So if I'm able to download them, I download them, you know, from university sites, just because then it's just handier, it's easier to search through them.

But you know, basically, what I do is if I'm watching a football game or kind of listening to the news, but not really paying full attention, a lot of times I'm just, you know, scrolling through college yearbooks, looking for images. You know, it could be the artwork in, you know, the athletic or football-related artwork, but mostly, I'm looking for images that just show something about the game at the time that is not, you know, it's no longer part of the game, or it just it illustrates a concept. And other times, it's just, hey, it's just a really cool-looking image, right? I mean, some of the photographs are just great.

And so, you know, what I do is I just have a way of pulling those off; I kind of catalog them with a brief description. And then, you know, sometime down the road, when I'm looking for a topic for a tidbit, or, you know, for an article that I'm writing, you know, I kind of scroll through my items to do searches on them. And, you know, so I've just got handy, you know, I've probably got, I know, I've looked at over, you know, 3100 yearbooks.

So and, I can tell you which issue is for every school, maybe 140 different schools now. So, you know, and then I just, you know, basically, I've got them available in the little library. So anyways, that's, you know, a lot of the way I illustrate stories or generate stories, it's just looking through these old images.

Like, oh, yeah, I haven't talked about this one yet. So let's do a story about it. So a lot of times, the images that you're collecting are, whether it's through PDF or from the yearbooks in your own collection, those are your inspiration for some of your posts and tidbits.

Yeah, you know, because there's the unfortunate thing with the yearbooks, there really isn't a good way to just search through all these yearbooks. So, you know, in some cases, I know, for instance, that I'm, you know, I'm writing about a particular topic; I came across an article while I was doing some other research. And then I'll go to that yearbook, you know, that team's yearbooks, to see if there are images that relate to the article I'm writing.

But, you know, certainly a lot of times, I'm just going in, you know, I found, you know, in all in, in all the yearbooks that I've got, I found two images of the punt out process, you know, so, you know, basically a part of the game that disappeared in 1922. And, but I found two punt outs, you know, and it's just, it was great, just because, you know, if you didn't know what a punt out was, you wouldn't even know what the heck that image was, or what it was representing. But I, you know, I spotted these two, I think one in Texas, and one, one was a Chicago game, maybe might have been an Illinois yearbook.

But anyway, you know, it's just kind of cool stuff, just finding these things that, you know, at least it shows, hey, this really did exist. Right. It wasn't just a story.

That's interesting. And you bring something to light that many of us don't know. I mean, even somebody like myself, I learned something new almost every day.

And I'm, I'm quite a bit in the books and newspapers and everything else in football history, but I learned something from your tidbits each and every day. So I think listeners, you can too, we'll give you some information near the end of this program. So, and it's in the show notes as well.

So you can get connected with Tim and the great tidbits he has each and every day. But today's topic, we're talking about old football, but we're talking about even a little older than your, uh, the pun outs of, uh, you know, 1922 when they ended, uh, going to football before points-based scoring. And, uh, I think that's an interesting topic you had back on September 9th. It is one of your tidbits, and I hope that you could chat about that a little bit tonight.

Yeah. So, you know, uh, you know, football, as we, as everybody knows, is derived from rugby. And when the, uh, intercollegiate football association met in, uh, 1876, they basically adopted the rugby rule book with three or four exceptions.

You know, they did change a couple of things. Um, and one of the things was just kind of renaming, you know, they named whatever rugby call it, they called it touchdown instead. Um, but so the scoring was just, it's not what we think of as a normal scoring system today.

So I'm going to read this just because it's kind of bizarre, but, um, rule number seven from that rule book defined, you know, the scoring process in one; it says a match shall be decided by the majority of touchdowns. A goal, a goal shall be equal to four touchdowns, but in case of a tie, a goal kick from a touchdown shall take precedence over four touchdowns. I mean, that just sounds like total gobbledygook, but you know, back then, the goal or the purpose of football, what you were trying to do was to kick the ball through the uprights, and a touchdown was really just a means to an end.

It wasn't the end. It's, you know, for the most part, it wasn't the end itself. So you wanted to kick; you wanted to score a touchdown because then you got a free kick at the goal.

Um, and you know, you also, um, and so, you know, now we all know that the touchdown is what really counts, you know, at six points in the, the kick after the touchdown is only worth one. But back then, the game was very much a kicking game. Um, and so, you know, the value came in, in, uh, kicking goals.

And so, you know, it was basically, um, you know, it was this equivalency-based system. It wasn't a straight-point process. Like we, I think virtually every sport used today is just this kind of gobbledygook: a goal shall be equal to four touchdowns.

Um, so, you know, so basically, you'd have four touchdowns to add the same value as just one goal kicked through the, um, you know, through the uprights. Uh, however, if you, a goal kicked from touchdown, meaning a goal kicked after the touchdown, if two teams ended up tied, one had four touchdowns, the other had a goal kicked after the touchdown, then that the latter team would win. That's what the last part of that rule meant.

Okay. So the kick, the kick, uh, took the kick being good was more important than the four touchdowns, which equal the same amount of points. Yes, because it was; it came the kick, and the kick came after a touchdown.

Okay. Gotcha. You know, as opposed to a goal from the field, which would have just equaled the goal.

Now I know you have this, uh, in your book, uh, how football became a football, but I'm not recollecting the year right off hand. When did that sort of change from that, that, goal, uh, scored to more of a point-based? Yeah.

So 1883. So still, you know, very early on in the game. And once that occurred, then, um, a goal from the field, what we call field goal.

So as a scrimmage kicked goal could, could have been dropped. Well, at that point it would have all been dropped kicks, but that was worth five points. The goal from touchdown or try after touchdown was worth four points and a touchdown was worth two.

So, in effect, the field goals were five. Um, and then the combination of a touchdown and the kick afterward was six points, right? So, you know, it kind of was making a touchdown worth one point. Right.

Uh, and, and then, you know, safety was one point that year. Um, and then, you know, things, they kept tweaking it as, basically, people became more interested in moving the ball down the field and scoring touchdowns as opposed to kicking goals. Then they kept ratcheting up, um, the value of the touchdown, um, relative to the field goal.

And part of that, too, was just the, you know, they just, they felt, you know, that football was a team game, and they didn't want so much of the point value resting on the ability of a kicker. They wanted, you know, the ability of all 11 to show through. And so the, you know, so they were, they kept adjusting the, the point values until, you know, basically 1912 is when, when we got to our current scoring system, not including two-point conversions and, and, uh, you know, some of the defensive, uh, you know, the one point safety and defensive scores after, you know, extra points, those kinds of things.

Well, we're certainly glad that they did, uh, change it to the way it is now with a touchdown being more, uh, important than, than the field goal and the extra point, because it really changed the landscape of the game and made it a more exciting game and the great game it is today. So, yeah. And it's, you know, it's always, uh, I think especially Europeans make fun of us for having a game called football, where the foot really isn't as big a part of the game as it used to be, but it once was, you know, that that's, that's for sure.

And we just take it for granted. We don't even think about the foot and football being related to the foot. Really.

We just, it's just football. Yeah. So yeah.

Yeah. Very interesting. Tim, why don't you share now? We promised earlier that you would share where, uh, people could get their own subscription or get their own daily dose of your tidbits and, uh, give them the information, please.

Yeah. So, uh, I published a tidbit every day, uh, on, uh, football, archaeology.com, a couple of times a month. I'll publish some other long-form articles.

And then I also published the links to, you know, your, um, your podcast, uh, on the site. So it's football archaeology.com. You can also find me on Twitter under the football archaeology name. And if you were intrigued enough by our conversation about punt outs, there is a story about punt outs that I wrote, I don't know, two years ago, something like that.

So it explains that whole process. So, um, on the, on the front page, there's one of those little magnifying glass search functions. And so you just type in punt and it'll be, you know, it'll pop up without, without an issue.

Okay. Tim Brown, footballarchaeology.com. We thank you once again for sharing your knowledge, your wisdom, and your daily tidbits. And, uh, we'll hopefully be talking to you again next week.

Okay. Very good. Thanks again.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Have you ever wondered why football pants have those strange white stripes down the sides or why they seem to get tighter and tighter with each passing season? Buckle up, football fanatics and fashion enthusiasts alike, because we're about to embark on a surprisingly stylish journey through the history of football pants! From the baggy bloomers of the early days to the sleek, high-performance gear of today, this exploration will reveal the fascinating evolution of a garment that's as much about protection as it is about (dare we say) aesthetics. Join us as we uncover the unexpected influences, technological advancements, and cultural shifts that shaped the way football pants look and function, proving that even in the rough-and-tumble world of gridiron battles, a little bit of style can go a long way.

Timothy P. Brown shares some history of the pants of gridiron players and their evolution over time.

-Transcribed Conversation on Football Pants History with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends, this is Darin Hayes, PigSkinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. Welcome to our Tuesday and our visit with Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com, where he shares one of his recent tidbits.
Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen. And boy, you have a really interesting title tonight.

Well, hopefully more than just title, but hey, obviously good to see you again. Looking forward to chatting about disintegrating football pits.

Yeah, the title is very eye-catching and makes you really want to dig into it. But you're right. The content is where the meat of the soup is here.

And it's a great stew that you cooked up. And we're anxious to hear all about this story.

Yeah, so this one, you know, is part of what I do. I mean, you know, I get my information and ideas from a lot of different places.

However, one of the things that I do is acquire old sporting goods catalogs. And, you know, I'm only interested in the ones that have football sections in them. But, you know, I come across those.

So I've got a collection of, I don't know, 30, 40 old catalogs. And so, you know, I just use those to try to understand how pads and other kinds of equipment changed over the years. The technologies, the fabrics that they were, they were used, how they were designed, you know, how they were built and kind of how they pitched to me, you know, how, you know, how they marketed them.

Well, I'm glad you glad you told us why you got them for, because I'm picturing your mailman bringing back all this mail to you. Return to senders. You're trying to order these pants, you know, a football for five dollars from a 1907 catalog or something, the J5.

And so, you know, there's a couple of the catalogs I have that still have the order forms in them. So, you know, I've always been tempted to at least photocopy it and send it in to somebody and see, see what happens. But I don't think the addresses will work for me anymore.

Probably not. Probably not. But so are the disintegrating football pants.

It's, you know, deliberately. Misleading title because, you know, people think that the pants themselves disintegrate and disappear, but it's not it's not like a tearaway jersey where I meant disintegrating in the sense of disaggregating. So it was, you know, back when football pants were first used, when people were first playing football, they wore these, you know, kind of very light knit.

You know, you know, almost, you know, they almost like the tights that, you know, I know when I run in the winter, I'm wearing tights and women are wearing yoga pants. I mean, it's that kind of that kind of thing. And I bet you wear yoga pants sometimes, too, right? I can't share that information with you right now.

Well, let's go on back into the football. Let's go back to the football. OK, sorry, I asked.

But so after that, you know, they were first wearing these tights, but then once the game got rougher and kind of that, the whole mass and momentum thing happened, and then they started wearing these. They padded the pants. And if you look at the old-time photos, initially, the fronts were quilted, you know, quilted, you know, there was horse hair or felt that got quilted into the pads.

And then then, you know, at the turn of the century, they moved to a little bit more mechanical protection, especially the thighs. And they had done it with the shins before, but they had these ribs. It was basically pieces of cane that, you know, were sewn into the into the pants.

And then, you know, backed by felt, the knees would still have horse hair or felt pads. And then you finally got to a point in the late 1910s where they added, you know. Also, the pants got high-waisted. You know, they were protecting the hips and the kidneys.

So, you know, if you see some picture of a guy with, you know, it looks like the pads are going up to his armpits. You know, that's probably, you know, 1916 to 24, something that time period. But at the same time, they were adding those high hip, that high hip look.

People were, you know, football, and they were still going through this thing about speed, speed, speed. And so there were players who were basically cutting pads out of their pants. You know, they wanted to be as light as possible, just like the players are doing now.

Right. And so so then the sporting goods manufacturers started making they started separating or disintegrating, disaggregating the pads from the pants. And in some of the early versions and this particular tidbit, I've got some images of it.

There is a big sporting goods manufacturer then called Goldsmith, and they offered what they called a. The their harness. And it was there was their padding, their inner harness is what they called it. But it was basically it was all the pads kind of in one get up or one set up that just wasn't part of the pants.

You know, but it was still kind of clunky, all in one unit from knees to thighs, to hips, to, you know, kidneys. And it probably had a tailpiece, too. I don't see it in the ads themselves or in the catalog.

So, it just seemed kind of dumb. But, you know, that's kind of what they did, you know. And they also would have liked those units.

That was kind of the beginning of them having elastic materials. So, you know, you kind of step into these things. So there was elastic going around your calves and then around your thighs.

And so that kind of held this piece in place. And then you then you slipped your pants on. So, you know, if you played football and you had either a step in girdle or a strap on girdle, you know, and then you put your pants on.

It's kind of the same sort of deal. But then, you know, somewhere in that time, late teens, or the early 20s, they started converting to somebody who got the bright idea of let's separate all the pads. They basically created pockets in the pants or pockets so that you could slip a separate knee pad or a separate thigh pad and then separate hip pads.

You know, each of those was a distinct unit. Oftentimes, guys still had knee pads; they still wore knee pads like basketball players had, you know, so they were strapped behind their knees and that kind of thing. So anyways, it's just one of those things where just this.

You know, it's like anything else; there are all these steps along the way as something progresses. So it's just interesting to look at these and say. You know, we didn't just go from the beginning, and all of a sudden, we have these great pants with, you know, today's material, you know, all those fabrics that we have today, and great pads.

You know, it was all these baby steps of just these natural fiber kinds of materials. And, you know, it was so anyways, I just found that to be a really interesting step of the disaggregation of the pants, you know, into separate units that then players could pick and choose which ones they put it, they actually wore. Yeah, that just reminds me; I had to keep looking up my wall because I must have it at the office where I work.

I have a copy of the patent of pants back, probably in that era. And it's amazing how similar those pants are in that patent from 100 years ago are so similar to the pants at least you and I wore when we played ball. You know, like you say, you had pockets for the knee pad and the thigh pad.

They didn't have snaps for the pads up around your waist, but, you know, tailbone pad and your hip pads and everything. But how similar in design they were to the laces, you know, everything to button them up and keep everything in place. You know, nowadays, I don't even know if they make the pants with pads anymore because you never see thigh pads and knee pads anymore, even though at the high school level, I believe they are.

They are mandatory, but kids will sure try to do it. So they'll just shove them down their pants and not be in a pocket, and they get all discombobulated when they get hit or hit the ground or something. So, well, you know, and the funny thing is that the original reason for knee pads was not to protect the guy wearing the knee pads.

It was to protect the guy they were tackling because they, you know, the four guys wore helmets or when they were just fairly, you know, light. You know, I always compare the early helmets. It was like, you know, the leather helmets.

It's like taking a baseball glove and putting it on your head. You know, that's kind of the level of protection and less, you know, that you receive. Right.

And so, you know, guys used to get need in the head a lot, and so that's why they, you know, people had to wear knee pads. It wasn't wasn't to protect your knees. It was to protect the guy, you know, your opponent's head.

So yeah, some of that stuff is just really fun to see. See how something like that is as simple and straightforward as a pair of pants, how that evolves and, you know, and, you know, again, those pants back then were they're all made of canvas, or they used to call it moleskin. They used to call them, you know, players, moleskins.

They refer to that a lot. So, these are all cotton fabrics that absorb water. For example, going out of style, cotton just absorbs water. And so on a wet day, those pants got heavy as anything, you know.

And then you think about, you know, trying to they weren't form fitting in the first place and then, you know, they're waterlogged. So they're dragging all over the place. And, you know, especially in the 20s, you see photos of on the front of the thigh.

A lot of times, you see these little two patches on either thigh. They're like little blocks, little squares. And those were just reinforcements because, you know, a lot of manufacturers, they created these tie systems where, you know, that is like a shoe string or a piece of leather that you would tie, you'd tie your pants to your thighs and then that little patch just kind of reinforced the fabric.

So it didn't tear easily. Right. So if you see those old photos and you see those two patches, that's just, you know, they didn't have elastics, you know, so that's the, you know, you just tied your pants in place, you know, just like kids would like, you know, if we had a loose pair of pants, we'd take athletic tape, you know, and tape it around, right.

They did it with those strings and the reinforced patches. Wow. That is some great stuff.

Tim, you have these tidbits with these interesting pieces of football knowledge and football of yesteryear that come out each and every day. Maybe you could share with the listeners how they, too, can enjoy these great tidbits that you have. Yeah.

So, you know, just go to footballarchaeology.com. You can sign up very easily. Just subscribe, and you'll get an email every night with some kind of story about the football past. You can also follow me on Twitter.

And then, you know, I've got a couple of different books available on Amazon. So those are described on the site as well. So, you know, just take a look.

There's some good stuff if this kind of thing interests you. And then actually, for those who do paid subscriptions, you know, I send you a copy of my latest book, Putt-Hut Hike. And, you know, just send that out to to those that subscribe, paid subscribers.

Well, that is an excellent, excellent deal to take advantage of, folks. If you haven't read one of Tim's books, that's a great way to get involved with it. And I'm sure you'll be wanting more that you can find on Amazon and touch base with them each and every night with some of his interesting topics.

So, Tim, thanks again. And we will talk to you again next Tuesday. Hey, very good.

Thank you, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Anyone that has traveled to a North American Tourist destination has probably walked by or in to a wax museum of the uncanny called 'Ripley's Believe It or Not."

We that are old enough probably remember the 1980s television series of the same name. The concept is just what the name says, they tell stories that are so off the charts that they are hard to believe to be true.

One of the top experts in early football rules history, Timothy P. Brown, joins us in the discussion to chat about the work of Robert Ripley and an early connection to the history of football.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown about Ripley Believe It or Not Football

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And as we try to do every Tuesday, we will talk to our friend from football archaeology, Tim Brown, the great historian and author of multiple books and many tidbits that come out every evening for our football enjoyment. Tim Brown, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin, thank you. Thank you. Football season is well underway, so it's always the best time of year.

We hate to see the weather start to change, but we know it's football season. It is the most exciting part of the year, especially on the weekends.

And now it's spreading out throughout the whole week. So it's even better, but better for us, maybe worse for the players. But I so love the game.

Yeah, exactly. So tonight, I thought we could talk about one of your tidbits from mid-August on Ripley's Believe It or Not and some of their thoughts on football. And I think most of our listeners are familiar with Ripley's Believe It or Not.

We're going to get rid of the not part when we talk to you. We always believe you. But let's hear what Ripley has to say about football.

Yeah, I'm a truth-teller. I don't. I don't make anything up. So, you know, just to take a step back when I'm researching any topic that's football related, if I spot and, you know, a lot of the early newspapers, so, you know, into even 1920 or something like that.

A lot of times, they didn't print photographs. They printed line drawings, you know, illustrations rather than photographs. And so I always find those really interesting.

I find, you know, just the artwork interesting in general. And so if I spot one that I think I could write a tidbit about and, you know, make it interesting, then I just kind of have a way of cataloging them and coming back to them. So, not too long ago, I came across this one, and I think his name is Robert Ripley.

But so is the guy from Ripley's Believe It or Not. And he, you know, grew up in California and ended up working for the New York Globe as a cartoonist. And this is like the World War I era.

And so. In 1919, he published a cartoon that looked back at football prior to all the rule changes of 1905. So he's showing all these kinds of conditions of what the game was like at the time.

But the interesting thing about it was. His first Believe It or Not was published about two weeks after he did this cartoon. So this cartoon is a tree, believe it or not, if you can believe it or not.

So anyways, and then, you know, once he did the Believe It or Not a thing, he became famous, rich, and all kinds of good stuff. So at the time when he was still just, you know, a young illustrator, he did a thing, and he basically showed stuff like, you know, tandem blocking. And, you know, that's where before you had to have, you know, seven men on the line of scrimmage, sometimes teams would line up.

They take the guard and tackle from the other side and line them up right behind, you know, the right tackle or whatever. And, you know, so two guys in tandem would then push through the hole. He showed kind of the whole days when running backs had handles sewn on their pants so that guys could grab them by the handles and throw them over the pile to gain yardage and hurtling.

He specifically showed or mentioned Harold Weeks of Columbia in that cartoon, who is famous for he was famous for jumping, leaping over the line with both feet forward so that he could hit the opposing player in the chest, knock him down, and continue. But was it he the one that they sort of had that play where they would almost throw him over the line? Yeah. Yeah.

OK. They did it both ways somewhere. He got a good head start, and he leaped, you know, with both feet forward and others where they would swing them and then, poof, you know, pop them over.

Old alley-oop. You know, so I mean, we still know it's back. You know, Mullins were outlawed for for quite a long time, but now they're back in football.

And so we see our offensive linemen. We just saw an example that gave one of the games an opening weekend. Yes, there was a lineman who pushed his guy across the goal line.

Right. And so that's legal again. It wasn't for a long time.

But, you know, it's still not legal to pull. But back then, you know, linemen pulled there. They're running backs forward as well.

I think they sort of opened that back up again, that famous USC Notre Dame game back when Reggie Bush got pushed over by Matt Leinert, I think, and a couple of others. I think that that critical play at the end is where they sort of because it was illegal at that time, but they let it happen. And I think it was like the year after that, they sort of lessened up on that rule and allowed that to happen again.

Yeah, I mean, it was a big, you know, that was a big part of it. It's just like a rugby scrum. I mean, it's it's kind of where that all came from. But they got rid of that for a long time.

But then, you know, they also talked about, or his cartoon also includes a little thing on pumping and talking about, you know, roughing the punter and which originally was roughing the fullback because the fullback is typically who pumped it. And, you know, as there's a long involved explanation of that, which if you search on my blog, you can find, you know, find that whole thing roughing, roughing the punter and the origins of that. But anyway, it's just a cute cartoon.

And so, you know, just kind of it. The other thing I liked about it was that in the article beneath it, he mentions that the changes in rules and more open play that had developed by 1919, when he published this thing, allowed some smaller schools to become prominent. You know, he listed Colgate, Georgia Tech, Dartmouth, Washington and Jefferson, Occidental, and Brown.

And, you know, really, Georgia Tech's the only one now that we consider prominent W&J, and Occidental played Division three, and Occidental doesn't play anymore at all, you know, so. So, you know, their time in the limelight didn't necessarily last that long. Yeah, that's definitely true.

There are a lot of those schools, the Lafayettes and Suwannees of the world, too. Those are sort of. They had some big seasons. And now they're, like you said, they either don't have teams, or they're playing Division II, Division Three, or something else.

Yeah. And the flip side is, you know, there are a lot of schools that Wernie didn't exist at the time that are now playing big-time football. You know, I mean, we didn't realize that Florida State was a women's school until 1948.

So, you know, they've they've changed quite a bit, right? I mean, they were male back in 1902 or three or something like that. And then they went all female. So, you know, school is like that.

Then, Central Florida is in the FAUs. Florida's got a million of those schools. And so does Texas, you know, schools.

But, you know, we're little commuter schools or normal schools, you know, that kind of thing. But they, you know, times changed, and now they're massive, you know, massive significant universities. So as one of those like Florida International or Florida Atlantic, one of them I was reading about recently, and I was surprised to see that they just started having a football program like in the 1980s, or it might have been even, you know, 1990s, even it wasn't that long ago.

They started a football program. Now they're playing, you know, you know, FBS D1 football. And it's kind of unbelievable.

Yeah, I think there are about six schools playing FBS right now that didn't have football in 2000. So that's how, you know, that's how fast some of those programs got up and running. And then there were a bunch of them that, you know, even more that the school didn't exist until, well, the school didn't exist in, say, 1960.

You know, you got a Boise State that was a junior college for a lot of its history, you know. Anyways, I mean, there are as many examples as there are of schools that dropped down. There's probably an equal number that have kind of risen up or, you know.

They've become substantial schools, and, you know, so they go with the advertising benefits of intercollegiate athletics. Football's a moneymaker, that's for sure. That's I think it's been like that for over 100 years and still is that way today.

It's amazing. There's some good stuff. And folks, if you want to enjoy this picture that Mr. Ripley drew way back when on Tim's site, there are some links through Pigskin Dispatch.

We'll also try to put the link in the show notes of this podcast, as well as how to connect to Tim to have his daily tidbits delivered to you. And maybe, Tim, you could talk about that just a little bit. Yeah.

So you can, you know, go to FootballArcheology.com, subscribe and, you know, you can subscribe for free. There's also some paid levels. But if you subscribe for free, you'll get at least one email every day that has whatever the tidbit is.

And then I'm also on Twitter. Just look for Football Archeology as well. And you should be able to find me.

Well, Tim, thank you so much for sharing this tidbit of football again with us and our listeners. And I hope to talk to you again next week about some more. Very good.

Look forward to it. And yeah, we'll get together as always.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.