Football History

---

Football Archaeology takes an in-depth look at a unique down and distance measuring device from the late 1930s called the Honest Headlinesman.

The concept was said to be more accurate on the poorly lined grass fields of the era and would allow for a more "fair and level playing field " for the participants and an easier discernment by officials if the line to gain had been reached.

Football Archaeology has excellent details on the concept and some images of it and its use. Timothy Brown has a nose for the unique stories from football antiquity and can tell a tale to enlighten us of what those in the gridiron past were doing.

---

Timothy P Brown takes his Football Archaeology to a whole new level as he examines an innovation of Amos Alonzo Stagg.

A wind sprint is a short, intense burst of running at maximum speed, typically lasting between 20 and 60 meters (around 65 to 200 feet). It's a training exercise used by athletes in various sports, particularly those that require short bursts of speed like track and field runners, football players, and basketball players.

The exact origin of wind sprints is difficult to pinpoint, as running drills have been used for centuries to improve athletic performance.

---

In the hazy days of early American football, before forward passes soared and helmets resembled leather buckets, a curious rule reigned supreme: the fumble out of bounds. Unlike today's automatic touchback, a loose ball crossing the sidelines triggered a bizarre dance of possession.

Fumbles were not over until they were possessed by a player, even if they went out of bounds. This led to some crazy plays that Timothy P Brown of Football Archaeology discusses.

If the offense fumbled near their own end zone, the opposing team gained the ball at the point of recovery, no matter how deep it sailed out. Imagine the frantic scramble, desperation dives into sideline bleachers, and potential chaos as defensive players chased a wayward pigskin like oversized puppies after a chew toy.

However, if the fumble happened near the opponent's end zone, the offensive team retained possession even if it bounced through the stands and landed on a passing pigeon. This paradoxical scenario rewarded sloppiness near enemy territory, potentially turning fumbles into first downs through sheer serendipity.

This strange rule, abolished in the 1930s, reflected the nascent nature of the sport, where improvisation and quirky quirks abounded. While it introduced an element of slapstick into the game, it also highlighted the ever-evolving nature of football's laws, constantly adapting to the growing complexity and athleticism on the field. So, the next time you see a fumble careen towards the sideline, remember: it could have been a winning lottery ticket in the gridiron gamble of a bygone era.

-Transcription of Timothy Brown on Live-Fumbles-Out Bounds

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 have another great evening with Timothy P. Brown of Football Archeology, discussing one of his great tidbits that he shares with us each and every evening on Twitter and on email.

Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, thank you, Mr. Hayes. Looking forward to chatting once again about oblate spheroid stuff.

Wow, we're getting into the geometry of the game a little bit. That's right. I got an A in high school geometry.

Did you really? Well, I believe you did because this topic that you have tonight involves a little bit of the geometry of the ball, I'm sure. You never know which way that ball is going to bounce. And you have a very interesting subject of football from yesteryear that we probably wouldn't recognize today.

If we saw this happen and officials let it go, we would be screaming and ripping our hair out from the stands and throwing things at our TV set. So why don't you share with us the topic tonight and the story behind it? Yeah. So the issue here is that when football began, they basically adopted a rule from rugby that when the ball went into touch, what we now call out of bounds, the ball remained live.

So for us now, we think, oh, the ball is out of bounds, so it's dead. Well, no, that wasn't the case. And so, if you think about it, it's comparable to the original rules for scoring a touchdown.

When you got into the end zone, the guy with the ball had to touch the ball down to the ground, which is why we call it a touchdown. And so until he did that, the ball remained live. And so they had much the same rule in place for the ball crossing the boundary line and on the sidelines, not just the end lines or the goal lines, that in order for the ball to become dead, somebody on one of the two teams had to be out of bounds and touch the ball to the ground.

So that's when the ball went dead. So it's just one of those things that we can't fathom. But when you think about it, the consequences of that rule mean that if the ball tumbles out of bounds, there could be obstacles.

Depending on the field, there could be trees. There could be players on your side or on the opposing side. There could be water buckets.

There could be carts and cars and horses and buggies and running tracks. A lot of the fans, you see some of those games where the fans are right on the sidelines. This could really cause some calamity there.

Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of fields. Virtually every field early on, where the sidelines, and I've got a bunch of pictures of these, the sidelines are just ropes.

There's a rope. And even the rule book talks about people behind the ropes. They're talking about fans behind the ropes.

Because they were just roped off, anyway, there's even a great story. In 1892, the University of Chicago took a train across the country, went out to play Stanford a couple of times, and they got a couple of other games in there.

But they were playing Stanford in San Francisco, and the ball went out of bounds and bounced over a fence. And one of the Stanford players would start to go for it. And Chicago had a guy who was a hurdler on the track team, and he hurdled the fence.

And ended up getting the ball before the Stanford guy could. But if you just think about it, in the tidbit itself, I've got some images like you described of the fans and the perimeter. I've got a picture of the University of Maine.

They had a 25-piece band sitting right along the sideline. So the ball could have gone running in there, and the sousaphone or tuba player or piccolo player or whatever could have gotten in the way. Yeah, your image of the Iowa State game with the fans on it.

I think there are fans like five deep all the way around the field, it looks like. I'm surprised that if you were standing on the outside, you wouldn't be able to see any of the players. That's for sure.

Yeah, and if you went and got concessions, there weren't TV screens up there showing you what was going on either. Anyways, all that continued until 1926. And that's when they finally changed the rule.

And at that point, they made it so that the last person to touch it, their team, got possession of it once it was out of bounds. And then later on, it was the last team to possess the ball while in bounds. So initially it was touch, then it became possession before it went out of bounds.

So anyways, it's one of those old-time rules that you just can't believe was in place. But it made sense based on the game's origins. But I just can't imagine some of the things that must have happened.

You know, the guys fighting and everything to get to the ball amid crowds and fans and teammates and whatever. Yeah, it had to be. Now, I just want some clarification on what you said early on.

The rugby term for being in touch, you're saying that's when the man's on the ground touching the ball. That's when the ball's in touch, or when it goes out of bounds, it's in touch. So, out of bounds, I was in touch.

So, the sidelines were called the touchlines. Okay. So, you know, that was just for whatever reason.

I mean, it gets a little bit confusing, too. Just, you know, but so I'm not sure exactly why they called it in touch, but they did. And then, but that was for the sidelines.

That's the out-of-bounds side. And then, you know, once you cross the goal line, you still, you know, old-time films and even in rugby today, you sometimes you see the guy, he'll kneel down and plant the ball to the ground. That's what was the case in football, too.

You had to, you had to for the touchdown. I was just trying, I was looking more from the sideline, what we call the sideline point of view, seeing in touch it, seeing if there was a correlation to try to understand it better.

So, okay. Hey, that's great stuff, as always. You know, that's definitely a fascinating thing.

And it's a way of really looking foreign to us today. As we said, in the beginning, for a ball to go out of bounds, people, you know, 22 guys were chasing it through the trees, the crowds, the bleachers, and everything else. Yeah.

We remember, you know when this stuff was first happening, and when it was really early on, the rest didn't have whistles yet. So, you know, it was all just, you know, they were fighting in there, and somehow, they figured out who had the ball. Yeah.

Officiating nightmare. Thank God I didn't officiate back then. So that's rude.

Well, Tim, that is some great stuff, as always. And your tidbits are coming out each and every day. Tell us how to share those.

And why don't you tell us also about your book, you know, that's still on sale? You know, the hot, hot hike a little bit about that, where people can get that too. Yeah.

So, you know, you can. The easiest thing is to subscribe, you know, go to footballarchaeology.com, and you know, there is a free process to subscribe. And that'll get you an email every night with the story. And again, you don't have to read it that night.

You can read it two weeks later, or you can read whatever you want. But at least you have access to it. And if you want to read it, you've got it.

Otherwise, follow me on Twitter. And then, you know, the book is available. All three of my books are available on Amazon.

So hot, hot hike, you know, either search for that or search Timothy P. Brown. There are a couple of Timothy P. Browns, but I'm the only one who writes books on football. So you should be able to find me.

And, you know, in particular, if you're somebody, you know, if you've got a Kindle Unlimited plan, you know, you can read it for free. So, you know, it's just like streaming anything else. You know, nowadays you just, it's available.

So, of course, I'm more than happy to sell you a paper copy, which is. Yeah, that's great to have too. It's a great reference, especially, you know, hike and when football became football are great reference points.

I use it all the time to look up things, and people have questions, or I have questions. It's an excellent source. So, it was very well done tonight.

We thank you for your time and for sharing your knowledge, Tim. And we'll talk to you again next Tuesday. Hey, look forward to it.

See you in a week.

-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:Field Size Evolution.

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

---

Alright, settle in folks, because Timothy Brown here is about to tell you a tale. Not of knights and dragons, mind you, but of something far more thrilling – touchdowns! You see, I've been bleedin' Kohawk crimson for years now, and this year, the Coe College football team's offense is a sight to behold. We ain't talkin' trick plays or fancy footwork, no sir. This was a well-oiled machine, churnin' out points like a farmer shuckin' corn.

This all comes from Tim's original Tidbit, Coe College’s Point-A-Minute Team of 1914

From the pinpoint passes of the quarterback to the battering ram runs of the tailback, this offense is a symphony of destruction on the gridiron. So, buckle up and get ready to hear about the juggernaut that's taken the conference by storm – the Coe College high-scoring offense!

-Transcribed Conversation on Point a Minute team of Coe College 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. We're going to stare through that portal today and go back into some football archaeology because it's Tuesday, and we have our friend Timothy Brown from FootballArchaeology.com. Tim Brown, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin, good to see you once again.

Looking forward to talking about Coe College. Yeah, Coe College. And I wasn't aware of this; there was another point in a minute, team.

You had a great post about that on September 17th. You know, when I think about point-a-minute teams, you know, of course, the famous Michigan teams from the early 20th century come to mind under fielding age, Yost. And I did not realize there was another one called a point-a-minute team.

Yeah, so some, you know, listeners aren't aware. Coe College is a small liberal arts college in Iowa. And, you know, they were certainly aware, or at least the reporters were certainly aware, of fielding Yoast point a minute team at Michigan.

And so part of what I did in the article is just to point out that they didn't score a point a minute. They were they were they were under it, but they scored a lot of points, you know. And so this Coe College team ends up having a similar season.

They were just scoring all kinds of points. You know, they played other small colleges in Iowa and they played one game in Illinois. They also played their second game of the season was against Iowa State.

So they lost two. But, you know, they seem to have played respectively or respectively against them. So they you know, they kind of did their non-conference season.

And then they're during the conference. They just started playing teams, and they were kind of blown out of the water. I mean, they won one game.

It's like one hundred and twenty-one to nothing or some silly thing like that. But, you know, they just ended up. You know, just a phenomenal year.

And so then they started, you know, they started being touted as the point in a minute team, you know, obviously copying, copying Michigan. But so it's just kind of, you know, a team that basically few people are aware of or care about. You know, that's that's kind of the life of small college football.

But, you know, I love being able to bring those in, you know, here and there where there's something interesting, something compelling about a team like Coe. You know, I also happen to know one of the things that I use as illustrations for the blog and for my books, and I collect old football-related postcards. And so some time back, I had acquired one with Coe College, you know, this Coe College season.

And then I never really looked into it very much. Once, I said, oh, this might be something worthwhile, you know, a for a tidbit. And I got it, you know, started looking into it.

And there's this whole story about the point a minute. And, you know, two of the teams that they beat that year, the college no longer exists. One merged into, you know, merged with Coe.

They had this kind of incestuous thing going on with some of the Iowa schools. But anyway, it's just, you know, I think, just kind of a fun story about a team that kind of came out of nowhere and just was kicking everybody's butt, which is, you know, always fun. But, you know, those are that's the the sweet spot of your tidbits.

You know, these things that many of us that are in the football know are not aware of. And you bring it back to the forefront and make us aware of it and preserving the football history. And that's I mean, that's the magic of what you do with football archaeology.

And we really appreciate that. And, you know, especially sharing somebody like Coe College that probably most of us have never heard of. Yeah, no.

Well, I appreciate your your your comments. But yeah, I mean, I just think it's. You know, it's just interesting to see kind of how how they did things back then.

And again, it's just the whole evolution of the game. It's just there's, you know, there were bits, you know, there were spurts at times, but a lot of it's just really slow progression. And then, you know, the game cast certain elements aside.

We don't need this anymore. And, you know, we end up with the game we have today, which is, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you know, especially offensively, it's it's the most exciting game we've ever had. Right.

I mean, there are just so many different options and so many different things that teams can do now. Back then, you know, not so much the case is, you know, pretty much run it up the gut football. You know, some teams did some other things in passing, but a lot of it was pretty old school.

Yeah. And that's just so glad that you're sharing that with us and, you know, collecting those things and recording them for everybody to enjoy. So, you know, if listeners, if you would like to be aware of what Tim's coming up with, some of these antiquated items from football or teams that no longer exist or maybe had their day, you know, in the sun and it's no more.

You know, Tim is going to share with us right now how you can find him and find his tidbits and subscribe. Yeah. So my my site is football archaeology dot com.

It is on it's a substack site. So if you happen to be a substack user, then you can find it through that mechanism mechanism as well. But just football archaeology dot com.

I also post everything on the site. I posted on Twitter as well. But, you know, the advantage of subscribing is that you'll then get a newsletter.

Everything that I post becomes an email sent to your inbox on essentially a nightly basis, seven o'clock Eastern. And then my the long form articles kind of come out in a little bit more random order. But that's where that's where to find me.

If you if you enjoy it, great. Whichever way you want to access it, have at it. All right, Tim, Tim, thank you very much for sharing your footballarchaeology.com items with us.

And we'll talk to you again next week.

OK, very good. Thanks, sir.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

The brand of football played North of the border is closer to the original football formation than our American game. Rugby's very roots are still evident in the game, even in some of the scoring, such as the "single" or "rouge."

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology joins us to explain the history and scoring of the Rouge and the two-point conversions of North American football. This discussion is based on Tim's post from over a year ago titled The Rouge and the Two Point Conversion.

A podcast version of our conversation can be found at Rouge and Two-Point Conversion History with Tim Brown

A Brief History of Canada's Unique Scoring Play

The Canadian Football League (CFL) is known for its exciting, fast-paced brand of football, featuring more expansive fields, three downs, and a unique scoring system. One element that sets the CFL apart is the "rouge," a single point awarded under specific circumstances. Here's a look at the history of this fascinating scoring play.

The exact origin of the Rouge remains a mystery. Theories suggest that in the early days of Canadian football (derived from rugby in the mid-1800s), a red flag might have been used to signal the awarding of a single point. Unfortunately, concrete evidence for this practice is scarce.

While the red flag may be a matter of speculation, the official definition of the Rouge in the CFL rulebook is clear. It is awarded when:

-The offensive team advances the ball into the opponent's end zone, either through a punt, a missed field goal attempt, or a kickoff that goes out of bounds in the end zone (without being returned by the receiving team).

-The receiving team does not attempt to recover the ball in the end zone.

The Rouge adds a strategic layer to the CFL game. Teams often employ intentional punts or "coffin corner" kicks to force a rouge if they believe a touchdown is unlikely. This can create exciting situations where the receiving team must weigh the risk of attempting a potentially game-changing return against the guaranteed single point awarded by a rouge.

Full Transcription of conversation with Timothy Brown

Darin Hayes
We have a great episode for you tonight. It's Tuesday and we have Timothy P. Brown of footballarcheology .com joining us to talk about another one of his tidbits on football history. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Timothy Brown
Hey Darin, look forward to chatting once again about the Rouge or the single.

Darin Hayes
Rouge or a single! We have some Canadian football terms coming at us that many of us Americans are not as familiar with as the Rouge is in a single, and maybe you know some of that explanation will come in here with your article that you wrote a little over a year ago I believe Rouge and two-point conversion was the title of it and boy we'd love to hear your tale.

Timothy Brown
Yeah. So, uh, following up on what you just said, I would encourage people to watch Canadian football. Um, I mean, I think it's a really fun brand of football, very talented athletes. And I give in arguments with some Canadian folks online from time to time; they are not as good as the NFL players. That's all there is to it. But they're supremely talented, you know, athletes, they're really, they're really good. And it's just a fun, open game. It has played in an atmosphere that, to me, feels more like a college atmosphere than a pro atmosphere than an NFL atmosphere, which means I like it. So

Darin Hayes
It's fun, and you get to see a lot more. There are a lot of Americans at play; I think they're allowed to have, like, one -one-third of their team or something.

Timothy Brown
They have, kind of.

Darin Hayes
Go for it, but I know just from my area, you know, we had a couple of, uh, I think, uh, Trevor Harris is still quarterback, he, he quarterbacked at Edinburgh or my Alma mater, which was a few miles from here and Jovan Johnson is originally from Erie. I officiated when he played, and he was a cornerback for multiple teams up there and had a successful Canadian career. So that's a great game; it's wide-open, with three downs and a lot of passing. So it's, it's fun.

Timothy Brown
Well, so what's interesting is that you mentioned the Americans playing there, and it's the fact that I wrote this tidbit in reaction to a mistake made by an American player playing in Canada. So he's relatively, you know, a rookie, and relatively, you know, his early season game may have even been a preseason game. But so, you know, in Canadian football, when the ball, when a live ball goes into your end zone, that you know, the end zone or the end zone that you are defending, you have to get that ball out of there. Or else, the opposing team scores a point, which is kind of similar to safety. But Canadian football doesn't have a touchback. You know, they have safeties. However, what we would consider a touchback is the Rouge or the single; they get one point instead of two. And so it's kind of a, now, there are other rule changes that help that, you know, they've got the five-yard circle around somebody catching a punt. They also still have the return kick, which you don't see that often. But American football had the return kick until the mid-60s; at least colleges did. The return kick is any time a team gets possession of a ball; it could be from a fumble, it could be an intercepted pass, but most often, it came on a punt return. If you caught the punt, you could turn around and immediately kick the ball back to the team that punted it because it was all just a field possession kind of thing. And it was all a remnant of rugby. And so American football got rid of it because people stopped using it. But, you know, Canadian football hung on to it. So anyways, one way to get the ball out of the end zone is to boot, you know, pump it out. So anyways, so, again, the Rouge or single is scored when a live ball goes into the end zone, on a punt kickoff, field goal attempt, extra play attempt, and you know, you're responsible for getting it out of the end zone. If it goes into the end zone, it rolls out of the sideline, then the Rouge is automatic, or the single is automatic. But so it's really, I mean if you think about it at the core, it's a way to reward a team for gaining favorable field position. I mean, that's really what it's about.

Darin Hayes
Now, just to make this clear, this does not apply to a fumble recovery or an interception in the end zone, correct? Just the kicking game?

Timothy Brown
Uh, no, it's it's possible. I'm showing my ignorance, but no, I think anytime the ball enters the end zone.

Darin Hayes
OK, all right.

Timothy Brown
So yeah, so it's possible, and I could be wrong about that, but you know, that's.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, I'm not sure either.

Timothy Brown
As I've watched that, you know, sometimes somebody asked me a question like that about Canada. It's like, I'm not sure. I got to look it up. But so, so then let's switch to two-point conversion, which is why I'm trying to make a connection here that, like, you could add the Rouge to American football. And Americans would say, No, you can't add the Rouge. That's silly. Do you know why we would add the Rouge? We don't need it. But, you know, back in 1959, Fritz Kreisler was on, you know, he was a coach, and then he was AD at Michigan for years. He had been on the rules committee, you know, for at least 15 years by that time. He had been pushing for American football or for college football to add a two-point conversion because he thought the extra-point kick was just boring. He thought playing football was the most boring thing. So he was trying to end, you know, there were too many tie games back then he had he had it. So, you know, he thought it made sense to add the two-point conversion. Now, the two-point conversion actually originated in American football with six-man football. Because what? It was kind of the opposite. So, the two-point conversion is supposed to be a reward for doing it the hard way, right? So, supposedly, running or passing the ball into the end zone is harder than kicking. And so, in six-man football, it was the opposite. If you kicked it, you got two points. If you ran or passed it, you got one point because that was supposed to be harder. You know, you just had fewer players, less skilled players, you know, you had to have somebody who could snap the ball, somebody who could hold it, and somebody who could kick it. So I guess that's three things you need. So anyway, Chrysler finally convinced everybody to add the two-point conversion in 1958. And here's the crazy thing. This is how much football has changed, at least the kicking side of things. So, if you want, here's a quiz for you. In 1958, what percentage of kicked conversions were good? Or, you know, we're. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that.

Darin Hayes
So, so kicked conversion percentage, successful kicks in a college game in 58. I don't know. I'd say 50%.

Timothy Brown
Well, that's a pretty good guess, 48.6. So, what was the two-point conversion percentage?

Darin Hayes
Uh, I'm going to say maybe 25%.

Timothy Brown
51 .8. Really? Yeah, so teams were able to convert the two points at a higher rate than the kicked extra point.

Darin Hayes
Now, were they going from the three-yard line back then or from the two-yard line?

Timothy Brown
I'm not sure. I think it was the three.

Darin Hayes
Three, OK.

Timothy Brown
But what it really points to is how bad kicking was. I mean, I think in the late 50s, there were times, like in the entirety of college football, when there were less than 100 field goals made, at least among what we'd consider divisional on-team sound. I mean, mostly, they just didn't attempt to kick field goals very often because to kick a field goal, you needed a snapper, you needed a holder, and you needed a kicker. And all of them had to be on the field. This is before a lot of open substitution. So they had to all be on the field when you scored, with limited exceptions. And there were times when teams would substitute. But so teams just sucked at the extra point conversions. And at field goals, so they didn't try them very often. So anyway, it's just one of those things that now with specialist long snappers, and typically, it's the punter that is your holder nowadays. And you've got specialist kickers who are also soccer-style kickers, which very few were in 1958. The game is just the kicking game in particular. It's just changed so dramatically since then. So I don't know; it's just part of the reason I think the two-point conversion is great. In part, the Rouge is great because it forces coaches to make decisions. There's a strategic element to it. It's like pinch-hitting in baseball. There's an element of coaches having to make a choice. Then, the players have to be able to execute it. And so if you get the American rookie, he doesn't understand; he's got to get all out of the end zone. Then, the best lead coaching plan sometimes just doesn't work out.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, it's interesting that you say, you know, the specialist of the long snapper. I had a conversation; I had the honor of talking to Craig Colquitt. He was a punter for the Steelers in the late seventies and won a couple of Super Bowls with them. His two sons have both recently won Super Bowls in the NFL. And he was telling me we were talking, and he was, you know, he being the punter, he was first the holder for Roy Gerella and Matt Barr during those Steelers teams we played. And I asked him, I said, well, who's your long snapper then? And Mike Webster, you know, the Hall of Fame center who he was the long snapper and the center. And we forget, you know, that's not that long ago, you know, 40 years ago, that those guys were staying on the field and even doing special teams snapping the ball, whereas today, that's unheard of. I don't think there's any starting center that is the long snapper. And that's just odd how that's changed.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, well, I mean, and so it's even so when, you know, when I was in grad school, I had a chance to coach a couple of different colleges. And, and we didn't, you know, this is like, the early to mid-80s, we didn't have long snappers, you know, it wasn't an offensive tackle, or, you know, whoever it was, you know, sometimes you had a fullback who had learned to snap in high school. And so he was a snapper. It wasn't like, you know, you didn't have extra guys do that. Yeah. And so, you know, it's just one of those things.

Darin Hayes
But you would think today, I mean, there's a lot more shotgun and pistol formations where they're, they're long snapping on regular scrimmage plays. So these centers are used to putting everything back there.

Timothy Brown
It's a whole different thing. Tossing on a short snap on a shotgun versus a long snap. Long snap, both for a place kick or for punts especially. That's a whole different animal.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, that's a funny thing.

Timothy Brown
It's really a specialized technique, so I'm glad these guys make money doing it.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, that's for sure. They're making a lot of money doing it.

Timothy Brown
Yeah. Give me the NFL minimum salary any time you want. I'll take it.

Darin Hayes
Right? Yeah, I don't believe.

Timothy Brown
a

Darin Hayes
They don't let middle-aged men go into a fella and snappy specialist anymore. Tom Brady was pretty much that.

Timothy Brown
and NFL history.

Darin Hayes
right. Go back to what was the guy who wrote paper lions when he went back. He was a little younger than us, I think, when he did it. But George, that's a George pumpkin. Tim, you know, fascinating stuff, a very enjoyable, very interesting. And, you know, thank you for that explanation and give us a little look at Canadian football but also talking about the history of our game, which is always fascinating. And you do a lot of this in your tidbits and some of your other posts on your website. And if you can share with the listeners how they can take a look at your stuff and maybe, you know, subscribe to it and become a regular reader. We appreciate that.

Timothy Brown
As you know, my site is footballarchaeology.com. It's a Substack site. And so you can just go there and subscribe. If you subscribe, there are free and paid versions. You'll get an email every time I send out a new story. Alternatively, you can follow me on Substack app on threads or on Twitter. So on Twitter, I, you know, I post, you know, or respond to other people who are talking football. So there's some benefit to that, at least if you think I have anything to say. But, you know, I don't, yeah, that's it. I don't; everything I post is about football.

Darin Hayes
OK, well Tim, we really appreciate you coming on here and sharing this information and sharing the knowledge and preserving football history and we'd love to talk to you again next week.

Timothy Brown
All right. Very good. Look forward to it. Thanks.

Field goalposts have varied in space and design over the years. from crooked wooden "H's" to the modern metal "sling shot" designs kickers have has an assortment to try and kick a ball through and over.

Football Archaeologist Timothy Brown has done the research and shares with us the shape of the goal posts over the years.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on Shape of Goal Post
Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal for positive football history. And welcome to another entertaining episode where we go to go back in time of football antiquity with Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.
Hey, Darin. Good to see you. And hopefully, like a field goal attempt, this podcast will be all good. I hope so.
Let's keep it between the pipes and over the bar. So, Tim, I think that's a great segue because we're going to talk about one of your tidbits that you wrote recently on the shape of the goalpost pass. Now, that's really intriguing.
You can't think of too many different shapes for a goalpost, but you bring up some good points in your post that I'd love to hear about. Yeah, well, you know, actually, in the earliest days of football, they used goalposts that were rugby, like the rugby goals of the time, that were, you know, the same width as they are today. And the upright only stuck up about a foot above the crossbar.
So, early on, they really did have a little bit of a different shape. And, you know, in rugby, the ball was capable. And in soccer, it went under the crossbar.
But this tidbit was really not so much about the specifications as it was just the, you know, the kind of nature of especially smaller town teams and, you know, the early days when people just, you know, they kind of did the best they could in trying to construct, you know, some goalposts. And so, you know, I've written things like this in the past and, you know, show images, but, you know, some pictures of like, old, you know, little small town teams where nobody had, you know, they had shoulder pads, but they were homemade, you know, grandma made them or, you know, they're made out of like gingham or fabric and stuffed with who knows what, you know, corn husks or something, you know, or just cotton balls, you know, scraps, whatever it was, you know, homemade headgear. You know, a lot of times, the little teams would have this mishmash of uniforms, like they'd all try to wear something blueish or reddish, but that was as close as they got.
And then, you know, obviously, ill-fitting uniforms. I mean, even as a kid, we had those, it was like, you know, you go down your, you know, pants go down your ankles sometimes. So, anyway, the same thing happened with goalposts.
And so, you know, there were, well, I should also say, you know, on the fields, I've, you know, shown things in the past with crooked lines, yard lines that were chopped and they're crooked, or they're missing, they're only every 10 yards, foot high, you know, foot high grass, because they just didn't mow it. And then obviously muddy fields, collapsing bleachers. And, you know, really nasty-looking press boxes, just little shanties, are atop the top of the stadium.
So anyways, you know, not everything was as fancy as we have it today. So, that was the case with goalposts. And kind of over the years, you know, somewhere along the line, I'd noticed one or two, and it was like, okay, I got to collect up some of these and just kind of pay attention and look for them.
But so there are some instances, you know, that readers or listeners can click on the link and go see them. But, you know, there's somewhere, you know, the goalposts, at least the uprights, for sure, were made of timber, not even lumber. So, you know, there might have been a pine tree nearby, and they just chopped down the tree and, you know, lopped off the branches, and that became uprights.
And while it was generally straight, you know, might have a bend or two in there. There were other instances where it was milled lumber, but either when they installed it or by the time they took the picture, the uprights were no longer upright. You know, slanted in one form or another, you know, who knows, you know, freeze-thaw or something like that over a couple of seasons.
All of a sudden, it's over, you know, 70-degree angle, it's an 80-degree angle. There are other instances where, you know, it's pretty good. I mean, it looks like it's upright and, you know, square and everything, but it's just made of scrap lumber.
You know, you can tell it was like, somebody was, some maintenance department was told to go build one of these things. And, you know, I just used whatever scrap two-by-fours they had lying around to do it. So like, the crossbar would be made out of three or four two-by-fours, kind of nailed or screwed together.
Same thing with the uprights. And so, and then some of those would get a little jabberwocky, you know, over time. And then there's another one, the worst one; it's actually a Davidson College where the crossbar, you know, you know, like anybody who's bought two by fours, you know, you kind of try to line them up and make sure they're true, you know, they're straight.
But, you know, sometimes they're not, you know. It sort of reminds me of my neighbor's garage header, his 14-foot door sagging like that. So this one shows this, you know, it's, I think it's actually two pieces of wood, but one of them's badly warped.
So, you know, it's got a big bow in it. So, you know, at least, you know, kick out a better chance of making the field goal at this point than regulation would suggest. So, anyway, it's just one of those things that makes it kind of amusing to look at these images.
But, you know, it just kind of tells you that these guys wanted to play football, regardless, and they just, you know, whatever they had available, that's what they were going to work with, you know, stuff involved, you know, stuff on soccer balls or something, you know, with the rags or, you know, whatever, you do what you got to do. And so, and it's just, I mean, I just compared to, you know, like, I do a fair amount of driving around, or at least, have over my life and all up all over the country. And, you know, I see football fields, right?
And I pay, you know, I've always paid attention to them. And like, even in a dinky little town somewhere, their football fields, you know, they've got some central school or whatever, and they got a pretty nice football field, you know. And even the youth football fields, you know, look pretty good most of the time, you know, at least they're flat, you know, they're mowed.
They might have, you know, the goalposts might be, you know, H goalposts made out of, you know, just plumbing pipes or whatever, but it works, and it's straight, you know. So anyway, it's just that we all have it pretty good, at least as far as our goalposts are concerned nowadays. Yeah, I mean, this brings up so many memories of, you know, even my childhood.
These pictures are awesome. So folks, go to the link and take a look at these, you know, the very first one has sort of the trees that you're talking about as the uprights. And the one is, you know, it's fairly straight right at the crossbar, but it gets about four or five foot above it, it sort of bends in.
So I think if I'm coaching that kicker, hey, keep it just over the crossbar, that's your best chance. It's going to get worse as it goes up. But I can remember going out and playing like in the wintertime, you know, we were nuts.
We'd take like a frozen Nerf football and play out in the street, you know, with snow packed on the street. And we would try to set up our field on the street. So you had at each end, you could kick it over a wire, and we would tie, like, take somebody's old shoes and throw them up over the wire, and you had to kick it between those, but get it over the telephone wire or whatever, you know, so you just make, as you said, you make do with what you have and, you know, so you can play the game.
But yeah, these are brilliant, some of these things. And you got a couple of the images where the uprights are only maybe a couple of feet above the crossbar. So good luck if you're an official on that one. You had better have a good eye, especially a team like the one they worked for back then.
So, wow. So great stuff. You found some great images there, and you did great research.
So yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it was fun gathering those up and I just kind of had to wait till I had a critical mass before I could publish them.
Yeah. They said they're pretty, pretty great. But you have stuff like this all the time.
Each and every day, you have some, some great pieces of football from years past and yesteryear that you talk about and you educate people and I'm sure you educate yourself with it and you call them these tidbits. Maybe you could share with folks out there how they can enjoy your tidbits as well. Yeah.
So, you know, the best thing is just to go to footballarchaeology.com. You have to put in the www to get there and then so you can subscribe, and then you'll get an email with each day's tidbit. Alternatively, you can catch me on Twitter or threads where I'm football archaeology. And then, of course, you know, you can just go directly to the site, or you can read it.
If you have the Substack app, you can find me on Substack because that's where football archaeology is published. So those are your options. All right.
Well, Tim Brown, we really appreciate you educating us on how they built goalposts back in the day and how they played the game, you know, the way that the only way that they could. And we appreciate that. And we appreciate what you do each and every day.
Thank you. And we'll talk to you again next Tuesday. Very good.
See you next week.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

Football Archaeology goes in depth to some early examples of good sportsmanship by early football players, in avoiding dirty tactics of punishing injured players.

Timothy Brown shares a particular instance where fair play was out the window.

-Transcribed Conversation on Football Dirty Play with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to another Tuesday. FootballArcheology.com's Timothy P. Brown is joining us once again. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin. Thanks for having me once again.

I'm looking forward to chatting about old football stuff. Yeah, and we're going to ask you to keep it clean tonight. But I don't think we can possibly do that with the subject matter tonight because you recently wrote a tidbit titled Dirty Play and a Ring of Truth.

Maybe you could explain what that all means. Yeah, so, you know, it seems like I've had a number of tidbits recently where it starts in one direction and takes a turn, sometimes for the worse. Right.

And so this is one where I started by just telling a story of some examples in the old days, excuse me, of players and teams acting in a chivalrous manner. So, you know, I told a story about a 1953 Clemson quarterback, a guy named Don King, you know, told his team not to hit the Wake Forest quarterback in the knees because he'd sustained an injury. And so they complied.

And, you know, then he ends up winning a sports sportsmanship award. A similar thing happened back in 1925. Davis and Elkins go to Army.

They're playing Army. He's already got one of their quarterbacks hurt. The first-string quarterback gets dazed, probably concussed in the game.

He leaves the game. The second guy comes in. He sustained some kind of bodily injury, and he's out.

So they have to bring back this guy who was dazed and confused. Right. So the West Point trainer just approached the Davis and Elkins captain and said, hey, can you kind of take it easy on this guy? So Davis and Elkins complied.

And they basically took it easy on this quarterback for the rest of the game because they, you know, need the Army to have the guy there. But he shouldn't have been there. And just to ensure that we don't think that chivalrous things still happen in the games today.

The other night, I just, you know, happened to see a, you know, little clip from a high school game. And, you know, wide receivers going downfield get injured. And then, you know, his bad leg and, you know, one of his teammates kind of gets under his arm and helps him hop along.

A D-back from the opposing team jumps under the other arm and helps him off the field. So it's just a good kid trying to help his opponent, you know, so that's all good. Now, there are other times in football when people haven't acted that way.

And so, you know, back in 1926, Princeton and Harvard had a game, and there's just a lot of kind of stuff leading up to it. Princeton had won the last two years, so Harvard wasn't pleased with that because they thought they were better than Princeton. And Princeton was mad because it used to be, especially before the turn of the century, that Princeton and Yale finished the season with a game with one another.

But then it turned into a Harvard-Yale game that we all know ends the season in the Ivy League. But Princeton wanted it to rotate, you know, among the three teams. And Harvard was like, no, you know, we're not going to do that.

So, you know, Princeton was feeling like underappreciated and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, there's this kind of antagonistic relationship. And then so they're getting ready to play.

They're playing in Cambridge. On the morning of the game, the Harvard Lampoon, the student newspaper magazine, publishes a story about the Princeton coach dying. Now, he hadn't really died, but they still published a story about him dying, which the Princeton people didn't particularly appreciate.

So just lots of, you know, kind of ill will going in the game. And so I think the Princeton players did their best to take it out on the Harvard players. Six of the Harvard players had to leave the game with injuries.

And then Princeton wins 12-0. And, you know, it's just kind of this general ill feeling. But then, like at the end of December, early January, a former Harvard player publishes a story in some kind of social magazine or whatever it was.

But he publishes a story basically saying the Princeton players played dirty. You know, they did this and that. One piece that he used as evidence was that one of the Harvard's backs had a bloody nose and black eye.

And that area of his face or nose had a P imprinted on it. And it was because, you know, those signet rings where it's like a, you know, it's a ring that has like a letter on the ring. You know, they were claiming that a Princeton player wearing the letter P ring had punched this guy in the face and left this imprint in his face.

So, you know, apparently, you know, no one else backed this guy up. You know, none of the other people verified it. And all of Princeton's people were up in arms about it.

And they were basically saying, hey, nobody around Princeton wears a P signet ring. But there was one guy, their star player at the time, named Prendergast. And he was like, hey, my last name begins with P. So, guess where that came from? You know, and I don't think that was true.

But, you know, he was just going to keep things stirred up. So Prendergast would be better than Princeton. If anybody actually slugged this guy in the face with the P ring, it was Prendergast.

So anyway, that's kind of the gist of the story. But Harvard, yeah, Harvard and Princeton did not play football against one another for another eight years. So they definitely were not, they weren't, they weren't on, you know, nice, pleasant speaking terms at that darn Prendergast.

He's ruined football for that game for a couple of years. That's wow. That is an amazing part of football there.

Go ahead. And the funny the funny thing, too, is that I. Recently had another tidbit talking about the the executioner's helmets, you know, where they had the mask, so just a normal leather helmet. But then they'd have this mask across the front.

One of the images in that story is of Prendergast going to Princeton in the 1924 season because he had broken a nose and needed surgery in high school. And so then, you know, there were times when his nose got busted up again in college. And so he'd wear that executioner's mask.

So he knew. You know all about broken noses and that sort of thing. Wow.

That is a great story. I thought at first you were going to tell us that, you know, Mrs. Brown put a bee on your head when you didn't take out the garbage or something. But no, in my family, it would be the back of the frying pan or something.

You know, yeah, my wife's shorter than me. So her arms aren't that long. And so, you know, and plus, I'm, you know, you know, float like a butterfly.

So I could I could avoid her. Well, I see. I just think I just saw something flying across the room.

No, I'm just kidding. So, wow, that is a great story. There's, you know, really some opportunity for folks playing football, especially down in the piles.

You know, everybody that's played, we all know there's bad things that happen down there if somebody really wants to do something. And it's really hard for an official to see something that's happening down there. You have guys popping up all the time saying, hey, you know, he punched me in a place he shouldn't punch and, you know, pinch me, bite me or whatever, you know, you have all kinds of crazy things.

So it's nice to hear the the chivalrous episodes like you talked about, even in modern times, or players just. I mean, it's a brotherhood. And these guys are all trying to enjoy playing the same game.

And there should be some camaraderie to it. And it's great when that happens. But every once in a while, you get these bad apples and these scoundrels that decide to take things in a different course.

And they're interesting stories, but not fun if you're the recipient. That's for sure. Yeah.

And well, part of it, too, is, you know, you just, I think we have the impression of the Ivy League is being, you know, these nice. Nice fellows. And that definitely has not always been the case.

And they have some beautiful signature rings, too. Yes. Yes.

All right, Tim. Well, that is a great thing. That's not something you hear anywhere else.

But from you, some of these great little innovative stories that you've come across that are unique to the game of football but tell a certain history of the game and, you know, really round out our appreciation for what players have done and maybe not appreciate something that others have done. But it's all part of the game of football. And you talk about it each and every day.

You have a great little newsletter. Many different sources send it to folks every day. Maybe you could tell us about that and how people can join in.

Yeah. All you have to do is go to footballarchaeology.com. And, you know, if you are pretty much all over the place, you read an article, and you have an opportunity to subscribe. And if you subscribe, you can get an email in your inbox every night at seven o'clock or, you know, Eastern or so.

And, you know, then read it at your leisure, delete it, whatever you want to do. If you don't want the newsletter, you can follow me on Twitter, threads, or the Substack app. And those are also just, you know, search for football archaeology.

You'll find me. That's my name on each of those three apps. OK, and his name is Timothy P. Brown, not the name on the Substack apps, but he has footballarchaeology.com. Tim, we thank you for joining us.

And we will talk to you again next Tuesday.

Always appreciate the opportunity to talk football. Thanks there.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology.com reminds us of the precautions to have football games played in stadiums during World War II.

The story of how fear of the unknown led to mayhem in the skies above NY during WWII is told by Tim in this episode of our podcast.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on an Aeriel Atack Yankee Stadium

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 welcome to another evening when we get to talk to Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com about one of his famous tidbits that comes out daily. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, thanks for having me this evening.

I feel honored now that I am in the presence of a published author. Well, thank you. Just, hey, congratulations.

I mean, you know, I know the amount of work you put into it and just encourage everybody to pick up. I'll let you do the plug yourself, but, you know, just, you know, great stuff, great stuff on an old-time team. Well, thank you.

You were a big part of that, and I appreciate it. And folks, the name of the book is The World's Greatest Pro Gridiron Team. We've talked about it before in the podcast.

We won't belabor you too much on that. But Tim was gracious enough to do some research on some of the bonus content we have in there. We did something a little bit different.

So, not only do you have links to explore some things beyond the book in the e-book, but also in the hard copy books, we have QR codes. You can use your smart device to access them. And I think we have three or four from Tim that go in there and talk about some good old-time football, just to set the mood for 1903 football.

Cause most of us sit there and read it and say, what does this mean? Well, we have a man who knows that era very well through his research. So we appreciate your help there and the advice along the way. And we appreciate you, Tim.

No problem. Good time. Now we're going to go back into one of your tidbits tonight with, you know, back in the earlier days, I guess this one's from this year that we're going to be doing, but back a few months ago and talk about something, you know, we're not that familiar with wartime and sports and being in stadiums.

Okay. We know a little bit about COVID-19; we know terrorist attacks and going through security and everything. We're familiar with that, but we're going back to an era when the country was at war and could be in danger.

You know, people didn't know at the time if they were in danger or not. And I think it's really an interesting topic that you wrote about back in May, and you titled it an aerial attack at Yankee Stadium. And we'd love to hear all about it.

So this, this is, I mean, to me, just like you said, it's an interesting thing to try to put yourself back in the time and the uncertainty they faced. All right. I mean, there are things we know now that either the Japanese or the Germans had this capability or that, but they weren't sure, you know, they weren't sure how things were going.

So just to kind of set the stage a little bit, you know, it's so December 7th, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. And, you know, so one of the things, one of the consequences of that was that the folks on the West coast, the civil defense people, were concerned about trying to gather 80,000 people into the Rose Bowl on, you know, a glorious January 1st. So they said, no, you can't hold the game here in California.

The Rose Bowl was transferred to Durham, North Carolina because Duke was one of the teams that were playing. Likewise, the Shrine East-West game, which is an all-star game based in San Francisco, was transferred to New Orleans that year. So, okay, we get past football season, and then, you know, on the East Coast, you know, while the Germans didn't have aircraft carriers as the Japanese did, they had a lot of submarines.

And so there was, you know, back in the time, there were certain like planes that could launch from, from submarines, you know, just the old biplane kind of thing. But anyways, they, and, you know, the Germans were seeing a lot of shipping, you know, 630 some ships got sunk along the East coast, you know, during 42 and, you know, that period. So they did things like, you know, they, FDR green-lighted sports, but auto racing, motorcycle racing was banned to save, you know, tires and gasoline.

And in places like Yankee Stadium, one of the impacts was, you know, they just never knew what would happen if somebody attacked the place, right? If, somehow, the Germans had some capability, they would attack Yankee Stadium during a baseball game. And so they set up this process where they had signs all over the stadium that was basically, you know, evacuation boats, you know, I mean if you've been in cities like, you know, well, LA has them and, you know, other places where there's these tsunami signs, if you're near the beach, you know, the Pacific Northwest, same thing. It's like, okay, here's these signs.

Here's what happens if there's a tsunami, you know, you get out of there. Yeah. Yeah.

Run like hell. Yeah. But in Yankee Stadium, it was like, if you were in the upper deck or you were in the box seats or the grandstands with bleachers, whatever, you know, it had different escape routes for you.

And so that's all baseball stuff. And now, I also should have said that because of blackout conditions, like night games, they didn't have any night games, you know, at least in 1942. And so then, you know, Yankee Stadium at the time was still a popular place for football games, both college and pro.

And so, you know, I think I've sold it since, but, you know, I had a copy of a 1942 Army versus Princeton football program and, you know, played at Yankee Stadium. And, you know, with the inside of the, you know, one of the ads or pieces of information, you know, it had in there was just, it told you, okay, like I said, if you're in this section, here's your escape route, proceed this way, run out to such and such Avenue or whatever, you know, you can get the hell out of the Bronx. So anyway, it's just one of those things; you just can't imagine it.

You know, it's just not; I mean, now we do go through security. And so maybe it's, it is more imaginable now, but, you know, it's just one of those things you just, you just don't think about that happening. And so just one other little point about that game and that season was that, you know, Princeton and Army played on, you know, one Saturday, and then the next one was the Army-Navy game.

And so again, due to work time conditions, they moved it from Philadelphia to Navy Stadium in Annapolis because they wanted to have a smaller crowd, which was going to be the case there. And they would only sell tickets to people who lived within 10 miles of the stadium because they wanted to reduce people traveling to the game, you know, and eating up gas or whatever, you know. So it's just one of those interesting things that occurred.

And I think by 43, the concerns about hacks on the, I mean, there were still concerns about espionage, and concerns about attacks from a military standpoint had dissipated. But, you know, by then, you know, a lot of guys were getting drafted, being enlisted. So, you know, the NFL had teams merge, you know, the Steelers, and were they the Pirates then or the? The Steelers with the Eagles or the Steagles.

The Steegles, yeah. And then they had the pick cards the next year, or maybe vice versa.

So, you know, like in the pro game, you know, roster limitations, they merged a team or two. And then in colleges, you know, a number of colleges dropped football, you know, during the war. So, it's just due to roster limitations and other things.

So, yeah, just one of those, one of those things a little bit hard to imagine now, but, you know, that's what happened back then. Yeah. One of the interesting things, I mean, I learned a lot from that post, but one of the things that sort of resonated with me that I sort of outside of sports is I didn't realize that the Germans didn't have aircraft carriers.

So, you know, I guess maybe that's because I always wondered, I'm like, why did they move the Rose Bowl from the West Coast to the East Coast? You know, you're still on a coastal, why not have it in Oklahoma or somewhere or the Cotton Bowl or something where it's safe, you know, there's no water around where you can, you know, worried about an aerial attack, but I didn't realize that the Germans didn't have aircraft carriers. So thank you for teaching me that. So, probably some of the same things are why Yankee Stadium and Annapolis didn't seem so scary, too, for, you know, the submarines couldn't attack them too much from there.

You're a little bit too far away from it. Yeah. So, yeah.

So yeah, again, just different time, and you just, you know, it's interesting to try to put yourself back in those, in those periods and kind of, you just, things happen that you just think about. Yeah, definitely some fun football facts, and you have some of these each and every day; as we said, you call them your tidbits, and maybe you could share with the audience for those who aren't familiar with it, how they too can participate in reading your tidbits each and every day. Yeah.

So, you know, the best thing is just to go to footballarchaeology.com and subscribe. You'll get an email every day at seven o'clock Eastern with today's, you know, little story and, you know, read them at your leisure, delete them if that's really what you want to do. But otherwise, just, you know, I know people let them pile up over the weekend or read them over the weekend, whatever, but that's the best way to subscribe.

Okay. Well, Tim, we really appreciate you coming here and sharing some of these great football facts with us each week. We appreciate you sharing your football knowledge in the book and, you know, some of the other things that you've done to help us all understand that, as well as footballarchaeology.com. And we will talk again next Tuesday.

Very good. And congratulations again. Thanks.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology joins us again this week to educate us on another aspect of football. This week Tim brings to us the honor he received in his research that brought him national attention. I am talking like the National Archives display attention! Listen in on Tim's great news!

-Transcribed Chat on the National Archives Celebration of 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 it is Tuesday.

And once again, we have our friend from FootballArcheology.com, Timothy P. Brown, the historian, the author, the great researcher of football, Tim Brown. Welcome back to the Pig Pen. Hey, thank you, sir.

Appreciate it, Darin. Looking forward to chatting once again. Yeah, Tim, you brought up a very interesting topic that you want to discuss tonight.

It's about something with the National Archives that you were able to be a part of, and hoping you could explain that to us and share it with us. And maybe some of us can get out there and witness it ourselves. Yeah.

So, you know, I posted a thing about this on my on football archaeology. But so basically what happened is I was invited to attend like a pre-opening of a new exhibit at the National Archives. And, you know, it was first time that I had been there.

But, you know, if you if you've been to D.C. and you checked out the National Archives Museum in the rotunda, they've got the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And then they have one room off to the side that has all kinds of, you know, kind of the history of the archives and the types of records they maintain, et cetera. Then, in the other direction is their special exhibit hall.

And so they recently opened an exhibit called All American, the Power of Sports. And so it's essentially a it's a it's an exhibit that will be open till for another like 14 months or so. But it's all about, you know, the role of sports in in bringing different types of people together.

And so in some cases, what they're, you know, is the emergence of opportunities for African-Americans in sports, for people of different ethnic backgrounds in sports, and for women as well. And so that's that's the general theme. And they've just got some really, you know, it's got some incredibly cool items, you know, a diary or autobiography, you know, that now I'm blanking on his first name, but big Boxer Johnson wrote while he was in, you know, the federal penitentiary.

There were all kinds of just really interesting artifacts, some things from, you know, Japanese internment camps. I mean, you name it. You know, there's a little bit of everything.

But and it was, you know, really nice events. I got to meet Anita Thorpe, Jim Thorpe's granddaughter, because one of the items on display is are his replacement medals, you know, from the 1912 Olympics. Dikembe Mutombo was the featured speaker.

So, you know, he gave a talk, and I had a chance to chat with him. And, you know, there are another, I don't know, half a dozen former NBA guys there. Did he shake his finger back at you? No.

Yeah. Well, I got close enough for him to strike me or wave his finger at me. But I tried to play nice with him.

So now he's, you know, really wonderful guy. He's doing some some great work raising funds for some challenges that, you know, are in Africa today. But but anyways.

And so the reason I was invited is that I had gotten involved in, you know, and, you know, did a lot of research on a story about the in the, you know, within the past year, the National Archives was processing some photographs, some old slides, actually, from West Point. And the guy who was doing the processing noticed that, you know, these were negatives. And so anyway, there are negatives.

He noticed that one of them, instead of all the people in the negative, had black faces in the negative; they had white faces. So he's like, oh, what's going on? You know, so anyway, he checked it out. It turned out to be this 1920s football team that represented the West Point Cavalry Detachment.

So they were Buffalo soldiers, so African-American men. And they were basically enlisted men stationed at West Point who taught, you know, maintain the stables and the horses but also taught horseback riding, et cetera, and cavalry tactics to the cadets, you know, many of whom grew up in a city and maybe didn't have a lot of, you know, experience in horsemanship. But these guys ended up, you know, having sports teams.

And West Point had an enlisted men's league. So there were a group there's a group of enlisted men who supported who helped teach the cadets artillery tactics. And there were other people in like medical and there are other people, you know, so there were different functions and each of them fielded a team.

So as I was, you know, I basically tried to figure out who these guys were. And because, you know, there was an article in The Washington Post about it that hadn't gotten into the detail. So, I basically figured out who these guys played.

I was able to find images of the twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and thirty teams, you know, in the old, you know, Spalding-type football guys. And so, you know, basically, I could start identifying who some of these guys were in the picture. While I was doing that research, I ended up seeing this trophy that a guy had online and, like, you know, a collectors group on Facebook.

And it was like it was a trophy for this West Point enlisted men's league awarded to the cavalry detachment. So I got a hold of them. And, you know, one thing led to another.

You know, it's just we've become friends. Ron Pomprey is the the owner. But when I wrote this stuff up, then the National Archives somehow came across it.

And so they reached out to the combination of Ron and I. And so he has his trophy on loan to the archives and as part of the exhibit. So it's just so that's why the two of us were invited to this thing and, you know, had a wonderful time. And so it was just a great event.

And, you know, there are some people there who just kind of stay in touch. And, you know, I just don't want to go into the names right now, but I'll just have that be very, very cool. What an honor to have something that you wrote be recognized by the National Archives.

And you get invited to go down there and celebrate, you know, this great sports heritage that we have seen here in the United States, along with the owner of the trophy. So that's really cool. Let's.

Yeah. Congratulations on that. Yeah.

So it's anyway, it's really fun. And, you know, just it's a great exhibit. And so if you live in the area generally or if you have plans to go to Washington, yeah, check it out.

You know, I mean, you could you could do it inside of an hour, probably, you know, and get a pretty good, pretty thorough going through. But really, it's a fun exhibit. And then the other reason I just want to point it out is that I. Have been trying to find ways to get some publicity around some of the research that I've done because I've kind of hit a wall.

And so. Anybody out there who was listening to this, who is aware of an ancestor who was with the cavalry detachment. At West Point in the 20s.

But please take a look at the site because I may have images of your grandfather, great uncle, great great, you know, whatever it may be, whatever the relationship may be. So I'm trying to trying to get people to go out there to see if we can identify some additional, you know, some more of these men. Right.

I probably figured out who half of them are, you know, and tracked them down through census records and everything. But there are others. All I have is the last name.

And I just haven't been able to get anywhere with them. Yeah. Get them recognized.

It would be so awesome to have them preserved in history as well and get the recognition they deserve for being, you know, such a pioneer and a trailblazer for what they did. So, yeah. And just, you know, for, you know, all the folks out there, you know, it's just cool to kind of learn something.

You know, I reached out to one or two people who weren't aware that their grandfather or green uncle had been on these teams, you know. So it was something they learned, something new. Yeah, definitely.

Very cool. OK, now I'm going to expose my ignorance, at least my ignorance, in one area. I have many ignorances.

But OK, the National Archives, we know that Washington, D.C., is that connected to the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, or are they all separate entities? Boy, yeah. In terms of organizational structure on that, I do not know. I mean, you know, I think the archives, I think, you know, basically their basic charge is to maintain the history of all public records.

You know, so obviously, they're involved in some of the things going on now with Mar-a-Lago, et cetera. But, you know, that's that's their main charge. And so, I mean, they've got census records.

They've got all kinds of geologic and, you know, you name it. You know, just all kinds of things that. You know, one government entity or another generated the military personnel records, you know, fall under them.

So, I mean, they've got a massive charge. You know, they've got a lot of work to do. So.

All right. So maybe it's a little different. The Smithsonian is just all the other stuff that's the things and the archives is the records and the documentation and data that's collected.

OK, I gotcha. Yeah, gotcha. OK, well, Tim, I very much appreciate you joining us.

Before we let you go, why don't you share with us your website and how people can stay in touch with you and learn about what you share with your tidbits? Yeah. So my website is footballarchaeology.com. It's a substack site, if that means anything to you. But basically, just, you know, just go to the address footballarchaeology.com. You can subscribe there.

That'll result in you getting an email every day with whatever that day's story is. You can also follow me on Twitter, and I'm a football archaeologist there as well. So, following on Twitter is great.

But the unfortunate thing is you might miss a couple of episodes here and there. So if you subscribe, you're going to get every one of them. You can still delete them if you don't want to read them.

But if you miss it, you don't have time to read it. Save it in your inbox, and you can double the pleasure the next day. So that's yeah, you know, and most of them take less than a minute to read.

So, you know, they're they're pretty quick. But good stuff as always. Congratulations again on that great honor of being recognized and getting to go down there and on that visit with your friend who has the trophy.

So, you know, Tim, we enjoy your company each and every Tuesday. Hope that we can continue to do this and talk to you again next Tuesday and get some more football archaeology brought into the pig pen. So, thanks, Tim.

Hey, very good. Thanks, Darin. I appreciate it, as always.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

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: 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.