Football History

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Eddie Dooley was many things, including a journalist and a politician: A sports reporter and columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He also had some radio broadcasts that Football Archaeology covers in the gist of the feature story.

Here are some other accomplishments of Dooley that led to his popular name in the gridiron realm of the era:

-Edwin Dooley: A Dartmouth College football star and All-American quarterback nicknamed "Death Dooley" for his killer instinct on the field. He later served as a successful businessman and public servant.

-Eddie Dooley (football coach): Head coach for the University of Kansas football team from 2009 to 2011.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on Eddie Dooley

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 where we get to talk to Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com about one of his famous tidbits, some daily little factoids of football that make you think and appreciate the days gone by in the realm of the gridiron. So, Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Thank you, Darin. I look forward to chatting again today and seeing what we come up with.

Yeah, Tim, I want to attend one of the entertaining ones. It takes you back to a different marketing era and using football. You titled this tidbit back in September 2022.

Can you believe it's been that long since you wrote this? It's called Eddie Dooley's 1936 All-America Team Contest. So why don't you explain to us what that is and what Eddie Dooley was doing? Yeah, so I think anybody who reads or listens regularly probably knows that I collect old.

Well, they're composite schedules, but, you know, they're these little giveaways that used to be available. They're just like the little pocket card schedules we get today. But they were available at least from the 20s and probably a little bit earlier than that.

And I'm talking 1920s, not, you know, 2020s. So, you know, it would have listed all the games, and for every team that's in the play, it would have listed their schedule for the year. And then it would have just little things about, you know, the teams they expected to be, you know, great teams this year and who the All-Americans were last year, things like that.

These were just little things you carried around. And, you know, they didn't have the Internet then, so you wanted to see who's playing this coming Saturday.

Boom, you looked at the schedule. And so this particular one was put out by Royal Typewriters. So, you know, if you went into a typewriter store, you could potentially pick up one of these little booklets.

Then, their star was a guy named Eddie Dooley. So he was a quarterback at Dartmouth in the 20s, then became a newspaperman, and then became a radio announcer. So he had a syndicated radio show that basically ran on Thursday nights where he would make predictions about that Saturday's game.

And then, on Saturday, Saturday evening, he was based out of New York. So Saturday evening, he's running through the scores, who won the big games, and that kind of stuff. And I'm sure at the time, the West Coast fans got all PO'd because they may not have finished their game yet.

So he couldn't report on him. And, you know, so they felt like they were getting shat upon East. But anyway, strikes again.

Yeah. East Coast bias back in 1936. So.

So anyways, so so this is a 1936 season. And so one of the things they did, you know, I mean, it's no different than what we do today to try to engage our our followers or to try to. And, you know, if you're selling something, you're trying to get people involved in the brand.

And so what they did was in the booklet, there was a little form that you could fill out at the end of the season that where you'd list the what you basically what you try to do is Eddie was going to name an All-American team. Then, you submitted your list of names for the All-American team. And there was a seventy-five-dollar third-place prize. There was a hundred-dollar second place and a five-hundred-dollar first-place prize.

So for whoever could. Come the closest to matching Eddie's All-American. So, you know, it turned out that Eddie's All-American team.

Kind of had East Coast bias, so there were four Ivy Leaguers, some of whom I'm sure made sense, including one who won the Heisman Trophy, Larry Kelly. And, you know, there were still five guys from New York and further to the Northeast who made this team. So he wasn't quite as bad as what Walter Camp did, where almost everybody was.

From the Ivy League. Yeah. I mean, Camp one year had all eleven Yale players.

Right. The first, second, or third All-American team, but they were good. So anyway.

So he held this contest, and then it turned out that this was my favorite. Just there were guys, and I forget, you know, I don't really care about them who were first and second place. But third place was Mrs. Eva Lou Edwards of Hammond, Louisiana. So she picked up seventy-five bucks for coming in third place.

That's like a week's payback, then to seventy-five dollars. I still have a chump change. That's good.

Good money. Yeah. That was some serious cash.

Then, each of the players who were named to Eddie's All-American team got a Royal typewriter, too. So nice. I mean, that would be like, you know, it's like getting a computer or whatever today.

One of the other fun little things about that was that Eddie, the guy who came in third in the Heisman that year, named him to the team. And I don't know how you pronounce his name, but Ray Buivid, Buivid, something like that. It's B-U-I-V-I-D.

And he played for Marquette. So, it's not a school that we associate with, you know, football All-Americans. And he's in the Midwest.

How do you make that team? Yeah, well, he made it. But he did. You know, he came in third in the Heisman.

So he was nationally recognized, and Marquette played in the Cotton Bowl that year. You know, so they were, you know, considered a pretty top team. And so that was Marquette's first and only football bowl that they played in.

And then, you know, they eventually dropped football in, like, 1960. But so, you know, this Eddie Dooley was, you know, he was like it, you know, he would have been whatever the Kirk Herbstreit or somebody like that of his age, you know, nationally prominent guy. And then, you know, he announced for a number of years.

And then eventually he ended up getting into politics and he served three terms in Congress. So I forget exactly which state he served with, but or for. But so anyways, you know, even back then, former football players or coaches or whomever or media stars, you know, got themselves elected to Congress.

So, some things never change. Yeah. And you have a great image of Eddie. It must be in one of the promo ads on the football archaeology dot com story on this.

And folks, you can follow that in the show notes of this podcast. Go right to Tim's site to see this. And Eddie has a great face for television.

He probably would have been great at the television, too, because he just has that look, you know, the hair's, you know, perfectly parted, and you sort of got the shit-eating grin on his face, and he's ready to go and talk some football. So he's got me pumped up. So a great story.

Love it. I love the typewriters. Eddie would have played.

I'm just thinking about that. Eddie would have played for Jess Hawley because Hawley was the coach at Dartmouth at the time. And he was, you know, I mean, they had a really good team.

They were national champions. He's six, you know, and Hawley had coached Iowa before before Dartmouth. So he was.

Now, like I said, he's kind of a Herb Street only is probably a better quarterback in college, you know, but that's kind of the nature of the person, you know, the the media star that he was. Yeah, you could tell he's got a little bit of personality to him, I guess, is what I was trying to say in the image of him, too. So great, great stuff.

You know, you have these things from your collection, and you share and dig up the story and the research. And you do this, you know, on a daily basis, which is amazing and a real tribute to what you're doing and for your tidbits. People love to read this stuff and love to hear you when you come on the show, and you get great responses from it.

But maybe you could share with the audience how they, too, can enjoy your tidbits on a daily basis. Yeah, so the easiest thing is just to go to footballarchaeology.com and subscribe. You know, there are a bunch of different ways you can subscribe there.

It's free. You can also do paid subscriptions, which is perfectly OK with me. But, you know, it's available to you.

And if you don't want to get the email every day, which, you know, just ensures you're going to get it. You can also just follow me on Twitter, where I reach about three people every day. Or, you know, that's not true, folks.

He has good following on Twitter. Yeah, but only three of them see it every day. But anyway, that's another story.

And then I'm also on the Substack app because that's where I publish and then threads, you know, or just bookmark the site and pop in whenever you're in the mood for old-time football stuff. Well, excellent job as always, and we really appreciate you sharing with us each week of some of your great stories. And we would love to share with you again next Tuesday.

Very good. Look forward to it.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Ever wondered why quarterbacks wear the number 12 and running backs rock the digit 28? Today's episode dives into the fascinating origin story of American football jersey numbers. We'll travel back in time, uncovering the surprising reasons these numbers were first stitched onto jerseys, and how they evolved into the iconic system we know today. Get ready for a journey through gridiron history, filled with unexpected twists, forgotten rules, and the stories of the legendary players who cemented the tradition of numbered jerseys in the game we love. So, buckle up, grab your favorite jersey (with its number!), and join us as we unveil the fascinating tale behind football jersey numbers!

The early beginnings and origins of the uniform numbers on players are explored in this Football Archaeology feature.

-Transcribed Conversation on Player Number Origins 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 welcome to Tuesday. You know what it is. It's footballarchaeology.com day. And Timothy P. Brown of footballarchaeology.com is here to talk about another interesting tidbit he's had out recently. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, how are you? Good to see you. I hope I've got your number tonight.

Well, you got my number. I don't know what the origin of that number is, but I think we're going to find out some of the origins of some player numbers. You had a recent tidbit on that very subject.

And it's something, you know, again, we've talked about this before in other episodes that we've talked about. Some things that we just don't appreciate all the time. You know, what the player number does on the jersey, you know, it's it's identifies the player.

It's almost like their name, you know, for a lot of places. For example, when you see the number 12 out there on a New England jersey, you're probably thinking of Tom Brady. First thing, you know, just but we associate that number with the player.

But it goes back into some things that are beyond that even. And I'd sure like to know the origins of these player numbers. Yeah.

So so some of this this one, you know, I've written about the origins of player numbers a bunch of times in the past. And but I was trying. Well, I was I did an article recently about the the hidden ball trick that the Carlisle executed against Harvard in 1903.

And just in doing that research, reading an article, there was a comment made. And so just to kind of reset the stage on that, you know, what happened is that the. Carlisle.

So, you know, brown patches on the front of their jerseys that match the color of the ball. And so that they could, you know, have their back, who didn't get the ball or whomever else kind of hunched over, act like they're carrying the ball. And, you know, the defense would be confused.

So and so, then they did that. But then they also, in that game, you know, they basically executed this play where there was a. On the kickoff, they were receiving a second-half kickoff, but anyway, they're receiving the kickoff. The Carlisle players go back to form a wedge, and the guy who gets the ball or, you know, who caught the ball.

You know, he kind of gathers the wedge in that web and stuffs the ball in the back under the shirt in the back of one of his teammates who had this elastic band at the bottom of his jersey. So the ball would stay there, you know, under the shirt. And so then they then they boom, they all scatter in different directions.

And this guy who's a was a guard or a tackle who doesn't look like a guy who you would give the ball to starts running upfield, acting like he's going to block, you know, for one of his teammates. And so because he's acting like he's blocking, all the Harvard guys are avoiding him. And he just takes off, runs down the field, and scores a touchdown.

So, you know, that's kind of everybody, you know, I'd been aware of that story and all that kind of thing. And he probably looked like Quasimodo running down the field, too. That's right.

The guy had no idea what to do. But there was a comment made in one of the articles about the game where the guy said, you know, the reporter said it would be great if all the players had numbers; we would have known who this guy was as he was running down the field. And so I thought, OK, I'd never come across that before.

And this is a 1903 game. So it's just got me to go back one more time to look at, OK, when, when did, as I had previously come across Amos Alonzo Stagg calling for numbers in 1901. So, two years before this Harvard-Carlisle game, I just figured, OK, I'll go again.

Can I find anybody else mentioning player numbers? And so then I ended up finding a 1904 reference. And I'm sorry, an 1894 reference from the Harvard-Yale game where some guy along the sidelines must have been some influential alum who said that you know, the players should be numbered. His comment was that the average observer finds as many differences in individuals as in a flock of blackbirds.

So, the first time I heard that reference. But, you know, but the point was that you know, you couldn't tell players apart half the time back then because they didn't have numbers. You know, they, they all kind of, the nature of the game, everybody bunched together.

It's hard to tell who was who, you know, who got the ball, who advanced it, who made the tackle. So, you know, people then, you know, people like Stagg started promoting using numbers. But the challenge and the pushback that they got was people saying, you know, there were basically three main challenges.

One was that they said if you number the players, which they'd started to do in baseball, and I think at first, it actually occurred in rugby in New Zealand. But if you number the players, then that promotes individualism. Football is a team sport.

And so we don't want to promote individuals. So it's this idealistic argument. There was also, from a coaching standpoint, a lot of coaches said, I don't want to number my players because that makes it easier for scouts or for the opposing player to identify who was who.

And to quickly figure out, OK, this is Smith's best running back. You have to watch out for Smith, and you have to make sure you know where Smith is lining up in the playoffs. Now, that all seems kind of dumb. I mean, I get it, but especially from the opposing player's standpoint, no one was wearing numbers on the front of their jerseys; it was only on their backs.

So the opposing players couldn't see them when they lined up anyways, you know, so, so that, you know, but that was, you know, that was the main challenge. And then there was also, you know, people also would say, well, football is for these college players, it's a college sport, you know, there's none of this pro stuff yet or very little of it. And so it's not for the fans.

We don't want to change the game, we don't want to do things in the game to make fans happy; everything should be to make the players happy. Now, you know, as money increasingly got involved in things, and the fans were paying for the players, there are professional marketers of the gridiron just running off the podcast right now.

But, you know, that was a very common sentiment. So anyways, so then it. You know that, as far as I've been able to research, the earliest game in which players have war numbers, and it was a picture in the newspaper, and I published the picture a bunch of times, was a 1905 Iowa State at Drake game on Thanksgiving Day, and both teams were numbers and then, you know, over the next four or five years pit.

As far as I know, Pitt was the second team. They like to claim they were the first because they ignore the night, the Iowa State v. Drake game. Wichita State in 1908. Pitt was the first team in 1909. As far as I can tell, they were the first team to wear them for all games because a lot of times, the team would say I'll wear them, but only if the opponent wears the pit was like no, we're wearing them.

Part of their motivation was that they loved selling scorecards. So there's money involved, right?

Right. And then, in 1909, Michigan and Marquette formed, and then the same year, Cincinnati was too late for them, so those were, as far as I know, the whatever six or seven earliest examples of teams and/or games were. You know, players were numbers.

Yeah, you've done a great job of telling us that, and as you said, you've had a bunch of other fascinating posts on the numbers and some of their intricacies. We'll try to throw some of those links into the pigskin dispatch for this episode. So people can go back and enjoy some of that work with the alphanumerical and all the other crazy Roman numeral numbers. Yeah, four-digit numbers, and we'll put some of those up to so people can enjoy because there's a lot to do with the numbers on jerseys, and it's a lot of fun, so we appreciate that you're doing that and doing the research on it.

You do research on some aspects of football, like every day. It's what you have: plucking things out of the air all over the place and taking us on a wild ride. Sometimes, you have themes like these numbers, but they usually spare my part. Where can people enjoy your tidbits each day? Just go to football archaeology calm.

You can subscribe there. If you subscribe, you'll get an email every night at seven o'clock Eastern with that, you know, that day's episode, and you know there are people who read them five minutes after I publish them, there are other people who, you know, I can just tell by, you know, certain patterns that I can see in the data. Some people like storm up, and they read them on the weekend, so at least you know you have them. If you get the email, you have them. Otherwise, you can follow me on Twitter, Threads, or the subject platform.

All right, Timothy Brown of footballarchaeology.com we thank you very much, sir, for joining us here and we will talk to you again next Tuesday. Very good. Thanks as always.

Love the football jersey designs and evolution wait till you check out the History of American Football Jersey.

-Football Jersey Frequently Asked Questions

-What are American football jerseys made of? Modern jerseys are a mix of synthetic fibers such as polyester or a blend of different materials such asspandex, for more check out our in-depth study ofThe Make up and Materials of Football Jerseys.

-What are some of the unique football jerseys in history? Gridiron jerseys with logos on the front were some what of fad once upon a time. Check this story titled Football Jerseys with Emblems.

-Whose college football jersey was the first to be retured? Red Grange's Number 77 Ilinois Illini jersey was the first college uni to be shelved in 1925. There were a couple more about the same time and we chatted with a college football expert historian help divulge College Football and its First Retired Jerseys.

-Who are some of the most famous NFL players at each jersey number? From Red Grange's jersey number 77 to Tom Brady's iconic number 12, a slew of NFL players made their digits proud. Want to know more? You are in the right place as we covered all 100 jersey numbers and the best to wear each:About Football By Numbers.

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Pop Warner is one of the most well-known names for early football coaching. The innovator contributed much to the game in its early years.

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology sat down with us to chat about the first season that Glenn Pop Warner coached at team. It was at his alma mater and it was a significant season.

This conversation is based on Tim's original Tidbit titled: Warner and the Inexperienced Cornell Eleven.

-Transcribed Conversation on Pop Warner's 1sy Season with Timothy Brown[b]

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 talking about football history, we are going into football archaeology mode because it's Tuesday, and Timothy P. Brown is here to visit with us once again to talk about one of his fantastic posts that he puts out each and every day.

Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hello, Darin. Thanks for having me back. Looking forward to chatting once again.

This every Tuesday is really quite remarkable. Love hearing about your tidbits. You know, it's good to see your tidbits each and every day, but having a conversation about them once a week is really an amazing thing. Takes you a little bit more in-depth. You have Some other great facts through your research on some of these tidbits.

And today, you're going to talk about one of my favorite people in football, Glenn Pop Warner, who was born probably about an hour away from where I live, south of Buffalo, not too far from Erie. And, you know, I love Pop Warner stories, and he has so many great ones. He coached all over the country. So this one's a really interesting one from one of his early years that I love to hear about.

Yeah. Yeah. I think Pop Warner is just a fascinating character.

And so, you know, love him as well. But so, yeah, I think this is, this is another one of these where, you know, we bring certain assumptions to our view of football here in the 2020s that just were not the case back in the 1890s when this story is based. And so the key point here is that with Pop Warner being one of the guys like this, but, you know, before 1900 for sure.

And then even after that, a lot of people, a lot of, you know, young men ended up on college campuses who had never played football before and yet who went out for the football team. So, you know, if you lived out East and you were going to Harvard or Yale or something like that, well, chances are you probably attended some prep school, and they had a long history of football. You know, they started playing fairly early on, but if you were from, you know, small-town Kansas or Minnesota, they might've played and they might not, you know, I mean, there were certain, there was certainly football going on in the smallest and remotest of towns, but there was a lot of places where they just, they just weren't playing yet.

So, you know, you'd be aware of the game, it'd be in your local newspaper, but you may not have ever played. And so many top-notch athletes showed up on campus, not having any football experience. And so part of the coach's job was to figure out how to get those guys to join the team and try.

And so, you know, we've talked in the past about the alums who would come back and help coach. And a lot of that was they were teaching entirely, you know, they were teaching guys who had never played the game before. How do you block? How do you tackle it? How do you get out of your stance? All the stuff that, you know, most people now learn in youth football, or as freshmen in high school or sophomores in high school, whatever it may be, you know, they were, they had to pick up those skills as freshmen in college.

So, you know, the article is basically about him and the challenge of, you know, trying to get, at he was coaching at Cornell. He was; he had gone to Cornell and played for four years. And then I think he was gone for a year and came back at the time that, you know, this story occurred, but, you know, he's trying to figure out how do I get all these guys to join and then to get them schooled up in order to, you know, to feel the good team.

And so, you know, he was commenting that a lot of times back then, they used to call it the talent level, but they would call it the material. We have fine material, but it's inexperienced, right? And so that was his thing. And, you know, another piece of that was that it was just interesting. In that particular year, he had an athlete who had played center in the past, and he was considering having the guy play left halfback or right halfback.

And it was like, okay, how many times today in a college setting do you have one player, and you're going? Should I play him at center or halfback? Right? I mean, that just doesn't happen nowadays. You know, the body types of morphed and training and all that kind of stuff. But back then, I mean, that was just a kind of normal everyday thing.

Unfortunately for the guy, he ended up playing center. But, you know, yeah, so, you know, I think it's just that, you know, our thinking, you know, now we live in this world where these kids are recruited, you know, I mean, they're heavily recruited, and they've, you know, there's a game film, you know, there's plenty of film on every high school kid that's out there, you know, nowadays. And so, you know, but then it was like, you just, you called for, you know, he had tryouts, you called for everybody to come and join the team.

And it was whoever was there; it was there, right? And, you know, you would often have some guy who was a star fullback or tackle the previous year that, for whatever reason, financial or whatever, just didn't show up the next year. You know, the coaches wouldn't know necessarily, you know, they wouldn't have a whole lot of advance notice and just be like, oh, Bill didn't show up this year. So we got to find somebody else to play tackle.

You know, it's just the kind of manpower planning and depth charts that we think of today. Well, it might be turning back to that with the transfer portal. It seems like somebody's leaving constantly on teams, and new people are coming in.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole other story.

I mean, you know, just for one, I'm all for it. I mean, I may not like what it's doing to the game, but for the individual kids, I'm all for it. You know, I'm glad they get to go wherever they can go.

So, but yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, the, the, the center versus halfback thing is interesting just cause, you know, a lot of times, you know, centers were pretty good athletes back then, you know, meaning, you know, they were more like halfback or fullback type guys. A lot of times, teams pulled centers or, you know, expected them to do some special stuff. Um, you know, so they had to be pretty darn good athletes, but not a whole lot of, uh, not a whole lot of guys shifting from O line to the backfield these days, high school level.

Sure. Right. But it was a single-platoon football back in that era, too.

So, you know, they could use their athleticism at the center on defense, which we call a nose guard today, uh, you know, shooting gaps or whatever they had to do wording off to get a tackle. So, and it takes some certain athleticism to, uh, you know, rules were different than to, to get the ball snapped without getting your head knocked off too. I'm sure you had to be pretty quick at that.

So I can see where the transition is. That was a fascinating point, but it was something I really took out of that. It's sort of, uh, you know, like I said, I, uh, I like to read about pop Warner and I don't know that I've ever remembered this story and it's sort of, uh, you know, his humble beginnings, you know, I'm, you know, most of us are used to pop Warner, you know, developing, you know, a complicated single wing offense and the double wing and all these innovations he brought into football.

But just to sit there and think about the man, uh, you know, taking, having to take football, the very fundamentals and teach somebody that's not familiar with the game and, you know, put them out there on a Saturday to play as a, maybe a starting center or halfback or whatever. Uh, you know, it's just kind of an interesting aspect of the guy of the band, and probably all coaches at that time had to do something like that, or they couldn't, you know, have their schemes on play until they got the people up to speed. So, yeah.

Well, and I, but to your point, I think the fact that, um, Cornell wasn't the only school in that position, right? I mean, all their opponents, or any of their opponents anyway, were in the same kind of situation where, you know, they had a bunch of guys that had never played before. So, and, you know, I mean, that was one of the reasons why the freshmen rule, you know, worked to their advantage. Um, but, uh, you know, yeah, so it's, um, you know, Warner was just, uh, you know, he grew up in, like, as you said, I can't think of the name of the town, but a small town, you know, Western New York.

Springville, New York. Yeah. And, uh, and he was just a big dude, you know? I mean, he was, so he showed up on campus, and they were like, Hey, he started his first game, you know, and he didn't know what he was doing.

Uh, but he started just cause he was just, you know, pretty thick, you know, assorted guy, maybe not the tallest man in the world, but you know, big, thick dude. And so they, you become a lineman that way. Yeah.

I'm going to have to look it up. Cause I, you know, you may just make me think, I think Park H. Davis is in that same area. He's from Jamestown, New York, which is not too far.

I wonder if they ended up ever playing against each other. If they were in, maybe they weren't in the same years of, uh, playing high school. Yeah. I think Davis, well, Davis would have been at Princeton in the 1880s, right? In the early nineties.

Oh yeah. Maybe he's quite a bit older than Warner. Yeah.

Cause, you know, Warner showed up at Cornell at like 91, 92, something that range. Um, so I think, you know, Davis is just that much, um, just that much older. Cause he was, he was coaching Lafayette when, um, Fielding Yost, you know, was the ringer for him, you know, That's, that's true.

Yeah. He's probably 15 years older than Warner probably. Well, there goes that fantasy of seeing those two head-to-head.

I love the stories about, you know, guys who grew up in the same areas or, um, you know, even if it's cross sports, but you know, guys who knew one another or, you know, those kinds of stories and, you know, just the connections that you just normally don't think about. So it's just, it's kind of fun. So, you know, real, real fascinating, you know, from Cornell, the Carlisle, the Pitt, the Stanford, you know, Pop Warner was all across the country and had a lot of success everywhere he went and pretty interesting guy and pretty humble guy to sit there and pick out athletes and teach them how to play the game.

So I guess, uh, it's very aptly named the, uh, the junior football today. Most of them are called Pop Warner football. So very interesting.

Another great tidbit, Tim, we really appreciate that. And, uh, that you share these with us each and every day and the listeners, uh, you know, there's a way for you to, to pick up on Tim's Tidbits and get a copy of them sent to you too. And Tim will explain that to us right now.

Yeah. Uh, if you're, if you're interested, just go to footballarchaeology.com and, uh, down at the bottom of most of the pages, you know, just to, you can, um, click on it and subscribe. And if you subscribe, you're going to get an email every evening at seven o'clock and then a couple, a couple of others here and there.

Um, you know, basically, it's just whatever, whatever got published that day shows up in your inbox. And so you can read them at your leisure. Um, I also, uh, I'm still putting out everything I post on Twitter.

And so if that's your way of receiving, you know, various forms of news like this, then, um, you know, follow me on Twitter. But you know, the best thing is probably just to do them, to subscribe and make your life easier and more, much, much more pleasant. Yeah.

And it's a great site—footballarchaeology.com — and it's also a great conduit to some of Tim's books. He has his most recent one, how to hike with some football terminology, and one of my standbys, how football became football.

It's a great read, especially learning about early college football. I highly recommend both those books to anybody interested in football history because Tim does a great job on them. So, Hey, Tim, thanks a lot for joining us here again.

And, uh, and we'll talk to you again next Tuesday. Okay. Looking forward to it.

Thank you, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

The 1915 Brown Bruins were 4-2-1 coming off a victory over Yale, helping Yale earn its first losing season in the forty or so years football had been played, so the boys from Providence had reason to be optimistic heading into their game at Harvard the following week. Led by all-everything Fritz Pollard and future Hall of Fame coach Wallace Wade, the Bruins hoped to put a scare into the Bostonians, if not return home victorious. — www.footballarchaeology.com

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One of the top experts in early football rules history, Timothy P. Brown, joins us in the discussion to explain the 1915 season of Brown University. Timothy Brown's FootballArchaeology.com has a daily football factoid that he shares, which is quite interesting in a short read. They uniquely preserve football history, and we are quite happy that Tim has agreed to join us each week to review some of his Today's Tidbits. Click that link, and you can subscribe for free and receive them each evening.

This post originated from a Tidbit that Tim wrote back in 2022 titled A Bad Loss and a Bonus.


-[b]Transcription of the 1915 Brown University Football Team 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 it's Tuesday. And once again, we have some football archaeology with Timothy P. Brown, author and historian that has a great website of footballarchaeology.com. Tim Brown, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin. Thank you for having me on again. As always, I am looking forward to chatting.

Yeah, this is a really interesting topic that we're going to talk about, the 1915 Brown Bruins, and have a very interesting story that you shared back on September 2nd, and really enjoying this one, and I think the listeners will as well.

Yeah, well, actually, you know, before chatting about that team, I think it was yesterday or the day before, an RPPC, so a real photo postcard of that 1915, of Brown's 1915 team, sold on eBay for $1,025. Wow. So, I mean, that's the, you know, it's not like I've tracked it, you know, over life, but that's, I think, the highest-priced postcard I've ever seen.

But, you know, it has Fritz Pollard on the team. So, a lot of times, especially older African Americans, you know, football stuff, you know, can command a pretty good, pretty good price. You know, it's an item that I don't think I've ever seen before until it was offered in that particular auction.

And then, you know, even for NFL people, you know, Fritz Pollard was the first African American coach in the NFL, you know, back in like 21 or, you know, something along those lines. So, you know, but just a couple of interests kind of collide, and all of a sudden, you're paying some pretty big money for a postcard. I mean, he was a tremendous player as well.

I mean, I think every team that he went to, he really brought their game up quite a bit to a different level. So, that's another reason to want to collect that, to have a legendary player. So.

Yeah. Well, you know, so the thing about that, you know, the 1915 team, you know, is that you know, Brown, I think, you know, by and large, has been kind of a second tier program, you know, and it was at the time. I mean, and I'm comparing that to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and then, you know, probably like West Point.

Those were probably the premier, you know, year after year premier programs. But they had a long-term, you know, long-term coach at Brown, you know, during some of that period. And, you know, they have some pretty competitive teams.

And so, they actually, I think they ended up, they were, they surprisingly beat Yale that year, which they seldom did. But that was the Yale team, the 1915 Yale team. Frank Hinckley had come back to coach the team in 14.

And they kind of struggled. And then they were really struggling in 15. That was the year that the captain, Alex Wilson, fired the head coach.

So, he fired Hinckley. And he brought in Tom Shevlin to come in, you know, kind of fix things up for the last couple of games of the year. But, you know, part of his being fired was, Hinckley's being fired was that they lost to Brown.

So, you know, it was, I think that's the last instance I'm aware of where, you know, that was the last year Yale still had that, the captain runs the show, you know, kind of philosophy. But, you know, he literally fired the coach because his word was final. And then they, you know, they switched things up at, you know, the following year.

So, that was, you know, kind of an interesting element of it. And even, you know, to kind of the perspective of Percy Houghton, who was the coach at Harvard, didn't even go, or he wasn't there for the Harvard-Brown game because, you know, he thought it more important to go scout Yale, you know, and coaches used to do that sometimes. Stagg did that a few times, and you know, you read about it, and you know, here and there, people did that.

So, I mean, it just kind of tells you that it was a real upset, you know, that coach didn't even show up for the game. But that sounds, I mean, it sounds so strange, but I think you explained it the last time we had you on; we talked about the first coach and when the word coach was used, and it just recently aired as a podcast. And, you know, you usually explained to that, that the coaches really were important, not really as important at game time as the captains were, like they are today, you know.

So, it's. Yeah, the captains called the plays, there was no coaching from the sideline, all of that, you know. So, the practice week was done so he could go scout the teams, and the captain took over.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, to some extent, that, you know, that is the case. But then, you know, so the other thing that's just kind of interesting about that team and football in general at the time was Harvard, Yale, and Princeton had policies that they didn't go to bowl games, right?

And, you know, this was still, you know, they didn't have postseason games. And so, this is, you know, the Rose Bowl had a game back in 02, and then that was kind of forgotten. And then they restarted it in 1916.

So, they're inviting, you know, the best team they could get from the east that played in the 1915 season. But, you know, so Harvard, Yale, Princeton wouldn't go. And so, you know, Brown ended up being, you know, the best team that they could find, you know, who would say yes.

You know, and so then they did whatever the five-day, you know, train trip out to Pasadena. But, you know, there were, you know, the Big Ten didn't allow teams to play in postseason games. They did allow Ohio State to play in the Rose Bowl, I think in like 22, I think it was.

You know, and so just in general. And then even teams that did where the school or the faculty allowed it, you know, sometimes the kids just said, no, we're done. You know, they're just, they were just done with the season.

And, you know, they'd already turned in their equipment, whatever. They didn't want to spend time away from family for the holidays, you know, those kinds of things. So, I mean, it's just a different world.

You know, we'd know so many teams playing bowls, you know, to begin with, but it's just kind of the expectation of, you know, well, of course, you're going to go to the bowl. But back then, you know, a lot of times, you know, teams had the opportunity to go, but they turned them down. But so Brown ended up, you know, playing in the game, and then they lost to Washington State.

So, you know, that was kind of a, for the folks out West, that was a big deal is, you know, kind of a credibility boost that one of their teams could play and beat, you know, a team that's now, you know, of the Ivy caliber. So, you know, it's a big, you know, kind of a big deal, you know, for those folks. Yeah.

So, okay. So we already said that Fritz Pollard was on that team. Was there anybody else significant on that team besides Pollard? Yeah.

One of them, Wade, now I'm blanking on his name. Wade, Wade, Wade, Wade. He was a guard or tackle.

Wallace Wade, sorry. And so he was, he coached Alabama, took them, you know, to a couple of Rose Bowls. And then he, he was the coach at Duke for quite a while.

They played when Oregon State played the Rose Bowl at Duke because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. You know, so the 42 Rose Bowl, Wade was still the coach there. So, but he, you know, he and Pollard were probably the most famous of the Brown players that year.

Very interesting. And, you know, some great, great research, and we appreciate you sharing these teams and some of these innovations from football from so long ago, your football archaeology site. I want you to share with people how they can, you can find your tidbits that you'd share with us each and every day and how they can subscribe to your website to make sure they know when that you've released them.

Sure. So, you know, my website is just, you know, footballarchaeology.com. You can also find me on Twitter under the same name. And, you know, the gist of it is I publish these, I publish a tidbit every day, comes out at seven o'clock Eastern time.

And so if you subscribe, you'll get that as an email newsletter. And then obviously, if you're, you know, you could also just visit the site anytime you want. And, you know, there's a full archive in there with, you know, now getting on, you know, 300, you know, some article, you know, fully long-form articles or tidbits, which tend to be more, you know, 30 seconds to a minute long reads.

Okay. Just little snippets. And I can tell you that it is exactly right at 7 pm.

It's very consistent because usually my family and I were watching a rerun of the Big Bang Theory. And the chime for my email signal, my notification comes right at the same time of the theme song for Big Bang Theory every time. So it's like part of the song to us now.

Well, it's just gets scheduled in the application. You could have just take more punctuality credit for than that. Well, you know, so I still have to manually do it on Twitter.

So, you know, but then it's going to be a 703, 705, somewhere in there. Yeah. Yeah.

We're well into the show by then. So. All right, Tim.

Well, thank you very much. And we'll talk to you again next week with some more great football archaeology. Cool.

We'll see you next week. Thanks.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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-Transcription of the 1905 Fairmont Experiment 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 welcome to Tuesday, Football Archaeology Day. As we go to FootballArchaeology.com's author, Timothy P. Brown.And Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin. Thank you.

Good to see you again. Looking forward to chatting. You have one of your most recent tidbits that you've dug up some real good football archaeology on this.

And just a great story from 1905 that I'd love to have you tell the audience about. Yeah. So, I mean, I think probably anybody that's listening knows that there were a lot of concerns, you know, leading up to and then in the 1905 season about injuries and deaths on the playing field.

And so, you know, there was just a lot of pressure to make some changes to the game. We had the whole Teddy Roosevelt thing. And then, you know, in the end, the guy who was the president or chancellor of NYU, he formed, he got people together to start really looking at this issue.

And, you know, so there were, the newspapers had all kinds of suggestions about possible rule changes. And, you know, there are people throwing out all kinds of ideas. And so, they kind of started talking about, you know, is there a way that we could experiment and have a test game? And, you know, there have been other times where that occurred.

Stag did some things, you know, this is about another five years down the road. And Hugo Bezdek, you know, did some testing. So, there are a couple of different instances of stuff like that.

But so, this one was, you know, while they were kind of looking for a game to be played, you know. Basically, the teams had disbanded for the year. But for some reason, the folks at Fairmont, which is now Wichita State, you know, in Wichita, they had been looking, you know, to maybe play a Christmas game just to kind of keep folks entertained and have some fun. And it turned out then that they agreed to play a test game against Washburn, which is a, you know, a state school in Kansas.

And so, you know, they were, and basically what they agreed to do was to try out some of the rules that were being proposed. And, you know, I don't know exactly how much interaction these guys had with folks back east, but the coaches of the two teams, Fairmont, were coached by a guy named Willis Bates, and Washburn was coached by John Outland. So, Bates had played at Dartmouth, and Outland had played at Penn, and, you know, he's the Outland trophy guy, right? So, so they were both, you know, they both had, you know, East Coast cred.

And the fact that they would play a game would be something that would be kind of, you know, trusted, you know, for want of a better term. So, and just one other odd thing about that year was that Fairmont, earlier in the year, had played a game at night. And it was played under, I think Coleman Lanterns is a local manufacturer somewhere in the Wichita area.

And so they lit, they had Coleman Gas Lanterns hanging all around the field and over the field. Maybe not, maybe not over the field. I think they had but it turned out to be kind of a mess because it just didn't put off enough light.

But anyway, it's just one of those early, early little factoids. Yeah. I never heard that before.

It's kind of interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, there were others that did electrical, you know, lighting before that, but they were the only ones I've ever heard of that tried to do, you know, gas lanterns. But we have the Zippo factories not too far from here. I wonder if they tried that bunch of Zippos lit up at the same time.

Or just have all the kids turn on their cell phones. So yeah. So anyway, they agreed to play a game on Christmas day.

And so they said, okay, we're going to allow the forward pass. We're going to require offenses to gain 10 yards rather than five and three downs. And then they also gave officials the authority to, you know, throw somebody out of the game if they, you know, for any kind of unnecessary roughness, which was, they didn't have that necessarily at the time.

So, you know, as it turned out, it turned into kind of a, the game was kind of a turd, frankly. It was like, it ended up in a zero, zero tie. Each of the teams threw some forward passes and completed two or three.

But we don't really know. I mean, all we really can operate off of these newspaper articles. So we don't really know how they threw the ball.

Right. And we just know they didn't do it very effectively. But the whole thing comes down to that they just couldn't imagine and think through how to change the game of football, how to approach it differently, given a new set of rules.

Right. And so it's just that idea that for us, we know the old spiral is to throw a football, but they didn't. You know, they tried all kinds of basketball and two-handed set shots.

They did shovel passes. They did, you know, you name it. You know, they tried, and they threw the football like a grenade, with a straight arm, you know.

And just if you think about it, how do you tell somebody to go out on a pass route when they've never seen a pass route before? Right. I mean, what do you do? You know, so these are the first guys trying to figure this stuff out. And they didn't do a very good job of it.

You know, and you can't really blame them. A lot of people struggled with it for about 10 years. You know, once the pass was legalized, there were some that got it, got after it right away, but most people didn't.

So, you know, and it turns out that, so one of their big conclusions was that, you know, because they really didn't adapt their offenses at all, they went from playing a game where they had three downs to getting five yards. Now, all of a sudden, they have three downs to get 10 yards. They didn't change their offense really.

So guess what? They didn't get many first-downs, right? And so they viewed that as a silly rule. Oh, it's never going to work. Well, it didn't work because they didn't reimagine the game.

And then, you know, find the tactics, find the techniques, you know, to do things differently. So anyways, I think it's really just the neatest part of the game in total is number one, that it failed, right? And that it, but it shows the difficulty of reimagining how to play this game under a new set of rules and why it took a while for that to occur. But, you know, they did their best.

They were willing to try it. And, you know, so, you know, good for them, right? Right. You know, I always found it kind of interesting, you know, hearing that story and, you know, the reason why they did it is to try to report back East to give them some information on, you know, it's an experimental game on some of these rules, but you never really see a whole lot, except for maybe years later, there was, I think one gentleman that was involved or was a spectator or something that had some information about it.

We don't know how accurate it was or anything, but there's nothing going back to, you know, to camp or to, you know, John C. Bell or any of those guys back East that tells what happened in this game, you know, what they tried. And I'm always surprised, maybe someday somebody will open up some notebook and, you know, in their great-grandparents' house or something and have some information. But I was finding that kind of fascinating.

Well, you know, you have to believe that there were at least personal letters exchanged. So, like, because, you know, both of these coaches were, you know, they were Eastern guys, you know, and they maintained their connections. So, there had to be something back and forth.

But yeah, I mean, as far as I know, I mean, there's no report to a committee and, you know, maybe it was because things were, there was so much turmoil at the time, you know, we'd had multiple rules committees in the late 1800s and now, you know, we're going between the IFA and, you know, whatever. And this whole thing that NYU is getting going will eventually become the NCAA. But yeah, you know, who knows? Yeah.

It's not like they picked up the telephone and called somebody very well. No, exactly. You know, and so, it had to be, you know, just the fact that they were even in touch.

Somehow, they got all this material. Now, the newspapers, you know, that was, you know, the wire services and that, that would have been one of the main ways for them to even learn what the potential rule changes are. But, you know, as this game got reported on, you know, if you look it up, I mean, you name it, any newspaper in the country, they did at least some kind of report on this test game.

So, you know, people were paying attention to it, but, you know, then it was forgotten pretty quickly. Right. So, it might be one of the original bowl games.

Of course, the Rose Bowl came out in 1902. So, I guess it wasn't the original holiday bowl game, but it was played right on Christmas day even, right? Yeah. Okay.

And so, one of the things that, you know, part of the reason I kind of, I did this particular tidbit was because I'd come across, you know, a real photo postcard of the 1906 Fairmont team, you know, online. I, you know, I ended up, you know, buying things because most people looked at it and said, I don't know who this is. Still, I knew who they were, you know, you know, so I basically was able to pick it up for a song, but, you know, and so, my best guess is, you know, that the vast majority of 1906 guys were on the 1905 team too. So, probably a number of the guys played in the game are in that picture, but, you know. Interesting.

I have a piece of history in my possession. Yeah. Well, that's a cool piece of history and, you know, we appreciate you sharing it with us each and every day on your tidbits.

And speaking of that, why don't you tell the listeners how they too can enjoy some of these great photographs and, you know, your website and where they can, you know, get a hold of the tidbits each and every day? Yeah. So, the site is, it's a sub-stack site, but I've got a, you know, personalized URL.

So, it's just footballarchaeology.com, and you can sign up there. If you sign up or subscribe, you'll get an email delivered to your inbox every night at seven o'clock Eastern, and then you can read it at your leisure. Yeah.

And so, you know, the only other thing I would just say is, you know, if you're, if you bookmark the site and you're trying to figure out something on football history, you know, there's got one of those little search magnifying glass things in there. So, put in a term, see if something pops up for you and there's probably a story or two in there. Yeah.

So, great stuff. All right. Well, appreciate you, Tim.

And we'll talk to you again next week. Darin, thank you very much. Look forward to it.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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The huddle, a ubiquitous feature of modern football, serves a crucial purpose: concealing play calls from the opposing team. But its origin story is far from today's high-tech headsets and complex plays. It's a tale of innovation born from necessity, showcasing the ingenuity of American football players in the early days.

Historian Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology and his recent post Gather 'Round, Boys: A History of Huddling.

Who invented the concept? When was the first huddle and what was the purpose? These answers and more are converted in the lively discussion with Tim.

Here is the Transcript of our conversation on the origin and history of the huddle

Darin Hayes
Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history, and welcome to another date with footballarcheology.com's Timothy P. Brown. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Timothy Brown
Hey, Darin, I look forward to chatting about huddling today.

Darin Hayes
Tim, you had a title out a little over a year ago called Gather Round Boys. One of your tidbits mentions a history of huddling. But we'd really like to hear the history of this application in football.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, you know, sometimes you look back, and I hadn't looked at this tidbit for a while. And I realized I liked this; it was one of my favorite tidbits. Part of it is that I like the stories where you figure out how something developed. And its function today is not what it served when it first came about. And so huddling is a classic example of that. The other is just that it was one of those tidbits where, while we can't get anybody to see the images that were in the tidbit or that are in the tidbit, I would encourage people to go out and take a look at it. Because, you know, it's just one where I found some great images of the different types of puddles. So, so huddling, you know, there's the first huddling that people have been able to identify was, you know, Gallaudet College in Washington, DC. It's a, you know, college for the people, you know, hearing, hearing impairments. And so, you know, they actually, they used to go up, you know, this is back in the time, the four teams huddled, they would come up to the line of scrimmage, and the quarterback or a captain, somebody on the team, would yell out signals. So, you know, you read all the time in the old newspapers about signals. And it was just, kind of like Audibles, but essentially, you know, what teams did is have a sequential list of numbers for all their plays. And, you know, whereas like, I know, you know, used to be like, if it ended in an even number, it was a play to the right, or if it was odd, it was a play to the left. And, you know, sometimes the first number told you, you know, a 42 meant that it was going to go to the left half back or the right half back or whatever, you know, different kinds of systems made sense. But early on, it was either just a random string of words or a sequence of numbers. So, if you were a player, you had to know what you did on an 83 because that's all you heard. Now, they would hide those numbers in the signaling'd like to do a string of four numbers. And one of them was a code saying the next number is the one that is the play. So anyway, that's kind of the way it worked. A couple of teams here and there huddled, but pretty much nobody huddled until Illinois, and Bob Zuppke changed that in 1921. And they began huddling. But back then, they didn't initially huddle. I mean, part of the purpose was, you know, Zuppke would claim part of it was to get everybody to settle down and be able to listen to the play. It was typically a quarterback then who would call the play. But it was mostly the advantage of huddling was, that was a period when, you know, you had the Minnesota shift, you had the Heisman shift, he had the Notre Dame shift. So teams would line up at the line, you know, one played in, they line up on the line of scrimmage. But often, they would line up in a, say, pre-lineup, like a traditional team. And then shift, there'd be a moment where they'd shift to unbalanced right or unbalanced left, whatever it was. And then they, you know, there wasn't. While the rule said everybody had to pause before starting the play, there was no length of time that they had to pause. So basically, teams would shift in, and boom, the ball would be snapped, and you'd catch the defense, you know, off guard. So Huddle, the Huddle did the same thing, they would call the play in the Huddle, you know, so let me go back, a team that was shifting would line up, call their play, and then at some point, they'd shift, and then execute the play. What huddling did was that they would call it play in the Huddle. And then everybody would quickly run the line of scrimmage, get lined up, and boom, the ball was snapped. So it had kind of the same advantage as that pre-snap shift. But it happened even faster, right? And you know, the defense couldn't react, you know, They couldn't shift anywhere near as quickly as the offense could line up. So that's when Huddling came about in 1921, and teams started applying it. A lot of people said we shouldn't have it; it delays the game, this, that, but ultimately, it proved effective. And so they started using it. And in about 26 or so, the implementer rule said you had to pause for at least one full second after the shift or after coming out of the Huddle. So then that kind of calmed things down a bit. But then, to me, one of the fun things and where these images come into play is that business that I could figure out. There were three or four different styles of huddling. So there were the first Huddles, almost all of what people called the closed, circular, ring, or oval Huddle. So that was where everybody formed the ring. Sometimes, the quarterback is kneeling down, kind of inside the ring. And the lineman tended to be in the front, closest to the, facing away from, but closest to the line of scrimmage; the ends were at either end of this little ring. And then the backs were on the other side facing towards the line. And so that was normal for a long time. That was the classic Huddle. Then people said, well, if we're going to do all this Huddling, we should devise a better way to Huddle. And so, as far as I can tell, Bucknell got it started in 33, but people like USC used it in World War II and da -da -da. And it was called either a V or a triangle Huddle. And so the way that worked was if you think of a V or a triangle, there's kind of like the fat end or the open end of a fat end of a triangle or open end of a V., And so what they do is it had the quarterback at the open end along with one other back. And then the rest of the folks would be in kind of in a V shape, typically facing toward the line of scrimmage with the quarterback on the back facing away from the line of scrimmage. And they could call the play. Most of the team could see the defense and what they were doing. And so that was kind of a cool way to do it. Then, the next one that came along, the late 40s, is the best I could tell. There's a guy named Tom Nugent who was a coach at VMI. Later, he became Lee Corso's coach in Miami. And so he had what was called either the open classroom or typewriter Huddle. And so that was one where, and it's very, teams still use this one, commonly today, quarterback faces away from the line of scrimmage. Sometimes, they turn it around, but he's facing away from the line of scrimmage. And then initially, they'd have the lineman facing the quarterback bent over, and then the backs and ends were facing towards the line of scrimmage standing up, right? That's where almost everybody stands now, but that's probably the most common Huddle today.

Darin Hayes
I see a lot of teams resurging. They're doing that, but the quarterback is standing behind the linemen who are facing the defense, which is kind of interesting—talking in the ear holes or something, I guess.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, in some way, it's always made more sense to have the quarterback facing the defense. He's the one who's calling the place, or he can potentially spot something. But, again, this all is based on the assumption that the quarterback is calling the place, as opposed to a coach on the sideline calling the place. And so all these huddling things were happening when quarterbacks called the place. And, you know, then those rules went away in the early 60s. So, coaching from the sideline, that whole thing disappeared in the early 60s. And so all of a sudden, some people like, you know, Sam, I believe it's white, or white, white, I don't even know how to pronounce his last name, white, white. So, you know, Bengals coach in the 80s. He's the guy who pioneered the no-huddle offense. It's just like, why do we have them huddle anymore? We'll just put them somewhere in the lawn of scrimmage and signal in the general formations that they can get the right spot, and then they can watch us watch our signal, the baseball-style signals from the sideline. And then they've used numbers, you know, all kinds of coaches assistance on the wrists and, you know, the different signage that teams hold up. So you got all that stuff going on, in terms of just ways to signal and plays, but it's a big difference from the days of quarterbacks calling the plays versus the coaches calling the place. So now, just one other thing that I just wanted to add that I mentioned in the tidbit, but I think this is going to make some of them are coaches listening to the podcast, some of them are going to be angered by what I'm about to say or just.

Darin Hayes
Wait a second. Is the coach getting angry?

Timothy Brown
Yeah.

Darin Hayes
This is the first I've heard of this.

Timothy Brown
Well, well, okay. And so one of the things that they used to get angry about, they used to spend all kinds of stupid practice time perfecting, was the Huddle. You know, coaches would go nuts about you having to stand up the right way or you have to snap out of the Huddle. I know, you know, at least in my high school conference, I remember there was a team that when they left the Huddle, the linemen so that they would huddle so like the correct tackle was on the left side of the Huddle and then he would lead people out and as the right card would be next to him. And then so they had this like chain thing where they came out in formation, and it was just a wasted damn time. And so coaches used to spend unnecessary time trying to get a nice neat huddle. It was like making sure your socks are pulled up or make, you know, whatever, you know, it's just like either you can either you make the play, or you don't, either you follow the play call, or you don't execute your assignment, or you don't, I don't care what you look like. Thankfully, like my high school coach was a guy who was, in many ways, a crusty old dude. But he was; he didn't care what color you were, what your background was, what you wore; he just either ran fast, you didn't jump far, or you didn't. And you either made the tackle, or you didn't. So he didn't, you know, concern himself much with what I consider the stupid stuff that many coaches hang on to.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, we, I had a coach; I think it must've been grade school. He was very anal. We were the old, you know, the quarterback would, he, after you get done calling a plate, say, you know, ready. And we'd all go break and have to clap, you know, and break the Huddle that way. And I think, which I think a lot of teams still do. And, uh, if we didn't all clap or he couldn't hear us, like if you're in practice, he stands behind the Huddle and doesn't hear you say break. Oh my God, you, it was an ass-chewing coming from probably some laps being run. So they're anal.

Timothy Brown
I mean, I get, you know, being anal, but that's just being anal about the wrong thing as far as I'm concerned, but

Darin Hayes
Especially when you're in the fourth quarter in a game in August, when it's like 85 degrees, and the last thing you want to do is be yelling, break, and clap, and you wish to, you know, try to get through the rest of this game. Cause you're, you're sweating bullets, and you know, you're tired.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, well, again, at least any negative comments about this will come to you, not because it's on your podcast, not because it's on my site.

Darin Hayes
That's true. So, you know, I've got a couple of interesting comments from some guests that I've had over the years, some claims, you know, you're talking, you know, 1921 with the, you know, this being formalized by Zupke, which is like a few years before Red Green Shop played with Illinois, interesting enough. But we have an author, Jennifer Taylor Hall, who wrote a book on Amos Alonzo's Stag, and she has some claims in her book that give credit to Stag possibly being one of the innovators of the Huddle, using it here and there, not as a formal, you know, every play type of thing. When I just heard recently we had an author, Sam Hatcher, who wrote the book Iceman's First Trophy; it was about the Cumberland Georgia Tech debacle, the 22 and 22 to nothing game, where the Cumberland players didn't want to go up to the line any faster than they had to, so they were sort of hanging back and, you know, catching their breath, licking their wounds, whatever you want to call it, before going up. So he gave some nods to that; I just wanted to mention some of those things, but, as I said, they were not formalized huddles like you're talking about that happened in the 20s.

Timothy Brown
You know, so this is like almost anything else. Amos Lanza Sttag was an absolute coaching pioneer and stud who invented many things. He also gets credit for about 75 things that he should have done. Right? I've done enough research on this stuff, and I'm confident that Subkey is the first one who used it regularly. I know there was a guy named Hargis. I think I have it. Well, anyway, he was a coach at Oregon State. He was a guy from Emporia or one of those schools in Kansas. He ended up at Oregon State in 1919. And, the evidence is he used a huddle in at least one game. There's something unique about about that. So yeah, there were some people who periodically or once or whatever used it, but in terms of using a systematic game after game, using play after play. As far as I know, no one has any evidence of anybody other than Zuppke being the first to do that. So if somebody else has more information, get a hold of me on football archaeology comm, and I will be happy to add a postscript.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, I wasn't saying they were arguing with what you're saying. I was just, cause the, the Huddle has had a bit of history, whether, you know, I, I don't have it confirmed or not, but I'm just saying they, they made mention of it in their writing. So it's just,

Timothy Brown
And yeah, there are all kinds of things like that, like who the first face mask was. What was the first face mask? Okay, define face mask, right? What is a face mask? What's the difference between the old nose guards, some of which became pretty huge, and a face mask, you know, or like, so what's a huddle? What does it mean to huddle? Right, so depending on how you define that, you might go, you know, in a different direction. I'm using huddling the way we use it today.

Darin Hayes
Call it calling the play. You have a gathering to call it the play. Here's what, yeah, okay. Well, very, very good, enjoyable as always, Tim. We appreciate it. No, you have a lot of fascinating tidbits and pieces of information that are Built on what we know of as football today and some of the elements of it in foot-on football archaeology. You could share with the listeners how they can find your site and what to expect.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, go to footballarchaeology .com. It's a Substack site or newsletter. You can go there any time you want. But also, you can subscribe. You'll get an email every time that I open or that I create a new story. There's a paid version. There's an unpaid version. You can also follow me on Twitter, threads, or the Substack app. And if you're somebody like this, you can follow them on the Substack app. And if you want to follow but have yet to get the emails, well, you'll get it that way by a Substack. So, whatever suits your fancy works for you.

Darin Hayes
All right, well, that's very good. As always, this is a fascinating topic, and we really appreciate you coming on here and sharing with us. We'd love to talk to you again next week.

Timothy Brown
Very good. I look forward to seeing you.

---

Join us as we delve into the fascinating tradition of handing out game balls in Gridiron football. We'll explore its origins, how it's evolved over time, and why it's become such a coveted symbol of victory. From legendary quarterbacks to surprise heroes, this video will uncover the stories behind the pigskin. So, buckle up and get ready to learn the history behind the iconic game ball!

Football Archaeology.com's Timothy Brown explains as he tells us about one of his recent Tidbits titled: A History of Game Balls

Here is a full transcript of the conversation with Tim Brown

Darin Hayes
It is Tuesday and football archaeology is on my mind. And we have the founder of that great website, Timothy P. Brown with us. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Timothy Brown
Hey, Darin, this should be an awarding podcast to participate in.

Darin Hayes
An awarding podcast? You're, segueing into our subject nicely, I think. And we're going to find out a little bit more of that. Your title of your tidbit that you had just a few months ago, or maybe a few weeks ago, is a history of game balls and a pretty broad topic. But it sounds like you have some direction for us on that.

Timothy Brown
Yeah. Well, so I took a very narrow view in this case of game, game balls, you know, more in terms of the awarding of the game ball, you know, the, the game ball being, you know, trophy value, you know, kind of a game ball. But, you know, I kind of started that article talking about, you know, for an NFL game, at least nowadays, there are 36 balls prepared to be part of the game. So 12 submitted from each team. And then I think each team also submits six kicking balls. Right. And so, or no, no, I'm sorry. The kicking balls come directly from Wilson because the league, you know, too many people are manipulating the kicking balls. And so they, they get those directly from the league. The teams do get a chance to like massage them and whatever beforehand. And if Tom Brady's playing, then four of them have to be at eight pounds. That's right. Well, so, you know, the inflate gate thing is a whole other story. Um, but so, but the game ball, one of the, one of the coolest things about, I published that article on March 29th. And since then, I have uncovered a whole other slew of information that tells me that I was wrong, or at least, you know, that I didn't find as early information as I thought I had. So at the time, I was saying, look, you know, that game balls, you know, that whole awarding of game balls at the time that I wrote it, as far as I could trace it back to was like 1882. No, 1886. When, you know, just, it was mentioned in an article about a Princeton commencement, you know, ceremony. And they were mentioning that the game ball from the game that they had played when they had beaten Yale was on the, like, the rostrum or whatever, you know, for the commencement. So it kind of tells you how important, you know, what the football game was to those guys. But so, you know, through, because of another path of research that I'm doing, I was trying to, trying to dig into, you know, what all is, you know, what all is going on, or, you know, kind of the background of game balls. And, and, and part of it was that, you know, for, for a long time, like from when American football began, and, you know, to my liking, it began in 1876 with the IFA, you know, the funding of the IFA, when, when American football first got started, they only used one ball per game. You know, that was it, you know, rain, shine, snow, sleet, whatever, they played with one ball. And those balls weren't anywhere near as, you know, the leather wasn't as well protected, etc, as, as they are now. So, you know, these balls get water logged. And in the days of drop kicking, you know, you drop it on the ground, and thing was barely bounced off, you know, so, but then as a forward pass came in, you know, into favor, then in 1917, they allowed the referee to decide on a wet day, if he would allow a second ball to be used for the second half. And then eventually, you know, things spread. But you know, so there was this whole thing of, you know, you played with one ball. And so then, this whole tradition developed around awarding or presenting the game ball to the victor. So, you know, back in the day, the home team provided the ball. And then, if they lost, you know, the right thing to do was to award the ball to the visiting victorious team, for them to then go home, go back and paint the score on it, or whatever, put in the trophy case, whatever they were going to do with it. And so, so that was the tradition, you know, for some time. And So then, you know, since then, I found out a couple of new things. So one was that I, you know, recently acquired a copy of a book called The Gilbert Story, which is a story of the Gilbert Firm, which is one of the two main oblors and rugby ball makers in Rugby England, where the primary provider of rugby football, you know, rugby balls for like the World Cup and, you know, those kinds of things. So anyways, I got a, you know, copy of their ball, and it goes back through the history. And they talk about at the rugby school, there was a tradition of having two balls available for each game, and they got switched at half. But then I got ahold of Tony Collins, who, you know, has been on this podcast. And if anybody hasn't heard that one, that is you know, a fabulous podcast to listen to, because of Tony. But in any event, and he, you know, he basically confirmed that, you know, that that rugby never really had the tradition of multiple game balls. So it was a rugby school thing, but it didn't spread to rugby more generally. You know, they didn't really have a one ball or two balls, they didn't really have a standard. So somehow in the Americas, this one ball tradition came about. And then it turns out that there was an earlier awarding of a game ball came about when, you know, I think most people are aware that Harvard played McGill in 1874 in a rugby match. And that is really what led to Harvard playing rugby, and which is what led to American football developing from rugby. Well, in 1875, maybe the second and 1876, there was an all Canada team that played three games against Harvard. And in one of those games, all Canada, they lost all three, all Canada lost all three to Harvard. In at least one of those games, they awarded the ball to Harvard. So that then becomes at least best as I can tell, so far, the first awarding of a game ball in at least the football tradition. But the fun thing about that is that, you know, there just weren't a lot of rugby balls paying around the US, because people weren't playing it. But you know, they were starting to make that transition. So, you know, the IFA meets in November 1876, and they agree to play rugby instead of, you know, whatever soccer and other games they're playing. And, and so the, the weekend after that meeting, Princeton was the home. team for a game against Yale, but they didn't have a rugby ball, and yet they were supposed to play under rugby rules. So somewhere in that whole process, Harvard gave Princeton this ball that all Canada had given them, and then Princeton loses, so they give the ball to Yale, and that ball now sits in a trophy case at Yale in their gymnasium. So, you know, it's just kind of cool that it's literally probably the first game played under the IFA rules, IFA rugby rules. So in my mind, it's the first real football game, and yet that ball is still around sitting in a trophy case at Yale, because it was the game ball. You know, so I just think it's just kind of a cool... you know, kind of the way this whole story ends up that the game ball tradition preceded American football, you know, because the Canadians are the ones that, you know, gave it to the, you know, started it as far as we're concerned. And, and that and yet that first ball is still around sitting in a trophy case at Yale. I just think that's, for me, there's something magical about that. You know, now that you say that you make something a tour of, I took a veil probably about 10 years ago, makes some sense because I got the had the opportunity to with my wife's cousin was assistant coach at Yale.

Darin Hayes
And I got to got to tour the Yale Bowl and the locker rooms and just see all the tradition and, you know, the Walter camp, sort of, I guess not really, it's a monument, I guess, it's what looks more like a facade to the White House from the White House. But I got to see that. But we also got to go through the gymnasium you're talking about with all the the halls of trophy. And it's a very great place. And I there's one ball that really stood out that just didn't look like a football at all. And very tattered old, you can tell. And I wish now I wish I would have took a photograph of it because that's probably that ball that you're talking about. Yeah, so I mean, let me describe the ball to you.

Timothy Brown
I've not seen it myself, but you know, I've images of it. So it's it is a classic melon ball. I mean, it is almost round. And there's a big silver plaque embedded into the ball now, with, you know, what basically tells the story of, hey, this is awarded by the all Canada team, we gave, you know, it went from Harvard to Princeton, Princeton, Yale, and now it sits here. So it's there's, I think, I think I put the link in, you know, I've added a postscript to the story on the website. And I think I think I have a link to it. Cause I found it on a site called, is it College Antiques? But anyways, there's a, another guy kind of lays, went through this whole thing, which is where I kind of picked up on this story. And then I found other stuff on it. But anyways, I think it's just a cool, yeah, a cool story. And to my knowledge, the oldest, the oldest existing ball in, in American football. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's an awesome story. And I didn't realize, you know, it went back that far of exchanging that game ball. Now, wasn't there sort of a, in that era and all the way up into the, maybe early 20th century, where teams didn't have but one ball? Cause I can, I could recollect there's a story, I think of the big game, Stanford and Cal, like a 1901 or 1902 game, where they forgot to bring that one ball to the game. The home team, the visiting team didn't even bring a game ball. It was the only, the home team had that one game ball. Yeah, you know, and I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember the story. And I think you're right about, you know, Cal Stanford. And so it was one of those things where like they they sent people into town to go get one, you know, and they couldn't find one. And the same thing happened with when McGill visited Harvard in 1874. They didn't bring a rugby ball. I guess they thought, you know, Harvard would have one, but they didn't. Harvard just had a round ball, so they played. They played the first game under Boston rules, which is somewhat rugby ish, because you could carry the ball. And then they played the second game under rugby rules, but they used a round ball. So. Yeah, and there's a whole other thread that I'm working on about. There was a thing called the American ball, which best as I can tell, is actually developed by Charles Goodyear. He probably built created the first one because he created vulcanized rubber. It was like a canvas ball that was kind of covered with vulcanized rubber can canvas ball that was inflated. I don't think it had a separate bladder. But so a lot of the round balls that people used in America in the 1860s and 70s were these American balls. So it may be even that the Harvard Princeton or the Harvard McGill game, they could have played with an American ball or and then also even like the Princeton Rutgers game or games in 1869. Those were played with a round ball. It could have been an American ball. And that's that's what everybody called the American ball. As compared to an association or soccer ball or a rugby ball. No, no, that that ball that Charles Goodyear invented. Was it the color of a black, you know, I've seen descriptions of it being red and then and also black. So could I sit there and I know I have an old book on Walter camp and it starts off as him as a boy playing, you know, he had a black rubber ball that he just kicked around the yard and, you know, kicked over his mother's clothes line into the clothes and everything. And that's how he, you know, trained to get become a football player eventually. And I wonder if maybe that was one of those Charles Goodyear balls, because that would have been right around the time frame. I think his rubber was in the late 1830s. So probably, I think 40s and 50s is probably the ball. His stuff, maybe a little bit later than that. But anyways, yeah, I think so. Basically, if it was leather covered, it is probably an association sort of ball. But even their balls were like, you know, it wasn't real. you know, they didn't agree on a certain ball until 1872. So, you know, things are kind of, you know, it's kind of whatever you could get your hands on, frankly, you know, back in the day. And they had all kinds of different sizes, you know, I mean, rugby, American in and association balls all came in like multiple sizes in like three inch increments. And so like, size number five had a 27 inch circumference. And so if you think about one of the most popular balls in American football has been that the J5V or and proceeding that was a J5. Well, that J was the model, the Spalding model was a J. And before that it was a lily white rugby ball from England called a J. And the number five was the 27 inch circumference. So that J5 name goes all the way back to the beginning. Okay. So as you said, the number five, I was going to ask you if it will respond to the J5. So I'm glad you cleared that up. Yeah, yeah. So the letter was the model. And the number was the size because they were selling size two, size three, size four, five, and six. So like a 33 inch, 30 and 33 inch balls were, you know, whatever. And I know they don't do footballs anymore size and I was like junior and whatever pro and whatever, you know, an FHS, but soccer balls still have their sizes on them. I know you have like my daughter when she was playing, used a four. And then I think the pros in high school and colleges are number five. So well, so it's the same. It's the same sequence. And, you know, there's still junior footballs because, you know, my kids played with them, but I don't remember it being, you know, a number based system for identifying them.

Darin Hayes
I think they just called it a junior, but, you know, whatever. Yeah, maybe they still use a numbering system. And I have a junior ball right here and I don't see a number on it I have a Wilson TD and I don't see a number on it. So it's just the Wilson TD Junior Yeah, so I mean, it's just one of those cool cool things about the old balls that you know Here's something that carried out from literally from the beginning that we see every day and never think about Oh, I they call it a J5. Well, that's why you know, yeah fascinating Great stuff The Tim you have great stuff like this, you know a lot on your website and your posts And maybe you could introduce the listeners who haven't heard or read your before How they can you take part in what you're writing?

Timothy Brown
yeah, so best thing to do is just go to Football Archaeology.com and You know find the site just subscribe you can subscribe for free You can there's a paid version as well. You can also follow me on Twitter And on threads and on the substack app. So, you know, you can find me on any of those four methods or just Go out and search the site whenever you want to

Darin Hayes
Great stuff as always we really appreciate it and it's really enlightening About the the ball, you know and some of the history of it and we really thank you for that and Love to talk to you again next week about some more great football history

Timothy Brown
Very good. Look forward to it. Thanks

---

In the fledgling days of professional football, long before the million-dollar contracts and Sunday night spotlights, there was the American Football League, a league that dared to challenge the dominance of the NFL. But within the AFL, there existed another layer of hopefuls – the redshirt freshmen, or in this case, the redshirt sophomores. These weren't the star players drafted with fanfare, but the grinders, the backups, the players fighting for a shot at gridiron glory. Today on the podcast, we dive into the archives to hear from the red-shirted renegades of the AFL, the men who toiled in the shadows, and the stories they have to tell about a league that dared to be different. So, buckle up and get ready for a journey into the forgotten trenches of the AFL, where dreams were chased one grueling practice session at a time.

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology joins us again this week to educate us on another aspect of football. This week we chat about the a n event called the 1965 AFL Redshirt Draft, a group called LESTO and how they both may have been the stepping stones towards the modern NFL Combine.

-Transcription of the Red Shirted Players of the AFL with Timothy Brown

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 a friendly visit from our friend Timothy Brown of football archaeology.

Tim, welcome back to the pig pen. What's your name again? Darren. Did you play a couple of games without the helmet on, Tim? You know, more than a few, more than a few.

Okay. All right. Hey, good.

It's good to be back, as always. All right. Well, let's get to the topic at hand.

And one of your tidbits really caught my eye from mid-October and it was on the American football league from the 1960s. And as a matter of fact, the 1965 AFL red shirt draft. And you talk about a couple things.

And one of them was the Lesto organization as well. And I'd like to see if maybe you could have some discussion on that tonight. Yeah.

So, you know, this is one of those where I think in order to kind of set up the 65 red shirt draft in the AFL, there's just a whole lot of history behind that. So I'm going to double back, you know, decades or so. And so, you know, so part of this is just like, I'm always scouring eBay and some other places for scores, postcards, images, books related to football history.

And, but I'm mostly, I'm not necessarily looking for like this great item. I'm mostly looking for some kind of item that provides some context, some information or an image that tells me something about football at a different time. And so one of the great sources is the Spalding's football guides, right? And so I've got like boatloads of those, both PDF versions that are out of copyright.

So you can get them for free. Then, the NCAA offers free ones from 2000 onwards. So I've got those and then I buy the books, you know, in between.

And so I never spent much money. I buy them. And so recently I was able to buy this 1965 AFL guide, similar to the old Spalding kind of guides.

So I bought it really not knowing what's going to be inside that thing. And so when I received it, I said 1965, but it was a 1967 guide, but it had information about the 65 draft. And anyway, so I'm, you know, leafing through the thing and here it says 1965 redshirt draft, which at that point I had never heard of before.

I am now familiar with the NFL, which has a future draft. And I understood what that was all about, but I hadn't heard the redshirt version. So, you know, what the AFL did was, and even, you know, going back into the NFL, back in 1925, the Bears signed Red Grange right after his season.

So the day after he completed his last game at Illinois, he was playing for the Bears and that violated the norms of the time. And so, you know, created all kinds of turmoil. So the NFL agreed, we're not going to draft any, or we're not going to sign anybody until their graduate, until their class has graduated.

Right. So you get to sign them for their senior season. And so everything was fine until about six when all of a sudden, what we now think of as the redshirt process came into being.

So a redshirt, and, you know, get four, you know, basically be in college for five years, but played in four, which then changed the dynamic of your signing, you know, your original class versus your graduating class. Right. So, so everything, nobody paid attention to it until like in the early sixties, I think it was, maybe it was late fifties.

NFL team started signing what they call the futures contract. So, a guy who redshirted would draft him in a normal draft order, just the normal draft. They'd sign them, or they draft him and basically stake a claim to a guy like Donnie Anderson or some top-notch junior who they knew they wouldn't be able to sign for another year because he was going to keep playing.

You know, he had another year of eligibility. The AFL, on the other hand, ended up doing what it said: instead of just having integrated with the normal draft, we're going to have a separate redshirt draft. So they drafted their normal guys, and then they drafted, then they had a separate draft of redshirts, right?

They could basically stake their claim to these players. But the other, you know, I mean, two other cool things about it was just one was that they, at the time in 65, the draft occurred on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. You know, now it's like April 23rd or some crazy date.

And, but it gets later every year, I think too. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's going to be in December pretty soon.

But back then, it was like, neither the NFL nor the AFL, because they were still rival leagues, wanted the other one to get ahead of each other. So they held it on the same day, right after the college season ended, so that, you know, if they had the chance to sign somebody the next day, they did it. So anyway, it's just one of those things we just it's not even part of our thinking anymore.

But with two rival leagues at a time who both had money, you know, it was a big deal. Yeah, so anyways, I mean, it's in this list just, you know, had a bunch of guys, most of them, I have no idea who they were. You know, maybe in 1966, I would have recognized their names, but not anymore.

But there were still, you know, there were a handful of really pretty top-notch guys, which I guess brings me to this whole Lescoe issue, right? So, you know, until about that time, each team scouted independently. So they'd each send their guys out, and some of them didn't do much scouting at all, and they were terrible at it. And others, you know, they were pretty proficient at it.

So send their guys out to the colleges, measure them, weigh them, time them, all that kind of stuff. And a couple of teams, the Lions, Eagles, and Bears, so Lescoe, or Lions, Eagles, and Steelers. So, you know, they combined their scouting resources or part of their scouting resources.

So that's where we get the word combine. They combined their early scouting resources, and it became more like those were the guys who went out and did all the preliminary work to evaluate who should even be considered. And then the serious examination of who's who, that, you know, came more, you know, that was left to more higher-end scouts within each individual team.

And then, you know, there were other combines that came together, and eventually, they all joined into the one combine, which we now know today, right? So yeah, that's kind of the origins of this future draft, which kind of existed around the same time as the combine got started. So all that, and it turned into the Underwear Olympics. That's commonly what they call it.

Yeah, I mean, it's really amazing. You know, I've written about this elsewhere, but there was, you know, there's been times like the Redskins, I think it was, they drafted the same guy two years in a row. He was a USC or Cal, you know, named Russo.

But, you know, a lot of these teams, they would just draft guys based off of what they read in the newspaper, or like, not the Street and Smith's, but you know, some version of that of their time. And they drafted this guy, and he was a junior. So he wasn't eligible for the draft, but they used a first-round draft on the guy.

So then they draft him the second, the next year. He says I don't want to play NFL. I'm joining the Navy.

I mean, it's just the level of scouting and insight. I mean, so much of it was just based on, hey, I've got this buddy who's a coach out at Pacific Lutheran or Texas A&M, whatever school, and he says this kid's a player. So you trusted that, rather than like on-site physical evaluations.

And, you know, then you had Paul Brown bringing the 40-yard dash and, you know, to really more technical evaluations and cone drills and all that kind of stuff. So, I mean, it's just, it's a different world. Yeah.

It's, it's interesting when you, when they publish some of them, like the radial charts that they have on these guys where they have, you know, radial charts, sort of a round chart and the points go out in different directions, almost like a clock. And you see where these guys are rating on it. And it's, I mean, really kind of a unique monitoring and calibrating system to try to judge a player's proficiency.

It's kind of a cool thing. So, yeah. Well, you know, one thing I commented out in the little article about the redshirt draft is that the heaviest player in the redshirt draft was 270 pounds, you know, and, you know, that's just kind of unimaginable today, you know, because, you know, that 270 isn't going to get you very far on a defensive line or especially an offensive line.

But back then that, you know, that was a huge man because very few teams did any lifting at all. Right. Yeah.

So it's amazing. We were just talking to Os Davis, who's a fellow podcaster. We were doing a program on the 1924 game with the University of Chicago and with Illinois, including when and how Chicago was going to defend Red Grange.

And he was Alonzo Stagg, and he was going to put two of his biggest guys at him. And one guy was 199 pounds, and the other guy was like 204 pounds. And that was how they were going to stop range.

That's just amazing how, you know, mankind is sort of grown, and through nutrition and exercise and genetics and the size of people we have playing football today, It's amazing. Yeah.

And I mean, a lot of it is also just, you know, kind of a selection process and the different techniques, you know, if, if you, you know, when teams played when you play single platoon, there's a way you could have 300-pound people, you know, I mean, half the guys in the NFL could not survive in that game because they just, they're too big. They're too heavy. They're not; they're not in shape.

And so, I mean, even like you look at rugby, international rugby players, top-end athletes, and the biggest guys by, you know, huge guys in that sport are 270, you know, and they're kept, but they look more like a tight end, the end, you know, sort of guys, not like offensive tackles, right. Because they got to run the whole game. Right.

So, you know, but anyways, I mean, it's, I mean, take nothing away from the athleticism of, of an NFL offensive tackle, you know, but it's just, it's a selection process. It is not; it's enabled by the rules that are in place today, not the rules that were in place in the 1940s or twenties or whatever. Well, definitely some fascinating stuff.

And we really appreciate you digging into that. It's a little bit more modern than what we've, we've talked to you about before being in the sixties, but back and think about how long ago the sixties was. It's a kind of shocking time period that I was alive in, but don't remember much, but I was alive.

Tim, why don't you, while we're talking about your tidbits, why don't you give us, the listeners, an idea of how they can enjoy your tidbits on a daily basis? Yeah. So, I mean, if you're interested in listening, then subscribe to this podcast. If you're interested in reading, then, you know, I'm at footballarchaeology.com. You can find me there.

It's, it's a Substack, you know, application and you can, at least for now, find me on Twitter. We'll see what happens in the long-term with her. But anyways, for now, I'm on Twitter, but I don't know the same name, footballarchaeology.com. And so however you prefer to consume, have at it.

All right, Tim Brown, footballarchaeology.com. Folks, we have that information on the show notes of this podcast. So you, if you can't get to a pencil and write it down right now, it's not convenient. Don't worry.

Come back and check out the show notes or go to pigskindispatch.com or footballarchaeology.com and you'll find out how to join that. Tim Brown, thank you very much. And we'll talk to you again next week.

Hey, thank you again, Darin. Thank you.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Penalties are a regular occurrence in football, a constant tug-of-war between offense and defense. But sometimes, amidst the yellow flags and frustrated shouts, a penalty emerges that defies logic and leaves everyone scratching their heads. Today, we delve into one such oddity – the curious case of the two-yard penalty in American football history.

This podcast episode and article explore a specific instance where a very unusual penalty enforcement resulted in a mere two-yard loss. We'll dissect the situation, analyze the rule that led to such a peculiar outcome, and explore the reactions of players, coaches, and fans to this bizarre moment on the gridiron.

Was it a simple mistake by the officials? Did the specific situation create an unforeseen loophole? Perhaps it was a turning point in the evolution of penalty enforcement. Join us as we unearth the story behind the two-yard penalty, a historical footnote that serves as a reminder of the unexpected twists and turns that can occur in the ever-evolving world of football. So, buckle up and get ready for a lighthearted yet fascinating exploration of a truly odd penalty in football history!

-Transcripption of Football's 2-Yard Penalty with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends, Darren Hayes and PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. It is Tuesday, and we are going to go into an archaeological dig that is a part of the great history of the gridiron. And our friend Timothy P. Brown of football archaeology is leading the way.

And we're going to talk about one of his recent tidbits on penalty enforcement, which is sort of an odd yardage. Tim, welcome to The Pig Pen. Hey, good evening, Darren.

Good to see you as always. And to hear your dulcet voice. Dulcet.

Well, that's one of the higher compliments. Usually, people say something else about my voice, especially family members. I don't know what's going on with that.

So I'll take that. I only have to listen to you a couple of times. That's true.

That's true. Well, Tim, you had a really fascinating tidbit back a couple of months ago, and it's on a very odd penalty yardage and under some special circumstances in football history that I think maybe we'd like to hear about this story. Yeah, so this is, you know, everybody knows that 1906 is a big year in terms of changing football rules, introduced forward pass, forward progress, you know, really is kind of fully, well, not fully developed, but pretty well developed that year.

You know, the onside kick from scrimmage, you know, I mean, there were just a host of different rule changes. However, one thing that people don't pay much attention to is the rule that limited captains to calling three timeouts per half. Until then, captains could call as many timeouts as they wanted.

There was no rule. But by kind of tradition and practice, and, you know, people did the right thing, they didn't call many timeouts. I mean, they basically called a timeout for injury.

And then occasionally, if they needed, if they needed, you know, just they needed a rest. You know, and this is, again, back when coaches couldn't coach the players during the game, their teammates couldn't yell instructions to them, nothing. It was, you know, you're out there on your own as a quarterback.

So, when they introduced that rule in 1906 if a team had called three timeouts or had had those timeouts called for them by the referee if they called a fourth timeout, they incurred a two-yard penalty. So, you know, this is one where, as far as I know, this is the only two-yard penalty in football history. And there was a caveat that you could, if you had called three, and you had a player injury, there could be another timeout without penalty.

So there could be a fourth due to injury. So, you know, it wasn't called very often, but it was called in 1906 in a game in Indiana that was beating Notre Dame, you know, 12-0 late in the game. And Notre Dame called a fourth timeout due to injury, but the referee penalized.

Now, you know, it's unknown at this time, you know, based on newspaper reports, was it because the ref just made an error, just didn't understand the rule, or because he thought the player was feigning an injury, right? So, one way or another, he calls it. And then it kind of, you know, I mean, at least in terms of newspaper reports, there's not, there's virtually no mention of these two-yard penalties for another 15 years or so. But then, in the early 20s, teams started huddling between plays.

And there were a lot of referees who didn't like teams huddling. They wanted them to keep, you know, immediately lining up on the line, calling the plays at the line, and, you know, executing. So, some of the referees started penalizing teams for huddling.

And again, this is one of these things; it's a little bit unclear exactly how they justified it, but it is likely that what they were doing was, you know, a team could huddle three times if they wanted to, but if they huddled a fourth time, in effect, the referee was interpreting that as you're taking a timeout, whether you call it or not. I'm basically treating this as a timeout when you huddle. And so the fourth time they huddle, boom, they get a penalty.

And so, you know, so that kind of sucked. And, like, you know, Penn got penalized six times against Alabama in 1922. So, in one game, they got six two-yard penalties.

So then you sit back and go, how big a deal is a two-yard penalty? You know, it's just not that big of a deal. And so what teams started doing then is to just say, if I need a break, I'm calling an extra penalty. I don't care.

You know, what am I going to do? Lose two yards? Yeah. Hell yeah. I mean, especially if you're down, whether you got to go two yards or 22 yards, what's the difference? Yeah.

So then, obviously, the refs and the rule makers didn't like that. So in 1924, they gave teams four timeouts per half, but then the fifth one would be a five-yard loss. And you know, same with six, seven, eight.

So, you know, that was the end of the two-yard penalty. But other than in 1930, 31, and that period, at that point, if there was a penalty on an extra point, it was committed by the offense. The offense lost the ball, and, you know, you went to the kickoff process.

They didn't get a chance to score, but the defense committed a penalty. Then the offense was credited with having made the extra point. And so they changed that in like 31.

And so they just changed it so that whatever penalties were incurred, the refs walked off whatever the typical, you know, whatever penalty yards they would have done during regular play. So, halfway to the goal line, or you had a 15-yard penalty, you got moved back to the 17, you know, whatever it was at the time. So yeah, the two-yard penalty led to a fairly short life.

Yeah. I always wonder because usually the penalty is that it fits the bill for whatever the foul was, you know, and they try to balance that out, and they've tweaked things around a little bit. You know, maybe they over-penalized certain things over the years, but a two-yard penalty, as we said earlier, is really no. There's no penalty to it.

You know, it's a big deal. The other thing I found interesting when I started officiating in the late 80s was when teams were just now starting to go to no-huddle. You know, Jim Kelly and the Bills were having some success at the pro level, and it was going right down to levels. And there were some older officials, especially umpires, who like to have time to set that ball, get, you know, set, you know, seven yards off the ball behind the linebackers.

So they're in a safe place. Well, they have these teams going up the line. They're having to drop that ball down and beat feet and get out of there before they get smoked, you know? And if the referee wasn't, was blown ready for play too early, that ball's getting snapped and things.

So, I can remember people and officials standing up at meetings. You know, when you have big rules meetings with the local coaches and all the local officials, when you have all the new rules, you have the same interpretation. So we're all on the same page; at least, that's what we did in Pennsylvania at the time. And, you know, there's, there's referees saying, Hey, you know, there should be a penalty for this.

You know, what do you mean? No, you aren't huddling. So it's funny how, you know, what is it 50, 60 years later, you know, we're, we're looking the exact opposite way. We're expecting teams to huddle.

And when they don't, we get mad. Yeah. Well, you know I've got a, I haven't written it yet, but I'm going to do a tidbit on I'm sure you've seen the, it's a 1903 two or three minute film of Yale and Princeton playing.

And so it's the first instance in which a football team has been captured playing football. And so it, it, that little film document, and you can find anybody can find it on YouTube. If you just put in a 1903 Princeton, Yale football movie or something like that, you'll find it right away.

And, like, the first part of it just shows guys running around and coming out of the locker rooms or whatever. But once you get into the actual play, you know, they execute a play and immediately get on the ball, running the quarterback call signals, boom, and run another play. And so, you know, that's just evidence of how they did that at the time.

And that's because that's what they did in rugby. You know, you, somebody, you know, got tackled or whatever, they set the ball down and boom, you just get going again, you know, you line up and play. And so there was no rule about that.

You know, the rule about 25 seconds or 30 seconds didn't come into play until 1926 or so because of huddling. Right. I mean, they wanted to make sure that the pace of play remained somewhat normal.

But until then, it was all just tradition. You know, you, that's how you play football. You got up and you, you know, you played, you know, it's kind of like pitch count or, you know, the pitch clock kind of a thing, you know, it's gotten so crazy that now they need to, you know, they need to have a timer to stop players from, you know, rubbing their nuts for, for two minutes up there at the plate.

All right. So it's, if you think about it, those are really two kinds of interesting, it's an interesting parallel, the pitch clock versus the, you know, the ready for play and, you know, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, whatever it is, you know, depending on the league. You're right.

There's another early film. It's got to be that same, and I think it's 1903. Also, there's a Michigan film out there.

Right, right. Same thing. But of course, that's the point a minute team of, you know, of Fielding Yoast going on there too.

So, but I can remember there's one play in there where the guy gets hurt, and he's at the bottom of the pile, and they're in such a hurry to keep the game going. They just drag him by his legs off the sideline, and he goes off a second later. And that happened all the time, you know, just because, you know, because there was no substitution at that point, you know, guys would be laying there on the side of the, you know, in the backfield just, you know, they could, they'd lay there for a minute or two and played, continue, you know, just nuts.

Yeah. I keep meaning, I got to load up some of those, those YouTubes of that, that we'll put them on the site here in the next couple of weeks. So they're interesting to see.

And so listeners, you can, you can check them out there or, you know, go to, I know Library of Congress has them, YouTube has them. They're public domain. So they're real easy to get to.

So well, Tim, that's a that's a fascinating story on this two-yard penalty and the history of it. And you know, it's evolution, and thank God it's riddance out of the game of football. And you know, you have a lot of different little stories like this that are sort of off the beaten path, but really vital parts of football history that were important in the era that they happened.

And we sure are glad that you're going back and looking at these, researching them, and giving all the facts each and every night on something. So if you could, maybe you could share with the listeners how they could, you know, share in these tidbits that you put out each night also. Yeah, sure.

Thanks. Yeah. I mean, it's my site is footballarchaeology.com. You can also follow me on Twitter at footballarchaeology.

So, you know, on Twitter, it's going to be kind of hit or miss whether you see what I post or not. Whereas in, you know, if you subscribe on the website, you'll get an email every night with that night's post. And then obviously you can always just go to the site and there is a search function there.

If there's a specific topic in football history that you're interested in, just go in there and put in the keywords. See if you find anything. If you don't, shoot me in the message and I'll, you know, maybe it's out there and you just didn't find it or it didn't get, you know, it didn't enter the right words, but happy to always looking for topics, always looking for new things to or old things to research.

Right. The new and old things. All right.

Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. Make sure you check out his site and his tidbits each and every day and listen to him each and every Tuesday right here on pigskindispatch.com. Tim, thanks a lot. And we will talk to you again next week. Great.

Thank you again, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Let's face it: we, as football fans, were subjected to a lot of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce during the 2023 Football season and postseason. This is not a new thing though as celebrity treatment inundating our favorite sports has gone on for over a century. Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology shares with us his original Tidbit Post of Travis, Taylor, and Teddy Roosevelt III.

-Overview
Tim joins us to tell of the celebrity attraction of President Theodore Roosevelt's son, Teddy and his college football career and the way the people flocked to see him.

We have video out on this story too! Check it out at Taylor & Travis Phenom Compared to a Football Celeb From a Century Ago with Timothy Brown.

-Transcript

Darin Hayes
Hello, my football friends. This is Darren Hayes at pigskindispatch.com. Welcome once again to the Pigpen, your portal to positive football history. And it is time for some great gridiron information from yesteryear. Timothy P. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com joins us to tell us about one of the recent articles he's posted on the website. Tim, welcome to the Pigpen.

Timothy Brown
Thank you for having me here. As always, I look forward to chatting with you tonight.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, and this is very relevant to the last month, anyway, of this article that you wrote. You had it titled Travis Taylor and Teddy Roosevelt. And I know that at least two of those names were ones that my wife and daughter became interested in watching, at least the AFC side of the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl, where at least one of those names was interesting.

Timothy Brown
So how do that, at least the Travis and the Taylor I'm thinking of, and Teddy Roosevelt tie together in this piece you wrote? OK, I'm a little surprised you're familiar with Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift. That's that's interesting because, you know, a lot of people wouldn't even know who they are. But you're just kind of tuned in to this stuff, I guess.One of the things that just struck me is, you know, people going all gaga, not Lady Gaga, but just people going nuts about Travis and Taylor, some, you know, angry about it for some reason or another. And others are just excited because they're big Taylor fans, the Swifties. So anyways, it just, you know, got me thinking about, OK, what are some similar kinds of situations in the past in the sports world where somebody who is a love interest or familial interest kind of brings, who's from another field, you know, brings some kind of excitement. So I was thinking about Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, right? That's an obvious one you think about, right? But then I went to Teddy Roosevelt and his son Teddy. So, you know, back in 1905, you know, President Teddy Roosevelt has this meeting with Princeton, Yale, and Harvard and says, you know, you got to get your act together, get the football communities to act together, this game's too dangerous, do something about it. And then he sends them away and... But the interesting thing about it was, I mean, Roosevelt was a big football fan. He was too late, or he's too old to have ever played the game because it didn't appear until he was out of college. But, you know, he was a rough and tough guy. And so, you know, his oldest son, Teddy Jr., was a freshman at Harvard in 1905. And he had played, I think he went to Joe, but, you know, he went to an Eastern prep school, and yet had not played much because he was pretty, he was like 5 '8 by the time he got to Harvard, but he's pretty lightly built, or slightly built. So he goes out for the freshman team, you know, and it's one of those things, you know, the president's kid, you know, everybody's pretty doubtful about him. He's not the biggest guy in the world. And it turns out that he was a pretty tough little nut. And so, I mean, everything I read just said, you know, people kind of came off the field, his opponents would come off and go like, you know, he's not the biggest guy, but he's pretty tough. And so anyway, they play whatever, a five or six-game schedule. And somewhere early in the year, I think they were playing like Worcester Polly or somebody like that, you know, they broke his nose in a game early in the year. And so then, you know, it gets better. I don't know if he wore a noseguard or not. However, the final game of the Harvard freshman season is against the Yale freshmen. And, you know, it's a big deal. And so, in that game, and I should say that you know, just like everything was getting documented, and there were paparazzi, you know, surrounding Travis and Taylor, the same thing happened with Teddy Jr. Here, people are taking pictures of him everywhere he goes. Reporters are trailing him. So the kid just, I mean, he's struggling to have a normal college freshman life because his dad's the president of the country. And so, he's apparently handled all that well, too. So in the lead-up to the Yale game, the Yale folks are all like, hey, I want to play. I want to play the right end in this game because Teddy was the left end for Harvard. And you know, those were days you played both ways. So it turned out that, you know, they just, Yale didn't change their lineup, but the guy who was their Yale's right end on the freshmen team was kind of the captain of the freshmen and then as a senior, he was a. You know captain of the of the ELI team so he's a real good ball player and so he's up against Teddy the whole game and you know sounds like he was kind of beating Teddy's butt but you know he hung in you know Teddy hung in there he made some pretty good tackles made some good plays but in the course of the you know towards you know somewhere like in the second half he apparently broke his nose again and had you know big black eyes and um and so he he left the game with a few minutes left uh you know to play and um so then you know but it was written up you know a syndicated article shows up in you know newspapers nationwide there were pictures of them in these newspapers there were cartoons about him um and so then you know season ends and then he actually started gaining a little bit of weight and as but as a sophomore he went out for the and they still tell now you're too small you know you can't play with you can't play with the big boys so you might have played for his class team or something but uh then as a junior he goes out again and i think you know sounded like he was kind of holding his own uh but then he you know was injured during the preseason and that basically that was the end of his playing career so the only the other thing that was interesting about him he was like i think he was like president or ceo of american express i mean he he had a big you know business career i mean he is obviously well connected person but you know nevertheless sounds like you know pretty pretty stellar guy and um so pretty bully guy huh yeah yeah that's yes so he uh so he ended up um when world war two you know came around he had volunteered i think he had served in world war one as well um any uh Anyways, he was on the, he was in general, and he was on the, he was on the first wave that D -Day was, you know, kind of, there's stories that, you know, he was inspiring guys to try to get over, over the sandbars and, you know, keep moving. So he was, you know, trying to coordinate a lot of that effort. And you know, as a result of that, he was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross. And then, but he ended up dying of a heart attack two weeks later. And so they ended up awarding him the Congressional Medal of Honor, you know, instead. So, they upgraded the DSC Medal of Honor. You make it through probably one of the most stressful situations in world history on D-Day. And two weeks later, I'm sure, I'm sure things weren't pleasant for him then. But still, you would think D-Day would be the stressful part of that. I want the irony of it. So anyways, I mean, you know, I mean everything I can tell you know pretty much of a guy to be admired. Yeah, you know, he just Tried to be as normal a person as he could Despite who his father was. Yeah, when you're living in that big of a shadow, that's Probably a lot rougher than most normal people have ever experienced, and I'm sure it's good. It's an easy thing to overcome, and it's very interesting.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, great story. Now. It almost reminds me a little bit. I interviewed Craig Cole, who quit just a little while ago, and he ended up playing for the University of Tennessee in college right before his junior year. That's when Johnny Majors Left Pitt won the national championship with Tony Dorsett and then went to Tennessee took over the program and that's where he's from And of course and I can remember, you know I was a youngster them but watching and you know Lee Majors was a six million dollar man at that time and he was always on the sidelines and of course his wife was Farrah Fawcett she was under so we talked a little bit about but that and you know Craig was a punter So he wasn't you know, he only had to worry about a few handful of plays each each game and he told me he goes Yeah, he goes that was distracting goes But the worst thing was on the sideline is you know, Johnny Majors loved to have celebrities there He was friends with Jimmy Buffett and Jimmy Buffett would be on the sidelines and you know wearing forget whose Jersey he was wearing I think one of the receivers or something that Name escapes me the guy played for the Patriots after we had a great career in the NFL but he would always wear his jersey and he said Jimmy Buffett was always like where the special teams was and you know, of course the fans and everything we get you know, we're trying to you know look and see Farrah Fawcett and Lee Majors, I'm like, I can't even imagine that on a sideline today and especially in college football You know these coaches are so stoic you would never see Nick Saban allow something like that or something like that.

Timothy Brown
But yeah, well, you know, it's, Um, yeah, for a while, the NCAA was going to make a move to reduce the number of people that can be on the sidelines. Still, you know, when you see like the USC UCLA game, there's always one of the games where there's always celebs, uh, just, you know, because of the location and some of their alums. So yeah, it's exciting enough to see as former players have played for that school show, you know, Joe Burrow shows up on the LSU sideline or, you know, that's kind of cool to see that, you know, the guys that have made it. And, uh, you have any of these Hollywood stars showing up. That's all different, and Taylor Swift has a different story. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's amazing; I mean, that whole phenomenon is just amazing to me. I mean, I'm, I'm, I don't have any. I'm not a fan of hers. I don't, I'm, I'm just indifferent, right? But yeah, obviously admire, you know, what she's done from a career standpoint. And then, the influence she has, I think, you know.

Darin Hayes
I mean, good for her, right? And I think the NFL likes the extra exposure to new audiences. They watch their products. So yeah, brilliant. It is not fun as a traditional football fan to go to the stands after every play, but the NFL for ratings and, you know, cause the NFL needs the money.

Timothy Brown
So they got to get that, you know, they do it, you know, mother's sisters, you know, all the stuff. I can't think of the guy's Name, the former quarterback at Notre Dame. And they always had his sister and his girlfriend, and yeah, I mean, if they think there's a story there, they're going to play it up and, you know, they do all those, let's step away for a minute and listen to the story of, you know, Bobby Joe Smith, right? It's like in the Olympics, they do that all the time because nobody knows who the speed skater is, but, you know, they step away into the profiles. And yeah, it's pretty, it's kind of the same thing. Yeah. It's all in the ratings. All in the ratings. Well, Tim, that was a great story. And, you know, taking us back, you know, a hundred and some years ago and tying into some modern stories of football. So that's, uh, you know, brilliantly done and a great story. And I appreciate you letting us know and filling us in on Teddy Jr. a little bit and, you know, his heroics on the football field and the battlefield and, uh, you know, somebody that should be honored and remembered.

Darin Hayes
And I appreciate you doing that. And you do a lot of that where not only people are remembered and preserved but also, you know, events and little intricacies of the gridiron on your football, archeology .com website. And maybe you could tell the listeners how they can partake in that and enjoy your website. Yeah. Um, so you know, you just go to the site and, uh, you can just go and browse, but the best thing to do is just subscribe.

Timothy Brown
If you subscribe for free, you get cut back. Access to about a third of the content. The paid subscription is five bucks a month or 50 bucks a year. And then that gives you access to everything, including all of the archives. I also post on threads and Twitter. So, if you want to monitor things that way, I've added it as well. All right, well, very good, Tim. We appreciate you coming on and sharing these little bite-sized chunks of football history over a hundred years.

Darin Hayes
But these are different instances, and we appreciate it. We would love to talk to you again next week about some more great football history.

Timothy Brown
That's very good. Thank you, Darin.