Football History

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Football Archaeology takes a snap shot look at the first time plastic helmets were introduced to live football games, and a bit on their creator, John Riddell.

The year 1940 marked a significant milestone in the evolution of American football, particularly with the Northwestern Wildcats facing off against the Syracuse Orangemen in a historic game that would forever change the sport. What set this matchup apart wasn't just the clash between two formidable teams, but the introduction of a revolutionary innovation: plastic helmets. This game, held on October 5th, became the first-ever instance in college football where both competing teams donned these newly developed protective headgear.

Prior to the adoption of plastic helmets, football players relied on leather headgear that offered limited protection against the physical rigors of the game. The innovation of plastic helmets, however, represented a leap forward in player safety and comfort. Spearheaded by Riddell, the company responsible for this groundbreaking advancement, the plastic helmets featured a hard outer shell that provided better impact absorption and reduced the risk of head injuries.

In the context of the 1940 Northwestern at Syracuse game, the debut of plastic helmets symbolized more than just a technological upgrade. It underscored a growing awareness within the football community about the importance of player safety—a theme that continues to resonate in today's game. The decision by both teams to embrace this new equipment reflected a proactive approach to protecting their athletes, setting a precedent that would eventually become standard across all levels of football.

Moreover, the game itself was a testament to the competitive spirit and evolving strategies within college football. Northwestern, under the guidance of head coach Pappy Waldorf, brought a disciplined and dynamic offense to the field, while Syracuse, led by head coach Ossie Solem, countered with their own aggressive defensive tactics. The combination of innovative helmets and strategic gameplay made the 1940 matchup not only a pivotal moment in football history but also a captivating spectacle for fans and players alike.

Beyond its immediate impact, the introduction of plastic helmets in the 1940 Northwestern-Syracuse game foreshadowed the ongoing evolution of football equipment and safety standards. It highlighted the sport's capacity for adaptation and improvement, emphasizing the continuous efforts to enhance player welfare while preserving the essence of competitive athletics.

In conclusion, the 1940 Northwestern at Syracuse football game stands as a landmark event where innovation met tradition, ushering in a new era of safety and performance in American football. By embracing plastic helmets for the first time, both teams not only safeguarded their players but also paved the way for future advancements that would shape the game we know and love today.

Love the helmet designs and evolution wait till you check out the College Football helmet history of schools.

-Frequently Asked Questions

-Who was the first player to wear a football helmet? We have your answer in our in-depth study ofthe first to wear a helmet.

-What is the history of each college team and their helmet designs? Check out many of them with our series College Football helmet history of schools.

-How come some teams have player numbers on their helmets? We asked this question too and had a college football expert historian help divulge helmet numbers history.

-Why do some teams like Michigan and Delaware look so odd and similar? It's really uncanny isn't it that the Wolverines and Blue Hens look the same, check this out for a reason when helmets had wings.

-What do stickers on college football helmets mean? Some of them look really crazy but there is some goos reason for the extra adornments and we have the scoop Why all the stickers on some football helmets?.

When did football helmets change from leather to plastic? Just after World War II saw the most abrupt changes, we have more in this in our chat with an expert:When helmets changed from leather to plastic.

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Have you ever wondered how and why a football looks the way it does? What about the grainy texture, the color or the stripes? Our friend Author Timothy Brown has the answers.

Discover the secrets behind the ball's shape, size, and materials, and learn how technological advancements have transformed the game. Brown offers a unique perspective on the football's cultural significance and its impact on society throughout history.

Join us as Tim discusses his latest groundbreaking work, The History of the Football. In this captivating conversation.

We also have a podcast audio version of the discussion found at:
The History of the Football with Timothy Brown or you can find it on your favorite podcast provider in the Pigskin Dispatch Podcast.

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Wouldn't it be nice to give our players a piece of equipment that will make play be a bit more safe while increasing their comfort? How about if it could improve their athletic performance as well? Dr. Michael Hutcison has the item in his PowerPlus Mouthguard.

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For decades, player numbers on football helmets were as iconic as the sport itself. However, their use has steadily declined in recent years. Let's delve into the history of this practice and the few remaining teams that cling to it.

Football Archaeology's Timothy Brown joins us in telling the history of the headgear emblem and its importance in football history. Tim's original Tidbit article with great images can be found at The Rise and Fall of Helmet Numbers.

You Can also find the podcast version of the discussion

In the early days of football, jerseys did not have numbers on them. Numbers were introduced to help fans and media identify players on the field. In the 1950s, with the invention of television, conferences required teams to put numbers on jerseys or helmets to better identify viewers. Since then, helmet numbers have become less important because TV screens have increased, and logos have become more popular.

From Humble Beginnings to Widespread Adoptio

While seemingly a simple design element, helmet numbers in American football play a surprisingly multifaceted role. From aiding player identification to fostering team unity and even impacting strategy, these numerals hold significance beyond mere decoration.

Helmet numbers' most basic function is clearly identifying players on the field. With multiple players wearing similar uniforms, these numbers allow coaches, referees, and spectators to distinguish between teammates and opponents. This is crucial for officiating calls, play recognition, and overall game flow.

Love the helmet designs and evolution wait till you check out the College Football helmet history of schools.

The early days of football helmets offered little protection, let alone space for numbers. As helmets evolved in the 1930s and 40s, teams experimented with various methods of putting numbers on the outside. By the 1950s, displaying player numbers on helmets' backs became common. It provided better visibility for referees and fans, aiding in player identification.

The Rise and Fall of a Tradition

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, player numbers on helmets remained a staple. However, several factors contributed to their decline.

In conclusion, helmet numbers in American football transcend mere decoration. They serve vital functions in player identification, fostering team spirit, and even influencing strategic decisions. As the game continues to evolve, the role of helmet numbers might expand further, offering new avenues for player expression and strategic innovation.

Here is the transcription of our conversation on helmet numbers:

Darin Hayes
Welcome once again to the Pigpen, your portal to positive football history, and welcome to Tuesday. It's footballarchaeology.com's Timothy P. Brown day, and Tim has another one of his great tidbits. He was going to reveal some interesting history that maybe we don't remember or just have been forgotten. Tim, Welcome back to The Pigpen.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, thanks, Darin. This is a story about when somebody's number was up, right?

Darin Hayes
And somebody's number is up indeed. And up at the highest point, it can be worn, I would guess, because you titled this article a few not too long ago, The Rise and Fall of the Helmet Numbers, which is an interesting piece of history. So yeah, would you tell us a little bit about that story?

Timothy Brown
Yeah. So we've talked about this, you know, in the past about the elements of football that were there for the fan, as opposed to the players on the field or the coaches. And so the numbers that are on the backs and then later on fronts of jerseys were there for the fans, not because the players or the coaches wanted them, they were opposed to them in many cases. Still, they were for fans in the stands to figure out who is who and be able to attract, you know, who was Red Grange or whomever, right? So, similar changes were made when they were for the fans in the stands. Later, when the TV came along, they, you know, made one of the changes to use white jerseys for the road team in football, and then the home team would wear dark jerseys. Now, that wasn't so much for the players in the stand or the fans and the stands because they could tell a red jersey from a blue jersey. But they couldn't tell the difference on black and white television and small screens of the day. So that was the rationale for going to the road white and home dark jerseys. The other thing that happened at about that same time was that the NFL passed the Road Jersey rule in 1954; the NCAA didn't adopt it until 1983, after everybody did it. Really, yeah, that's just one of those, you know, just like they didn't, they didn't require face masks till 1993 or something like that. It was just one of those things everybody did, so they didn't need a rule until they finally put it in. But back in the mid-50s, from 53 to 54, the National Photographers Association represented photographers, and presumably, they were involved with TV cameramen and you folks like that. They requested schools and then conferences. They wanted them to put more numbers on uniforms to make it easier to identify who was who. So, you know, anybody who's actually watching this on YouTube, my background has a team from a 1910 era playing, and nobody's wearing jerseys or no one's wearing numbers, so it's hard to tell who's who. But even in the early 50s, you know, depending on how somebody is standing or getting tackled, you might not see the front or back of their jerseys well enough to see their numbers. And so they said, can you put more numbers on the jerseys and so or at least on uniforms? So in 1950, in 1955, Georgia Tech was the first team I identified with TV numbers on their uniform. What they did was they put numbers on the shoulder pads. On both shoulder pads, they've got numbers. A week later, West Virginia opened its season, and the team had numbers on its helmets. And so other teams put numbers on sleeves. But, you know, basically, what happened is, almost every conference required teams to put numbers, ideally on their helmets, but they would grandfather you, if you have had numbers on your shoulder pads or your sleeves, then you wouldn't have to put them on, on your helmet. And so from, you know, say 56 is when the conferences started implementing those rules from 56 till like the mid-sixties, if you look at photographs from those years, almost everybody has numbers, the side of their helmets, college teams and some of the proteins too, you, know that the old, uh, San Diego Chargers, AFL at the time, but they've got numbers and the lightning bolt on their helmets. So that, you know, that kind of thing was, was not an, you know, was fairly common.

Darin Hayes
It was shocking with that lightning bolt.

Timothy Brown
Ah, yes. Yes. That was pretty good. Only two dads could appreciate that joke. Yes, so I got a charge out of it. But so anyways, everybody starts putting these numbers on and but at this, you know, in the late 40s, you know, he had the Los Angeles Rams, you know, they painted the horns on their helmets, and so there was a slow shift to logos as you know rather than numbers and the helmets and so if you look at you, look college yearbooks or you know whatever during the 1960s, you start seeing more and more teams putting logos on their helmets. Another thing that happened in that area was that Wisconsin did it; I don't know what Vanderbilt did, but there are a couple of others. But in the 1960 time frame, several teams had logos, or they had numbers on the sides of their helmets, and then they would have the letter of the school, like Wisconsin W, Vanderbilt, had a V, seat on the front of the helmet, which was dumb looking, you know, it's a terrible look. You know? I mean, some people think it is cool, but I just think, yeah, kind of pig ugly. So, for a long time, it was like, why did they put these things on the front of their helmet? Well, because they had numbers on the sides. Right? Anyway, by the '60s, more and more teams were switching over to logos. And so a few, Alabama, put the numbers on the year before Bear got there. But then they've kept them all along. So for them, that's kind of a, you see that color, and you see the numbers on the side of the helmet, it's like, well, that's Bama,

Darin Hayes
right?

Timothy Brown
So it shouldn't be identifiable because they're more or less, you know, at least one of the few that does it, then it's tied to them. So anyway, it was kind of an interesting deal. Yeah.

Darin Hayes
Go ahead. If you had another point. Yeah,

Timothy Brown
I was just going to say, you know, that it wasn't logos, but I also think TV screens got bigger, so fans at home could see numbers better on slightly bigger screens. And so they just kind of like, we just don't need that anymore.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, now we can count nose hairs to identify the players.

Timothy Brown
Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, have you ever thought about this? And I don't know why I think about this, but you know, especially in what seems like the 1970s, A lot of the college and pros teams had probably an inch and a half or one-inch high number on the back of their helmets. If they had a stripe down the middle, it'd be a number you; the number one digit would be on each side of the stripe. The only thing I can think of is maybe to identify the player if their helmets are on a sideline. Hey, I'm 22. I'll grab my helmet because it doesn't help anything for TV or during the game or anything like that. But that's the only thing I can think of. Do you have any other thoughts on that?

Timothy Brown
Well, sometimes there are shots from, and if there's a pile or even like in a huddle situation, you would see the numbers at the back of their helmet. So, yeah, it's not uncommon. You know the Giants, you wouldn't have the number on the front of their helmets. But it is the same situation as you described on either side of the middle or the center stripe. But, and I meant to say this early on, but originally, there were numbers, like in the 30s, see this fairly often, see numbers on people's helmets, on the back, but they don't correspond to their jersey number. So, they appear to just have been like an inventory number that the equipment manager would paint down there so that he'd make sure that you got 27 back from, you know, whoever wore that helmet. But then it also, I'm sure, part of the rationale is that it helps people identify their helmets, but I mean, I always knew which helmet was mine. And I think everybody else did. There's just something about whatever the scars were or your face mask. You know you just,

Darin Hayes
You kind of recognize your nasty mouthpiece stuck in it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't want to pick up his helmet. I want that. Yeah. Very, very interesting. Again, you know another little aspect of football that we sometimes overlook, and we see Alabama play multiple times yearly. It's, you know, they're a popular draw to have on our televisions, but you never really think about, you know, why those numbers are on,. They did it, and they're cool because it is cool watching TV, and most of the time we had that sideline view And to know who number 17 is, you know, he's like quarterback especially the Alabama I think what they were like swapping quarterbacks a couple of years ago like one series would be one quarterback I think when Jalen hurts was there they did that, ya know and Uh, uh, Tua got hurt. They were bringing them in and out, you know, from each other. So, at least you knew who was taking the snap. Yeah.

Timothy Brown
And Bryant, when he was coaching, he was one of the guys; there weren't many teams that would do this, but if they played, say, Mississippi State, because their helmets at the time were they also had a maroon helmet. But when they played Mississippi State, Alabama would wear white helmets with the numbers on the side because he wanted the differentiation, especially for, you know, pass receivers. So I mean the original reason for painting helmets was to be able to identify I pass the receivers downfield. I mean, that happened in 1906, but. So, you know, back in the day, you'd see helmets were painted like the back of the helmet would be one color, the front of the helmet would be another. And it would only be the eligible receivers who had that. So anyway, there's some history behind Alabama's helmets, even if they look kind of plain. I mean, they've done, you know, they have done a little bit of their own thing.

Darin Hayes
They look quite lively compared to Penn State's helmets. But they're iconic—both helmets are iconic—and you can't picture that team wearing something else, you with any colors or logos on it. So yeah, very interesting.

Timothy Brown
I'm going to challenge Penn State. I'm going to tell them I'll donate half a billion dollars to them if they put logos on their helmets, and we'll see what they say.

Darin Hayes
Oh, I'm sure you'd put your football archaeology .com emblem on there if you want to. You donated that much to him, I am sure.

Timothy Brown
But I don't think you have to worry.

Darin Hayes
about that.

Timothy Brown
It just is it's a pittance.

Darin Hayes
Very interesting, Tim. I appreciate you sharing these little pieces of football history, these little nuggets, or tidbits, as you call them. And you have these on your website. You have almost a thousand of them, I believe you said. Maybe you could tell the listeners how they can share and take in some of this football history.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, just go to the website, football archaeology.com, and or Google it, and you'll find you find it. You can subscribe. You just submit your email. You subscribe for free. That gives you access to about a third of the content. Paid the subscription is five bucks a month or 50 bucks a year, and then that gives you access to everything that I publish, and I'll send you a copy of, you know, One of my books, and you get access to all the car archives and all that kind of stuff So, you're not just kind to the that's the deal. Whenever I publish a new story, I publish it or post it on threads and Twitter. So, if that works for you, then follow me on those.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, folks, it's a great deal. Like Tim said, if you subscribe, you even get a copy of one of his books, which is an excellent read to get some more information. So I highly recommend it, and I recommend you check with us each Tuesday because we get the benefit of having this gentleman join us to talk about some interesting football history. So Tim, we thank you for that, and we will talk to you again next Tuesday.

Timothy Brown
I thank you, sir. I look forward to it

-Frequently Asked Questions

-Who was the first player to wear a football helmet? We have your answer in our in-depth study ofthe first to wear a helmet.

-Why do some teams like Michigan and Delaware look so odd and similar? It's really uncanny isn't it that the Wolverines and Blue Hens look the same, check this out for a reason when helmets had wings.

-What do stickers on college football helmets mean? Some of them look really crazy but there is some goos reason for the extra adornments and we have the scoop Why all the stickers on some football helmets?.

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This is something that sports fans probably take for granted in the modern scoreboard when attending an athletic event. These generally large appendages are an information hub for what is happening in the event.

The questions arise: Who invented the scoreboard concept and when? What problem did the invention and resolve?

-Arthur Irwin and the First Football Scoreboards

A great piece of gridiron history comes from a famous baseball player who designed the template for the modern scoreboard. Timothy P Brown tells the tale of Arthur Irwin and his invention.

-Transcribed Conversation on Arthur Irwin Scoreboard 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 another evening when we will be honored with the presence of Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.
Hey, thanks, Darin.

And the honor is all mine. All mine, sir.

No, no, it's me and the listeners. We get this weekly treat where you reminisce about a piece you've written recently and your daily tidbits. We get to talk to you about it, pick your brain, and learn something new about football history. Tonight, we will go up on the scoreboard and learn a little about that and some of its associations with other sports.

Then, I'll let you talk about this gentleman and his invention. Yeah, so this one is one of my favorite stories in a while, largely because this is one where I just really learned something. It's one of those where, you know, I don't know, I'm, you know, I probably put in 20, 30, 40 hours of research in the past on maybe more, you know, on a couple of different topics related to early scoreboards and game simulations and things like that. And I'd always seen them as three separate things floating around, you know, in the ether that wasn't connected.

And then, for some reason, I was, you know, checking into, you know, doing another dig on scoreboards. And I came across a mention of an Irwin scoreboard, which, if I'd seen it before, I don't remember it. So I dig into that.

And all of a sudden, it's like, everything makes sense. Everything is connected, so it was just like this great revelation for me. So, I mean, the story is that there's this guy, Arthur Irwin, who, perhaps people who are into old-time baseball would know because he played like 13 years in the majors.

He was also a player-manager in the latter part of his playing career. And then he, you know, once he was done playing, he continued managing. So, there was a point in his career when he was managing the Phillies.

And as was the case back then, baseball players needed jobs after the season. So, being an athlete, he got a job as a trainer at Penn, you know, University of Pennsylvania. So, you know, back then, the trainers were like the guys who would physically condition athletes across sports.

They were the guys who would diagnose, you know, they didn't have sports medicine per se back then. So they were the guys who'd figure out how to resolve a Charlie horse, you know, how to, you know, fix a sprain, tape them up. So that was his role.

But while he's there, he designs and builds a scoreboard. And I think it was actually before they had Franklin Field, but, you know, he builds a scoreboard for, you know, for Penn. Because prior to that, everybody used baseball scoreboards, you know, if they were in a baseball stadium or they didn't have any scoreboards.

So he builds this thing, and it's got the rudiments of what scoreboards have today. You know, down a distance, you know, it said who had the ball and who was in possession. It had a little thing up at the top, a little kind of a football field graphic that they'd moved this football along, you know, as the team progressed on the field. So things like that.

Then he ends up patenting it. So, you know, there are drawings on his patent application that show the format of this scoreboard. And then I found a couple of early photographs of his scoreboards, you know, up there on the field, and they look, you know, just like his patent application.

So then what happens is, you know, he builds a business while he builds multiple scoreboards. And, you know, in some cases, they permanently install in locations, and in other cases, as he moves them around, you know, they're like the Goodyear Blimp; they show up at different places. But, you know, he's hired to do it.

He then has people, and he staffs the operation when a scoreboard is being used. And in the course of all that, you know, they had to develop a system of, you know, they didn't have really telephones on the field, and they didn't have walkie-talkies or, you know, those kinds of things. So they developed this signal system, what they would call wig wagging back in the day.

So a guy or two on the field would follow the plays and, you know, use these contortions, something similar to the semaphore flags of, you know, in the military or like referee signals, you know, they contorted their bodies, or they spelled out letters. They would essentially communicate with the guys operating the scoreboard, the down and distance, who had substituted whatever information they had. And so, you know, it became this thing that, you know, for the big games in the East, you pretty much, you know, it became an expectation. You have an Irwin scoreboard up there, and everybody knew what the Irwin scoreboard was.

So when they built Harvard Stadium, then I think they, you know, I've never gotten a real, I've got one image that isn't too great of an early scoreboard there. So, you know, I think it was an advanced version of an Irwin scoreboard, but he ended up hiring a guy whose name was Eddie Morris. He ends up being the wigwag.

You know, he always wore a red sweater and a white hat. And for about 20 years, everybody at this guy was following along. Sometimes, he'd be out on the field doing his signals up to the guys in the box or up on the scoreboard.

And so he became like, before mascots, he became like one of the mascots, you know, something like that. And so anyways, you know, then they also started at Harvard, where he would signal in, like who made the tackle, who ran the ball, those kinds of things. And so they were selling, you know, scorecards that had the number of each of the players.

Now, the players didn't wear the numbers, but there was a number on a scorecard for Smith and Jones. And then if Smith made the tackle and Jones made the run, they'd signal that and they'd post those numbers, the corresponding numbers up on the scoreboard. So it was just a way to, you know, for the people in the stands to kind of know who the heck was who, because nobody wore numbers and they all look the same and, you know, whatever.

And they're just running in these mushes. You know, that was the nature of football at the time. So then eventually, you know, then later on, obviously they added numbers to the players, you know, on their jerseys.

The other thing that he did was they would do the Irwin scoreboards in the gymnasiums or in theaters. So they do it, especially for an away game, and they'll get connected by telephone or telegraph. And then, so it became a thing where you'd pay some money, go to the theater, and you could watch the game as a simulation based on what was happening down in Philadelphia, you know if you were in Boston.

And they even did it in Boston. They do games at Harvard, and for the big games, like the Princeton and Yale games, those would sell out. And so people who couldn't get into the game would go to the theater to watch the simulation. And then, so, I mean, it's just kind of crazy stuff like that.

Now that that image you have from 1893 and so, I mean, listeners, you can go to the show notes, and we have a link that'll take you right to Tim's article, and you can, you can see this image, and it's sort of like a sketch of what the intention of what the board should be for 1893. But it's really interesting because at the top, as you said earlier, they've got a thing called field board, and it's got an image of a football that sort of slides down, and the points of the ball indicate what yard line, I guess, the ball is on for the, for the next down. And it almost reminds me of the modern day, if you're watching an NFL game and you follow on nfl.com or cbs.com and you want to know real play because you can't watch a game or whatever your, you know, your wife makes you go shopping or something.

You can see, you know, where the plays are going. So it was kind of interesting, you know, 130 years ago, when similar technology started then. So that's really cool.

Yeah. Yeah. From a representation.

So, and that image is right from his, it's just the front page of his patent, you know, documents. So yeah, I mean, fundamentally, you know, everything that he had listed on his early thing is right there, you know? So, and as you said, you know, I mean, I do that where I'm like, I'm watching one game, and I got another one on my computer that I'm just, you know, tracking the, the progress of the game. Right.

So, right. Yeah, it's definitely very cool. So now the other thing that's really, that's pretty bizarre about this guy is that he ends up, you know, so at the time, you know, I mean, he was a ball player, so he was traveling a lot of the year and then he would, you know, when he's doing these scoreboards, he's traveling basically on the East coast.

And at one point, he was diagnosed, I don't know if he was formally diagnosed with cancer, but basically, he was told, you know, you don't have long to live. And so he gets on a boat and goes from New York to Boston and falls overboard or just jumps in the water to end it. And so he, he dies.

And then, as they're trying to settle his estate, it turns out that, you know, kind of came up that he had a wife in New York and another one in Boston, you know, with children on it. No wonder he had to keep score. He had to know what was going on.

You need to make some cash. Yeah. So anyways, I mean, it's, it's a sad, a sad end, but yeah, I mean, so just kind of a bizarre ending to a pretty wild story, but you know, for me, it just brought together the simulation.

So, I mean, I now believe he was his, you know, Irwin's scoreboard was the first simulation. He was the designer of the first football-specific scoreboard. And then, you know, I'd always made a big deal out of the Harvard stadium sport and their wigwag system.

And then I, you know, now kind of understand that he was the one behind that. And that is, his stuff was around, you know, ten years earlier, you know, maybe not as quite sophisticated form, but nevertheless. Very interesting.

And it's great that you see them, especially that image from 1893, and the similarities to our modern scoreboard still carry on the tradition of what he started. It's just a fascinating and a great testament, a great idea. Yeah.

It was pretty brilliant. That's a great story, Tim; I appreciate that you're sharing that with us. Like you do every day on the tidbits that you have from footballarchaeology.com, and maybe you could share with the listeners how they, too, could get into the tidbits.

Yeah. So ideally, you go to www.footballarchaeology.com and subscribe, and you'll get an email every, every evening, seven o'clock Eastern with, you know, just basically it got the contents of that, of that night's story. You can also just bookmark it and, you know, go whenever you want.

I also post links on Twitter and on threads as well as on the Substack app because my site—I've got my own name for it—is actually a Substack application. So those are the ways to get there and have at it. Yeah.

And help you keep your score on the scoreboard each and every night. So. I do.

We definitely appreciate you sharing your story and bringing some of this football antiquity to us to our modern day making it relevant again and carrying on and letting us know the name of Arthur Irwin and his great idea that he had and some great stories from him too. I also forgot to mention, he was the first non-catcher, non-first baseman to wear a glove in the major leagues. And so Spalding then sold the Irwin glove, you know, throughout the 1890s and early aughts.

So I forgot to mention that, but that's another, you know, he's a big deal in baseball. Yeah. Wow.

It's definitely an all-around sport. We can all thank him for the sports that we watch. So wow.

Some great stuff, Tim. We appreciate it. And we will talk to you again next week.

Okay. Thanks, Darin. All right.

Bye.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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One item that almost all in attendance look at when attending a football game is the stadium scoreboard. They come in different shapes and sizes and can be as simple or as high-tech as a supercomputer, but they all provide basic game information.

One thing they all do is keep the score of the contest but it is interesting to know the story of the verbiage on these information centers.

The story of how the word "Visitors" and or "guests" first appeared on scoreboards from FootballArchaeology.com.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on Opponents Visitor Scoreboard

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history, and welcome to another Tuesday where we get to welcome in our guest, Timothy Brown of FootballArcheology.com. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin, thank you. Always good to be here chatting with you about old football stuff.

Yes, old football stuff, and we're definitely going to be talking about that today. And since you are a guest here on Pigskin Dispatch, I guess you're my visitor, not my opponent. So I think that'll maybe lead to some of the topics you're going to talk about today from one of your recent tidbits.

Yeah, so that is a beautiful segue. Not very imaginative. Yes, yes.

Yeah, so I just think this one is really fun. I mean, part of what I like about football is the evolution of words and terminology. And my most recent book was basically about that topic.

And so this is one, it got started with, I had come across a story probably three or four years ago about Harvard. There was a professor at Harvard who, when they built Harvard Stadium and they put up the scoreboard, it said Harvard and then opponent. And he just didn't like the term opponent.

He just felt like these are our guests. And so he wanted them to change the terminology. And he was like, by then, he was a Dean.

So kind of what he said happened. And so they changed the terminology to guest or visitor. So even now, I went out and searched a bunch of different, scoreboard manufacturers, and there, unless it's a digital one where they can put in whatever name of the visiting team is, the typical scoreboard will be like home and away, or it's the home team's name and then visitor or guest.

And so opponent just isn't there anymore. So this guy, and this is back in 1905 or something like that, that he finally got the thing changed, but he is this one guy's opinion. And basically it's kind of proliferated throughout football and probably all kinds of other.

I think all sports because I could, I can remember when I was a kid in grade school, we had an old scoreboard, the old dial clock type, our scoreboard and had, but it had, I'm pretty sure it had a home, and it had guests on it. I guess I never really thought about it, you know, cause now today you always see, you know, visitors or away is probably the common thing, but, but those are, those are actually kind of polite and welcoming things, I guess, I guess the opponents or, you know, the, you know, the idiots from across town or whatever else you're going to put on there. And those were the days when, oftentimes after the game, the two teams would sit down and have dinner together. You know, so, you know, they were supposed to be treated as guests. And so, yeah, it's just, you know, it was kind of a different time.

And especially like in the Ivies, it was more of a gentleman's sort of thing than perhaps even it is there today, but yeah. So, you know, it takes us back to a bygone era. Right.

But the other thing about that then was, you know, so I'd had this story sitting in my head for four years, and then it was like, well, this isn't enough to do a tidbit. I mean, you know, I've got connected to something else. And so then I came across the story of Lehigh and Lafayette, who are, you know, bitter rivals.

And in the 1959 game, then, it was at Lehigh. Both teams were four and four coming in though Lehigh was favored. However, as the game progressed, Lehigh did not treat Lafayette as a guest.

They treated them as something beneath an opponent. And, you know, because Lehigh was unexpectedly losing them, some of their fans, you know, apparently got ahold of pears and apples and had them in their pockets or whatever. They're out there in a very cold, you know, last game of the season, cold weather.

And they started flinging them up into the Lafayette stands. Later on, lettuce and cabbages and apparently a few bottles went Lafayette's way as well. And as that was happening, Lehigh was falling further and further behind on the field.

And so then the last thing was that you know, Lehigh ends up, or Lafayette wins the game 28 to six, and they end up, the Lehigh fans went out onto the field to protect the goalposts so that Lafayette could not tear them down. Because, you know, back then, fans toured on the goalposts all the time, you know, they were wooden. They weren't as secured into the ground as they are now.

Plus, you know, enough teams hadn't been sued yet for people being injured by falling goalposts. So the home team didn't protect them as well as they do nowadays. But anyway, you know, so that was kind of a riot, and a bunch of fights ensued.

And, you know, so there was a time where there were tensions between the Lehigh and Lafayette fans. But one of the cool things about that story then was that a day or two after I published it, I got an email from a guy who played in the game. And so he and I are, you know, we'll be connecting and chatting in the near term, but he sent me some information.

And I did another. One of the tidbits of late was about the era of using rubber footballs. There was talk about rubber footballs replacing the leather. And so this guy, Mike, became a Big East official.

And so, you know, he ended up part of the story that I tell. And that is one of the stories that he sent me, you know, in a document that he had produced. So anyway, we're going to get together and chat a little bit.

But it's one of the fun things about reading these things is, you know, I, oftentimes I hear from the children or the grandchildren of people, you know, that I write about, but in this case, it's, you know, somebody who's out there playing on the field that day, so, which is pretty cool. Yeah.

Very cool. Now, isn't Lehigh and Lafayette the longest? They played the most times of any two opponents in college football history. Is that my thinking? Right. Okay.

Yeah. They played most often back in the 1890s; they played twice a year. So that's part of why they went ahead of everybody else.

But, otherwise, I think they've, I think they've played every, every year, but you know, perhaps there was a gap somewhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Very interesting. Great story. And it's great that you're getting some great feedback from folks like that, too, especially somebody who played in the game.

That's, that's really cool. So yeah, very, very nicely done. Well-researched, just like everything that you do is, and you have such interesting things that come out each and every night in your tidbits, Tim.

And, you know, folks, I'm sure, well, we know they appreciate you're, you're getting some responses back, and maybe if you could share with the listeners here, how they too can partake in reading some of your tidbits, that'd be a great thing. Yeah. So, you know, the best thing or the easiest thing is to just go to my site, footballarchaeology.com, and just subscribe.

And then, every night, you'll get an email at seven Eastern, and it shows up in your inbox. And then, you know, you know, I have some people clearly, you know, the best majority of people read it that night, or at least they open it that night, decide if they want to read it or not. But, you know, there are others, they let them pile up to the weekend and then, you know, you know, they'll go through them because I can just, you know, the number of hits that I get or email opens, you know, I can tell, you know, that the system tracks that for me.

So anyway, that's the best thing. I post on threads now, I post on the Substack app, and I'm still posting on Twitter. It has now been named X, so we'll see how long that lasts.

All right, Tim. Thank you very much, and we will talk to you again next Tuesday.

Very good. Thank you.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

A walk into any American football stadium reveals a familiar sight: towering scoreboards displaying team names, scores, and the enigmatic word "VISITORS" beside one of them. But have you ever wondered how this seemingly mundane term became an ingrained part of the gridiron lexicon? Surprisingly, its origins hold a fascinating window into the evolution of American football and the shifting dynamics of competition.

Here the story is told best Visitors on the Scoreboard Football Archaeology Tidbit.

-Frequently Asked Questions About Football Field Equipment

-Who invented the scoreboard? A man named Arthur Irwin came up with the concept of the modern scoreboard for baseball and then created a modified version for other sports like football. Learn more about Irwin and his design in this conversation Arthur Irwin's Scoreboard.

-How was time kept in a football game before the scoreboard clocks existed? Officials would use hand held and later wristwatches to time the events. Check out this article on the Evolution of the game clock or Timing of Games As the Sun Sets

---

Knockoffs and copy cat manufacturing are each nefarious elements of open Capitalism and industry. There have even been many times that football equipment and ideas have been copied and sold.

Timothy Brown examines some cases of Bootleg footballs,on a recent Tidbit he wrote on his Football Archaeology website, It all comes from his original article titled: Bootleg Footballs and Changing Specifications, concerning the 1925-1926 GoldSmith catalog and the "Slim Jim" ball. Tim shared the story with us on the podcast.

-Transcription of Bootleged Footballs 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 the portal that we're going to go back in time and look at some great football archaeology, some great old stuff that our friend Timothy P. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com is going to share with us from one of his recent tidbits. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, thank you. Looking forward to chatting about bootleg footballs. It's kind of an interesting idea or issue. Everybody talks about bootlegs, but this is a different deal.

These are bootleg footballs. When I first saw that, I was picturing a football full of illegal bathtub gin back in the prohibition days, but after I read it, I was straightened out right away. Sorry, the way my mind works, but why don't you explain to us the story of bootleg footballs? Yeah, well, so just following up on your comment, so the bootleg initially, the first bootleg was Pop Warner at Stanford.

He had a fake, so he basically ran a fake Statue of Liberty and the fullback because he was running a double wing at the time with a fullback getting a direct snap. He faked the Statue of Liberty to the wing coming around from right to left, and then the fullback ran to the right, and everybody went with the, you know, chased the right wing who was running to the left, and he just, the fullback ran into the end zone. So, that's where the original bootleg came from, and it had, you know, the name came from bootleg gin, bootleg rum, you know, so it was prohibition time, and you know, so that's where the name originates.

So, it's the idea of fake and illegal and inappropriate, and so during the same era, one of the things that was happening to teams were, you know, some teams were choosing to pass more often than others, and so some of the, you know, back then there were lots of different companies manufacturing footballs, and so some of those manufacturers began making balls that were, you know, the ball had changed, I think it was 1912, maybe I'm off on that, but, you know, somewhere in that area, the ball had been slimmed down from the big fat rugby ball. So, it had been slimmed down, but it was still bigger than what we're used to today, so it's remained difficult to throw. Typically, only guys with big hands could really throw it effectively, and so they, some of the manufacturers, started producing slimmer balls, slimmer footballs that didn't really meet the game specifications, because the game, you know, by then they had specified it's got to be, you know, you know, there was tolerance, but it had to be this much around this length, and so they started producing these balls, and obviously, if you were a running team, you looked at the slim balls of the, what is this doing here on the field, because I don't need it, you know, my team is going to run the ball, we're not going to go crazy and pass it 12 times a game like some of these passing teams.

So, you know, they, you know, it became a controversy, and so, you know, it kind of went back and forth for a while, and then eventually the, you know, the things, they changed the rules basically in 1934 to make, to change the regulations on the ball specifications, so the ball would be about an inch thinner around the girth, but, you know, so one of the things that, you know, sometimes it doesn't seem to make as big a difference, but, you know, you know, you have to realize that the ball in the night before the mid-1920s was not only a bigger, fatter ball, but it's kind of a different ball too, and by that I mean that at that, until the mid-20s, when they, when somebody invented the internal valves, if the ball deflated, and they did so regularly, because they just didn't have the quality control on these rubber bladders that were inside the ball, when the ball deflated, you had to unlace the ball, pull the bladder out, inflate it, much like you would a balloon, I mean, there was like a nipple kind of thing sticking off from the bladder, and you inflated that, and then you tied it off to keep the air inside the bladder, and then you stuffed it back inside the ball, and then you took this leather lacing that was comparable to the lacing, you know, any baseball glove today, you know, it's a flexible lacing, and you weave it in and out with the different fingers, and you know, the, but you know, so that's basically what the lacing was on a football back then, you know, now it's this really hard, it's polyvinyl chloride, this hard plastic, it's stuff we make plumbing pipes out of, you know, that's a stiff material, and so, but back then, it was the same laces that were on a foot, you know, in a baseball glove, right, and so it was fairly flexible, and it could only be as tight, the lacing on a football was only as tight as the guy who tied it together when they reinflated it, so, you know, quality control and standardization just weren't part of that picture, you know, at the time, so it's just one of those things where, you know, we kind of, it's easy to lose sight of the difference at the time, but so, you know, the ability for a quarterback to throw that, you know, to throw a spiral and flick their wrist, you know, and, you know, flick it over to get a nice tight spiral, it was just much harder to do, because these laces barely stuck up over the leather on the surface of the ball, right, and so once they, once it had the internal valve, and that became, you know, the late, the second half of the 20s was kind of a transition period where some balls had it and some didn't, but when they, you know, if you think about a football now in lacing, they, there's the laces that go, I'll call them, you know, perpendicular to the length of the ball, right, but then there's two laces that are underneath those perpendicular laces that kind of go back and forth, right, does that make sense? I don't know if you can picture that, but so under, so putting the lacing underneath the perpendicular laces raised the profile above the surface of the ball, and because they no longer had to replace the ball, they could make that lacing stiffer, even before they used plastics, they could make the lacing stiffer, and therefore, it was easier for the quarterback to grip the ball, to throw a spiral, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, so anyways, I mean, it's one of these things where there's a lot of parts of football blocking, you know, what we call blocking now was interference originally, that was illegal, and then guys started doing it, and they didn't call it, so then it became part of the game. The bootleg footballs, people started using them, they were illegal, but they kind of let it go, and then eventually, they changed the rules to reflect that, right, so there's a lot of parts of football where people did stuff that was against the rules or against the sportsmanship standards of the time, and eventually, people kind of said, oh, yeah, let's just let that go, and it became part of the rules, so bootleg footballs are the reason people throw long, tight spirals 60, 70 yards downfield nowadays. Hey, that, you know, fascinating stuff, your story of you telling us, you know, with the vulcanized rubber bladders, you know, pulling those out and blowing them up, it took me back to some things I read, I believe, from the rugby days, where they still used an actual pig's bladder, and the poor soul that had to unlace it and blow up that rotting pig's bladder, put their lips on that and blow up the ball, that poor sucker had to be the worst job you could have, I think, on a football field.

Well, and, you know, I mean, talk about the pig's bladder, but the, you know, a lot of people think that the reason football is played in the fall is because, you know, people had piglets that they raised all summer, you know, spring and all summer long, and then they slaughtered them in the fall, and what comes along with slaughtering a pig? Well, you have pig's bladders available all of a celebration. They have this kicking game where you try to kick this pig's bladder from your town into the next, or your village into the next, and that's where this football kicking game originated. And eventually, people started covering that pig's bladder with a leather cover to make it, you know, more sustainable or, you know, just to last longer.

But, you know, that's the origins of the game, right? So, it's kind of crazy, you know, kind of how it's all evolved. It's like every other technology; things become more uniform and consistent. But, yeah, that's where the game starts.

A lesson within the lesson. That's good stuff. And I'm sealing up my envelope right now from these advertisements for Goldsmith that you have on your website on this post to get my $10 football.

So, the F5 and the X5. So, I'm going to get one of each for ten bucks. Well, hey, you know, one of the images, so, I mean, for those who are just listening and haven't seen the post, this would be a fun one to go look at, just because there's a number of images from period catalogs that show footballs.

And there's one from D&M, which was a big manufacturer supplier at the time. They had a football they called the Slim Jim. And it was slimmer than the standard ball.

And they're advertising. It's right there in their catalog. There's no secret about it.

But it was slimmer than the specifications required it to be. Well, now you're making me hungry for a meat product that comes in plastic now. So, talk about Slim Jim.

Check-in with Nancy Pelosi. I think she's got some. She was eating some, well, you know, long story.

Hey, Tim, this has been another great lesson in helping us to understand the game of football, where it came from some of the intricacies and equipment, and just the history of the game and how the folks before us had to play with less than what we see today on TV and what the players play on a high school level even. We really appreciate you digging up this research and sharing it with us each week and evening. You can read it on your phone or computer.

Tim has a great way of delivering that message. And, Tim, why don't you share the information with us right now? Sure. So, footballarchaeology.com. You can just go out there and click on any link, and all of them are going to provide an opportunity to subscribe.

So, if you want to subscribe, it just guarantees that you get it every day. You don't have to read it every day. You can save them up and read them on the weekend, whatever.

But it'll be delivered to your inbox at 7 o'clock Eastern every night. And then alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter at Football Archaeology. And if you don't like either of those options, just go out and check out Football Archaeology anytime you want.

And you can see the most recent article just listed out there in order of how they were posted. All right. Tim Brown, footballarchaeology.com. Thank you, once again, for sharing these stories and this information.

And we'll talk to you again next week. Very good. Look forward to it, Darin.

Thank you.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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

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

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

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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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

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

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

-Transcribed Conversation on Football Pants History with Timothy Brown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.