Football

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Timothy P. Brown shares the story of the Big New Years game in 1947 between #3 Georgia and #9 North Carolina and the star players, like Charley Trippi and what happened in the Sugar Bowl.

At the 1947 Sugar Bowl, Charley Trippi was a dynamic force, but his impact transcended mere statistics. While he carried the ball 14 times for 54 yards and threw a game-changing 67-yard touchdown pass, his true contribution was a masterclass in offensive agility and leadership.

Shifty Running: Trippi frustrated the North Carolina defense with his signature moves, dodging tackles and keeping plays alive with his deceptive jukes and spins. He wasn't just a powerful runner, but a magician with the ball in his hands.

Clutch Pass: When Georgia needed it most, Trippi stepped up as a passer. His 67-yard touchdown to Dan Edwards was a thing of beauty, showcasing his underrated arm strength and ability to read defenses. This play shifted the momentum and ultimately secured the Bulldogs' victory.

-Transcribed Conversation on Charley Trippi & the 1947 Sugar Bowl with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome another day to visit with our friend Timothy P. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, it's good to be here with you, and I'm looking forward to going on a little trip with you. It is a little Trippi, indeed. That's pretty good stuff.

Yeah, that's digging deep for that segue into our topic tonight. Of course, Tim is talking about a recent tidbit that he wrote about the famous football legend Charley Trippi and a college football game that he played. And we know him as a great college and professional player.

But Tim loves to focus on, especially on those college games. And you've got some interesting items on Mr. Trippi that you'd like to discuss. Yeah.

So this one, I kind of, this particular tidbit, I was hoping to draw kind of two issues. One is how much of a stud Trippi was, right? And he was just a tremendous player. But the other thing was just kind of the messiness of determining the national championship back in the day.

You know, and if anybody thought it was bad past 30, 40 years, back in 1946, when he was getting out of college, it was worse. So, you know, he, as a senior, his senior season was 1946, he's playing for, you know, University of Georgia. And they ended up the year ranked number three.

And so, right, I ended the regular season ranked number three. Number one and two were the Army and Navy, who had tied zero to zero, you know, in the last game of the season. And so, you know, they're, you know, they weren't going to win the national championship, in all likelihood, you know, meaning Georgia wasn't.

And, you know, back then, the Big Ten for the 1947 season, the Big Ten still, maybe, they had just started. But anyway, you know, there were, you know, Notre Dame didn't go to bowl games. And, you know, we were still in an era where entire conferences didn't go to bowl games.

So it's, you know, who was going to finish the season national championships? It's kind of a mess. But so they end up with, you know, Georgia ends up being invited to the Sugar Bowl. And they play; they're number three, and they play number nine, North Carolina.

And so Trippi, who had finished second in the Heisman Trophy, voting to Glenn Davis, you know, of Army. And Trippi was this, you know, quintuple and maybe even a septuple or whatever, you know, threat, because he, you know, he was a passer, he was a runner, punted, he returned kicks. And, you know, in the 47 seasons, he led the nation, or at least tied to the in the nation for most interceptions, so he's just this all-around player who's just, you know, just tremendous.

So he ends up, you know, in the Sugar Bowl. North Carolina takes a seven-nothing lead at the half. And then Georgia ties it up, you know, early in the third quarter.

UNC gets a field goal. So now they're down, you know, Georgia's down 10-7, and they're thinking we're at least the third team in the nation. So then I think it was the next series, Trippi faked a run and then executed one of those old style jump passes, you know, jumps up right behind the line of scrimmage, hits a guy who's running a crossing pattern.

And the guy, boom, to the races, you know, get a touchdown. And then they score another touchdown and win the game. And, you know, one of the cool things about that particular tidbit is just that I had, you know, these old college composite schedule, you know, booklets.

And so one of them had that play. And, you know, the coach described the play, it's got the play diagram. And, you know, it's a neat illustration of that jump pass play.

But so they end up winning. And, you know, here it is, right after World War Two. So the AFC and the NFL are battling for, you know, contracts.

So this guy signs, he can sign a four-year $100,000 contract, which was the biggest contract for a pro football player to that point. So, I mean, just the bargaining power he had, and yet, you know, it's just nothing compared to today's four-year $100,000 contract. And then he goes on, in the NFL, he's into the all-1940s team.

When he retired in 57, he was the NFL's all-time yardage leader because he was a multi-threat player. Then, he died in 1921 or 2021. He was the second NFL player to live to be 100 years old.

So, the guy had a pretty good life. Yeah. Wow.

Can't complain about that one. No. And what an interesting, you know, time when his senior season, you know, World War Two is just over, and that 46th season is sort of, I always look at it, it's almost like a line of debarkation of like, you know, the single wing is ending its run, and they're going into, you know, some T formations, some more modern formations that we're familiar with.

And, you know, single platoon football is, you know, right at its edge of doing. So it's a lot of interesting things that era, and all the different things that if you're a football fan, you go to the stadium, you're going to see, you know, everything coming out of the woodwork in those years. And as you said, the AFC and the NFL are doing battle, and Paul Brown is, you know, getting his glory on and at the pro level and just a cool era.

Charley Trippi is a part of that. Well, Trippi, like a lot of the guys, you know, he was. I think he left college. He was 44 and 45, so I could be off on that. But, you know, like a lot of these guys, they were getting drafted, you know, and so he was out of the game.

Now he played service football, like a lot of these guys did. But, you know, the other thing about 46 was just, I mean, if there was an era with more talent, now, this is pre-integration, so it's all white guys, right? But, you know, you had rosters filled with these returning vets, you know, so guys who had been in the service for two, three, and even four years coming back to college. And, you know, all these guys with playing experience, all these guys who'd started are now all of a sudden on one roster.

And it's just that even though teams were starting to run, you know, two-platoon, most still ran one platoon. So just, I mean, there was just some tremendous talent in the 1946 season. Yeah.

And they got that extra training if they played military ball, it's like an extra couple of years of college football to get trained for the professional level, which wasn't that developed yet. The college game was a much better game at that point in time too. So just, you know, just all the stars aligned for football with all the world events and everything that was going on.

And man, a special time is definitely a golden era of football, like they say. And it's very enjoyable to read about it and to see these heroes like Charley Trippi and others who played the game so well during that era. Yeah.

And I mean, you just think about the changes in the game that he saw in his lifetime; just incredible. Yeah. You'd have to pick up a new copy of that rules book and study it really hard every time the new season comes along because that's definitely a time of change.

Now, speaking of changes, your tidbits now cover changes from all eras of football, from the 1800s to the 20th century and beyond, even into today's game. And they're really interesting, and they're not focused on one thing. You take us on a journey every single evening into something new that maybe we never really thought about.

So how can people enjoy your tidbits on a daily basis? Yeah. It's real simple. Just go to footballarchaeology.com. You can subscribe.

And then, you know, if you subscribe, you get an email with that story every night at seven o'clock Eastern. If you, you know, you don't have to read them right away. They're just; you can let them sit near your inbox and read them on the weekend.

If you don't want to subscribe, you can follow me on Twitter, on threads, or on the Substack app. Or you can just go to the site whenever you feel like it. Excellent.

Well, Tim Brown is his name. Footballarchaeology.com is his website. And you've got all the other information there too.

It's in the show notes of the podcast as well. Tim, thank you for joining us here. And we'll talk to you again next Tuesday.

Yep. And what a long, strange, Trippi it's been. Sorry for my dad jokes.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

Before foam and Kevlar dominated the gridiron, a far stranger form of protection reigned: the pneumatic pad. In the early 20th century, players donned inflatable armor, resembling futuristic gladiators more than athletes. This essay delves into the rise and fall of these curious contraptions, a chapter in football history that is both innovative and ultimately deflated.

Timothy P Brown has a geat post on this on Football Archaeology titled: footballarchaeology.com/p/todays-tidbits-getting-pumped-up?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email">Getting Pumped Up for Pneumatic Football Pads.

The story of air-filled helmets has an early tie to 1903 with a full-page ad for “Spalding’s Pneumatic Head Harness in Spalding's sponsored Football Rules Guide for that year.

Initially, the idea seemed revolutionary. Pneumatic pads boasted impressive shock absorption, reducing the thud of tackles and promising a new era of player safety. However, problems surfaced quickly. The cumbersome air bladders restricted movement, turning agile athletes into clunky robots. Leaks were frequent, leaving players feeling vulnerable and, ironically, deflated. The technology proved impractical, and by the 1940s, air had all but vanished from the playing field.

Despite their short-lived tenure, pneumatic pads hold a significant place in football history. They represent a bold, if misguided, attempt to address player safety, paving the way for future innovations like leather and foam padding.

Their comical appearance remains a quirky footnote in the sport's evolving narrative, reminding us that the quest for protection is often a bumpy, deflated one.

- Transcribed Conversation of Pumped Up Pneumatic Jel 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 edition where we get to talk to Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com about football from yesteryear and one of the famous tidbits that he's had out recently. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, thank you. Looking forward to chatting and getting pumped up. Yeah, like the old Saturday Live skit where they say, we're going to pump you up.

My worst German accent there. So I apologize for that. But yeah, your title is very fitting.

We're saying that because the title of your tidbit from back in August of this past year is getting pumped up for pneumatic football pads. A lot of P words in there, a lot of big words, and a lot of exciting stuff for equipment. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about that story.

Yeah, so this is one of those stories. Last week, we talked about what might have been with St. Louis U football, you know, had they continued playing or if things had gone differently back in the day. So this is kind of similar, but it's one of those things where for, I mean, this happens in all kinds of different product areas and industries, but you know, you kind of have to have this confluence of technology and inventiveness and engineering and manufacturing prowess and everything in order for a product to be successful. And so this is a story where the ideas were there well in advance of actually being fully implemented, but they just couldn't get it done to make it practical.

So, this is really about the first use of pneumatics. So, you know, like inflatable tires and things like that. You know, the first use of pneumatics in footballs was, it was an attempt to, they made like canvas and rubber covered thigh pads, and they'd blow them up, and then you'd insert them into your pants.

And, you know, at the time, most of the thigh pads were like bamboo and other kinds of reeds. You know, if you see somebody looking at the old pictures, you see all these tiny vertical slots. And so it was either that or like quilt material.

So, you know, they're trying to avoid what the, you know, Charlie horses and that kind of thing. So somebody had an idea of pumping up these little pads and using those. So they did that in the thigh pads.

And then there was also, there were also some attempts in the late 1890s to maybe apply it to helmets. And they weren't helmets at the time. And, you know, in my terminology, a helmet has to have some kind of hard protective cover or a crown.

Helmets initially were head harnesses, similar to wrestlers' headgear. So they tried to do that with foot helmets. It didn't really work, but they did use them in France for cyclists and the Tour de France.

And then it just goes, you know, kind of the pneumatic world goes dry as far as its application of football until the 1950s. And then you have the guy Cecil Cushman, who was the coach at the University of Redlands in California. And he was there for a long time, but he was an inventor throughout his time there.

He also got a patent in 1952 for this pneumatic lining for the inside of helmets. By then, helmets had plastic linings, so the idea made sense.

It never, you know, for whatever reason, I mean, it just didn't work. Maybe they just couldn't manufacture them. They weren't reliable enough when you did use them, something happened, but so they never took, took on or took off.

But Cushman is actually, besides being the coach there, he's best known for being the inventor of the strap on kicking tee or kicking shoe, kicking toe. So I've shown this in other tidbits, but I was trying to imagine what the strap on kicking key was. I'm like, yeah, yeah.

Sorry. I misspoke. So it's a kicking toe, but you know, I played long enough ago, you know, we still had straight-ahead kickers and, you know, we had an offensive in college.

We had an offensive tackle who would pull off his shoes, you know, somebody throw the kicking shoe to him, and then he'd, you know, put it on and try to kick the point of the field. Right. So, I mean, teams had done that forever.

So he invented this is basically a big solid block of rubber that fit around the cap of the shoe. And then it had a rubber strap on the other end that you put around your heel. It was actually, you know, pretty, pretty good invention.

But so anyways, that's what he's known for. So then it wasn't until like 1970s when both Rydell and Schutt came out with helmets that had an air bladder inside of them. So, you know, again, on the I'm old enough story, I had, you know, in grade school, I wore a suspension helmet in high school.

It was one of those white pad helmets in college. I thought it was like, geez, I'm in the big time now because we had an air bladder plus the white pads. It was like we almost could never get better than that.

So, you know, anyways, it just took until they had this idea in the 1890s for this pneumatic helmet. But it wasn't until the 1970s that it actually came to fruition. So I just, you know, again, it's just one of those where everything kind of had to fit together.

All the pieces had to come in place or come in, you know, come into place in order for it to work. But it did. And, you know, just one of those theory and practice kinds of things.

They had the theory; they didn't have the practice. Yeah. I'm glad you brought it up.

And because there's a lot of people that, you know, are football fans, but never played the game. Maybe you don't know, you know, you and I and our generation, we've seen a lot, like you've been saying, it's gone on the inside of a football helmet as well as the outside. The outside doesn't look like it's changed all that much, maybe some more aerodynamic, but the materials are much different.

And then, you know, the face masks are different, but the interior, like you say, the suspension or foam or air or, you know, God only knows what the foam pads that come out and you, you know, they kept falling out all the time, and you had all that going on. So, but some people don't appreciate that, the comfort that you have when you have this, you know, big plastic thing or whatever, the composite thing on your head, you know, you want to be comfortable because you have to, that's what you're using to look around and everything else, you know, your vision, everything's affected by it. So I'm glad when you bring up these things, and it shares it with everybody.

Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I've got a story that I could, well, I'm going to tell it anyway.

My kids think I'm nuts. When I was playing, I used to get the first few days of practice every year. I get these really severe headaches, which basically tells you I probably shouldn't have been playing football, but you know, it didn't matter. So, but so, I mean, it just, it was almost like disabling.

So what I would do, you know, once I got to college, I wanted, I didn't want that to happen. So I'd get the helmet before hand. And then during the last couple of weeks before practice started in the summer, I'd go in the basement before I'm going to ready to go to bed.

And I go pound my head on the floor to, you know, simulate getting this. This is starting to explain a lot about our relationship. And it's just like, I mean, I did that now for three years, but then I'd go to, I'd get a headache, and then I'd go to bed and sleep. But then, once I started practicing, it didn't bother me.

I know it's just idiotic, but it's just one of those funny things. So, part of it tells you the quality of helmets just probably wasn't that good. And then when I look at some of the helmets guys wore earlier on, I mean, you know, I mean, tackling has changed too.

And people don't hit in the same way now. I mean, people are much more forceful in some ways than they were back then. In other ways, less, cause, you know, you didn't, you're not taught to stick your helmet, you know, in a guy's chest anymore, but anyways.

Yeah. I have a whole new respect for you now, Tim. You were right up there with the guy from the Triangles movie—the Dayton Triangles movie is out—and the guy who was tackling the trees to get ready for the game.

I don't know if you saw the highlights of that. I think you were born maybe a couple of decades too late. You should have a different generation.

I actually did. I, I was a kid. You know, I didn't have a plastic, you know, everybody had those little youth plastic cups that were just, you know, they bought them at a dime store or something.

They were garbage load things. So like when we'd play like pickup games, kids would put those on. I didn't have one.

So I had my uncle's leather helmet from his high school playing days, which is sitting up there on the shelf. You can see it. Right.

But anyway, so I'd put that baby. So I needed to protect my noggins. Yeah.

I could remember. Don't feel too much of myself in this, uh, in this episode. Yeah.

I can remember the early seventies. I think all kids on Christmas day would get the shoulder pads, Jersey, and helmet from the Sears Roebuck catalog of their favorite team. Of course, I had a Terry Bradshaw and the Steelers helmet on, and we would all take them to school.

And then at recess, you'd go out in the playground and all the boys, you know, we'd have, you know, you have like 20 different teams, the representative. Still, we'd all be padded up and playing and, you know, doing stupid things that, you know, seven, eight-year-old kids are doing with football helmets on, but good, good fun, but no protection at all. You're right. It's a, just like a, I think it's a foam that was probably less dense than a sponge that we use today.

It was inside of those things. So, there is not very much protection there. But, uh, yeah, I had to order out of the Husky Boys select section of the Sears catalog.

So, I'm with you on that one. Yeah. Tim, you know, we, we appreciate you coming on and sharing, uh, like we said, some of these facets of, uh, the, the equipment and how that's changed the game because, you know, the comfort of the players are a big thing on how they perform.

And, uh, you know, it's these advancements in safety and everything, but they still have a long way to go. People were still getting hurt and getting concussions, and hopefully, you know, that'll get eliminated someday with the technology. But, uh, you have tidbits like this on different areas of football from modern times, all the way back to the beginning of football.

And yet you share on football, archeology.com and some other areas too. Maybe you could share some of those with the folks so they can join in. Yeah.

So really simple. If you're interested, um, just go to football, archeology.com. Um, you know, if you hit a site, you're offered multiple opportunities. I think maybe you're forced to, well, you're, you're offered the opportunity to subscribe.

So it's just provide your email. Then you'll get an email every night at seven o'clock Eastern, that offers a story of the day. Um, if you don't like that approach, then, um, you can just follow me on Twitter at football archeology, you know, under the name football archeology.

I'm also on threads, uh, under football archeology. So as well as on the, uh, Substack app. So whatever works for you, that's how to get, get there.

All right. Well, Tim, we appreciate you coming on and sharing us, uh, another great, uh, thought of how football was played in yesterdays and yesteryears. And, uh, we appreciate it.

And we will talk to you again next Tuesday.

Hey, we're good there. Thank you.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Football Archaeology's Tim Brown tells the tale of Princeton Tigers' baseball star who had a tremendously successful day on the gridiron against a rival.

Sanford Brownell "Sammy" White (1888-1964) wasn't just a Princeton Tiger – he was a multi-sport legend who left an indelible mark on the university's athletic history. His versatility shone across football, baseball, and even basketball, leaving behind a legacy of excellence and innovation.

Gridiron Gladiator:

White's football exploits are perhaps the most celebrated. In 1911, he single-handedly propelled the Tigers towards the eastern college football championship. His incredible performance against Harvard included:
Scoring seven of the eight points for Princeton.

He repeated some equally remarkable Johnny on the Spot plays a few weeks later in a 6-6 Tigers win over rival Yale.

All-American Selector at the time, Walter Camp, probably saw only these two contests in person, and with that information, White was selected as a consensus All-American.

Baseball Champion:

White wasn't just a gridiron warrior; he was also a talented baseball player.

He led the Tigers to a baseball championship in 1911, serving as team captain and showcasing his skills as a batter and pitcher.

Beyond the Diamond and Gridiron:

White's athletic prowess extended beyond football and baseball. He also played basketball at Princeton and later went on to coach in several sports, including football at Haverford College.

He was a pioneer in the field of athletic administration, serving as Princeton's Director of Athletics and contributing to the development of intercollegiate athletics in the United States.

A Multifaceted Legacy:

White's impact wasn't just about victories and statistics. He was known for:

His athleticism and intelligence: White combined strength and speed with strategic thinking, making him a formidable competitor in any sport.

His leadership: He was a natural leader, inspiring his teammates to achieve their best.

His sportsmanship: White was known for his fair play and integrity, earning the respect of opponents and fans alike.

-Transcribed Sammy White Glory Moment Conversation 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 edition where we get to go back in time and talk about some good old days of football. And Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology is joining us to tell us about one of his recent tidbits on a very popular item, or maybe not so popular.

We'll find out here in a second to learn something. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen. Darren, thank you.

Yeah, looking forward to chatting about a Mr. White. Yeah, you have a tidbit from August of this past year titled Sammy White's Moments of Glory. So what would you like to tell us? I assume this isn't the Sammy White who played in the NFL in the '70s.

No, different person, different person. This guy played about 60 years earlier.

-The Football Archaeology of Sammy White

So this was Princeton's Sammy White, who, if you go to Princeton's football website and look for persons of glory who played for Princeton, will still be one of the guys mentioned.

He's really considered one of the top guys, not for his career, but for what he did in a couple of games. So the background on this is that Princeton, there was always the Princeton, Harvard, and Yale triangle with Penn off to the side most of the time. But from time to time, those teams would get mad at one another and disagree for this or for that reason.

And then they just wouldn't play. I mean, they didn't have a scheduling conference at the time. And the Ivy Conference didn't exist until 54, I believe it was.

So anyways, Harvard and Princeton schedule a game for 1911, but they hadn't played for 11 years prior to that due to one of those, somebody got mad at the other. So while there were key events or big events that happened on the field that day, other events happened up in the air. And one was just a hot air balloon travel by the field during the game, which is kind of cool.

But more importantly, that day, a guy named Robert Collier, who was the publisher of Collier's Weekly, the magazine, was an aviation enthusiast, and he got an airplane. So he took his photographer, a guy named Hare, his last name, I think it's Robert Hare. But anyway, he takes him up in the airplane, and they fly past the football field, and Hare takes pictures of the game being played down there on Princeton's field.

So that proves or the pictures that he took that day proved to be the first aerial images of a football game being played. So just one of those little nuggets in a tidbit. So kind of interesting.

Yeah. Anyways, in the game, Princeton's 5-0-2 and Harvard's 5-0 were the best. So, two good teams.

And Sammy White plays for Princeton and he's a senior that year. He didn't even play football as a sophomore. He was a substitute as a junior.

In the spring of his junior season, he was the baseball captain. So, you know, he's a fine athlete. He just wasn't that great of a football player.

But as a senior, he starts at the left end. And in the first seven games, when they went 5-0-2, he didn't really do anything special. He was just kind of there and he continued starting.

But again, nothing really special. So, in the Princeton-Harvard game during the second quarter, Harvard gets the ball down to the 10-yard line, and then Princeton kind of stops him. And yeah, this is 1911.

So it's, you know, three downs instead of four downs at the time. So, on third down, Harvard attempts a field goal, but it's blocked. And White happens to be in the right place at the right time.

He picks up the ball and heads the other way and ends up, you know, running the ball right through the goalposts, putting it down for a touchdown. And because he ran it right through the goalposts, they were able to kick the extra point attempt from straight out from the goalposts, from the middle of the field, you know, and they make it. So it's 6-0 because of five-point touchdown time, one point extra point.

So then in the third quarter, White, as an end, is the gunner on a punt. You know, nice long punt. It goes into the end zone.

White tackles the Harvard player for safety and makes it to nothing. And then later on, Harvard scores a touchdown. They convert.

So it's 8-6, and that's the end of the game. So here's this White who hasn't done a darn thing all year long, scores a touchdown, tackles a guy for safety to give Princeton seven of their eight points in the game, and the difference, you know, in terms of beating Harvard. So that's all great.

Then they beat Dartmouth the next week in a tough game. And then they finish, Princeton finishes their season playing Yale on a bloody, not a bloody field, on a muddy field. And they hadn't beaten Yale since 1903.

So, so, you know, they're playing the game. And then at one point, Yale, you know, pitches a lateral, and it goes a little wild, and it just so happens Sammy White is standing there, picks it up, boom heads down the field. And he's getting chased by a guy who finally kind of catches up to him at about the five-yard line, you know, leaps for him to tackle.

And it's on, they're on this really muddy field. So while he gets tackled at about the five, they both slide into the end zone for a touchdown because at the time, you know, forward, they had forward progress, but you actually had to stop the guy. It didn't, you know, he's sliding on the ground, or if he's crawling on the ground, that still was forward progress.

So anyways, he does that, he slides all the way into the end zone. They convert. So again, they take a six, and nothing leads.

Yale ends up kicking a field goal later on in the game, and Princeton wins six to three. So here's this guy who really hadn't done squat. I mean, hey, he's starting for Princeton.

So he's, you know, fine enough athlete, he's been their baseball captain. So, but, you know, he wasn't that good, but he was in the right place at the right time, two or three times in two of the biggest games of the year and on the national championship team, at least, you know, retrospectively or retroactively. So White becomes, White gets named to the first team, the American team.

You know, now, did he deserve it? You know, he makes the biggest plays in the biggest games, but otherwise, he is just an average player. So it's just one of those, it's an interesting, you know, I mean, it's an interesting thing about just generally, but, you know, it's one of those where, you know, did he deserve to be an all-American? Probably not, but he was. And so because of that, and because he helped them win the national championship, he's considered, you know, one of the studs in Princeton's football history.

Sinclair, when you think about that for a little bit, though, I mean, who's deciding the all-America team in 1911, Walter Camp? Well, at that point, it's a guy named Mr. Camp. Yeah.

So, it was probably the two games that he probably saw Princeton play Yale, and it was definitely him, probably the Harvard game. So that's probably the two games that he saw and said, Hey, this guy's going out of his mind. So not only was he on the spot, but he also had the right games to perform those.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, again, back then, there was no film, right? There's no film to watch.

You can't catch the Washington game on television. You know, you can really only go on reputation, what you're hearing from coaches you trust and correspondents that you trust, and what you see with your own eyes. So, you know, Camp saw what he saw and heard what he heard.

And so Mr. White's an all-American. Well, he, uh, lives on in, uh, you know, famously here in legendary and, uh, maybe there are some better players than him on his own team, even that didn't get the credit. And we kind of forgotten them, but, uh, Hey, it's sure fun to talk about them here, you know, a hundred and some years later.

So that's pretty cool. He did. He had a teammate named Hope Colby Baker, who is pretty famous.

So he's the guy who kicked the extra points in each of those situations. So, you know, now he's known more for hockey than he is for football, but you know, yeah. He was a hell of a football player, too.

Yeah. Well, great stuff, Tim. We always appreciate, uh, these tidbits that you come up with and finding these little inkling stories or facts and, and figures and pieces of equipment.

And we really enjoy those. And you share this with, with the, you know, the public each and every day. Maybe you could share with our listeners here, how they too can partake in your tidbits.

Yeah, uh, real simple. Just go to footballarchaeology.com, provide your email address, and you'll get an email every night at seven o'clock Eastern with the tidbit; read them then, or let them pile up, um, until you're ready to read them. Alternatively, you can follow me on on Twitter, on, uh, Substack, on Substack app, or on, uh, threads, all of, all of them under the name Football Archaeology.

So whatever suits your needs. All right. Well, Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. We thank you very much for sharing this great story of Sammy White and, uh, bringing his story to our modern times in our modern years.

And, uh, we would love to hear another great story from you next week. Very good. Look forward to it.

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When we go to a football game or watch one on TV, there are lines on the field, and they are preset because, most of the time, the fields are artificial grass fields. Somebody has to line the field, but we have modern equipment. How did they do it in the early days of football? Well, Timothy B. Brown of football archaeology joins us to tell us how they lined the field back in the day.

Of course, this discussion all stems from Tim's original article titled: footballarchaeology.com/p/todays-tidbit-factoid-feast-vii">Factoid Feast VII .

The audio-only podcast of the discussion can be found at: How They Lined the Fields in Early Football.

Football archaeologist Timothy P. Brown joins the show to shed light on this forgotten aspect of the game. He's known for his captivating "factoid feasts," where he unearths little-known nuggets of football history. Today's feast features a particularly intriguing tidbit: how they lined the field back in the day.

The Solution: A Goofy-Looking Tool

Prepare to be amazed! Timothy reveals that they used a wheelbarrow-like contraption to mark the field. This contraption had a large barrel filled with lime or chalk solution and a spigot at the bottom. The solution dripped onto a grooved wheel, leaving a line on the ground as it was pushed across the field.

Imagine the Challenge!

Darin paints a vivid picture of the difficulty involved. Pushing a heavy wheelbarrow in a straight line is hard enough, let alone controlling the flow of the solution and ensuring precise markings. Images in the show notes (check them out!) provide a delightful visual of this quirky tool.

A Look at Football Archaeology

Timothy's website, footballarchaeology.com, is a treasure trove for anyone interested in the forgotten stories of the game.

He encourages listeners to subscribe for email updates on his latest articles.  

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The Pigskin Daily History Dispatch offers an enlightening episode featuring Darin Hayes and Timothy P. Brown, who delve into the lesser-known yet fascinating aspects of football history through Timothy's 'Factoid Feast' series. This segment highlights the joy of uncovering small but significant stories that enrich the broader narrative of the sport. Timothy discusses his passion for collecting football postcards, particularly one remarkable postcard from a World War II Army Air Force field, which serves as a window into the past when servicemen not only trained for combat but also formed football teams to foster spirit and camaraderie.

Of course, this discussion all stems from Tim's original article titled: footballarchaeology.com/p/todays-tidbit-factoid-feast-vii">Factoid Feast VII .

The audio-only podcast of the discussion can be found at: Single Wing Image Has Something Missing.

The episode takes a closer look at the visual elements of the postcard, including its combination of imagery and play diagrams that offer a humorous glimpse into the creative methods used for football promotion during the era. Timothy points out the amusing misrepresentation of player positions in the play diagram, which prompts a lively discussion about the evolution of football tactics and the sometimes humorous interpretations of the game by those not fully versed in its complexities. The hosts share laughs over their personal experiences with football gear, especially the resourcefulness shown by players who relied on makeshift solutions, such as duct tape, to secure their equipment.

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The ability to change direction on a dime, explode past defenders, and leave them grasping at air – these are the hallmarks of a truly agile football player. But how did these skills develop throughout the game's history? And how can modern players hone their footwork for peak performance?

No time for a video? Check out the Agility Drill Podcast version

Join us as we delve into the world of football agility drills with renowned football historian Timothy Brown. Mr. Brown's deep knowledge of the game's past sheds light on how training methods have evolved, offering valuable insights for players and coaches alike. In this exclusive interview, he'll be sharing:

-Historical Drills: Explore the agility drills used by legendary players of the past, and see how they've shaped modern training techniques.

-Drill Evolution: Learn how agility drills have adapted to the ever-changing demands of the modern game.

So, lace up your cleats and prepare to elevate your game. With Mr. Brown's expert guidance, you'll be well on your way to developing the lightning-fast footwork that separates the good from the great on the gridiron.

-Timothy Brown Box Aglity Drills

I've got an image that shows one of the early agility drills. And what this is, this shows, it was a 1921 Kansas State team. And, you know, they're, they're working out and they're trying to become more agile.

So nowadays, there's, you know, we have all these agility drills, and people run through ropes, or they, you know, but for a long time, people ran through tires, or in this case, they ran through wooden boxes. And, you know, it's same kind of thing as we asked players to do today, you're running through an obstacle course, sometimes they have these boxes, you know, pushed off to the right and left. And they got to do, you know, run with high knees, and they're double stepping or whatever, you know, whatever the coach told them that they needed to do.

So it was a way, not so much. Well, certainly it helped from a conditioning standpoint, but a lot of it was just trying to build agility. And, and, you know, kind of looseness of the step and the ability to cut and change direction.

But at the time, the best that they could come up with was either old car tires, or wooden boxes like this. And you know, you have to look at this and say, how many guys tripped on these things, and scuffed up their shins or broke a leg or whatever. And so, you know, it turned out that there was a guy named Joe, I believe it's pronounced Paupa.

He had coached the Chicago's Navy Peer Team during World War One. But he and he was a guy who in the 40s, who invited who invented what he called the runner training apparatus. But those are the ropes that we all know and love and that we probably ran through, you know, high-stepping at some point in our career, even if we were linemen.

So that he was the guy who invented the ropes. But you know, you think there's a lot of training devices and steps that people do nowadays. But they originated with obstacles like these boxes or tires, and then ultimately ropes.

And now there are ladders and, you know, different devices, all trying to get people to become more agile, lift their feet, and do other things.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Timothy Brown joins Darin Hayes to spotlight the significant yet often overlooked contributions of Henry Mitchell McCracken to the safety and evolution of American football. McCracken, who became NYU's chancellor in the late 19th century, played a pivotal role in advocating for safer rules in the sport during a time when football was facing scrutiny for its dangers.

Of course, this discussion all stems from Tim's original article titled: footballarchaeology.com/p/stadium-size-football-droppers-and-bc6">Stadium Size, Football Droppers, and Deemphasizers: NYU .

The audio-only podcast of the discussion can be found at: Henry McCracken Contributions.

Following the tragic death of a player during a game, the NYU Chancellor galvanized university leaders to convene and develop new regulations, ultimately leading to the formation of what is now the NCAA. The discussion delves into McCracken's legacy, including his influence on the establishment of halls of fame in the United States and his efforts to reform the game. Join us as we explore these fascinating historical insights and uncover the impact of McCracken's work on modern college football.

The conversation unfolds as Darin Hayes and Timothy Brown recount the historical landscape of football in the early 1900s, shedding light on the challenges and dangers the sport posed to its players. Timothy elaborates on the culture of college athletics at that time, where university presidents and chancellors, like McCracken, wielded significant influence over the direction of sports programs. The episode paints a vivid picture of the educational values intertwined with athletics, as faculty members played a crucial role in governance, leading to a system that prioritized student safety amidst the chaotic nature of early football games. The narrative details how McCracken's response to a fatal accident during a game exemplified the urgent need for reform in college football, ultimately resulting in a collaborative effort from various universities to establish safer playing conditions. This historical reflection not only honors McCracken's contributions but also invites listeners to consider the ongoing evolution of sports governance and safety in today's athletic landscape, drawing parallels between past and present.

Takeaways

-The podcast discusses the contributions of Henry Mitchell McCracken to football safety and history.

-Timothy Brown highlights McCracken's role in establishing the first Hall of Fame in America.

-McCracken's advocacy led to significant changes in football rules after a player was killed.

-The episode emphasizes how college sports governance was once more influenced by university presidents.

-The origins of the NCAA can be traced back to McCracken's initiatives in the early 1900s.

-Listeners learn about the historical context of college football's evolution and its challenges.

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Hold onto your helmets, football fans! In a groundbreaking episode, Timothy P. Brown, the mastermind behind FootballArchaeology.com, joins host Darin Hayes to unveil a hidden chapter in American football history. Buckle up as Brown exposes the story of Anthony Harris, the first known Black college football coach at a non-HBCU institution, leading Colby College in 1903 and 1904 – years before the previously credited Matthew Bullock. This revelation throws a fascinating wrench into the established timeline and shines a long-overdue light on Harris's pioneering role in the sport.

However, the episode doesn't shy away from the challenges of unearthing African American contributions. The lack of coverage in mainstream media during this era makes uncovering these stories an uphill battle. But together, Darin and Tim celebrate the importance of recognizing these overlooked figures and ensuring their legacy is preserved for future generations.

This episode promises to be a captivating journey, rewriting narratives and reminding us that football history is richer and more diverse than previously thought.

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The Football Archaeology of the Football Men Who Endorsed and helped Goldsmith Sporting Goods to make football equipment in 1935.

Helmets are probably the first piece of equipment we think of when someone asks us about football. The head covering may be the most recognizable element of the gridiron.

Timothy Brown, like many of us, is enamored by the evolution of the football helmet as a product and safety device. Tim collects football catalogs selling the equipment and then dives into the variations and innovations that were derived along the way.

In a recent post, footballarchaeology.com/p/todays-tidbit-1935-goldsmith-sports">1935 GoldSmith Sports Equipment Consulting Staff, Tim delved into the 1935 Coaching Consultants and reps that GoldSmith had and then came on to share what he found with us on a podcast episode.

-Transcription of 1935 GoldSmith Sports Equipment Consulting Staff 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 Tuesday as we get to visit with our friend Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Thank you, sir. Look forward to chatting again, as always, and hopefully we'll have something interesting for people to listen to.

Yeah, you, Tim, you have some amazing things happening, you know, each and every day, and every once in a while you get some of these zingers that like, just like, I can't call it an earworm, I don't know what it is, it just, it stays with me all day when I read it. I read it in the evening and it stays with me through the night. I'm laying in bed thinking about it, wake up next morning, and one of those is, you keep going into the Goldsmith's catalog, and you had one that, you know, that you had back in September out as a tidbit that talks about some staff that Goldsmith's catalog got some information from, so maybe you could talk a little bit about that tonight.

Yeah, so, you know, so I guess, you know, first off, just, you know, by way of background, I have something on the order, you know, 30 or 40 vintage sporting goods catalogs, you know, so I collect them over time, or I've collected them over time, it's just a way to be able to look up, okay, well, you know, some of it's just images, you know, for the tidbits, but it's also just, you know, you can look at them and understand, okay, this is what this equipment was made of at the time, and how things changed and things that they created that disappeared because they didn't really work very well, or they were uncomfortable, you know, whatever it may have been. Anyways, I collect these catalogs, and most of them, I'm just, you know, I'm buying them online, and so I don't, typically, I'm only seeing like cover photographs, a couple of inside pages, but I don't know what, you know, it's not like, you know, it can be a 90 page catalog, but I'm only seeing images of a couple of them. Anyways, this was one of those, you know, I bought this, Goldsmith was a big brand at the time, and I didn't have a lot of Goldsmith catalogs, so I, you know, picked this one up.
And, you know, then once it was delivered, it was like, right away, okay, this is really cool, because in addition to just normal pages, showing the equipment, the pricing and everything for shoulder pads and helmets and whatever, each of the different major types of equipment, they had a lead in cartoon page that kind of told the history of that type of equipment, the history of football shoes, the history of helmets. And so, it was, number one, it's just kind of fun imagery, they're interesting cartoons. So, it was just a way to, you know, kind of go through those, and then, you know, what I've done, you know, it's a series of, there will be an eighth week now, but, you know, so it's just a way to publish, to do these, show these cartoons, and then just go through the equipment of the time.

And so, this is mid-30s, you know, so what was equipment like, you know, then. And so, this, the first of those cartoons was about what they called their consulting staff. And so, that was, you know, essentially, consulting staff was like, the coaches, and one trainer, who were their, like, their advisory staff, they were the guys who they would go to, to talk through, you know, what kinds of changes do we need for the equipment, or if they had a research and development group, they would show them, they'd show these coaches, hey, here's what we've come up with, what do you think about this? Can you have you guys wear this stuff in spring practice, or in regular practice, and see how it performs? You know, so they were, you know, obviously, these coaches were paid.

And in many cases, they, that, you know, the manufacturers would then, you know, just like your old baseball gloves, where it was like, the Mickey Mantle glove, or whatever, you know, there were, there were pants, and helmets, and footballs, that had the Newt Rockne name on it, or who met Pop Warner, and John Heisman, and, you know, so. Well, Tim, was, was Goldsmith, were they sort of in the Midwest? Is that what I'm getting a sense of? Or what part of the country were they centered out of? You know, a lot of the coaches that are on this advisory staff are Midwest guys. So, I kind of get a sense of that.

But, you know, there was a lot of Midwest, like D&M was out east, they were like a Massachusetts firm, but Spalding was Midwest, Reach, I believe, was Midwest, or a couple down in St. Louis. So, yeah, I don't have that catalog in front of me. But I could, you know, I could look, look it up.

And I can, you know, let you know, you know, kind of where they were based. Yeah, that's, that's what I was, Is there a reason you ask her? Well, I know that Spalding was out of Chicago, and it just seemed, you know, and it seems like, like you said, this, a lot of these coaches are Midwestern teams, Western Conference, Big Ten teams. And I just wondering, you know, if there was a reason why maybe, you know, distribution or something that they were in the center of the country because you really, you think about that area, you know, football starting in the east and moving west, you'd almost think the equipment would be more of an eastern-based, you know, industrial shipping out.

But just curious. Yeah, I think, well, my understanding is a lot of it was the stockyards in Chicago, you know, so there was access to leather. Okay, you know, so I mean, so much of the early equipment, yeah, so much of the early equipment was leather, that, you know, it made more sense to be where you could pick and choose and get high-grade leathers and yada, yada, yada.

So, yeah, I mean, it's funny, it's one of those things you wouldn't even think is, you know, there's no reason anymore, you know, to be near a source of leather.
Obviously, you know, baseball gloves are a different story. But otherwise, you know, most football equipment, there's no leather involved anymore.

And then the ball, you know, obviously, the balls were leather. So anyways, yeah, that's, that's why I love it, you know, started in the Midwest. That makes perfect sense.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, so, so then, you know, like these coaches were, you know, the folks that they had on at that point, so in 1935, they had a Hunk Anderson, who was at North Carolina State, but it just finished a tour at Notre Dame. So Midwest, then he had played at Notre Dame.

Noble Kizer was at Purdue. Fritz Crisler was at Princeton, but he had been at, he had played at Uof Chicago. He had coached Minnesota before going to Princeton.

And then obviously ended up at Michigan. Doc Spears had been all over. Well, he kind of he was a journeyman, he was actually a doctor, but a football coach, but he was at Wisconsin at the time.

And I can't remember if he had just gone there. I think he got fired after that, and then went out to Oregon, or it could have been the other way around. And then this guy, Frank Major Wandel, from Yale, who was, he was one of those interesting guys at the time, there were a lot of, it's kind of like, you know, there are these strength and conditioning coaches now who are, you know, kind of, they have their own brand, they're, they're nationally known, nationally recognized guys.

And, you know, back then, there were trainers like that, too. And he was one of them. So he'd been longtime trainer at West Point, and he ends up down at, I think it was LSU for a couple of years.

Then he ends up at Yale, which is where he was at at the time. So, so actually, the mix isn't that much Midwestern. But it's interesting, because the image that you have, and folks, if you've got to enjoy these images that Tim's talking about, we have link in the show notes, you can go to Tim's page and see some of these, he's talking about these cartoons.

But Major Wandel, you know, everybody else is sort of wearing like white knickers. And he's got like, I don't know if they're plaid knickers, or, but that's what jumps out of you on the page to me, is these knickers. And it's he's in the lower right hand corner of the page I'm looking at, but he must have been a character to have some like looks like he's golfing, maybe.

Yeah, I mean, he's one of those guys who just like came out of some gym in New Jersey, and ended up eventually hooking in with, he did some training, you know, during World War One, and then ends up at West Point for quite a while. But yeah, I mean, back then, trainers were function both. They handled both the kind of sports medicine side, you know, they weren't physicians.

But when we think about athletic training, we're thinking about, you know, hot baths, and cold baths, and, you know, taping guys, and, you know, some kind of contraption, you know, so it doesn't hurt, as well as strength and condition. So they were both at the time, and mostly conditioning, they didn't do as much strength work. But yeah, a lot of these guys were, you know, they're big on the whole, getting guys to roll on the ground to toughen them up.

Things that we now think are pretty absurd, but, you know, that was kind of core beliefs at the time. Yeah, I can remember back when I was playing when I was, like, I think the first year I played, maybe I was in fifth grade or something. I remember our coach, he was old school.

He was an older guy. And you'd have part of your calisthenics, you'd run in place, and then drop and make sure your stomach hits first, because that's going to toughen your gut up, you know, as everybody gets the wind knocked out of when you hit the ground, and you're gasping trying to get back up. But I picture that kind of training.

Yeah, that was the deal. But one of the things I thought was kind of cool, I can't remember, you know, which eater left this as a comment or a question, but, you know, I'm a Purdue fan. And, you know, there were a lot of schools back in the 30s that wore winged helmets, right? I mean, we now associated with just a select few schools.

But back then, it was very common. Nevertheless, you know, this guy made a comment that you know, back in the 30s, mid-30s, in particular, Purdue wore winged helmets, you know, so wing in front straps, you know, going back, kind of, you know, the Michigan, Delaware, Princeton style now. But she's like, so that's where you know because Noble was one of these advisory coaches.

And so I would bet if you look at images of the Purdue team from that era, there probably weren't some, some form of Goldsmith helmet, right? So as opposed to some competitive brand. So anyways, but for him, it was kind of a neat insight because it's like, so that's why they were those, those stupid. Now, with these coaches, sort of being on the board of directors, or the consultants of the now the day, is that, you know, their teams buy all their equipment from a Goldsmith, then is that was that's part of the deal of, you know, I've never really seen anything that goes into the details of those kinds of contracts.

I mean, I've read a few things about Knute Rockne because he was like, I mean if you think that there's somebody that, that is on every commercial nowadays, like, you know, save been, you know, down in Alabama's on a fair amount of stuff. But Rockne was, I mean, he was pitching, obviously, all kinds of athletic equipment. And then he pitched Ramblers or Studebakers, you know, one of those brands, he made coffee, he did all you know, stuff for Kelloggs, a lot of stuff for Kelloggs, and they had coffee at the time.

I just thought Barbasol was big on Barbasol. So he was from a Holmes and Travis Kelsey, eat your hearts out. Newt Rocky was first.

That's right. Major sponsor ambassador. Yeah.

Okay, so well, yes. Did the coach or did the teams buy that brand of equipment? And so I've never really, you know, I've never seen anything definitive. In that regard, and I have this kind of a storyline I've never checked into.

You know, I have read a number of things with Newt Rocky and his, you know, he, he promoted a lot of different kinds of consumer goods, but then also a lot of football equipment. So I mean, I have to believe that they, at minimum, they benefited from the, you know, they got discounts on the equipment, and in some cases, free stuff in order to test it, you know, it had to be that kind of thing going on. But, you know, the research I've done in the past about, you know, like when logos first came, you know, when logos became prominent in the 60s, really Adidas, you know, among track athletes that whole thing got going, and they were, you know, giving away equipment, paying athletes to wear their branded goods.

So that's really where that started. But there were probably, you know, less, you know, maybe a little bit less formal, you know, kinds of, you know, deals in the past, right? You know, yeah, I'm just picturing like a high school coach or athletic director saying, Hey, you know, Fritz Kreisler's endorsing this product, goldsmith, we better write our equipment there, because, you know, we're, we're Fritz Kreisler fans, or, you know, you know, Hunky Anderson fans, whatever, you know, they see they're endorsing it. And, you know, that's probably a lot of the attraction from for having them on the covers.

Yeah. And, you know, I'm sure they got that they got paid something just like, you know, the baseball gloves. And, you know, those athletes got things, and somehow they get money when their gloves are sold.

Right. So right. But, you know, the details of it, I don't understand, or, you know, really know anything about.

I wonder, I picture, you know because you have some great images of the helmets. I wonder maybe, you know, we can look back at some old photographs. Maybe I'll do that in some spare time here and look and see if you can tell a goldsmith helmet from, you know, a Spalding or some of the other manufacturers.
And maybe you can tell that way and say, Hey, you know, Purdue was wearing a goldsmith in 37 or. Yeah. And yeah.

Well, even in that article, I did do that. I couldn't find a good sharp image of the Princeton team from that era to see, well, what helmet they wore? Well, in fact, what I, the only thing I really found was a, it was a painting or an illustration from a year, you know, Princeton yearbook. And the helmets of Princeton players are wearing what we think of as a classic winged helmet.

It was. There's a helmet style. It kind of looks like, now I'm blanking on the term, but it's kind of like a three-leaf clover sort of design. It's, you know, so anyway, but, you know, and Goldsmith offered that helmet and, or that style of helmet, but I think others did as well.

So sometimes it's hard to tell like what brand, because, you know, people, you know, they, they wore, you know, they had similar designs, you know, different brands. Okay. Gotcha.

All right. So go ahead and continue. Yeah.

Well, I was mostly just gonna say, I'm not sure, you know, I'm just, I put together some notes in advance. And so I don't know that I had had anything else. I mean, other than just one of the things that's pretty remarkable, as in all the catalogs or in all the different products, is it like on helmets, you could go from, like, say, a $15 helmet down to like one that costs $2 and 35 cents.

So the, you know, they, they end up having these high end helmets, and then, then there's kind of moderately priced ones, and then there's pretty inexpensive helmets. And so you just gotta, you know, it's like now, every helmet has to meet a certain base at least, you know, performance level, you know, based on Noxi. But, you know, back then, it was like, well, no, we, this is a helmet, it's good.

You know, but there's no measurement standards or anything. It's just like you're taking somebody's word for it. Yeah, that leads into one of the questions I was gonna ask you because the the ad for the helmets that you have on this tidbit, you know, it has three examples of helmets that they were promoting.

And all of them say leather lined. Now, what would be the alternative to leather-lined in that era? Would it be like, you know, cloth or something? Or, you know? Yeah, I think the internals were either leather or felt for the most part. And so you'll, you'll also see things.

You pretty much have to look at the less expensive ones to get a handle on the alternatives. For example, moleskin was kind of a high-end material for pants. It was not as popular in the 1930s, but it was still a high-end material.

Canvas was a low-end material. And then there might be different kinds of twills and maybe duck and whatever. I don't even know what some of those things really are, that they're one form of cotton, you know, material or another, but then by the 30s, you were getting into, you know, silk, and a lot of times it's like airplane cloth, which is actually a form of silk.

So silk, and then I'm blanking on the kind of the really shiny material that satin, you'd see that satin, yeah, it's so you'd see satin on the front of you know, certain, certain teams pants. So yeah, I mean, some of it was once they got into some of the, the not-so-like silk, one of the real values of it was lighter, much more water repellent, you know, so it didn't soak up sweat and, you know, water in a rainy situation. So the players, you know, felt lighter, but it also silk is much easier to dye.

And you can do a much broader range of colors, whereas the duck and canvas pretty much always had earth tones, you know, one or tone or another. So everybody wore kind of the same look in pants until New York versus wearing purple pants. So, you know, I mean, it's, you think about it, that was a big deal.

Awesome. Somebody, hey, they're wearable pants. Right? Yeah, I was just trying to go when you were saying, you know, that from the $15 helmet down to the $2 and 35 cent helmet, I'm picturing, you know, hey, you know, varsity players, you get the $15 helmet with a leather lined and freshmen, you're going to get the burlap lined helmets, you know, uncomfortable.

Yeah, well, I'm sure that sure that was short, obviously, the freshmen who were wearing the stuff, those latest and greatest 10 years ago. Right. And the thing on some of that is, I was looking at, so I'm still writing, you know, writing one of these, and it there's, there's kind of like a flap in the back between kind of the ear hole area in the back.

It's got some kind of flexible extension, some kind of elastic band there. So there was that part of the sizing. If you look at the catalog, sometimes not a lot is said about helmet sizing.

And so, you know, I always had a big old water bucket head. So I needed a big helmet. I've got a younger brothers, you know, got a pinhead.

And, you know, so, but presumably, we would have been issued the same helmet. So, yeah, I'm sure they had some kind of size variations, but, you know, they don't talk about much of the catalog size variations. You had to stuff some straw or a rag in the back or something to make it stay on your head.

Tim, that's a fascinating stuff. And you've, you've got a lot of these goldsmiths that you've been coming out as you said, you had an eight-part series on it, but you have a lot of other interesting stuff coming out, you know, seven days a week. Maybe you could share with folks how they could get in touch with you to learn about your tidbits and read them each and every day.

Yeah. So, you know, so my preferring would be that it just visits the site and you subscribe. And, you know, that way, basically if you're subscribed, you can, you'll get the, you'll get the tidbit by email every night.

Cause I assume it's seven o'clock Eastern. If you, if you're a Substack reader, you can also just get it and follow me on Substack. And then, you know, you'll, you'll be able to get them every night.

Some people don't want the email, but there you go. They like getting it on Substack. I also, at least for now, tweet it every night.

And then I also posted on the application threads. So me on one of those, it's always Football Archaeology. You know, if you enter that, you'll find me.

And then it's kind of like happy reading. All right. Well, Timothy Brown, thank you.
Once again, footballarchaeology.com is the place to go and we appreciate you, sir. And we will talk to you again next Tuesday.

Very good.

Thank you. Thanks, Tim.

Transcribed by TurboScribe

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Have you ever stopped to think about the iconic flip-down markers used to signal first downs in football? Today on the podcast, we delve into the fascinating history of this sideline staple with special guest historian Timothy Brown!

Timothy Brown of FootballArchaeaology.com a renowned expert on the evolution of sports equipment, joins us to explore.

Today's episode and discussion is based on Tim's original post titled:footballarchaeology.com/p/todays-tidbit-col-roy-c-baker-and/comments">Col. Roy C. Baker And The Flip-Style Down Marker .

We also have this available in podcast form The Flip-Style Down Marker Innovation of Colonel Baker.

So please sit down and relax and enjoy the gridiron lore!

Flip-Style Down Marker with Timothy Brown

Hello my football friends, this is Darin Hayes of pigskindispatch.com. Welcome once again to the Pigpen, your portal of positive football history, and welcome to another Tuesday where we have our friend Timothy P Brown, a footballarchaeology.com, to tell us about another aspect of football history. Maybe He's not mainstream and we don't know much about but we're gonna learn something today Tim. Welcome back to the Pigpen.

Hey, it's very good to see you, and I think this Podcast will Have people flipping out.

Well, I'm definitely flipping out about it because you put your subject matter that you're gonna talk about today as something That's near and dear to my heart being a former official something that I used quite a bit You had an article back in May called Colonel Roy Baker and the flip style downed Marker Now this is something I'm very familiar with in my early days of officiating and love to hear the history of it.

Yeah well, you know, so Depending on when the listeners came of age in terms of their football fandom You know if they're some kind of young and they might only remember the louvered down markers where you know the guy the dial-a-downs Yeah, the dial-a-downs exactly and But before that There were a whole, you know, there are a number of different Variations on you know first there were chains and then they you know created down markers that or down boxes Which initially were just boxes, you know on a stick with a one two, three or four on the four sides of the box And so but none of those were entirely satisfactory because you know Depending on which direction you had the down Marker pointing then somebody was If they were in a different position in the stadium or on the field, they they saw a different number So there was always some confusion There and this isn't a lot of times in the days before there were really effective scoreboards that would tell you the down so There's this guy Roy C Baker Who was a 1932 South Dakota grad? Who's an ROTC there? He was a cheerleader. I didn't find any information about him playing Football in high school or college, but I suspect he played in high school.

He was from a small town in South Dakota. So I'm sure they needed every athlete that they could get, you know. Seems like a fairly athletic guy, so, you know, he graduates from South Dakota in 32, and he taught for a couple of years in, You know, South Dakota High School, but then he moves to Wyoming, and he at each of those places he's you know, these are small Small community high schools. He's the football coach and the basketball coach and, you know, pretty successful in both. You know, sometimes a little tough in the first year or two that he was coaches, But you know, he had some pretty good teams, especially in basketball, actually. But you know, for whatever reason, in the late 30s, he became dissatisfied with the way that the down boxes worked in Football, and Football had tried a lot of different solutions.

They were different. You know, now we're using chips, I guess, but they, you know, They tried different things like surveying kind of tools to line it up properly, And you know, some kind of crazy things to try to get, you know, accurate accuracy but though but His solution was much more focused on the fans and the players on the field than just the visibility of the down on the down Marker, so he's the guy who came up with the flip-style down And you know, he kind of prototyped it just using sheets of paper And if you think about it And I can wrote about it. I kind of went through the sequence in the written article, But it's like okay, so the on one side of the sheet has to be Matched with a two on the other side and then a two match with three and a three-match the four and then a four-match with a one in order for the numbers to correspond so both sides are displaying either one or two or three or four and So he figured that out it's like so obvious to anybody who looks at it, you know like And it's like why didn't anybody think of that and the numbers got to be upside down to the number on the other side Because you're flipping it over. Yeah.

Yeah, so, but I mean, he Used a couple of sheets of paper to figure it out, and boom. He made it so then he had, you know, he started having them produced in metal at a local, you know, sheet metal shop and Painting them up, and then he started selling them, you know, no locally, but he also sold one to the University, Nebraska So that was maybe his breakthrough where you know people start noticing this thing and And he files for a patent in 41 he gets the patent in like April of 42 Like two weeks later, you know, I said earlier he was an ROTC in college and he he was In the Army Reserves throughout that time, you know so World War two had just started so he gets called up So now he you know, it's gives up his teaching job joins, you know heads into the army and While he was in the army during World War two others started producing His flip style down markers and then selling them through the big sporting goods companies So he gets back to the States, you know, he was in Europe during the war. He gets back to states, and You know, They're using these flip-style down markers all over the place.

So he goes to some lawyers, and they basically say, well, You know, this isn't like a high dollar value product. You're probably not gonna get much out of suing these people because he had told that he told the companies, Hey, you're violating my patent, and they had said sue me, right? So, you know, he ended up just deciding not to pursue it for whatever reason but mostly on the lawyer's advice, So he never really got anything out of it. You know, he came up with this concept, which is brilliant in its simplicity, right? And really, the only recognition that he got was in 83 when the Redskins were in We're heading into the Super Bowl. He was profiled in the Washington Post with an article, you know, basically telling the story that he had, you know about what had happened to him.

So that article is helpful to me. But what, you know, obviously I had to go figure out his background, the high schools and all that kind of stuff, but the other thing just about this story is it's one of those where a lot of times some of my favorite stories are this came about because I mean I kind of you know, I've written a bunch of stuff in the past about these various downmarket attempts and but this one came about because An in-law relative of his Reached out to me and said hey, do you know about this guy this Roy C Baker? I was like, no, never heard of him, and But then once I do, you know, once I googled or used newspapers.com to look for That Washington Post article popped up, and then it was just like, you know, Katie bar the door, you know so anyways I just I love the stories where it's connected to somebody's relative a son a daughter grandchild whatever Who's like? You know, trying to figure out what the truth is behind their Ancestor story, or they're Giving the guys some recognition for a great invention to get credited for run paid for, But you know, really, I would guess from at least the early 50s, you know from then on Until the dial-a-down came around and that was like 87 or so I think is when that first came up the flip style down Marker was the downmarket I mean, you didn't see anything else on a football field So especially when they went to plastic, I know I know when I first started officiating in the 80s We had metal ones. There were some plastic ones out there But the plastic ones were great, especially like in our area when you started officiating you would be for varsity games You would hold the chains and do the downmarkers for the varsity game watching the more senior officials do it So you get those cold days in like October November and you're I mean you're holding it a metal pole So your hand gets close you have a glove on you're trying to do it one-handed But the the plastic ones are nice because you could just shake the the pat the pole a little bit and it would flip it You know, you could if you did just write it up and you'd have to use both hands to flip the thing around So we love the plastic ones Yeah, well, but you know, I mean I think anybody who watched Football and For whatever 30 40 year period You know the flipped style downmarker was the only thing out there Yeah, I mean, I I don't even remember seeing a dial down till probably the mid 90s in our area You know, everybody still had the plastics and especially lower level games.

They still use the plastics. I think yeah because those would have been more expensive. Yeah, And it's like, do you really need to replace something that works because it still works? You know, the flip-style would still work just fine, so now going back in before the flip style when they had the Traditional boxes, you know when I've we've all seen images of them, you know, I know there are some collectors on the vintage Collector community that we're in that some guys have them Walks and like you said you did they were down done they did they should where did they show the correct down? There was it to the players on the field point. It pointed to the field of a second down to two facing the field. That's right.

Okay, and so, you know, the funny thing originally when they first were doing the down rod, initially was just a rod, and the Headlinesman actually Carried it around with him on the field, and I, you know, So I've got pictures out there. I did another tidbit on this, but with a bunch of pictures of guys running up and down the field these rods, so originally, they didn't have any kind of box or anything. It was just, you know, that it allowed them to kind of stick it into the ground, and You know, you'd think they would have left it there. But anyway, they'd pick it up.

They'd pick it up and run with it, and then they started putting the boxes on the poles, but those were still, you know, like maybe up to waist height, you know, they just weren't very tall. Then finally they put them up a top a pole that like rose above The assistant linesman's head, you know, so eventually it got turned over to the assistant linesman and you know, they would You know, so I've got in this tidbit I've got a picture of of one of the the older stuff ones that is One that's below kind of below the waist version and then another one That's about as high as a flip down Marker would have been or even the current dial it down So, you know at least that was visible to fans, you know the the short ones, you know I mean, they were really only intended for the players and the officials because Nobody else could see it All right, I guess maybe the opposing sideline could see it in the opposing fans but you know, whoever was across the field could see it, but Nobody behind that official would be able to see it you know just a little Sidebar taken going into the world of officiating a lot of people don't know this but the officials The box is important because it's more more so for the spot of the ball and we make you know We all try to make sure because the headlinesman has his back to the chains in the box most of the time So it's usually the line judge, which is on the opposite sideline who's facing him. Let's tell them, Hey, it's you know, you're showing a two, and it's third down because officials every official has a rubber-like piece of elastic it goes on your wrist and it goes over your fingers, and People do it.

You know, some guys would do it. You know your fourth if you put the rubber band on your four fingers first down; you put it on your middle finger. Second down, I did it in did a group of fingers, you know I had the rubber band around one finger first down two fingers It was second down, and that and so you're really, and that's why we're whole the officials are holding up a number Signaling to the other officials. So we're all on the same page. Hey, it's second down. Yeah, I got second down, and then you look at the box and say, okay.

Yes, you're showing second down, So that's just how the officials do it. So I'm I don't know what they did prior to having those, you know when they had that rod, I'm sure they probably maybe did something unique like that, or I heard Some older guys that I did it started in the 50s when I started officiating they used to hold pebbles in their hands I don't know what they did with the pebble, you know they switched hands or something and did I I'm not coordinated enough to hold pebbles and You know blow a lanyard whistle that they used to have around their neck Yeah, I'd be kind of too much but that's how the officials do the downs most the times with a piece of elastic on their fingers Yeah, well, you know they like in the old catalogs. There's, You know, for a long time, they sold little, you know, hand clicker things That would have down in the distance, you know, much like an umpire would use to keep track of balls and strikes But you know, for a long time, you know again before Official signals became, you know fairly standardized You know a lot of times whoever was posting stuff on the scoreboard They were kind of guessing, you know, whether there had been a first down or not because sometimes it wasn't clear You know, the officials didn't always signal things. So the way that we just assume they're going to today So there, you know, there are games where they had the wrong score on the scoreboard, you know, for a long time, and so it was, You know, Thankfully as much as I dislike sometimes hearing the referee talk during the games it's Communications is much better today than it has been in the past Yeah, and the majority of them are pretty good at talking.

Yeah, conforming things. There are some guys that say some things. You're like one, so why would you even say that? Who knows? I just want to watch the game and not have to hear the explanation. It's not really a criticism of the officials themselves, and some of them actually have a really good sense of humor, right? Tim, you know, that is a great piece. You know, to talk about, you know, some officiating equipment, something that all of us look at when we go to a game, and you know, sometimes on television, we see it come into our view. You can see the downs so it's just kind of cool to to hear the history of that and Give some some love to the guy that invented the one probably lasted the longest of all the Down markers that flip style which you know I think everybody's familiar that's watched Football at least the last 20 years or so So, you know great piece of history there and you have some little unique pieces like this a lot on your website maybe you can share with the Folks how they can tune into some of these pieces that you have sure You know, it's just easiest thing is go to footballarchaeology.com subscribe and You know, you'll get an email every time that I yes issue a new You know have a new post you'll get an email into your box with that content alternatively follow me on Twitter on Substack or on threads You can be one of about six or seven people who follows me on threads if you want to And or you know just go on out and hit the site whenever you want, you know, whatever you want to I'll also just take a moment here to some put in a plug I've got a new book coming out called a history of the Football. So, as far as I know, it is the first book to look at the history of American Football and Canadian Football. I covered their ball as well. So, you know, it takes us back to the rugby days and then all the way up until the present. How did it change shape, size, colors, and stripes? Materials etc.

So it's just kind of a fun little read. Yeah, and I'm coming soon to an Amazon site near you. Okay, that's what I was gonna ask you if you had a date set for release, but I still do that. I do not know, but we'll get some information from you when it officially comes out. We'll make sure we share that with everybody, too. But I'm looking forward to that. Do you have any place where people can pre-order anything? I think there's some technique.

I'm running into a technical issue right now. It's just related to the cover. You know, I think in order to allow pre-order, you have to have the cover ready, okay, and so All right, so the answer is no problem, we'll just keep watching, and we'll keep posting when we know things on pigskin dispatch and keep watching Tim's Social media and everything and in footballarchaeology.com, and we'll figure out what's coming real soon So real exciting book so can't wait to get my hands on it.

So Tim, we really appreciate you coming on here and sharing, you know, aspects of this, You know, flip down and the dial it down in the box and its history, and I Love to talk to you about another aspect of football history next week.

Yeah, I will be here.