Football History

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One of the biggest football rules about faces of all time may be in the game-time relationship of a coach in communicating with his players.

Here is Tim's original Tidbit that the topic derived from, Coaching One Player During Timeouts

-Transcription of One Coach with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigSkinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. We're going to look in that portal today and go back and do some football archaeological work with Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, thank you. Looking forward to chatting once again.

Always fun to talk about old-time football. Yeah, and you have some real dandies that come out in the tidbits each and every day, and one that really caught my eye that I'd like to talk about tonight is you have, it's titled Coaching One Player, and I find this very interesting on multiple levels, and my officiating ears go up on this one because, you know, I can appreciate what the officials had to deal with during these times too. So I'll let you take the floor here and tell us all about this.

Well, I think I said this two weeks ago, but there are certain stories that need background in order for a more current story to make sense. Hey, we're here to hear old football stories, so the more we can hear, the better. Then you're going to benefit from that kind of idea and thinking today.

So this, for I think everybody, whether you've lived through this era or not if you're a football fan, you've seen images of a coach standing on the sideline talking typically to his quarterback. Sometimes, it could have been his mid linebacker, but most often, the pictures would show the quarterback. And so it's obviously a timeout, and so they're, you know, the two are conferring about game strategies and which plays to call, et cetera.

And so, but the odd thing is, why the heck is he just talking to his quarterback? Because nowadays the whole team comes over or, yeah, I mean, especially like high school, the old team will come running over coach and listen to coach jabber, you know, 35 seconds and then run back and execute a play. But so this whole thing of the coach being able to talk to one player at a time during a timeout all has this background in the idea of coaching from the sideline. And so that was illegal really until, you know, in the college game, it was illegal until the 1960s.

It was illegal in the pro game until 1944. But so it all has to do with this idea that, you know, originally the football teams were organized by the athletes themselves, just they were club teams, just like any, I don't quite want to make it sound like, you know, the club Quidditch team at some college or university today, but, you know, fundamentally, it's the same thing. A bunch of guys got together and said, hey, let's play football.

And so they organized themselves and then it got popular. So a lot of people wanted to attend and blah, blah, blah. So the game, you know, evolved, but it had this fundamental belief that the game was for the players, not for the fan, not for the coaches.

And so there's a whole slew of football rules and underlying beliefs that are aligned with that. And, you know, I mean, some of it's kind of hidden, but even things like, you know, numbering the players was for the fans, but it was opposed by the coaches for a long time. So that's why we didn't have numbers.

But so one of the things that was by tradition, you're supposed to engage the player's brawn and the brain. Therefore, coaches, fans, and spectators are not supposed to yell instructions to the players. And so that all worked and was, you know, the tradition and kind of the etiquette allowed that or made sure that didn't happen until the late 1880s.

And then people kind of started cheating a bit. And so they enacted a rule in 1892 that said, if somebody coaches from the sideline, it's a 15-yard penalty. And so if you think about other and older pictures that you've seen of football teams when you saw, you see pictures of all the players sitting on a bench on the sideline, you see pictures of all the players sitting or kneeling on the sideline, or you see one or two coaches standing.

And all of that was just at various times, the rules morphed a bit, especially in terms of the number of coaches that could stand on the sideline or move up and down during play. But the, you know, even when they could move around a bit, they still could not instruct the players. So there were things in the 19, I want to say it's the late 1930s, there were some experimental games where they had a 12th student, so a team member, maybe he was a smart guy, but he was like the third string quarter.

They put him out on the field to call the plays and instruct the team because he was a student, not a coach. So there were some experimental games, you know, trying that because, again, student, not a coach. So, even the rule that they had was the kicker; if there were times when they did allow teams, the kicker had to request the tee.

You couldn't, you know, some of the sidelines couldn't just toss a tee out onto the field; the kicker had to request it. Because if you just toss the tee out there, that meant the coach had said, I want them kicking, you know, I want them to try the field goal here from the 35-yard line or whatever. Anyway, there is a whole set of rules like that.

But then in, you know, say, 1940s, you have two platoon footballs coming along. That allowed coaches to coach the defense while they were off the field or the offense when they were off the field. And then eventually, in the 50s, you had, you know, in the pro level, anyways, they had what they called messenger guards, where teams would swap, they'd have guards run back and forth between days.

So that, you know, one, the right guard would swap between one guy and the other, and they would bring in the play each ball. Interestingly, a guy named Chuck Knoll was one of the first messenger guards to play and perform that function. So... I think I've heard of him before.

Yeah, I think he, well, I know the listeners can't see that, but you're wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers hat. So, I think you've heard of Chuck Knoll before. But so eventually, in 1967, they passed a rule that said, okay, now when we call a timeout, you know, previously, even during a timeout, the players, the coach could not talk to the players; they had to stay out there on the field.

And even with injuries, the coach could not go out there; just one person who was a medical professional could go out there. And so in 1967, in the colleges anyways, they said, one player can talk to a coach. And so that's why you see all those pictures.

And actually, the high schools had made that rule change a couple of years earlier. And then, you know, early 70s, maybe late 60s, somewhere in there, the high schools also just said, let's allow all 11 players to come over to the sideline to talk to the coach. So again, it's one of those goofy things, but it's grounded in this whole background, underlying people's belief systems about football.

But believe it or not, at the high school level, the phenomenon, you know, even through my officiating career, it's only the last 10 or 15 years that more than one coach can go out on the field and more than 11 players can be out there. When they had it for a long time that I officiated, you had to have only 11 players and one coach, and they had to be at least inside the nine-yard marks, which is the top of the numbers. And, and you had to call, you know, technically, if they did that, you're supposed to call it illegal substitution.

I mean, we just tried to enforce it and keep them back, but it was a pain in the neck because you know how timeouts are; it's sort of chaotic. And you're trying to tell these coaches, they can't, you know, the defensive assistant wants to come out with the head coach and whatever you got to chase them back. But they, they did a promotion.

Right. Right. So the national federation had to be like 10, 15 years ago, finally in this century said, Hey, you can have as many players and as many coaches come out anywhere on the field.

And as long, you know, but when that minute's up, you know, everybody's got to be out of there. And just the 11 players are on their own side of the ball. So it's still an evolving transition of that rule, at least at the high school level.

And it's much easier to do it now. I think, you know, you raised a really interesting point of view from the official, right? So, you know, I played, I coached. So I have that perspective on what it's like to do those things, but I never officiated.

And so I don't understand the game from that perspective, as well as the pressures and the concerns. Right. And so there's, there's just, I mean, there's a lot of things out there in the rules that, you know, even like the, the stripes, stripes on the gridiron, you know, the 10, the five-yard stripes, when there was a checkerboard, the checkerboard stripes, there are lots of things that were put on the field to help the officials, not to help the, you know, the players.

Like the game, they're playing behind me right now. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, the difference between whistles and horns and all that kind of stuff, the final gun, you know, there were so many things that, that really, you know, they were instituted to make officiating easier and, and more regulated, more consistent, you know, because what do people complain about? Inconsistent officiating, right? So, you know, there's a reason.

They still complain about that. If you watched the games in the playoffs this year and the regular season, you know, even us old officials complained about some of them, but it's. Yeah.

But, but it really, I mean, it really, you know, like your perspective just lends a different lens, a different way to look at the game. And, you know, so I just, I appreciate that. It's just, you know, I get it, but I don't get it.

Yeah. It's, it's, it's definitely something. I mean, I, I miss, I love being out on the field.

I love the people that I work with. I love, you know, the coaches and the kids, but there's some, some parts of it that I don't miss, especially when you have a, a coach that had a bad day and he's going to take it out on you because you're the easiest target for him. And you're a sideline official.

You know, those are always fun, but yeah, I like the game and ship. I love doing it and going back and forth with the coach, and that's part of the fun of it. And it's an exciting thing.

And it's part of the game. I have a quick little story I have to tell you. One of my favorite college memories is that I played at a small college, and we had a game with a backup quarterback who was just a kind of poster.

And at one point, you know, in the middle of a game, a referee threw a flag, and then the play ended up at about 20, 30 yards downfield. And so, but he had thrown his flag near the line of scrimmage. And so this quarterback goes out on the field, picks up the guy's flag, stuffs it in his pants.

And so the, the official comes running back, you know, he's a headlinesman or whatever, cause he's right along the side. He comes back, and he can't find his flag. And so our coach starts yelling at him like, what are you doing? You know, you're delaying the game, you know, sticks.

So then the guy heads back upfield, looking for his flag, and when the quarterback takes the flag and dumps it back on the field, where, you know, it is behind him. And then the official turns around, sees the flag sitting there, and knows that it wasn't there like five seconds ago. He just, he just smiled, and he didn't say a damn thing.

He knew one of the kids was in his chain. And I just think I recall that it's just one of my favorite memories in college. It was just like a small college.

It really didn't matter, but it mattered. And so for somebody to think about, to think that quickly to do, to pull off that trick, and for the official to just let it go, I thought it was just total class. Cause he could have he could have flagged somebody.

Right. But it seems like you'd have it like every, every season, at least once or twice, you'd have that, that kid that just wants to help you out. You know, they, they, they're, they're just that helpful soul, and you throw a flag, and it's a spot foul.

And if the flag means something, you know, it wasn't like, you know, offsides or something, it's a holding or, you know, intentional grounding where the flag really matters, and you throw it, and you're, you know, you're, you're, that's why you have a flag. You're marking that spot, and you're following the rest of the play. And you, like you said, you might end up 30 yards downfield or 80 yards downfield, and you got to come back to the spot, but I'd always be turning around to come back.

And there's this kid, I can see him pick up the flag and say, I'll bring your flag to you, Mr. No, no, no, don't, don't do that. Thank you. But thank you.

But no, thanks. Yes. But yeah, that's all you always run into that kind of stuff, too.

But my teammate didn't have the official best interest at heart. Yeah. I think that was a little bit more malicious.

Are you sure this was a teammate, and it wasn't the person telling the story? No, it wasn't me. You seem to really have a lot of firsthand knowledge here. I've done, I've done, I was kind of a trickster, you know, sort of person.

So I've done things like that, but no, I, I, I didn't have the guts to do that. Yeah, that would be; it took a little bit of moxie to do that. I'm sure, especially with everybody in a stand, seeing what you're doing.

So, hey, Tim, great stuff as always, you know, this coaching and quarterback relationship and coaching with the, from the sidelines is always an interesting subject. And it's amazing how much that's evolved over the years and how much the perception of what the coach should be doing on the field and what he shouldn't be doing has changed over the last hundred years. It's just great stuff.

And I really like how you portrayed that out here in a story and this podcast tonight. And you know, you have these thoughts and these tidbits that come out each and every day on your website, social media, and email, and maybe you could share with the listeners how they could enjoy some of these, too. Yeah, so it's really easy.

My site is footballarchaeology.com. And as long as you spell it right, you'll find it. And so you can, there's, you know, every story that's out there, there's a subscribe button. And if you subscribe, you get get the email at seven o'clock Eastern every day, which comes right to your inbox.

And then alternatively, you can just follow me on Twitter at Football Archaeology. And then, you know, obviously, you can just go find it and, you know, periodically search it and see, see what's been published. But you know, from my perspective, the best thing for me is if you get the thing every day and, you know, if you've got a busy week, let them pile up.

And then when you got a little bit of time over the weekend, scan through them and see what interests you. All right. I, I'm glad that you, you mentioned that, that I'm not the only one that has trouble spelling archaeology every time I write it out.

And even if I spell it right, I look at it, and I, is that right? That's just one of those words that just doesn't look right, but hey. A-R-C-H-A-E-O-L-O-G-Y. Yeah.

I think maybe, maybe as an American, we pronounce it with that archaeology and A just doesn't seem like it belongs there, but hey, hey, great stuff and spell it right and put the dot com on the end and you'll get to Tim's site. And Tim, we'll talk to you again next week. Hey, very good.

Thanks, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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One of the top experts in early football rules history, Timothy P. Brown joins us on the discussion to celebrate Pop Warner to give some input on his brother Bill, a famous gridiron coach and player in his own right.. Timothy Brown's FootballArchaeology.com has a daily football factoid that he shares that are really quite interesting in a short read. They preserve football history uniquely, and we are quite happy that Tim has agreed to join us each week to go over some of his Today's Tidbits. Click that link, and you can subscribe for free to receive them yourself each evening.

Here is a link to Tim's original post. The Other Warner Brother and Chemawa Indian School.

-Transcription of the Other Warner Brother with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes at pigskindispatch.com. Welcome, once again, to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

Welcome to Tuesday. We are going on an archeological dig into football history with our friend Timothy P. Brown of footballarcheology.com. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin. Thank you. I'm looking forward to talking about the Warner Brothers, not the cartoon guys. Oh, well, I was getting ready my Bugs Bunny stuff out to talk about that. You can use it if you want.

I'm just... That's not what I'm here to talk about. Oh, okay. I came to the wrong show.

All right. No, but your topic is much more interesting than the Warner Brothers, which makes films and cartoons. We're talking about some great innovators in football and the Warner Brothers of football coaching and playing days of the early 20th century.

So you have a topic that you talked about, February 6th was your tidbit, and you're actually talking about Pop Warner, his brother, Bill, who's a little bit lesser known, and it's a great and interesting story that we'd love to have you share with us. So, I mean, I kind of always liked the brother combinations. There's a number of brothers and even cousins who are active, especially in coaching nowadays, but who've been very successful.

As a kid growing up, Hank Aaron and his brother, Tommy, were a brother combination that I think may still hold the record for most home runs by a set of brothers, but anyway. But this is one where, like, Pop Warner, everybody knows Pop Warner. Even if you don't really know much about him or you're just barely a fan because of his influence on youth football, Pop Warner's side of things, and even somebody who ignores football history is going to have heard his name.

But so Pop was the older brother, and they grew up in Western New York State, and they ended up going to Cornell. So, both of them went to Cornell, both were linemen, and Bill was considered a pretty big guy, or I should say Pop was considered a pretty big guy, but Bill was bigger, and he was better. He was a first-team All-American his senior year, and then he graduated from Cornell.

As was fairly common at the time, the preceding year's captain coached the next year's team. And so he graduated in 03 from Cornell and then coached in the fall of 03. And so then he, I don't know exactly how it worked out, but for one reason or another, he left Cornell, but at the same time, his brother was leaving, who had coached Cornell previously, and his brother was coming back to Cornell from Carlisle.

So, he did Pop coach Cornell twice and Carlisle twice, two different stints. So anyways, Bill leaves and his brother comes in. And so, Bill then goes to Sherman Institute, which they call Indian Schools out in California.

For 04, he's at North Carolina in 05, he was at Colgate for 06 and 07, he goes back to Sherman in 08, goes to St. Louis University in 09, and then he's at Oregon in 1910 and 1911. So, back then, a lot of coaches had full-time jobs, they weren't on campus. Part of the reason they were only there at Indian School for a year was they got hired for one year, and then they'd go back to whatever they did.

So, both of them lawyered up during the off-season. But interestingly, both of them had connections at Indian Schools, right? I mean, they were both Cornell and at the Indian Schools, but Bill never had a Jim Thorpe playing for him, so he didn't get quite the notoriety of Pop. And Bill, I think, also just, you know, he kind of got out of coaching a little bit earlier.

You know, Pop worked forever. And then, you know, so the story then, you know, so he was, Bill stayed out in Oregon and, you know, basically was a lawyer in a town out there. And then for, you know, for whatever reason, in 1917, he ends up picking up at another Indian School, Chemiwa, which is, you know, over on the, he was living more towards eastern Oregon, and he ended up, Chemiwa's over on the west side of the state.

And, you know, they had been, you know, they used to play a lot of, you know, college teams. You know, the Northwest especially didn't have that many colleges. So, you know, there were some pretty good athletic clubs like Multnomah.

And then during the war, because this was 1917, there were all kinds of military bases that they could play, or even National Guard units, you know, whatever it was. So that's kind of who they played. But, you know, he coached this Indian team again.

And he ends up with a 1, 2, and 3 record, which, you know, you don't have those too much anymore. And, you know, I think they scored like 25 points the whole season or something like that. You know, because they had a couple of nothing, nothing shutouts.

But then he just went back. And, you know, his brother was, Pop was still coaching. You know, he'd left Carlisle and gone to Pitt.

He was at Pitt for a long time. And so then Pop had, he left Pitt after the 23 season and took over at Stanford. So then Bill at least had the opportunity to work with his brother a little bit.

You know, all he really did was he scouted when he would scout like the Oregon, Oregon State, Montana, Washington, Washington State, you know, those teams. He would scout them for, you know, for Bill and for Stanford. So, you know, he kept his, kept himself in football at least from, say, 24 to 32.

Well, while Bill was on the West Coast. But the other thing that's just kind of interesting about it was that it's just, Chemiwa is still open, you know, it's a, and it's the longest serving school dedicated to educating North American or Native Americans. So it's now just a high school, you know, back even like Carlisle was this real mix of kind of, you know, a lot of them, a lot of the emphasis tended to be on like trades and manual arts and things like that.

And so they had; they covered both high school and college curricula. That was pretty typical of Haskell in Kansas, which was the same kind of way. A lot of the Indian schools, you know, had that kind of curriculum. So, but anyways, they, you know, they played some decent football, and Bill helped them, led them to a one, two, and three records, which, as I said, got to give them credit for that because, you know.

Yeah. You don't hear that. I don't think I've ever heard of a coach having a one--, two-, and three-record or a team.

That's amazing for football, especially, you know, six games have three ties, but a different game back in that era. Now I have; I'm pretty sure that Bill and Pop got to play a professional season, or at least a few games together, on the same team they had for two years back in 1902 and 1903. In the first year, 1902, they had the World Series of football, which was an indoor game at Madison Square Garden, sort of during the holidays to help with festivities.

The manager of the Madison Square Garden wanted to make a couple of bucks and, you know, put some fannies in the seats to have some revenue coming in, so they had this world series of football. So they invited four or five teams, and they were trying to get 1902.

There was the original NFL, which was a three team league of, uh, you know, two from Pittsburgh or two from Philadelphia for the baseball teams, the athletics and the Phillies each had a football team sponsored. And there was a team from Pittsburgh to Pittsburgh stars. They were trying to get those teams to come in, but they, they wouldn't, uh, they, they couldn't make it.

So they were members of those teams that went to this world series of football. So the Philadelphia athletics actually would a team, they formed, they made it be the New York Philadelphians. It's been called or the New York, the New York team, they call it.

They were sort of the favorites. They want everybody to roof flexors in New York city. And they thought they were just going to dominate this thing.

Everybody is involved with it. Well, a team from Syracuse, uh, an all-star team from Syracuse, which had both Pop and Bill Warner on that team, came in and ended up winning the tournament. They beat New York and like the second round and, you know, just, uh, went on from there, but Pop ended up getting hurt in one of those early games.

I think it might've been a game against the New York Philadelphians and a guy that, uh, for them, so for the next game, uh, Syracuse was sort of scrambling to try to find a tackle. Cause they, you know, like we talked about, uh, you know, before tackles were very important at that time. And that's what pop was.

And so they got, uh, from the New York team that lost, they got Blondie Wallace, who was, uh, sort of an enigma figure of early professional football. He ended up playing for Syracuse after losing to New York. So, but, uh, it was great to see that.

I'm pretty sure I know Pop is playing that team. I'm pretty sure Bill did too on that 1902, uh, world's football team. Yeah.

I hadn't thought about that before. You know, he was still in college at the time. Right. Um, so, you know, who knows, you know, who knows if he played under his own name or an assumed name or how it worked, but I think it's in the newspapers as he has it down as his name, you know, and it, you know, of course, Glenn Warner for pop Warner.

So yeah. It was so interesting, too. You know, you think about them in the coaching realm, but they were pretty, pretty big-time players back that day, too. Yeah.

Before they're coaching pop was not the most financially responsible man. He had some gambling issues. So he, uh, he probably needed a couple of extra bucks somehow playing in this plane in that, uh, in the tournament.

Yeah. Uh, well, it's sort of a programming note. Um, we were going to try to have something special, uh, chasing down a good friend of the program.

Uh, Jeffrey Miller, uh, authors wrote a bunch of different books, including a book on pop Warner. And April 5th is Pop Warner's birthday. We're trying to put together a nice little episode where Jeff comes on.

We pay tribute to Pop Warner. Uh, but in Jeff's book, something I didn't realize it sort of starts off. Uh, they grew up; the brothers grew up in Springville.

The whole family was there in Springville, which was sort of Southeast of Buffalo. And they all of a sudden packed up when, uh, pop was of high school age, like early high school age. And they moved to Texas.

And so they had a big ranch down there, and the boys worked on the farm, and that's how they got big and big and strong. I guess that doing the ranching work is what Jeff attributes it to in the story. And, uh, they pop back to New York to visit some buddies, uh, during pretty great before Thanksgiving time. And, uh, the guys got him involved in playing some football, and, uh, he was having a good time doing that and getting a couple of bucks.

And he told his father, he, you know, wired back and said, Hey, I need, I need some money because I, uh, want to stay up here. And he's like, your father's like, what do you want to stay up there for? So he had to make up an excuse. He said cause I want to go to school.

I want to become a lawyer. You always want me to become a lawyer. So the father sends him money.

He has some more fun with it. And he's like, Oh crap, I can't go back to my dad and tell him that. So he went and entered into Cornell's law school.

That's how I ended up going to college. So that was kind of interesting. Yeah.

Well, he's, he did a few other things where like his first year coaching, uh, he was coaching both Iowa state and, uh, Auburn. Cause they, cause they're right next to each other, uh, geographically. Oh yeah.

Yeah. It's an easy commute. And, uh, but you know, he, he basically, he coached Iowa State from like, uh, mid-August till towards the end of September and then moved down to Auburn where he kind of had his primary contract, I guess.

And, but there's a story in there where like, you know, he did continue by telegram, he coached Iowa state, but at some point, he took, took Iowa state out to like Montana to, to Butte and they, he gambled on the outcome of the game. And, you know, it didn't sound like it was a fair match, but one way or another, he lost his money. So, he had to keep coaching both places in order to make up for it.

Yeah. Yeah. There are some interesting rabbit hole stories you can go down to with the legends of the game, like Pop Warner and Bill Warner.

So definitely we could talk all day about them. There's some, some great, interesting things, but, uh, yeah, so stay tuned. Uh, we'll have more on, on pop here on some of these, I'm sure some more football archeology.com visits and, uh, hopefully with Jeff Miller too, on April 5th.

Yeah. Well, the Pop Warner thing sounds fun. That'll, that'll be a great episode.

Yeah. Yeah, sure. Well, um, well, Tim, why don't you share with us, this, this came out of one of your tidbits.

It comes out each and every day at about 7.00 PM Eastern. Uh, why don't you share with us how the listeners, too, can get involved in and read your tidbits each and every day? Sure. Uh, just, you know, go to the, uh, so my site is football archeology.com. You just gotta make sure you spell archeology correctly.

A R C H A E O L O G Y. And then, um, yeah, so if you, if you subscribe, you'll get an email every, every night at seven Eastern with the story that day story, but you can also just go to the site anytime you want there. You know, you can search by topic to find old articles. Um, and if you're not, you know if you prefer not to get an email every night, you can also follow me on Twitter at Football Archeology.

And, um, so anyways, you can subscribe, you can just hit the site whenever you want to, or you can follow me on, on Twitter. It's definitely worth the while to take that 10 seconds to sign up for it because it's a fantastic and you'll have some great football information each and every day, uh, at 7:00 PM. So, uh, I highly recommend it.

So Tim, thank you once again for joining us and sharing your knowledge and your stories, uh, from football archeology.com and your tidbits and, uh, for joining us.

Hey, very good. Thank you once again, and look forward to seeing you and talking next week.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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The draw play – a staple of football offenses, a play that keeps defenses guessing. But where did it come from? Who first thought of faking a pass and then handing the ball off? Today, we're joined by renowned football historian Timothy Brown to crack open the dusty playbook and uncover the surprising origins of the draw play.

The story originates from a recent Tidbit of Tim's titled: The Origins of the Draw Play.

The Draw Play in football is still used as an element of surprise at all levels of football. It is also quite a common play choice when a team is in the unenviable position of third and really long as a way to garner some cheap, safe, and easy field position to set up the punting unit,

Timothy Brown joins us to talk about the origins and the purpose of the draw play in this episode.


-Transcript of the Origins of the Draw Play with Timothy Brown

Darin Hayes
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 visit with our friend Timothy Brown of football archaeology dot com. Tim, welcome back to the pig pen.

Timothy Brown
Hey, Darin, I am looking forward to chatting, and hopefully, this discussion will not get too drawn out, if you know what I mean.

Darin Hayes
Oh, you are just the master of the Segway, and folks, these are not pre-rehearsed, So these are just as much a surprise to me as they are to you when they come out, but

Timothy Brown
They got it. Dad jokes are what make the world around.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, we are both dads and grandfathers, and we have the jokes coming at us. So, you know, so pardon our humor. But Tim is segueing into a title that his tidbit he's going to talk about tonight, which he had titled The Origins of the Draw Play, which is a very famous play. And when it's still common today in football. So, Tim, what do you get to tell us about the origins of the draw play?

Timothy Brown
Yeah, so well, I think part of what's fun about the draw play, like a lot of things in football, is kind of, you know, people always talk about, you know, the game, you know, football repeats itself that, you know, that there's this whole thing about, you know, well, we've seen and done that before. And, you know, in a lot of cases, that has been the case, but it always kind of comes back to, well, what do you mean, you know, so what is it about like today's draw play that you can see and spot in earlier versions of that play. And so that's kind of what this tidbit was about. And so, so, you know, like a lot of things, you know, I recently did a tidbit on homecoming. And the first homecoming, so in order to talk about that, you have to define, OK, well, what a homecoming is and what the elements of a homecoming are. So with the draw play, it's like, well, what's a draw play? And, you know, for me, it comes down to the draw play is a play in which it is a, it's a fake pass with a, with a, with a run that is, you know, a predetermined run. So it's not, you know, back in the day they used to, out of the, you know, single wing, double wing, and probably, you know, out of the Notre Dame, you know, and Minnesota boxes and all those kinds of things. You know they, they'd send a back out wide on a run-pass option, not the RPO we know today, but a run-pass option, where it was like, OK, you either run the ball, but if the guys open, throw at home. So that's an option that was still an option play whereas, you know, draw it's predetermined you call it, call it in the huddle, you're going to fake a pass, and then run it, you know, and it's an attempt to kind of take advantage of the pass rushers coming at you.

Darin Hayes
And what you're saying is that you're basically having your lineman pass block instead of the traditional run block where they're trying to go beyond the line of scrimmage. They're trying to stay on their side of the line of scrimmage and just protect but open a hole.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, I mean, back in the day, there wasn't that restriction on the linemen, you know, they could go downfield. Right. So I mean, some of that stuff gets a little bit mixed up. And even, you know, as far as I can tell, there wasn't a heck of a lot of difference between past blocking and around blocking back in the day. But you know, now in today's world, yes, 100%, right. But that's, you know, that's our, you know, 21st-century mind, defining, you know, what a draw play is. But back then, so the first, you know, I wrote this about Fritz Chrysler when he was coaching at Michigan. And he had drawn up a play for, you know, postseason or preseason guide that Grant let Rice was doing. And he basically had his single-wing tailback get the deep snap. And then he rolled out as it's drawn up anyways, he rolled out left, you know, kind of stood there for a second. And he had like, you know, the whole backside of the line, and the backs were out there starting to block for him. But a couple of them leaked out into the, you know, downfield. And then, you know, I mean, everything appeared that he was going to pass it, and then boom, he takes off. Right. So now that, you know, in my definition, it would be a draw play. Right. I mean, it's not what we think of today as a draw play because this is 1939. And then modern tee with a quarterback under center and then dropping, you know, kind of straight back, you know, backpedaling or, you know, turning and kind of carioca, but, you know, peddling back that first showed up in 1940, you know, a year later. So anyways, you know, it's one of those things where there's a lot of football references that say that that the draw play that we now think of, you know, tee quarterback, you know, backing out and then giving it to a fullback or a halfback. A lot of people say that that was, you know, one of the Chicago Bears plays. But it's not in the 1946 Chicago Bears playbook that, you know, Hallis and Shaughnessy and those guys wrote. So, you know, so then I'm going, OK, well, I don't believe it then. Right. Because they've got 80 plays there. So the first place that I saw the term draw play in newspapers anyway came in the 1950 Rose, not Rose Bowl, but Cotton Bowl. And so that was a game with, you know, two games or two teams you wouldn't expect to be in the Cotton Bowl today necessarily. But TCU, which, OK, you can believe TCU is in the Cotton Bowl, then Carnegie Tech. So, it's not a team that is going to show up in the cotton today. But you know, TCU had three top 10 NFL, you know, first-round picks the next year. One of them was an All-American quarterback, Davey O 'Brien, you know, who was a stud. I'm sorry, I'm messing that up. They had Tobin Roat, and Rice beat UNC. I'm mixing up which story I'm talking about. So Tobin Roat was a quarterback, and he, you know, operated out of the dropback tee. And then, you know, the other thing. So it was a low-scoring game, and he ends up, you know, basically, they won the game as a result of, you know, running a draw play, you know, and a draw play the way that we think of it today. But still, at the time, they didn't call it a draw play, or at least if they called it a draw play on the field or in practice, that didn't get communicated out to the wider world. Because the first time I found the term draw play in the newspapers, you know, came a few years later. And so it was a guy by the name was Dick Cullen, who was a Minneapolis sports writer. And he must have been a guy who was, well, I know for sure he was because I've read enough of the stuff. He was one of these sports writers who kind of got into the play, and the terminology is more of a technical sort of guy, you know, so if you think now about the like the color analysts that are on TV or radio, he was like, maybe a little bit more of a football expert who could provide that kind of, you know, input into the game. And because he's, you know, so draw play, you know, that shows up in his writing, you know, not too long, you know, after the Cotton Bowl. And then he's also, ironically, the first guy to use the term dropback quarterback, which isn't, you know, T formation play or T formation term, but that didn't show up until 1964. So it was, yep. You know, so the T was there in 1940, the modern T. And it's 24 years later before it shows up in print. Wow. And then, two years later, he's the first guy to use the term skill positions. So, you know, it's just one of those things. It's kind of cool that, you know, I started noticing, like, you know, when I wrote, I wrote a book called Hut Hut Hike about the origins of football terminology, and so he kept showing up, and it's like, OK, well, this guy, you know, I mean, he obviously is one of those guys who kind of liked that side of the game and wanted to educate his, his, uh, his audience, you know, his readers on what was happening and what was different about the game today than it had been the previous year.

Darin Hayes
OK. Well, I'm glad you mentioned Hutt Hutt Hike. Cause I was going to go right into that a little bit. With your Hutt Hutt Hike, uh, storytelling and your research on there, where, what does the draw play, where, where does the draw come from? Is it from drawing the defenders in to fool them?

Timothy Brown
You know, sometimes it's hard to tell that's my assumption. OK, it's that you're drawing, you know, you're drawing them into your trap.

Darin Hayes
OK.

Timothy Brown
Yeah. And that's even another like a trap, you know, that comes from originally that was it was called a mousetrap. You know, that you were the trap lady on somebody and then and, you know, hitting them from the side. But it was it was called a mousetrap, not a trap. And then they just shortened it because it took too long to see the mousetrap.

Darin Hayes
Oh, thank, thank God that our football forefathers were simple people like us and the naming, you know, you can like to dropback quarterback. OK. We can figure out where that came from. Uh, but yeah, but some of those things, like the trap play and the draw play, were our explanation. So, thank you for that. So.

Timothy Brown
Now, so sometimes, it's just fun. For example, dropback quarterback is one of those where you'd think, well, what did they call it in those 24 years? Like if you were teaching somebody, here's what I want you to do. I want you to backpedal. And a lot of times, they were just, you know, straight backpedaling back then. You know, so how did coaches describe it? Yeah, you know, I don't have. I've only got a handful of playbooks from the old days. Most of all, I'm dealing with newspaper articles to try to figure it out.

Darin Hayes
But think about that the first time a player's told to do that. You know, football is a game of moving forward. You know, when you're on offense, you're, you're, you're trying to go forward. And now you're, you have a coach telling you to retreat a little bit, to give up ground, uh, to make something happen. So that had to be kind of a wide, wide, eyes wide open type of situation.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, well, you mentioned the pass blocking. So, you know, the whole, you know, cup blocking, you know, that was, you know, you had to teach somebody to give ground, you know, and before that, what they used to do a lot of times is, you know, the center and tackles would meet the, you know, meet their guys, you know, straight up, and the guards would if they were covered, but if they weren't covered, you know, then they'd loop back and pick up the ends, you know, coming off the edges. And yeah, you can see the plate drawings from back then. And I mean, it's very clear what they're doing. But you just don't see that anymore. You know, that's just not, you know, the cup was a really interesting innovation because it was basically zone blocking, only you're doing it passively, you know, so it was really a, you know, kind of a revolutionary way to think about, you know, blocking.

Darin Hayes
Until the defense of coordinators was countered with stunts and all kinds of craziness.

Timothy Brown
But actually, it was because of the stunts that they started doing it, you know, because they were stunting and like what we now call blitzing, they called Red Dog back then, you know, they'd send somebody, you know. And, you know, for so long, it was just, you know, seven guys on the line of scrimmage, and they just come at you. So you had the man who was over you. But then once they started dropping backers, then they start, you know, they start doing twists, and they start, you know, there are all kinds of things that happened, but really, pass blocking is zone blocking, you know, but you're doing it passively. Whereas, you know, zone blocking on the run, you know, you're picking up an area, it's area blocking, you know, you're, and then there's more to it than that. But nevertheless, I mean, so it's really, I don't know, it's just one of those things that it's just this kind of a revolutionary way of thinking about it. And so sometimes, sometimes it's like it happens right away. Somebody devises a new scheme, and other times, they, you know, football, just took baby steps to get there, but it's fun. You know, to me, that's the fun thing: the whole evolution of the game and how it got from here to there.

Darin Hayes
And, as you said at the very beginning, it's sort of a cyclical thing. So you've seen, you know, in the last ten years, uh, elements of the single wing coming back with, uh, you know, what they're, you're calling the, um, uh, what are the pros calling it out the wildcat offenses that are coming out, which is really single wing concepts to it.

Timothy Brown
You know, I've seen a number of plays in the US field games. You know, they're running, and they're running the modern T, a straight T in the backfield. So it's just a change-up its way to, you know, challenge the, you know,

Darin Hayes
You sit there and think about some of these younger defensive coordinators and players. You know, they've never seen anything like the single wing. So it's a whole new offense to them and they got to figure out how to defend it. So I'm sure there are coaches going back through some old books and film and trying to figure out, hey, how'd they do this in the 1940s?

Timothy Brown
Yeah. And part of it is just, you know, so the game has gotten to be so much of a speed, speed game, spread them out the game, that, you know, you want to come at me with, you know, 11 men in the box, then that changes, you know, the kind of people I need on the defense, right? So, you know, I mean, it's just total, you know,

Darin Hayes
That even I'll skip them.

Timothy Brown
It's a lot of fun stuff.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, definitely. Well, Tim, since we talked about it a couple of times, so what do we give the opportunity to help people get their hands on a copy of Hike? Because it's really an interesting book.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, thank you. So, you know, it's out on Amazon. You know, my three books will be on Amazon soon. My fourth one will be on Amazon, but Yeah, so just you know, look for me, look at my name or look up Hut Hut Hike or how football became a football, and You know, If you can find my name, then all three of them are gonna be available, and worst case go to go to football archaeology calm, and you know that I've got you to know, the books list in different places on the site.

Darin Hayes
OK, excellent. Well, Tim, we really appreciate you bringing back this concept of the draw play, explaining it to us a little bit, telling us some of the history and the origins of it. And we'd love to talk to you again next week about another early football concept.

Timothy Brown
Very good. I look forward to it. Thanks.

---

The timing of a football game has changed with the technologies available to fields of different eras. Timothy P. Brown takes us to early football before artificial light was used to illuminate the Gridiron. How did this affect the timing of the games? Tim lays it out for us in this podcast episode.

Here is the link for Tim's original TidBit House of the Setting Sun.

-Transcription of House of Setting Sun with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends, this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to Tuesday, FootballArcheology.com day. We have Timothy P. Brown, the founder of FootballArcheology.com joining us as he does each and every week to talk about one of his famous tidbits. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, good to see you, see your smiling face. It is about time.

About time. Yeah, great segue. Your segue-isms are getting better and better each and every time.

I am upping segue game. The dad jokes are a-flying, that's for sure. But Tim, now that you set it up, you have an interesting article from back in September that maybe back in September didn't mean as much as it does this time of year as we're getting closer to the winter season.

Sun going down and how it affected the timing of games. And I'll let you take it from there and tell us all about your tidbit. Yeah, so actually, the interesting thing is there is a, I will just say, an unidentified reader.

I can't say who that is unless the reader gives permission. The reader gives you permission, Tim. Go ahead.

Oh, OK. So, one time, Darin asked me. Why is it always me? So, yeah, so just, you know, it's like anything else.

You know, you question, you go like, how did this work? So, as he was doing his own research on some things, he kept on seeing in the old newspapers. You know, 1800s and early, you know, 1900s. Oftentimes, the box score would have a little thing right at the bottom of the box, and it would say, you know, time of halves or time of quarters.

It would say 15 minutes, 15 and 10, or something like that. And so, and then typically, if there was a short quarter or a short half, it was the second half. So, you know, the question is basically, well, why the heck did they do that? Why did they shorten games? And so sometimes that happened because one team was getting blown out, but that was not generally the reason, you know, so even in tight games, it wasn't unusual to shorten, shorten a quarter or a half.

And so, you know, when I wrote it, I kind of used the, you know, the old terminology of de jure versus de facto. So de jure means, you know, by the rule or by the law, whereas de facto is in practice. Right.

And so when football first started, when we first brought it in, you know, when we were playing rugby. Football was just one of those stew of games that came out of, you know, 18th-century England and the norm was to play 45-minute halves. And so soccer still plays 45-minute halves, and rugby still plays 45-minute halves.

And when football got started here, we were playing 45-minute halves even though there was nothing in the rules that said that's how long it was. You know, the original football rules don't mention how long a game is supposed to last, but everybody knew it was 45 minutes. So that's what you did.

When football kind of, you know, as partly safety measures, you know, they were trying to give people rest and just reduce the amount of time that they're on the field. You know, football started, it went to 45 minutes and then 35 and then 30. And it's perhaps so.

Now, another tradition that was quite common was that, a lot of times, games started at about 2 o'clock or 2:30 in the afternoon. And so part of that was, you know, you had a lot of people, you know, fans who, you know, if they were factory people, they and, you know, clerks and whatnot, they work six days a week, as did their bosses. And if they were rural folks, well, farm chores have to be done.

You know, if you got a dairy herd, well, guess what you're doing every day. You know, so just from a lifestyle standpoint, a lot of people had things to do in the morning. On top of that, a lot of teams didn't have the budget to send their team to an away game and stay overnight.

So, you know, they would want to be able to take the train in the morning of the game, show up, play the game, turn around, and get home. And so not only did that mean they had to schedule a game a little bit later, but then there were times where they needed to, you know, the only way they would get home and make their connections that night was to be at the train station at, you know, 430 and or, you know, five o'clock or whatever it was. So, you know, for a combination of reasons, they ended up needing to cut games short.

And, you know, eventually the the rule makers, you know, it was kind of a it was kind of an understood thing. It wasn't. Again, it's one of those traditions.

It was, you know, in fact, people cut games short, even though the rules didn't say, you know, didn't allow it. But everybody did it. Right.

So then we end up in a situation where, you know, during World War One, the government instituted light savings time, daylight saving, no S on that, daylight saving time. And so that came into effect in 1918. And so that was the first time that anybody had experienced that, at least, you know, in the US.

So you just kind of put yourself. I mean, we know what happens when daylight saving kicks in. But they just didn't anticipate it.

So there were teams that showed up at practice on Monday afternoon, right after daylight saving kicked in for the first time. And it was dark, you know. And so it's just one of those things where, you know, and then obviously that applied on Saturdays, too, because, you know, it gets dark on game day just as much as it does on practice.

But, you know, and in the tidbit, there's a discussion of like. And the USC and somebody, you know, playing in a game, and it's just like nobody could see by the end of the game; it was just so dark. And it's it's one of those things, you know, we take for granted that everybody's going to have lights.

Well, guess what? Very few places had lights. And if they did, it was jerry-rigged like the Navy used naval searchlights to light up the field for practice, you know. And, you know, so you have examples like that.

And that's that's one. I mean, some people had used them earlier, but they were painted white balls and yellow balls that came in right around. Yeah, that really became popular around that time.

That's when you start seeing them showing up in sporting goods catalogs. And it's really, you know, like. I know it's one of these things depending on where you have lived in the US; if you have not moved around a fair amount, you don't realize how much where you are in the time zone from an east, west, and north-south standpoint.

You don't realize how much impact that can have on how dark it gets early. So Chicago is right on the east side of the central island. So it's like it's getting dark where it's like I'm in Detroit.

So, you know, still across the state, but if you're on the west side of Michigan, you know, it's light in the summer. It's like until.

You know, 10, 10 o'clock, you know, and, you know, beyond where it's like it's the same thing in Chicago, but it's nine o'clock. Right. So anyway, I mean, it's just one of those things you just and if you're northern, you know, then it's great in the summer, but then it gets darker early if you're further up north, because that whole sun, you know, the earth rotates and it tilts and not enough.

So anyway, it's just one of those things you don't think about, but like. Daylight saving was a big story in 1918. So then, because of that, in 1922, they formalized the rule that said at halftime, the referee could approach the the two team captains and ask if they wanted to shorten the halves.

And then then they they'll do so as needed. And whether whether that's because of the lighting or the one team getting blown out or whatever. Basically, they had they had the chance to do that.

Yeah, it's just thank God that the football didn't adopt what soccer does now with, you know, you have the two 45-minute halves, and then we're going to just kind of arbitrarily throw some time on at the end, you know, just and not tell anybody, you know, how much time is left. Just, you know, whatever that drives me crazy. Drives me nuts, you know, that they don't have that public with how much time is going on there.

But yeah, very interesting stuff, Tim. And I'm glad you mean you really cleared up mine because I kept seeing this, you know, you'd have like a 25-minute first half and, you know, something like 10 minutes for the second half. I'm like, why are they doing that? You know, you have a 13-to-nothing game.

You know, it's still still a ball game. You know, it's just driving me crazy. So, I'm glad you could clear that up for me and the listener.

So that's that's great. So, yeah, again, it's just one of those things you just don't even think about because, you know, basically, there are very few people living today if there's anybody, you know, that that's that, you know when Daylight Savings first showed up. So.

Yeah, crazy. And there are probably more people who see live games under the lights, you know, at your local high school than you do in the daytime anyway nowadays. So we're so used to the lights.

It's taken for granted, I guess. Yeah, but Tim, you have interesting items like this each and every day on your tidbits and people really love reading them. And maybe there's some listeners out there that aren't familiar with how to reach you and get ahold of your tidbits.

So maybe you could help them out with some information. Yeah, so the easiest and best thing is just to hit my website, footballarchaeology.com. In order to find it, you have to put the WWW in front of it. And then, you know, you can every, you know, every story gives you the opportunity to subscribe.

You can subscribe for free. And then, as a result, you'll get an email every night in your inbox. And, you know, some people let them pile up, and they'll send it to you.

I know every Monday morning, I get a bunch of hits on my site because people who send them to their work address, you know, don't look at them until Monday morning. So anyways, and then you can also you can follow me on Twitter, on threads or simply, you know, or follow me within the within the Substack app. And so kind of whichever flavor works for you, have at it.

All right. Well, he is Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. The links to Tim's site and to the tidbit are in the podcast show notes. You want to enjoy that, you know, the images and some of the great writing that Tim does there and some of those other tidbits.

You have links to get to it that way, too. So, Tim, thanks a lot for joining us again and sharing. And we will talk to you again next week.

Very good. Thank you, Darin.

-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.

-Where did the term "Visitors" come from on the scoreboard? A Harvard professor was observing the scoreboard in the newly built Harvard Stadium shortly after its construction in 1903, when it bothered him that the word "Opponents" was on the score column to identify the guests of the Crimson. He found it offensive so he asked for a revision. Learn more about this story in this conversation Opponents Versus Visitors on the 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.

---

The tradition of wearing the varsity letter, a letterman jacket, or a varsity sweater is one that, in many places, still carries on to this modern day. It is so common in Americana we may take it for granted, but this badge of honor has a long and storied tradition. Our friend Timothy P Brown digs through the archives to find out where and why this exchange started and by whom in this weekly visit by the Football Archaeologist.

This piece originated with an article Tidbit that Tim wrote titled: Honoring Letter Sweaters and Jackets.

-Transcribed Tribute to Sweaters and Letterman Jackets with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And we are at that mark of the week.

It's Tuesday. It's footballarchaeology.com day. And we have the author and the creator of footballarchaeology.com, Timothy P. Brown, here to talk about another great tidbit he had coming from January. And Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin. Good to see you again and chat and looking forward to, you can't see, but I'm wearing a sweater and a jacket with my, you know, with my letter, letter sweater, and letter jacket from back in the day.

I've got those on right now and am wearing them proudly because I used to throw the ball over the mountain, if you weren't aware of that before. Okay, Uncle Rico. I'll get you that Napoleon Dynamite reference there.

But Tim, that's a good segue into your tidbit we're going to talk about today and it's titled Sweaters and Jackets. So this is a lot to do with the attire of the, of people playing football back in the day. So we're interested to hear what you have to say.

Yeah. You know, so I think some of the most fascinating things about football are the equipment and the gear. And part of what's fun about it is just that, in many cases, there are images that exist.

These are images of games or the team pictures that were posed in some photographer's office. And one of the things I really enjoy are, are the old catalogs. You know, one of the things I collect are old sporting catalogs.

And so you see those peppered, you know, maybe once a week, once every two weeks, I've got something in my tidbits that includes an image from a catalog. So, so, you know, I think most people are aware that the, you know, if you're a fan of football history, that football, that in the early days, players often wore fairly heavy sweater, you know, pretty significant, you know, big, big yarn, big threads, big yarn, heavy sweater. And oftentimes, it had the school letter on the front.

So if you were, you had a big Y in front, if you were Harvard, you had a H in front. And, you know, so whatever else, you know, whatever other letters that are out there. So that's very common.

And so one of the traditions that began, and this is, you know, 18, late 1880s, early 1890s was, you know, back then, if you look at most teams schedules, like Harvard and Yale, they kind of like, similar to what happens now, but they kind of filled their early schedule by playing what they would have thought of as minor opponents. And then they kind of saved their best game and their best plays and their best players for the big games at the end of the season. So if you were on the team and you played, and if you played for Harvard, you played against Yale, or you played against Princeton, and at the end of the year, got to keep the sweater that you wore in the game, which had the big H on the front of it.

And so that became a tradition. So, you know, I mean, I'm old enough to remember the days when there were no, you know, you couldn't go to the local mall and buy athletic gear. And there was no internet either.

So, you know, you couldn't, you couldn't. So athletic gear and team gear simply were not available. And so if you were able to get your hands on team-issued clothing from a college team, whether you played on the damn thing or not, that was pretty cool stuff, you know, because, you know, you could strut your stuff, you were, you had this pretty neat team gear walking around.

And people who knew that you had this, that you had gotten that gear. So it was the same thing with these guys. You know, they walked around campus, and everybody knew that if you wore this particular sweater, you would have played in one of the games. And in fact, early on, a lot of the team, a lot of the colleges would, if the, if the Y was a certain shape, or had certain flushes for football, the basketball team, or the crew team, or who, whatever else, especially the teams that considered minor sports, they didn't get to wear exactly the same Y or the same H, they had to wear some, they got something else, or these smaller letters.

And so, you know, it was just this whole thing. The football guys got to wear the football sweaters, so anyway, that all worked fine for, you know, maybe a decade or two.

And then it got, and then it became a thing where, obviously, football gear started changing. But also, you know, it's like nobody wanted to, you know, you couldn't wear the big heavy wool sweater all year round. So they started wearing, they started modifying the letter sweaters to become something that you might wear at an appropriate, you know, appropriately in some kind of social occasion.

So it was lighter, it was cotton, it had pockets, it had buttons, it was a cardigan, whatever, right? So it was just that they started making these sweaters be more into a true award in a separate piece of gear or apparel than the actual piece that you'd worn on the field. And then, you know, they also started doing charms and blankets and all kinds of stuff.

But, you know, basically, by the 1920s, they moved to a lot of the sweaters that had an emblem. So, if you were the Tigers, you might have a patch near one of the pockets. There was a type that had the head of a tiger. If you were the Lions or whatever, you know, whatever team you were, the Trojans, you had some kind of patch in addition to, you know, the letter sweater or the letters.

And then they also, it was in that kind of time period where they also had numerals, you know, so like by 1905, I think it was Harvard that had the first numerals. But that was if you were if you played as a freshman, you were on the freshman team, and you were on the night, you know, the team that was going to graduate in 1908, then you got, you could get a sweater and wear just your numerals on the sweater, right? No letter yet, just the numerals, which I think everybody, you know, is familiar with from the high school days. But so anyways, that kind of stuff just went on.

And then eventually, in the 1930s, we got to the point where, really, I don't think for any particular reason, but then the sporting manufacturers who were very happy to sell as many damn sweaters as they could, they started selling jackets as well. So they designed these jackets. And the early ones didn't really look like the, you know, kind of leather-sleeved.

And I don't even know what wool, I guess was, you know, the, you know, kind of the, I don't know, you know, well, the traditional leather jacket, right? Right. I think it's wool on the mid part and the midsection. Yeah, yeah.

And so, so anyways, I mean, they started selling those in the, well, they started marketing them in the early 30s. And then they became popular. And for a while, they were satin.

And, you know, so anyways, it's just one of those things where the jackets basically kind of replace a sweater. Now, when I was in high school, there were still guys who would, who had, you know, we had this thing called the Cardinal Club. So it was like the Letterman Society or whatever.

And so there were still guys who would buy the Letterman sweaters and wear them periodically. But it was pretty very much, you know, I don't think of it in my classroom, but there were, you know, some of the older guys who did. So, I mean, it was just one of those things that faded out.

But almost everybody wore a leather jacket, you know. And then it became a thing where, you know, the marching band has them. And, you know, it's become this much more democratic sort of thing instead of being this elite award only for the football players.

And everybody else has something less than that. Now, it's become much more of a widespread award, which I just, I just find, you know, whatever, I find that kind of interesting. Yeah, that makes me think of a story I heard with Amos Alonzo Stagg, the great coach at the University of Chicago.

And he would give out the blanket as you talked about earlier, that had, I guess, a C on it for Chicago to the seniors that played in whatever the big game was. One of the things that he would tell them, and I guess he practiced this, was if somebody would go professional, which he was dead set against professional football. If one of his former players would go and play professional football, he would ask them for the blanket back. That was sort of their punishment.

And, you know, I was reading it somewhere, there are people that like dreaded it, didn't want to lose their damn blanket, because it was just such a discrediting, dishonorable thing to do to coach Stagg that they wouldn't play pro football and, you know, first probably made more money at being a banker or something than playing football back then anyway. But it's amazing how those live on their own. So I think he established blank, and in most schools, there are still schools that award blankets today.

And that was a separate kind of an award because anybody, any fool, could win a letter for one season. The blanket was for somebody who earned three letters, or, you know, he had won the award three or four times. And yeah, so I mean, he started that in like 1902 or something.

I've got the program from the 1911 Order of the Sea ceremony at UChicago. So that was, I think, the eighth one at the time. So it's, yeah, I mean, it's funny. There are just as many things as a guy like Stagg came up with and innovated on the field.

He also did some things off the field like, you know, blankets and the first Letterman Society, which effectively was what the Order of the Sea was. Hmm. Fascinating stuff.

It's a great part of the game that that's off the field. But it's, you know, very interesting, indeed, to look at. And very, have you seen any of these like old sweaters, like in anybody's collections or anything that some of these from 100 years ago, or like this 1910 when you get pictured? So, you know, there are some folks that I, you know, our friends correspond with, and we train information.

And yeah, so some have those old items. And it's, I mean, they are very rare. They're different, especially since it's one thing to have an old sweater and not to make fun of an Otterbein or somebody like that.

But, you know, there are lots of small liberal arts schools all over the country, so that's cool. And a lot of people would love to have an old sweater like that in their collection. But if you have a Harvard or Yale or somebody like that, you know, that's a big-time deal.

Those are thousands of dollars for items like that. You know, so easy. So it just depends on the condition and, you know, provenance, all those kinds of things.

So it's, they can be very, very valuable. Hmm. I bet they are.

Especially if you keep them away from the moss for over a century, that's a, that's always a good thing too. To keep the value. I only have them in pictures.

I do not. The closest thing I've ever come to is like going to the pro football hall of fame and seeing, you know, the 1920s, you know, like Red Grange or somebody from the Canton Bulldogs, sweaters there, you know, so that you're talking 10, 20 years earlier and what you're talking about. So, I can't even imagine that.

So, hey, great, great stuff as always, Tim. You know, the listeners would probably love to enjoy these tidbits every day as well. Maybe you could give them some information to share the tidbits with them as well.

Yeah, sure. So the best way to, to get the tidbit every day is to follow me on or subscribe to my, to footballarchaeology.com. If you do, you'll get a tidbit at seven o'clock East every day by email. So it'll have the contents of the, of the, the story there.

So, you know, send out two to three times a month, send out kind of longer form articles as well as each week I send out a link to this, to our podcast. And then, you know, alternatively, you can follow me on, on Twitter. Football Archaeology is my, is my name or at F-O-F Strife.

So either way, whatever works for you. But if you subscribe, at least you know that you're going to get it and you can pile them up, read them on the weekend when you, when you've got more time. Good, good deal.

Multiple ways to get the tidbits and hopefully everybody will take advantage of that and read Tim's work each and every day. Cause it's very interesting stuff. And the pictures are just out of this world.

Some of these images, like the one from this catalog from 1910 that we talked about today with the sweaters pictured in it, are pictures worth a thousand words and definitely are, in these cases, with the tidbits. So Tim, thank you very much for joining us, and we will talk to you again next week. Thank you, sir.

And we'll look forward to next Tuesday.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

Strap on your helmets and step back in time! This podcast dives into the gridiron twilight of a coaching legend: Amos Alonzo Stagg. We'll be dissecting the final game Stagg coached for the Chicago Maroons, a team he led for an astonishing 41 seasons.

Join us as we uncover the secrets behind Stagg's coaching prowess, explore the atmosphere surrounding this momentous game, and analyze its impact on both Stagg's legacy and the trajectory of Chicago Maroons football. Whether you're a die-hard football fan or a history buff curious about a bygone era, this podcast promises a fascinating journey into the world of early college football.

Timothy Brown shares the information and story of this epic moment in gridiron history based on his original Tidbit titled: Stagg's Last Game At Chicago .

You can also enjoy this conversation on our podcast format: Stagg's Fianl Game Coaching U of Chicago.

-Transcription of Stagg's Final Game in Chicago with Timothy Brown

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 Tuesday where we visit with FootballArcheology.com's Timothy P. Brown, the master historian, who's going to tell us about another one of his great tidbits. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Thank you. Thank you. I have a quiz for you.

I'm not going to hit you with the dad joke, but I'm going to hit you with a quiz. Okay. What makes this podcast special? This particular one, this episode.

This episode, what makes it special?

Well, probably the guest, as most people are going to tell us.

Come on. Come on. You and I have done 99 podcasts together before this one.

Really? Is this the 100th one? What makes this one special? This is the century mark, huh? That's right. Wow.

That is quite an accomplishment. Numero one hundred. I'm mixing my German and my Spanish, but yeah, this is our 100th podcast.

Now I think, you know, I was on your podcast once or twice before we kind of got together on a regular basis. So this is our 100th when it was, you know, on a regular basis. So this is the 100th Tuesday in a row that- That's correct.

Yes. Wow. So we're going to hit the two-year mark in two or four more episodes.

Yeah. All right. Well, hey, that is quite an accomplishment.

Anything. So, thank you for sharing. I didn't realize that.

I knew it was a whole bunch, but- Yeah. So I just, you know, I'm kind of a dork. And so I've numbered them. Just when we started doing them, I started numbering them.

So we just happened, this happens to be the one that says 100 before. Well, if I would have known that I would have baked a cake or something. So, I apologize.

I just wanted to surprise you. Yeah. Surprise parties are always the best.

Yeah, that sure is. I need to have some like fireworks things going off in the background here when we go to do the editing on here. So, well, hey, great.

Great for sharing that. So, you know, this is, well, part of this century mark. We're going to talk about somebody who lived for almost a century.

That's right. And then a tidbit that you wrote a little while ago called Stagg's last game at Chicago. So the grand old man of football had his last game for the Chicago Maroons on the sideline.

So, you know, the background here is Mr. Stagg right there. Now, this isn't at the 100th game, but that's him along the sidelines at Chicago. And so, you know, one of the things that I actually opened that tidbit with was just the thought that you know, so from my vantage point, football really started in 1876, not 1869.

And then Camp died in 1925. He was actually at one of the meetings too, you know, one of the rulemaking meetings. So he, Camp, saw the first 50 years of college football.

And Stagg, who was, I think, three years younger than him, and just, you know, maybe a couple of more, it took him a little bit longer to get to Yale as a young man. But so he's a little bit delayed in terms of, you know, his class from Yale. But nevertheless, he was born before football came about.

He was born during the Civil War. And, you know, he saw football's first 90 some years, you know. So, I mean, two central figures, obviously, you know, if Camp is the father of football, Stagg's the uncle, right, you know.

And so here's two really influential guys in the history of the game. And then Stagg lives 40 years longer, you know. So he saw, I mean, you just think about what he saw after 1925.

So, you know, very much, you know, the forward pass coming into play, he saw the, you know, more, you know, a greater acceptance of African American players. He sees, you know, modern transportation, allowing teams to travel and, you know, much more intersectional play. Radio, he saw the beginnings of television, you know.

So, I mean, there were things that he saw and changes to the game that, you know, Stagg or Camp never saw. So anyway, it's just kind of an interesting way to think about their times. But so, you know, Stagg went to Yale, coached and attended Springfield College, so the YMCA school for, you know, for a year or two.

He was then recruited to the University of Chicago by the then president, who was a former Yale faculty member who had had him as a student. And so he recruits him to become the head of athletics. So, it was a faculty position, but, you know, that meant he was the football coach, baseball coach, track coach, you know.

So he became a really influential figure, actually, you know, football and track for sure, you know, major figure. And so he was the coach there from 1892 through 1932. So, in the first 40 years of school, you know, he's the football coach.

And, you know, won a national championship or two and, you know, a bunch of Big 10 championships and everything. But as he was, you know, kind of getting on in the years, Chicago brought in this new young president who didn't like athletics and especially didn't like football. So the guy eventually just, you know, bled the budget of the athletic department.

And then he forced Stagg to retire. So, at age 70, which was the university policy. So, you know, he can do that.

And so then Stagg ends up. So, you know, it was known before the season started that this was last year. So every opponent would like to honor him, you know because he had been such a central figure.

And so most of the teams were giving them like a letter sweater from their school or an award blanket, which a lot of schools gave out at the time, rather than sweaters and jackets. Michigan was so damn happy to get rid of them that they gave them a silver service. So, but then his last game is they're playing Chicago, and they got a new coach by the name of Clarence Spears, who I just say that because, you know, he'd hung around, he was coached in a number of places, you know, for 30 years or whatever.

He was one of those guys who was a doctor and a physician and would coach during the fall. Another interesting thing about the game. So, in the last game of the season, the referee for the game was Frank Birch, who was the guy that invented the referee signals, you know, for penalties and touchdowns and all that kind of stuff.

So, you know, here's another barely central figure in the game. But, you know, it was one of those games where, you know, Wisconsin scores first, they don't convert, then Chicago scores in the second quarter to take the lead because they converted. And then the Badgers score again before halftime, a 12-7 lead.

And then, I mean, I'm a Badger fan, but unfortunately for Stack, the Badgers scored again. And then, you know, there was one play in the second half where the Chicago halfback takes off wide open, nobody there to touch him, and he trips over a line or whatever, but he trips and falls. And so they never score, and they end up losing 18-7.

So Stack loses his last game, ends up with the losing record for the season. So he ends up 3-4-1 that year, which left him at 244, 111 and 27 in his career at Chicago. And in the big 10, he went 115-74-12, with 30 of those losses coming since his last championship in 24.

So he lost a lot of his games in the last ten years of his coaching because they just, again, like I said, they kind of got bled out and, you know, academics just became the key. But then what's kind of cool is that he then leaves Chicago, gets hired at the University of Pacific, and he coached there for 14 years. He won five conference titles.

And then once that passed, then he goes out, one of his sons was coaching out at Susquehanna in Pennsylvania. So he was, sometimes his son would say, well, he was a coach and officially his son was a coach. So I'm just going to say he assisted there for six years.

And then he goes out, he's like 91 or something like that, goes out to, retires in California, but it still is the kicking coach for a local junior college. You know, so the guy ended up, you know, with, the guy ended up with, what is it? Sixty plus years of coaching football, you know, at the college level. And even more, because I'm not even counting his Springfield years.

So, you know, low sixties. So anyway, I'm just unbelievable, you know, the guy who was, you know, on the rules committee, you know, a number of football innovations are credited to him. He was one of the guys he and the Harvard captain in the same year who invented tackling dummies.

Right. So, I mean, there are so many things, like flankers. You know, he was the guy who really created a lot of core football elements that, you know, we just take for granted today. And as you said, he's right there within the first, you know, not even a decade; football's not even a decade old when he starts playing the game.

So he's probably observing it, you know, as a youngster, but it's amazing just to take that full circle, and what a brilliant career. Excellent. Yeah.

Yeah. There's something else. And, you know, obviously, playing at Yale at the time, Yale and Princeton were the best football teams during the 1800s.

Yeah. So he was right there in the middle of it all. And he was quite the baseball player, too.

I think major league baseball sort of wanted him, and he decided he was against professional sports, and that's sort of why he went to the coaching career. He was a very big advocate of collegiate and amateur sports. So.

Yeah. He was, you know, a religious guy, too. And so, you know, he's an interesting dude.

He's a vegetarian and he's just, you know, kind of unconventional in a lot of ways. But yeah, unique individual. If you live well into your nineties and you're still coaching in your nineties and working and still good brainpower, maybe we should all get rid of meat then and become vegetarians.

Cause yeah. Well, you know, the other thing that's funny is that he was. There are a lot of stories about him, and there were different times when I forgot exactly what it was. He had some health issues, you know, from time to time, and his wife would take over.

And so, you know, like his wife, a lot of times would be at practice. Like if he couldn't be there, she'd kind of run things. And she apparently knew her share of football, right? And the team was not, you know, it wasn't like a substitute teacher where kids are trying to screw around.

Like they knew that she knew what was going on, and they weren't going to get away with anything with her, or they'd meet the consequences of nothing else. I wonder if Nick Saban's wife was doing that, like when he had to take a day off. Yeah, I doubt it, but I'm not sure.

He probably had more assistants. That could be, that could be. Well, Tim, that is great stuff on a great, you know, innovator and an important figure in football history.

And God, we really enjoy that you were able to talk about that last game and give us some of the history before and after that game too. So it comes full circle on there. But you, you have some interesting topics like this all the time on your website.

Maybe you could tell folks how they could engage and read your stuff. Yeah. So just go to footballarchaeology.com, you know, bookmark it, go there whenever you want.

Alternatively, you can, you can subscribe, subscribe for free. You can follow me on Twitter or on threads or on the Substack app and, you know, read it as you please. All right.

He is Timothy P. Brown of footballarchaeology.com. And Tim, we thank you for joining us in this, giving us another glimpse of football history. And we'd love to talk to you again next Tuesday. Very good.

We'll do 101 next week.

101. Thanks, Tim.

All right.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

Timothy P Brown posted a recent article describing an exciting award that some of our Nation's military training facilities once vied for on the football field. Tim joins us to bring this exciting subject in gridiron lore to light in this podcast episode as we continue our journey to preserve history.

This conversation is based on Tim's original Tidbit titled: Battling For The President's Cup.

-Transcription of the Presidents Cup games with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends, this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And once again, we have a visit from our friend Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. And he's got another subject from one of his tidbits that he wrote recently.

That's going to talk about something that you find rather interesting, as I did when I read it. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, glad to be back.Look forward to chatting again and enjoying the winter weather, as we talk football. Your tidbits are extremely interesting. And this one tonight you had titled Battling for the President's Cup.

And it was just recently on January 26th. I wonder if you could you could talk a little bit and tell us what the President's Cup was. Yeah, so I mean, it's one of those things that was that is now kind of forgotten, right? Most people have never heard of the President's Cup, but it was kind of a big deal in the state.

And so but like most things, there's kind of a background in order to in order to talk about the real subject. Right. And so, you know, I think the main point and you know, my my first book was about football played by military teams during World War One.

So, you know, I've always kind of followed football played in military settings. And I think it's one of those things that is is really underappreciated in terms of the development of football as a game. And so the military, just by nature of their mission, you know, they they took the game overseas before anybody else did.

So, as an example, the first game played in Europe was played by two battleships that were part of the Great White Fleet. They played in East France in 1909. Yada, yada.

And so, you know, the military, you know, if you think about it, who's in the military? Well, a lot of times, it's a bunch of young men who are physically fit and physically able, and a lot of them need to blow off steam. One of the traditional ways that they have done this is through athletics. You know, the Navy was always big on boxing because you could do that on a ship at sea.

But they were also big on playing football. And so. So, sports was both a recreation and a way to maintain fitness in the military.

You know, kind of as far back as people played sports for recreation. And then it really got a push in World War One. You know, in all the training camps during World War One, there were a lot of all kinds of sports being played. The YMCA played a big role, both in camps in the States and over in Europe.

One of the things that the YMCA did was provide athletic equipment, and they set up basketball courts, football fields, etc. So athletics was a big thing. And so one of the things that kind of came out of the World War One experience was that there it was really the first time, other than a couple of the pro leagues in Ohio or Pennsylvania, is really the first time where there were all-star teams put together of men who had graduated from college in the past five, six years who were all in the service together at one camp or another.

And these camps had 50,000 people at 26,000 people. I mean, these were massive. You know, massive groups of young men.

And the biggest college in the in the country at the time was Penn, which had 7,500 students. So all of a sudden you had lots and lots of young men playing football. They formed these camp teams and they were very successful.

They got lots of news coverage. Lots of people attended their games. They played colleges.

They beat the college, you know, the better teams beat the colleges. So, you know, they were playing as good a football as there was in the country, you know, during World War Two or World War One. Sorry.

So but even, you know, so then once the once the war ends, basically guys all, you know, they go back to civilian life. But there remained a core of of people playing or remaining in the military. And then they continued playing football.

And one of the things that they did was, you know, the Navy had done this back, you know, from 1905 on. But they would have these tournaments where all the destroyers or all the battleships or all the cruisers who were stationed at a particular port would have a tournament for a football for football teams. And they determine who is the champion.

And then they, you know, the Norfolk would play the champion of New York and Philadelphia or whatever. In the end, you know, they ended up. They ended up forming these teams where it was like, OK, we're going to get the best Navy team and the best Army team or the best Marine team.

And we're going to see they're going to play one another and see who's best. So for like 1920 on on the East Coast, they played a game like that. And kind of year after year, as Quantico Marines won because they just they emphasized it enough and they had some really talented players.

But in 1924 and 1925, Calvin Coolidge decided to present the President's Cup to the winner of the active duty football tournament on the East Coast. Right. So it was just, you know, it's one of those things where the president and the cabinet, you know, multiple cabinet secretaries, the general staff, the admiralty, those people would be at the games.

Allies would be at the games. They would and it became a big social event in Washington, D.C. or Baltimore. You know, they played in a couple of different locations.

You know, they have these military balls after the games. And it kind of, you know, I mean, it never got to the same level as the Army Navy academy games, but it probably wasn't too far behind that in terms of the stature because it was like, yeah, he's college kids, but these are the active duty guys. Right.

These are the real soldiers and sailors. So it's just it was kind of a neat thing where these guys ended up playing. And, you know, unfortunately, shortly after, the Coolidge presented this cup, and the Army decided to kind of deemphasize these all-star teams, and then the Navy did, too.

And so then the Marines were left to play the Coast Guard. And eventually it all moved. The East Coast kind of fell apart and the emphasis on these military all star teams moved to the West Coast, where what's now Pendleton in San Diego and, you know, versus the West Coast fleet and the and the Corps that handled the Western Army Corps.

But so it's just one of these things that's kind of lost in time. I mean, nobody knows about this stuff anymore, but it was a big deal. It was in all the newspapers.

And, you know, I mean, another, I think, really kind of fun fact is just that of the fact that I think it was 1921 and 2016 coached by this guy who had played at West Point. And then he coached St. Mary's College in Texas. And his name was Dwight Eisenhower.

Right. So here's a guy who, you know, became president. You know, he led the Allied effort in Europe in World War II and became president.

But he was coaching one of these teams, you know, back in the back in the 20s. And, you know, at one point, he was stationed in Panama. And the guy who was the head coach, who has a whole separate story that I've written about, you know, just incredible story that guy had.

But anyway, you know, he requested, hey, bring Ike back here because I needed to help coach my team. So he transferred Ike from Panama back to the States so that he could help coach this all-star football team. You know, it's just like crazy things that happen to guys because of football.

So anyway, it's just one of these things that I think people know very little about this President's Cup anymore. On the West Coast, they played what they called the Armistice Day game. And they tried to buy the President's Cup there.

It didn't work out. They just kept on playing the Armistice Day game. But so anyways, you know, in both locations, it was a big event, big social event, military balls, big newspaper coverage, and very good football.

Right now, you know, a lot of these guys, you know, initially, there are a lot of guys who played at West Point or Army, and then they made it only for enlisted men. But still, a lot of good athletes, just a lot of young men at these bases. And, you know, they had their pick of 10, 20, 30,000 young men who could play football.

So they put together some pretty good teams. Well, yeah, maybe I asked you this when we were talking about the Rose Bowl games. We were talking about those military teams from that era, from World War I. But did those camp teams ever play like the main Army team or the main, you know, the Naval Academy team or West Point team? So, yes.

But so in 1918, Great Lakes played the Naval Academy. They'd come out east. So they played four or five, big 10 teams, and either tied or beaten them.

Then they went out east and played Rutgers, who had Paul Robeson at the time. And they just cleaned their clocks. They won like, you know, whatever it was, 43 to six or something.

They just blew Rutgers away. And the next week, they go to Annapolis. And Annapolis was winning six to nothing late in the fourth quarter with the ball on the one-and-a-half-yard line.

And a guy named Ingram, who became famous as coach later on, he was, I believe his quarterback, maybe his fullback. But anyways, he fumbles the ball, pops in the air into the hands of a Great Lakes player who grabs the ball, runs 100 yards. Well, he tries to run 100 yards in the other direction.

And one of the Naval Academy players comes off the bench and tackles him. And so then, you know, all hell breaks loose. And so anyways, the Academy superintendent comes out on the field and says, you're giving orders to referees because the rules didn't have, you know, didn't clarify what the situation should be here or the conditions.

And the Academy superintendent says you are giving that touchdown to Great Lakes. You know, our guy cheated. That was it, right? The referee said, OK, fine.

And so then Great Lakes won the game. And in the locker room afterward, they get the invitation to the 1919 Rose Bowl. So, you know, the Army and Navy played some of those, and you know, played some of the camp teams, but it was pretty limited.

And so, for sure, I know the Great Lakes game. I'm not, you know, I'd have to look at their records, you know, for 17 and 18 to check on that. But I think that's, you know, that may have been the only game like that.

Yeah. I wasn't sure if they would or not because it's, you know, basically what the Naval Academies are going to be officers. And, you know, they're playing the regulars, and the guys are going to be the grunts, you know, playing them.

I didn't know if maybe they didn't want to cross those streams or not, but it's interesting. Yeah. So, you know, well, during World War I, you know, the different camps applied different rules.

Most of them allowed both officers and enlistment to play on the same teams. That was kind of unusual. The Navy and Marines were especially that way, but the Army was a little bit more, you know, keep them separated.

But anyway, you know, so, you know, 1918, they had the Spanish flu. And so a lot of what went on that season was to play any opponent you could find. Because things got so screwed up with the Spanish flu, and the, was SATC upended most of the schedule.

So it was kind of bizarre; it was probably the worst, the most bizarre season, even worse than the COVID season that we all went through recently. Wow. Yeah.

I mean, just in terms of strange schedules and craziness, 1918 was worse. So. Well, Tim is always, that's great stuff.

Now, why don't you tell everybody how they can get a hold and read your tidbits that you come out with every day? Yeah. So, you know, the site is footballarchaeology.com and the two ways to get access to it, if you're interested in looking at it daily, one is just to subscribe. You can bookmark it, obviously, if you want.

If you subscribe, you'll get an email sent to you with the article's contents every night at seven o'clock Eastern. Or you can follow me on Twitter. And again, you know, football archaeology there as well.

So either way, my preference is that you subscribe on the site because then make sure that you get whether you read it or not. At least I know you've received it. That's right.

All right. Well, great stuff, as always. And Tim, we really appreciate you.

And folks, make sure you visit footballarchaeology.com and do as Tim suggests, subscribe, and get that daily tidbit. It's really a great read each and every day. And you stay in football all year long.

And it's a really, really excellent way to do that. So, Tim, thanks a lot for joining us and sharing that story. And we'll talk to you again next week.

Hey Darin, I look forward to seeing you next Tuesday. Thanks.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Players can tell you that the surface condition of the turf they play on can make all the difference in a game and how they perform. Field conditions are affected by weather, surface, slickness, and even lawn care.

Long before the modern surfaces and machines we see football played on today, grass fields were the only surface that mattered. Have you ever considered how these playing fields were cared for and kept? Our man Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology has, and may we hear what he found out.

This discussion originates based on Time's Tidbit post titled: The Wretched Field Conditions of Football's Past - In Pictures.

-Transcription of Football Field Grass Cuts 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 where we get to discuss some football archaeology with the founder of that website, Timothy P. Brown. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, thank you for chatting tonight, as we seem to do every week, every Tuesday. So yeah, looking forward to it. Yeah, I feel very blessed and honored to be able to talk to you every Tuesday and get this information that you share with us.

Just a few months ago, you had a very interesting topic on one of your tidbits about the field maintenance of the grass that was played on. There was no artificial turf; it was all natural grass, and we're very interested to know how they manicured their fields. Well, yeah, so I actually had an earlier one.

I think I probably have a link to it in this particular tidbit but about the terrible field conditions of the past. And so now we've got artificial turf, we've got prescription grass, and most fields have good drainage and watering systems as needed. And there's just other ways.

The fields are so well-maintained. Back in the day, especially in some stadiums that used to get really heavy use, if you just had one game or one weekend where it was rainy, the rest of the season, the whole central portion of the field was just mud or dirt. It just got torn up.

There's no way to avoid it. And that's one of the great benefits of artificial turf, which is that the central part of the field doesn't wear out, so it's between the hash marks. But back in the day, it sure did.

And so that's kind of a lost element of the game, or of the experience, both as fans and especially as players. But so I'm always looking at old yearbooks and other photo sources. And so back in the day, there were certain things going on in the field that you just noticed, and they were just like, what the hell are they doing there? And so obviously, the muddy fields that I just mentioned.

One of the ways that they try to maintain or dry out muddy fields is by tossing sawdust all over the field. And so I've got images, Yale Field, where there's sawdust all over the field. I'm just trying to draw it out or dry it out, I should say. And then they'd sometimes put hay on the field prior to the game, like if it was going to be icy, and then they'd rake it all off, so all kinds of crazy stuff.

So then once that dirt got all, well, once the field became dirt rather than grass, then you see in early pictures where they raked, you see all these lines in the dirt, and it's just because they raked, just to get all the clumps out and all that kind of stuff. And then, when it dried, the whole field was just dusty. So again, I've got a bunch of pictures of guys just stepping on the field, running around, and there are dust clouds falling; they all look like pig pens from the Charlie Brown cartoon.

But the other one that you see from time to time is long grass, which is, you don't see it as much, but there are times where it's like, I've got pictures of placekickers trying to kick off the grass, and it's like, the grass is literally like 12 inches tall. And so it's like, how the heck did they maintain the grass? Then I looked into that. And so initially, I'd have to make sure I pronounce this correctly, but I was asking, how did they keep football fields, baseball fields, parks, and lawns trimmed back in the day? And so the one way that they did it was with a scythe, which is like the Grim Reaper, with that pole.

A sickle type. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

And so, you know, so they had people up there, you know, cutting it that way. But then, you know, by like 1830, somebody came up with a mechanical lawnmower that pretty much, you know, looks like a real, and I mean real meaning R-E-E-L, so real mower that's used today, but obviously very clunky looking. And then, you know, they also had, you know, so there were the hand-pushed versions, and then there were the horse-pulled versions of these real mowers.

But from time to time, they also reverted back to more traditional methods, which was to bring in a flock of sheep, and you'd just put the sheep out there on your football field or your baseball field and let, you know, let them at it. And then you may have some new obstacles to try to avoid while you're playing. Well, you know, and that would make the grass grow.

So, yeah, and so... Nothing like a good turd tackle, that's for sure. Yeah. One of my brothers has a place up in California where, you know, it's basically a winery where the fields were so wet, or everything was so wet because of all the rain they had.

They brought in a bunch of sheep and just let the sheep go up and down between the rows, you know, eat back the grass. But, yeah, so, I mean, so you think about that, and it was even, you know, so for sure, I've got pictures, you know, it included a picture from like 1943 of sheep grazing in the Rose Bowl, trying to keep it back. And so, even like in the 40s, especially, you know, with gas rationing because of the war, you know, we saw a return to sheep grazing on athletic fields just to, you know, to try to keep it trimmed.

But, you know, I mean, there were like New Mexico, Loyola Marymount, places like that also, you know, I've got newspaper articles anyways indicating, you know, in the late 30s, early 40s that they were trimming their grass the old-fashioned way. Hey, just to put a comment, you know, the images that you have, and we have links to them in the show notes here, folks, and on Pigskin Dispatch from the accompanying article for Tim's images. In the image of the sheep on the Rose Bowl field, I think they got the black sheep of every family in that photo because I think there are two that look like they might be lighter color; all the rest are very colored sheep.

So, a lot of black sheep in that family. Well, there was; it may have been the breed because the article mentioned the breed, which, you know, I don't know one. I don't know my sheep breeds; I apologize.

But, so it may be that that was just a function of. Well, luckily for you, we just want to know about your football. We don't need your agricultural knowledge.

I'm not really good at the agricultural side. Now, that same image, the herdsman or the farmer that's caring for these sheep, he must be a pretty popular guy because it looks like he has like a five-gallon bucket of, I'm assuming, water for these dozen or so sheep to all drink out of. So, I'm sure they're very popular guy in the water.

So, I mean, the other thing, he could have had some grain in there. Then, tossing grain into different areas would attract the sheep to mow the whole field. Oh, okay.

Gotcha. I mean, again, I'm guessing this only because I saw a YouTube video of some guy in New Zealand who created a picture of a heart in his field, let the sheep in, you know, he spread grain in the shape of a heart, let the sheep out and they all went, and then sheep formed a heart. So, it is quite an art form to get your sheep to manicure your lawn.

That's right. All right. Well, hey, I'm even more glad this week, and I have to cut the grass with the modern conveniences we have today.

I'm not out there with a bucket throwing grain on my grass with a herd of sheep. So, although we do like those days, those were the days. All right.

I had a little, much harder time in many ways. So, we appreciate those pioneers of early football who took care of the yards that we played in and helped us advance to where we are today. And Tim, you have some very interesting, fascinating pieces of football that even go beyond the game and equipment like this, you know, caring for the field, which is, you know, you have to have a field to play on.

So, it's, you know, it has to be that. And I know one point I was going to bring up, too, is a really interesting study I saw just came out within the last week or so from, I believe, the National Football League on injuries compared on natural grass fields that are played in the league versus the artificial fields. There was a higher injury rate, as this study showed in the 2022 season, where people on artificial fields were injured more often, or more injuries occurred than they did on the grass fields.

And I don't know if you saw that, but it's kind of interesting to go back to old school, possibly. Yeah, I didn't see that. And, you know, I mean, obviously, when artificial turf first came out, it gripped so well that, you know, guys just blew out their knees all the time on that.

And it was like playing on concrete, you know, I mean, I mostly played on natural, you know, I played on one or two artificial turf fields that were fairly early in the development, and it was, you know, it was horrible. But anyways, yeah, I'm actually a little bit surprised by that result, you know, just because, you know, my sense is that the artificial surfaces have come so far. But, you know, there's a certain amount of, you know, there's kind of no going back on some of it, you know, if you're in a dome stadium, you're going to play on artificial turf, right? And then it's, you know, it's one thing to be on turf, you know, it takes, it just takes a lot of money from an ongoing maintenance standpoint to have a really well done natural turf, you know, so if you're the Packers or something like that, okay, you can afford it.

A lot of other places, it's just, you know, so I mean, anyone in the NFL can afford to do it if that's the right thing, right? Yeah, I know at Akershire Stadium, the old Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, they replaced the turf, I think, two or three times during the NFL season. Of course, the Pitt Panthers are playing on that. They have high school games, usually on Thanksgiving weekend.

They have four championship games or five or six now. I think they have levels playing on that field. So it gets tore up that time of year and they, they replace it within a couple of days before the NFL game.

And that's why you see so many famous games played at Pittsburgh stadium where chunks of the field are coming up, or they had a rainy Monday night game in Miami 20 some years ago, where the punter kicked the ball, and it came down point first and stuck right in the middle of the field and some things. Well, you know, that, that actually raises a point. You know, I don't know if the study was able to control for that, but you know, how long was the turf installed? You know, at the time an injury occurred, because, you know, turf that's been in there for months is different than turf that was installed last Monday.

Right. Yeah. I think it's; they just took an aggregate of the 17 games or, I guess, eight and a half games on average on each field and looked around to see how many state injuries happened at that field by the opponents, you know, both teams playing on it.

So I think that's how they studied it. And you know, it's got some, some, you can sling some arrows at it and shoot some holes in it, but it's an interesting study. And one, I know the NFL takes player safety seriously, as they do with most items.

I am so anxious to see where that leads us. Yeah. Interesting stuff.

Tim, your tidbits are, you know, bringing up items like this constantly every single day, sometimes a couple of times a day. Why don't you share with the listeners how they too can share in on all the fun of hearing these? Yeah. So, you know, best way is just to go to my website, footballarchaeology.com, subscribe.

And that by doing that, you'll, you'll get an email every night at like seven o'clock. I may actually push that a little bit later, but anyways, we'll get an email that with, you know, with the story for that, that evening. And, you know, if you, if you don't want the emails, then just, you can follow me on Twitter.

Yeah. So great subject. We really enjoyed having you share your knowledge with us, Tim, and appreciate you.

And we will talk to you again next week. Very good, sir. Look forward to it.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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For college football fanatics, few names inspire more reverence than Walter Steffen. A coaching giant whose legacy stretches across decades, Steffen's impact on the game is undeniable. Now, you have a chance to delve into his wisdom in a captivating video interview with Timothy Brown of FootballArchaeology.com. This exclusive conversation promises a treasure trove of insights, offering a glimpse into the mind of a true gridiron mastermind. So, buckle up and get ready to learn from a master coach as we explore Walter Steffen's storied career and the timeless knowledge he brings to the game.

-Transcription of Walter Steffen 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 date with Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com, where he's going to share one of his recent tidbits on some of the facets of football from yesteryear.

Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen. Darin, thank you. Looking forward to chatting and judging you based on the quality of the questions that you asked this episode.

Oh my gosh. Okay, we're back. I will be the judge.

Folks, we are back to the dad joke segues. We've had some quizzes lately and some factoids, but now we are back to Tim Brown and his finest segueing into an article that you wrote not too long ago, titled Judging Walter Steffen's Coaching Career. So Walter Steffen is an interesting figure indeed in football history.

So what do you get on him, Tim? Yeah, so, you know, you and I were talking a little bit before we started the episode proper. And, you know, Steffen is just one of these guys, and it's a name that I kept coming across over and over again. And I was just like, sometimes I got to, you know, kind of look into this guy and figure out what he was about.

And he turned out to just be this really interesting character that just is impossible to imagine today. Right? I mean, he just lived a life that no one can live anymore, not at the major college level.

You could do it at D3, which is probably the right situation, but in high schools, you know, but not at the major college level. So, I mean, you know, he really, you know, kind of a classic guy.

He grew up in Chicago, you know, 1880s, 1890s. He ends up at the University of Chicago as a freshman in the fall of 1905. So he's playing for, you know, the famous Alonzo Stagg.

So, he's on, you know, 1905, Chicago was national champs. So, he's in a pretty major deal as far as, you know, football is concerned. In 1906, Walter Eckersall was the All-American quarterback at Chicago.

So, Steffen is the, you know, second fiddle running at halfback. But then Eckersall graduates, if he graduated. He wasn't much of a student, but anyways, he leaves.

Steffen became a quarterback in his last two years, and he became an All-American quarterback as well. So, and this is him carrying the ball back here. I see the only guy without any head protection.

Yeah, and so, I may actually have the wrong image up there. Anyways, but he played in that era. So, Steffen is hanging out around Chicago.

He goes, he was unlike Eckersall. He was an excellent student and went to the University of Chicago Law School. While he's going to law school, he assists Stagg on the football team.

And so, and then, you know, he graduated from law school and worked a couple of years in the law. And, you know, it's hard to trace whether he was, you know, he may have assisted with some schools. I know he did some refereeing and things like that, which was pretty typical of the time.

But in 1914, he became the head coach at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh. And so, you know, he was living in Chicago. And back then, it was not uncommon at all.

There were a lot of coaches who would live in one city for nine months of the year, and then they'd go coach wherever they were coaching for the other three. And so, that's what he did. So, he hadn't, you know, he was a first; he was a Chicago alderman for a while.

He, you know, worked in different government capacities, you know, in law. And then, so, you know, he basically, in the fall, he would, he would basically move to Pittsburgh to run the team. And then, you know, probably maintain some level of practice.

But basically, you know, he'd shut down whatever his business was, you know, for those three months, and then return and, you know, work as a lawyer the rest of the year. So, in 1922, he became a Cook County judge and Chicago's in Cook County. So, what he did was he couldn't just go to Pittsburgh for three months of the year.

So, he basically stayed in Chicago, and then he would travel on the weekend to Pittsburgh if it was a home game or wherever they were playing. You know, whoever they were playing, he traveled to the game. And then there was a guy who was a former Carnegie player, I believe, but there was a guy who basically ran the show during the week, a real trusted assistant. So, and all the time that he was there, he was upgrading the schedule.

So, Carnegie had been playing, you know, kind of the smaller schools, schools are now, you know, D3 schools in, you know, Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, you know, that kind of type of school. But while he was there, he started upgrading. And so, they're playing, you know, basically a national schedule, but more, you know, like a Midwestern, you know, Midwestern schedule, mostly against, or at least a mix of kind of the smaller schools, like a lot of teams did.

And then they were playing, you know, some top talent. So, just as an example, in 26, they opened the season, they beat, you know, three lesser teams, and then they go on a run, and they beat Pitt, who has had been national champs a bunch of times by then. Detroit, who was playing, you know, pretty solid football.

West Virginia, who used to kind of not be very good, but by then was starting to, you know, come around to be a pretty good football team. And then they went, they hosted and beat a team called Notre Dame, was being coached by Newt Rockne at the time. But this is 1926.

And that was the year that, you know, Rockne and Notre Dame won the 1925 national title. So, they were big stuff. However, in 1926, Soldier Field opened in Chicago.

And that game, the stadium opened with the Army-Navy game. Well, Rockne was in Chicago for that game, while his team was in Pittsburgh, playing Carnegie Tech. And Carnegie Tech beat them.

Which was like, it was a massive, you know, massive story. I mean, the only thing that, so the Army-Navy game was just a huge story in the papers, you know, nationwide. Second to that was the fact that Carnegie Tech had beaten Notre Dame, you know, reigning national champs.

You know, which nobody had expected. So, then, to show that that wasn't just a total fluke, in 1928, Carnegie Tech went to Notre Dame. So, they go to South Bend.

And they beat Notre Dame there. So, that was Notre Dame's first loss in South Bend under Rockne. It also made Carnegie Tech and Stephan the only team or coach to beat Notre Dame twice, while Rockne was the head coach.

Other than Nebraska, under Fred Dawson, did it twice. And then Howard Jones beat Rockne at Notre Dame when he was coaching Iowa, and then twice when he was coaching USC. So, Howard Jones has won up on Walter Stephan.

But nevertheless, I mean, so it's one of these things like you hear nowadays, well, Carnegie Tech, and now it's Carnegie Mellon because, you know, the schools merged. But and you think, ah, you know, that's not big-time football. Well, it was, you know, if you beat the reigning national champ, you're playing pretty good ball, right?

And then when you beat him two years later, you're still playing pretty, pretty good ball. So, he ended up from 1922 through the 1932 season, he basically, they used to call him the commuter coach, living in Chicago, you know, take the train into whatever city they were playing in, coach him game day, and then head back, you know. And so, you know, how they kept it, how he kept in touch with the assistant who was running things day to day.

I don't know, but, you know, they did very, very well. Just, you know, another thing that was kind of fun is he was the guy who gets primarily credited with inventing the spinner play. So, you know, anybody listening, you've seen these, if you've watched any old-time football film, you've seen the spinner, where a lot of times it'll, the ball might get hiked to a quarterback, or a fullback, who's, you know, kind of, who basically catches the ball, like literally does a 360 in place, as they're faking handoffs to different people.

And then they might, you know, kind of do like a QB sort of draw, or they might run left or right, or, you know, or handoff. So, the spinner was a huge thing starting in the mid-20s when he first, you know, implemented it. And it remained in place, you know, probably mid-30s when it was dying out.

However, there are a couple of other little factoids about the spinner, such as that he first used it in 1924. And the guy who was, who ran that play, it was a guy named Dick, I've never been sure of his name, I think it's Bede, but maybe it's Bede. And he was the guy who became the Youngstown State coach.

And he's the guy who invented football's penalty flag when he was coaching Youngstown. And then people who aren't that into, you know, older football stuff, maybe recognize the fact that one of his last quarterbacks, or perhaps the last quarterback that he coached at Youngstown, was a guy named Ron Jaworski. So, anyway, that's the little tidbit on that one.

But, so then, you know, he ends up 1932, announces he's going to retire, he just can't, you know, he's starting to get a little ill, I guess, and just couldn't keep up the pace. And so, you know, he ended up with an 88-53-9 record. So, you know.

Respectable. Yeah, especially at a school like that and playing the kind of schools that he played. And then, so, 32, if people remember from an episode or two ago, that's the year Amos Alonzo Stagg is let go at Chicago.

So, he's, you know, Stefan's retiring from Carnegie Tech. So, basically, he and Fritz Kreisler were the guys everybody said, oh, they're going to use one of these, they're going to name one of these guys to replace Stagg. And instead, they brought in Clark Shaughnessy from Tulane, who was, you know, kind of the father of the modern T formation.

So, and then, unfortunately, you know, poor health, he passed away in 1937. So, he didn't get to live the good, long life that Stagg lived. But, you know, he may have been one of the last of the, you know, he was certainly one of the last of these part-time coaches at a, you know, in a major school environment at the time.

You know, probably at the time, they would have been like a G5-ish or G3 or whatever. However, there are more. You know, that level of football. And here he's a judge in Chicago, you know, lawyer, that's what he does.

You know, a couple of episodes ago, I mentioned Clarence Spears, who's a physician. There were a bunch of guys like that, you know, but he was one of the last ones who was, you know, still running a major program. And then in his case, especially, he wasn't even there, you know, during the season, you know, the commuter coach.

So, really an interesting, you know, days gone by, you know, kind of deal, yeah, just when we think that our lives are busy dealing with football on a daily basis, you have guys like him and, you know, the Paw Porners and Fielding Yost that sometimes coach multiple teams in a season and these commuter coaches and did some other full-time jobs. So, yeah, it's amazing to think about that era of football.

Yeah, I think he had five kids, too. So, you know, he was a busy man. Well, at least the chores got done at home.

I didn't have to do them all. So, that's good. Tim that is some great stuff that, you know, is a gentleman that we probably don't hear about very many places in this day and age.

And it's great to have some preservation of Mr. Stephan and his accomplishments and some of the things that he did, you know, beating Notre Dame twice and, you know, all the other things that he did, which is amazing. So, you have things like this all the time going on on footballarchaeology.com, and you share them in some little bite-sized chunks. So, maybe you could explain that to everybody and how they can enjoy it.

Sure. Just go to footballarchaeology.com, and, you know, you can subscribe. You'll get an email every time a new article is posted.

Otherwise, follow me on Twitter, on the Substack app or on threads, or just go out to Football Archaeology, you know, kind of whenever you please and see what some of the new articles are out there or check out the archives. There's a search function. Just put in a topic and see if there's something out there.

Well, sir, we thank you once again for helping us understand football of yesteryear and how it became the mega game that it is today that everybody enjoys. And it's these little pieces getting put together in a history that really make it enjoyable. And we thank you for sharing it again and we'd love to talk to you again next week.

Very good. Thank you, sir.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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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.