Timothy P Brown

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-Transcription of the 1905 Fairmont Experiment with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to Tuesday, Football Archaeology Day. As we go to FootballArchaeology.com's author, Timothy P. Brown.And Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin. Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's kind of interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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

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

Here is a full transcript of the conversation with Tim Brown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Timothy Brown
Very good. Look forward to it. Thanks

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

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

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

This is Darin Hayes of pigskindispatch.com. Welcome once again to the pig pen, your portal to positive football history. And it is Tuesday. And once again, we have a friendly visit from our friend Timothy Brown of football archaeology.

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

Okay. All right. Hey, good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hey, thank you again, Darin. Thank you.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right. The new and old things. All right.

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

Thank you again, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

Ever wonder what it's like to be a champion? To have nerves of steel and a winning arm?

Then buckle up, because we're diving into the incredible story of Otto Graham... not just as a football legend, but as a comic book hero! That's right! Today, we're tackling touchdowns and thought bubbles as we explore this rare piece of football history. Was Otto Graham just a great quarterback, or did he have the moves to conquer the comics too?

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology joins us to tell of these rare football funnies, the player they were about, and why they were made. Tim's original Tidbitis titled, "Otto Graham and the Championship Football Comic Book."

You can also enjoy our podcast version of the conversation, Otto Graham Comics.

-Transcribed Conversation of Timothy Brown on the Otto Graham Comics

Darin Hayes:
Friends, this is Darin Hayes of pigskindispatch.com. Welcome once again to the Pigpen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to another day where we get to go down that road of football history with our friend, Timothy Brown, of footballarchaeology.com. Tim, welcome back to the Pigpen.

Timothy Brown:
Hey, Darin, I'm looking forward to chatting again, and hopefully, this will be a comical segment.

Darin Hayes:
I think it will be, and that's a nice segue into the subject matter we're going to be talking about. It's one of your recent tidbits titled Otto Graham in a Championship Football Comic Book. But as a kid, I loved comic books. I still have my comic book collection, and I love football, so these are two of my favorite things all combined into one, so this is great.

Timothy Brown:
Yeah, well, so I'm old enough to remember going to, like, especially when I had a paper out, and I had, you know, more spending money than I have now, um, you know, I could, you know, we still had corner drug stores back then. And I had one, you know, five, six blocks away, and, uh, you know, it could go in there, and they had a rack of comic books. And I was more of a Sergeant Rock, you know, kind of a war hero, you know, kind of a comic book rather than a fantasy superhero. So, um, so I, I went through the comic book stage and, um, but I never had an auto Graham comic book. I know that. So, so this one is, um, this is an item, you know, so now a day, I've, I've, I've collected different things over the years, but now the three main things that I collect are all focused on things that I can use for football archeology. You know, if I don't think I can use it for football archeology with very few exceptions, I don't buy it. And so my three things now are RPPCs or real photo postcards, you know, which were like the kind of function like the, you know, Twitter message or the, you know, whatever of the day, um, sporting goods catalogs, you know, those with football sections and then advertising premiums, which were, you know, giveaways that, you know, they're still around today, mostly today. They're just a single card with a football scheduler and a baseball schedule. You throw it in your pocket; it's in your wallet. Um, but you know, back in the day, a lot of retailers of all kinds of sorts, but mostly those that attracted men because I was kind of their target audience, they produced these booklets that, uh, would have like summaries of the season, previous seasons and schedules of all the different teams. And so I liked those because, well, all three of them provide visuals that I use in my tidbits, but these premiums also, they're just like point-in-time summaries of what were people thinking going into the 1952 season, you know, who did they project were going to be some of the top stars, some of whom you've heard of some of whom you've never heard of. Right. Um, just like, you know, today, somebody, you know, somebody makes predictions. So in 1954, the Pennsylvania athletic company or like products company, whatever it was, you know, they're still around, and they're best known for the tennis balls. You know, you'll see tennis balls with a pen on them. That's the company. And this company made just all kinds of different balls. You know, you name the sport, they probably made a ball for it. They especially made a lot of rubber balls, which I'll get back to in a little bit. So they, um, they put out this comic book, and I think, you know, 25 to 30 pages. It was like a normal comic book, with beautiful drawings, nicely printed, and the whole shebang. It was about Auto Graham and a kid named Jimmy Farrell. And we've all known a Jimmy Farrell in our lives. Um, it was kind of, basically, leaving it to Beaver. It's kind of a Leave It to Beaver story three years before Leave, Leave It to Beaver premiered. Um, not that he was a goofball, but he was a little bit of a goofball, not like he was like a Beaver. He's probably more, more of a Wally, you know, as it turned out, he's more like a Wally than a Beaver. But, um, so anyways, it's kind of that, that being that all American, you know, happy family, you know, mom and dad and mom looks good and dad's, you know, hardworking guy and dah, dah, dah. So, Jimmy, you know, the story opens with Jimmy. He's a fan of Fairview High School, which is in Ohio, and you know, he just, you know, they win a big game. And so he, they're driving home, and he tells his mom and dad that he's going to play for Fairview someday. Right. And so then, like a year or two later, um, you know, Jimmy's practicing, and he's just not a natural athlete, at least not at that stage. And so he's trying to kick, and he's doing all these things, and he basically just doesn't; he's not very good. So, the time comes for him to try out for the high school football team. He tries out, but he gets cut. And so poor Jimmy, you know, he just, he's just not good enough. And so then he's got his side. Okay, am I just going to fold up? Or am I gonna, you know, bite the bullet and pull myself up by my boots, bootstraps, and all those good things and start a football?

Darin Hayes:
a football history podcast. Yeah, he could have done that. But he did. You sound like you're smart. You're smarter. You're smarter than that.

Timothy Brown:
So, Jimmy, his dad, buys him a really good ball to practice with. And it turns out, we'll find out later, that it's a pin football and probably a rubber football, which was kind of innovative at the time. And so he's taking it to the park, and he's kicking it around. And he's not very good. And one time, he kicks it over near this car that's parked, you know, and there's this one man, a single man sitting in the car watching him kick the ball around. Now, in certain neighborhoods, that might be considered, you know, maybe a guy you don't want to go talk to. But, you know, the guy gets out of the car and starts talking to Jimmy and patting him on the back and giving them pointers on how to play football. And then, you know, he eventually tells Jimmy, well, you know, if you want to, if you want to get better, I'll be here every Saturday morning, and I'm willing to work with you. Again, it sounds sketchy, but he mentions that Jimmy and his parents live in Fairview. So that's why he comes there every Saturday. So Jimmy tells his parents that at dinner, and his dad says, well, that's probably Otto Graham that, you know, we spoke to. So then the whole thing, you know, starts happening with Jimmy shows up every Saturday, he's got his pen, you know, his Pennsylvania, you know, product ball, and Otto Graham's given him pointers, and he gives him so much enough pointers, where he kind of reaches a point where he says, you know, you got to get you can't keep practicing, you got to start playing. So bring your friends, and we'll let you know, they'll start playing too. So then Otto's, you know, drilling all those kids and giving them pointers on here's how you kick the ball. Here's how you punch the ball. Here's how you pass the ball. Here's how you handle handing it off. Here's how you tackle it. And, so all the boys are having fun, they build their own goalposts, you know, in the park, which I think is just a normal thing to do. And so then eventually, you know, the year passes, and Jimmy tries out for the team the next year. And he is so impressive that the coach names him the quarterback. And so before the first game of the season, Otto Graham comes over and has dinner with Mom and Dad, you know, on Friday night, they play the game on Saturday. Sure enough, Jimmy throws the touchdown pass to win the game. And, you know, they all live merely, they're happily ever after. So, it's just kind of a cool thing. You know, here's this guy who was an absolute stud: Otto Graham. And so he's in this comic book, and then he ends up retiring after that 54 season, though Paul Brown convinced them to come back the next year. And then that he was finally done. But it was like, you know, one of these succession stories where Jimmy Farrell is gonna, you know, yeah, we're gonna miss Otto Graham, but there's this whole line of new young stud quarterbacks who are going to be coming up through the system. And Jimmy Farrell is one of them. So it's just kind of a Horatio Alger, you know, rags to riches, an American story; I mean, it's just fabulous. And beautifully, you know, artworks are just great. So

Darin Hayes:
It's a great story, definitely a great feel-good story, unless you're like me and you live in Western Pennsylvania. And we had our mutual friend Jeff Payne on not too long ago, and he was showing me some cards that were made by Penn and that of the Cleveland Browns and those great Browns teams who thought, you know, the autogram was on, autogram was one of the trading cards that he had and he sheets. And like I told him, Jeff's from Western Pennsylvania as well. And I'm sort of thinking, okay, in that timeframe, you know, if only Penn would have invested a little bit in some Pittsburgh Steelers memorabilia, maybe guys like Johnny Unitas and Len Dawson and Jack Kemp, maybe one of those quarterbacks would have stayed in Pittsburgh if they would have been ordered like autogram was and Steelers would have done better back then. But they helped an Ohio team, you know, what are you gonna do?

Timothy Brown:
Yeah, yeah, well.

Darin Hayes:
And it's interesting, Fairview. Pennsylvania is probably about five miles from me. So it's, it's less than 20 miles from the Ohio line. So, uh, you know, that, that resonates a little bit there, too. And there, there was always a football powerhouse, too. So it's a, maybe it's just a name Fairview, uh, makes that.

Timothy Brown:
Yeah, so I don't know. For me, it was just like I came across that thing. And it's one of those things where, you know, most of these items that I'm buying, you know, they're not worth a whole lot of money. This one's worth a little bit more, but I think I paid $5 for, you know, but it's just such an entertaining piece of little, you know, football history, and advertising history that, you know, it's just really fun.

Darin Hayes:
You just took me back. You are telling that story. It just takes me back. Like you were reading me a nighttime story. I'm, I'm ready to hit the hay now. So I thank you for that, too. Good stuff. Sweet Dreams by Chris. Tim, you have a lot of different interesting things, whether it be comic books or, you know, these RPPCs or just an interesting story about the great game that we all love and enjoy. That's why we're all here tonight listening to and viewing this. Maybe you could tell us how folks can read some of the items that you have in football archeology.

Timothy Brown:
Yeah, so, you know, it's all sitting there on-site called football, football, archaeology .com. There are about 1000 articles out there now. So you can just go in there. There are search functions, so you can search topics and see if there's something out there on it. So, and if you're once you're out there, you can subscribe, you'll get an email whenever I, I send out a, you know, whenever I publish a new story. Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter, on threads, or on the Substack app. So whatever suits your fancy.

Darin Hayes:
Well, Tim, we, we appreciate it once again for the great story and a great look at football back some 70, some years ago, and, uh, just enjoyable story and feel good story, you know, whether you're not a bronze fan or you are a bronze fan or, or not. I still feel good about it. So that's a great thing with a football legend. And indeed, you know, the guy that, uh, won seven championships in the ten years that he played, that's better than Tom Brady. And so that's, that's pretty good.

Timothy Brown:
You know, there's something else, there's something else.

Darin Hayes:
Absolutely. And so we thank you and we'd love to talk to you about some more great football history next week.

Timothy Brown:
Very good and sleep well.

---

Back in early football, there were a tremendous number of games that ended in a tie. It was frustrating for teams and players alike to put in all that effort just to have the scoreboard tallies knotted.

Timothy P. Brown tells us about the change of heart in considering tie games in the NFL standings, all due to the 1932 NFL Title.

-Transcription of Timothy Brown on the 1932 NFL Championship and Tied Games

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes, PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen. We are going to talk with Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. He'll talk about a great tidbit he had back on February 14th. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hi, Darin. Good to see you this evening, and I look forward to chatting about ties and the wonderful world of ties in football.

Yeah, and ties at the professional level. It's not something that we get to talk about quite often when we chat with you, but this is an NFL contest that we're going to be talking about today and a great, one of the most historic seasons, probably pre-Super Bowl that there was. And so I will let you set the stage and the story.

Well, so we're talking about the 1932 season and the great inequities of the world. And I say that because it was a season where, you know, you could argue that the wonderful Green Bay Packers got screwed a little bit. But so, you know, this is 1932.

So that's a year; it's the last year in which the NFL used the college rule book, right? Then, in 33, they changed a number of rules, created their own rule book, and changed the number of rules, but they were still using the college rule book in 32. And so the NFL back then was not quite the same kind of an organization that it is today, you know, where everything's buttoned-down and tied down and everybody, you know, follows the marching orders. And so it was back then, and colleges did the same thing.

Teams would just because you were in a league with somebody else or a conference with somebody else did not at all mean that you were going to play them. And, you know, Big Ten was one of them that hung onto that for years. And like Fritz Kreisler went wacko, you know, later in his career as the AD at Michigan, because he just, he viewed the conference as one that set eligibility records and things like, or standards, not, it wasn't a scheduling platform.

So basically, you had a situation where teams would play different numbers of games against teams in their league. And there are a number, you know, often teams didn't play, you know, they played unequal numbers or, you know, they might play good teams twice or three times. And then they, you know, the NFL still was playing; they were professional, but it would be like they were playing, you know, a triple-A baseball team or something like that.

You know, they were playing teams that were in a lower league. But, you know, it brought in fans and, you know, they made money and, you know, those kinds of things. So it turned out that both in college and in the NFL at the time, they determined that there weren't playoffs.

There wasn't even a championship game. The winner was like, it was, you know, at least it was when I was in high school, whoever won the, you know, you won the champ, you won your league title. And then, you know, whoever had the best record was named the league champion, you know, pretty simple stuff.

But, back then, you know, they calculated that based on the win percentage, and they did not include ties in that calculation. So you could have a team under that scenario; you could have a team that won one game, didn't lose any, and then tied nine times, which would win a championship over a nine-and-one team. Now, that would be the case even if the nine-and-one teams won the game head-to-head when they played.

So, actually, that last part is not true because otherwise, they wouldn't have been one, and oh. So, okay, forget that, edit that out. But anyway, so nevertheless, the point would be still that nine, oh, and one was not as, or yeah, one, oh, and nine was better than nine and one, at least the way that they calculated.

So, in 1932, that kind of a scenario was kind of, was what occurred. I mean, not quite, you know, not to that extreme, but the NFL season ended, there were two games left, and the Packers, you know, had like, they had ten wins, one loss, and like four ties, right? And then the Bears and Portsmouth Spartans, who later became the Detroit Lions, you know, they were both like, they'd won four games, and then they had a bunch of ties and like six ties and things like that. So at the end of the season, it turned out, you know, the back Packers kind of, you know, they screwed themselves, but they, they lost their final two games, and that left them with the 10, three, and four records while both Chicago and Portsmouth were 6-1 and either 6-1 and six or 6-1 and four, right? So, based on the way they calculated it, they tied with the same win percentage, those, you know, Portsmouth and Chicago.

So that was the first time that they said, okay, well, we need to name a champion because these two teams are tied. So they had a championship game. They scheduled the following week to be played in Chicago.

Chicago had terrible weather. So instead of playing outdoors, they moved the game inside Chicago stadium, you know, a basketball hockey arena. And so they played on a shortened field, a narrow field, et cetera.

And, you know, that's a famous game that led to or contributed anyway to the move the next year to introduce hash marks because they had moved the ball away from the boards, you know, in the Chicago stadium. There was a famous jump pass during that game. And so that led to some changes in, you know, the rule about whether or not you, like the NFL, dropped the rule that you had to be, you know, five yards back from the center in order from the line of scrimmage, I should say, to throw a forward pass.

But, you know, and then they also then started playing a championship game, you know, the following year. But even, even than that, that percentage, you know, the keeping ties out of the win percentage thing, that stayed in place until 1932 because Halas opposed it time and time again. You know, it's almost like anyone has 1932, you know, thing to have, you know, ill light, you know, shined upon it.

So it's just one of those crazy rules. And then, you know, a couple of weeks later, I wrote a similar tidbit about using the University of Minnesota as an example because, you know, the Big Ten back then, you know, you know, we don't think about Minnesota being far away from Ohio State, or, you know, the other Big Ten teams at the time, but it was very common for, you know, teams, even, you know, like a Purdue, it wasn't a distance issue, but they would only play two, three, maybe four Big Ten teams in a season. For the rest of the time, they played, you know, at the local small college; maybe they played somebody from another section of the country.

But Minnesota, to this day, claims 12 Big Ten championships before 1935. And in not a single one of those championships did they win more than three Big Ten games? Right? I mean, they would be three, and a lot of times, they were two and oh, or two and one or two. So all those big championships they claim, and other teams do the same, you know, other schools do the same thing.

You know, they've got a championship based on just a couple of wins. You know, it seems just totally bizarre now. But that's the way it was, you know.

And the only other thing that came out of that, that whole scenario, I mean, nobody liked it, but they just kept doing it. You know, they couldn't possibly, you know, look at a sport like hockey and say, oh, geez, maybe they've got a better idea there. But so one of the things that these kinds of mismatches, well, mismatches isn't the right word.

But anyways, one of the things that these inequitable scheduling led to is some of the early rating systems were built around trying to use mathematical formulas to say, well, Illinois is the best team this year because they won six games against power teams. And, you know, there were some very basic calculations that they employed back then. However, the Dickinson system was started in 1925 to try to address that.

And it's one of the systems that's recognized today. If you look at who the NCAA recognizes as naming national champions, Dickinson is one of them. And so is our buddy.

Park Davis and Holgate and yes. So it's just, you know, an interesting, yeah, just things that, I mean, we still, because conferences have gotten bigger, you still have kind of unequal matching, not everybody's playing around Robin, right. But nevertheless, I mean, back then it was just like nuts.

You didn't even have to play a minimum number of games to be considered a conference champion. Yeah. Going back to that 1932, I guess, impromptu championship game, there's some speculation that the NFL, because the NFL wouldn't declare a champion until their off-season meeting, which usually was after the first of the year.

So people pretty much knew who the champion was because they never had anything be a tie like that. Well, there's speculation that they were going to be co-champions and that Halas, you know, would have no part of that. He wanted to be, you know, the bears were it, and he wanted the title.

So it's rumored that he bent, and I'm not sure if it was a Joe Carr. I think it was Joe Carr at the time, was probably the NFL commissioner, uh, bent his ear a little bit and said, Hey, you know, we got to have this game, and you know, we'll host it in Chicago, and you know, everything's going to be really great. And, but he also knew that sports mouse star player, their quarterback, Dutch Clark, was the head basketball coach at the University of Colorado, I believe.

And that their first game was that weekend that they scheduled the game. So there's no way that he could be there. And this is the Chicago Bears team that had, you know, not only Red Grange but Bronco Nagurski.

And, you know, they were that jump pass play that you talked about. There were two of them that had that. And that's what ended up winning the game.

So the Spartans, without their best player, you know, held this powerful Chicago bears team right till the end until this controversial jump pass was thrown by, I believe by Bronko Nagurski to Grange. And so that, that was, that was pretty weird. And I believe it's the first indoor professional championship ever played too.

I'm pretty. I know what it is for an NFL title, definitely, but this is the first. Yeah. I mean, there were some of those really early games indoors in, like, 1892 and whatever it was, the East Coast Football Union.

I forget exactly what they called it, but guys like Amos Alonzo Stagg and Pop Warner played in some of those games, you know, but yeah, for sure. I mean, other, you know, that was definitely, well, I guess, I guess you could count the world series of football in 1902, 1903, those were sort of professional, and they said they were the world champions for us. So I guess those were indoors, but yeah, there was some good stuff there.

The that's a very interesting period in time, but I had George Hallas always always definitely, you knew he was on the side of the bears. He would do anything he could to, to, you know, win a swaggle or whatever, barter into a NFL title, get the bears in there somehow. But that's good stuff.

As a, you know, growing up Packer fan, he was not my favorite human being, but, but yeah, I mean, he, you know, I ended up getting to like him when I did all the research on my first book, cause he played for Great Lakes Naval, you know, and so anyways. Yeah. I think he didn't play for a Canton Bulldogs or something too early on.

I think. I don't think he played for Canton. He liked it when he played. In 1919, he played some games, I believe, with the Hammond pros.

Okay. That maybe that's what it was. Okay.

You know, Patty Driscoll and a couple of the other Great Lakes guys played, played for them. And it was after that season that he moved out to, you know, Big Tate or Staley's and Staley's program. Yeah.

And that's a whole nother interesting story in itself, how we got the bears from old man Staley. So it's good stuff. Well, Tim, I appreciate you spending this time and, you know, getting these tidbits to us every night.

And, you know, for those out there in the listening land that would love to get ahold of their hands on your tidbits and read them each night. How can they go about that? Yeah. So you can check out my website, footballarchaeology.com. It's on the Substack platform.

You can enroll. That means you'll get an email with that day's story sent to your inbox every night. You can either do that or follow me on Twitter because I post shortly after seven o'clock each night on Twitter as well.

And so I'm, you know, I go under the name Football Archaeology there as well. Okay. Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. Thank you very much for sharing the story tonight and each and every night on your tidbits.

And we'll talk to you again next week. Very good. Thank you, sir.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

There was an era of football where the punt may have been the most effective weapon for an offense. It just doesn't sound right to our modern gridiron minds to understand. No worries we brought in an expert to help.

One of the top experts in early football rules history, Timothy P. Brown, joins us to explain the kicking game strategy of early football. The story is eloquently shared below in the link that takes you to Tim's article, complete with photos of the era. Timothy Brown's

-Transcription of Punt Often with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of pigskindispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to Tuesday, Football Archaeology Day, as we bring in our friend Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology.

Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen. Hey, Darin. Great to see you, hear from you again, and looking forward to lots of Tuesdays during 2022, or 2023, I should say.

We already did a bunch for 2022. Old habits, old habits. It's hard to change that date. That's one of the toughest things to do.

We'll be doing that into March, I'm sure, all of us. Hey, you know, we have had a great football season. You know, we've had some great Tuesdays on Football Archaeology.

You know, I shared a lot of Rose Bowl memories with you. And, you know, now we've got into some of your interesting tidbits from November. One that really caught my eye is you had one titled from November 14th called Punning Early and Often about some early football strategy.

We'd really like to hear about it. Yeah, you know, I think for me, this is kind of a, it's kind of a fun topic, you know, for two reasons. I think, you know, one is just kind of the nature of, you know, punting was a much bigger part of the game, you know, back then.

But for me, it also, I think, just generally, you know, in line with that thought, it kind of just reinforces, you know, just the, when we're going back and doing history and reading about things that have happened in the past, it can be very difficult to make sure you have, you know, you're wearing their hat. And what I mean by that is, you know, you're working under the assumptions they worked under, not the assumptions you now work under, you know, because 100 years or 120, you know, some years have passed. And so, you know, the point of the overall article is just kind of discussing how, back in the day, teams often punted on first or second down.

And then once, you know, they got four downs, and they would punt on third down, too. But, for us, that seems like just such a strange way to play the game, right? It's like, why in the heck would you punt on first down? And yet it's, you know, if you kind of put yourself back under their assumptions and under their rules, then it starts making a bit more sense. And so, you know, in my mind, there's two kinds of key things that, you know, that are different about the game that they played versus what's played today.

And so one is just that people punted early on or on, on early downs, because it was difficult to move the ball. You know, you know, they just, you know, pretty much everybody with the, you know, exceptions here and there, but pretty much everybody played close formations, you know, with three or four backs, you know, inside the, the both ends being tight. And sometimes there'd be a wing or, you know, whatever, whatever it was, but I mean, for the most part, everybody's playing really tight together.

And, then, the defense has had a wide guy on either side to stop anybody from sweeping. So everything just got funneled into the middle. And so it was just hard to move the darn ball and do it consistently.

So it's one thing to get a first down. It's another thing that, you know, string together five, six, seven first downs, drive down the field and score. So, you know, it's just that, that whole idea that the, in a game of reasonably well-matched opponents, it typically was going to be a pretty low-scoring game.

You know, they did not have Yale and Harvard or Yale and Princeton or whomever, Michigan and Chicago, or when they played one another, they didn't play a bunch of 47 of 43 games, you know, it was 13 to 10, it was six to nothing. So just, you know, the fact of the matter is against well, you know, well-matched teams, it was really difficult to move the ball. So, they played the field position game, and they just booted it.

Right. And they booted it thinking, Hey, I'm going to have to keep the ball in their territory, and then they can make a mistake, and then I can capitalize on it. And so this particular article has a quote by a guy named George Brooke, who was a famous player and coach back then.

And, and, you know, wrote a lot of articles that were in, you know, syndicated newspaper articles, but he, he basically made an argument that the maxim he called it, that if the ball is inside your 40, you should punt it. That's it. Right.

Which is like, you know, again, what, one of those things we just can't even imagine. And so, just the way that he phrased it, I got it here. So, he considered that if you were inside your own 40, he considered dangerous ground.

And he said this is called dangerous ground because if the team should lose the ball for some foul or offside play fumble or other common means of losing it, then, you know, then their goal is going to be in danger. So it's kind of the reverse of what I was saying, which is why you want to punt it, but it just points out that, you know, so our assumptions are offenses can move the ball. And then the other assumption, you know, we understand fumbles or interceptions or something like that, losing the ball, but we don't think about it in terms of the first thing he mentioned, which is some foul or offside play.

So back then, most penalties resulted in a loss of possession, did you know? So, you know, yes, there was, you know, if you interfered with the center five-yard penalty, piling on or a couple of other things for 15-yard penalties, but an offside, if you were offside loss of possession, right? And then like, you know, the old, the forward pass before the forward pass was legalized, you know if you pitch the ball forward that was lost possession, you know, was another, another example of that. So again, it's just that we don't think about the game that way.

We don't think about, you know, jumping offside, boom, the other guy gets the ball at the spot, you know? So, so, you know, there was just, I think that much more reason, you know, you, you were risking yourself and your field position if you kept the ball and you were inside the 30, inside the 40, whatever it was. So anyway, it just kind of makes more sense now. Or, you know, if you kind of think about those two terms, you know, the offensive inefficiency and then loss of possession.

So no, no, just interesting to me. Yeah. It made me start really thinking about it, you know, especially before the forward pass was legal.

You know, we, we talked now, you know, we watch a game when they say, Oh, you know, the defense has eight in the box, or they're to stop the run. Well, they were putting, you know, 10, 11 in the box back then. There was no threat behind them to that.

So they could fill every gap and have an extra guy to shoot the gaps if they wanted to. So, so probably made moving the ball on the ground real ineffective. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, yeah. And you know, there are so many things that we just take for granted, the opposite of forward pass, but just other ways of just moving, you know, trying to move the ball, you know, just like a, well, I guess a shovel, shovel pass would have been illegal then anyways, but you know, option plays and those kinds of things that just, you know, hadn't come along yet.

So it was, it was tough. Yeah. Well, it's great.

Definitely that article and some of the photographs, the pictures you have in there and you know, Mr. Brooks quotes and things that really make you think and takes you back, you know, 120 some years ago and appreciate how the game has evolved over time and made a lot more enjoyable from a fan's point of view. And probably from an offensive and defensive strategist to make, make some headaches for them too, for the defenses, but the forward pass stuff, but Hey, just some great stuff and how important the kicking game was at that point. It really comes to light.

So we thank you for sharing that with us. And Tim, why don't we take this time? You know, you have these tidbits coming out each and every day. Maybe you could share with the listeners how they, too, can appreciate your tidbits each day.

Sure. So, my site where I post the tidbits every day is called football archeology.com. It's a site where you can just sign up for free, and you'll get, and you'll get an email delivered every night at seven o'clock Eastern. I also post on Twitter.

And so, but just to, you know, if you want to make sure you get it every day, you don't have to read it necessarily, but if you want to make sure you get it every day, just subscribe. And it'll pop right into your inbox dutifully. It most certainly does.

So, Tim, we appreciate you coming on again. Again, Timothy P Brown, footballarcheology.com, and Tim, we'll talk to you again next Tuesday. Okay.

Very good. Thanks, Darin. Appreciate it.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

In a weekly visit from author and gridiron historian Timothy P. Brown, he enlightens us about a team of unique individuals that loved the game of football and, despite obstacles, played the game and won. This group was from the Kentucky School of the Blind in the early 20th century, as yes, even though their sight was impaired, these fellas had a great time and won some ball games.

-Transcription of the Kent School for the Blind 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 going to portal back in time to football archaeology and Timothy P. Brown because it's Tuesday and Tim's going to talk about a very interesting and unique school that played football so many years ago. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey Darin, thank you once again. Glad to be here and like we have a pretty cool story to talk about today.

Yeah, I had never heard of this one until I read your tidbit back on November 20th. And your title of that tidbit was really a high catcher, football at the Kentucky School for the Blind. And I said, okay, he's got to have some kind of an angle on this, literally mean, you know, this is a school for the Blind, but I guess it was.

So I'll let you explain it. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, so that was just the first thing I could even think about when because this actually involved young men playing football who were blind. I mean, I think it's just a story of courage, you know, it's just, but it's also just, it's such a cool, cool thing that these kids just wanted to play, you know, and so they found a way, you know, they found a way to play and, and, you know, then obviously they had opponents, and all of their opponents were sighted teams. And so anyways, it's just, you know, kind of a cool thing.

And so it's just, you know, it's one of those, I mean, I remember, you know, as a kid, you know, I started playing football, and I guess, you know, organized like sixth grade, you know, we had a grade school team and then high school and dah, dah, dah. And so, you know, and there, there were times, you know, if you're going, you know, I was a late developer. And so, you know, there are times when you're, you know, you're kind of intimidated, you're scared, you know, in playing, you know, or you're just, you know, you just happen to be positioned against some 4,000-pound mammoth, you know.

And so, so it just takes guts to play the game. Right. And absolutely.

These, these kids were out there playing, and they couldn't even see their opponents, you know. And so it's just, I just think it's, you know, it's remarkable that they were still willing to get out there and play, you know. And so, you know, I guess the other thing for me as I think about it, you know, tend to think about like accommodations for people with, you know, various types of, of, you know, disabilities or limitations of whatever sort.

But they, you know, it just, this story tells you that there were accommodations made back then, too. So, and, you know, these may have, I think I, in some of the newspaper articles, it's clear that you know, they did things like, you know, the, the team, the opponent had to run between the tackles or between the ends when they were on offense. Tim, if you don't mind, I'm not sure if we mentioned to the listener what timeframe we're talking about; we're talking 1904 to 1912.

So this is 130, 120 years ago. So this is a, you know, so really fascinating that you know, it'd be remarkable in today's age, but this is really incredible for the game that they were playing back then, too. Yeah.

Yeah. I apologize for not mentioning that. I kind of had the picture of the players in my, in my mind, but you know, if you're just listening to the podcast, you don't see those pictures, but yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, these kids are, so like, you know, what they had the, the opposing team had to run between the tackles. They were, they, if they were going to run the ball, then they made out a certain call. I think they just said hike, but if they were going to punt the ball, then they yelled punt.

And so the, you know, the kids on defense would know, you know, what was going on, but you know, and so it's kind of like, okay, well, how did these kids play? And the report suggests they kind of had a certain sense, right? That, you know, just as like, defensive linemen, for instance, you know, are taught to react to the pressure coming from the right or to the left, you know, kind of, you resist the pressure, whatever direction it's coming from. And I'm sure they had developed a lot of that sense themselves, probably even before they started playing football.

But so that was one of the things, you know, that they were able to just, you know, sense pressure. The other, I think, is as long as the ball had to be run between the tackles or between the ends, you know when these guys were on defense, then it's kind of more like, you know, it's a little bit more like wrestling, you know. So, like, you know, I wrestled when I was younger.

And so I, you know, I can see that being, you know, it's easier to think of a blind wrestler being successful, right? Just because it's a, you know, sport of close quarters and very technique oriented, you know, and you're physically grabbing one another, you know, all the time. And so that makes sense to me. But football still just seems like crazy.

You know, it's like, how do you? You don't even know if somebody's coming at you until they come at you, right? And just tackling the ball player or the ball carrier, you know, you know, it's kind of like they must have just grabbed anybody that was coming, right? And yet they apparently were, I mean, they won a bunch of games, like half of them. It might be friendly fire, or it might be your teammate going down. Yeah, that's right.

You know, you have a really interesting photo on footballarchaeology.com on this is one of the challenges and I, you've got me. So I'm looking at these photos a lot closer and trying to pick up things. And one thing I looked at is it had to be like challenge.

Number one is they're lining up. There's sort of a line on the field where these guys are lined up, and there's the far left end, which has his hands beyond the line. The ball's probably, I don't know, a quarter of a yard shy of the line, and the right end is probably almost two yards deep off the line.

So they're sort of cattywampus to the line. So, probably staying on the side. And I'm sure maybe, you know, I always look at it from an officiating lens for something, but I'm trying to get these guys to line up so that they're legal, legal formation.

Yeah. They just had some challenges there. I'm sure.

Yeah. So, I mean, you know, I noticed that in that image too. I just was like, I'm not going to write anything about that.

I'll leave that one alone. Just let everybody pick that pick up on themselves. But, you know, so I think this is some of the accommodations I think was probably like when you were a kid, and you were on the playground at the park half the time, there'd be one team had six guys and the other guy, other team had five or someone team had the best kid, and everybody else stunk or, you know, whatever.

So that's why you have all the time quarterback, Tim. Yeah. And he was out the sides.

Yeah. But, but then there were but these, so I just have to imagine there were things like where, like when you're a kid, you negotiated that stuff with the other kids because you wanted it to be fair and competitive. Otherwise it wasn't fun to play.

Right. So, you know, they probably had something where there was a process where these guys got lined up correctly, you know, so they're on side and, you know, then they went from there, but still just, you know, yeah, I think it's just kind of an incredible story for these kids. And I think we mentioned it briefly on another previous podcast, but the Kentucky School for the Blind completed at least one forward pass in one of their games, which is just nuts to think about.

That's amazing. Now, in one part of this tidbit, you explain how they would kick extra points, and maybe you could talk about that a little bit because I thought that was really interesting. Yeah.

So what they did was they had, so back then, extra points were a free kick. Right. So, so what? That meant there was no snap, nothing.

It was just, you know, like, so, so the one guy. What we call a kickoff today is a free kick. Yes.

Start each half, and after a score, there is a free kick. Just a, yeah. Or like, you know, somebody, it's still part of the game.

If you catch a, if you fair catch a punt, you have the legal right to kick the ball from there to try to get a field goal. Correct. And so, uh, so back then the, the, the team that just scored, um, assuming they had scored near the middle of the field or near the goalpost, they could basically just walk it straight out as far back as they wanted to.

And then they then kick it from there. So then once they would get the kicker, and the holder lined up, then the, um, there was one of the teammates would stand between the goalposts and get, and then, you know, behind them, and he would, uh, yell towards the kicker and then two other teammates with sticks would hit the goalposts and that the combination of those noises would allow the kicker to kind of center where he's trying to kick the ball. And apparently, they made about half their field goals, too.

So, or extra points. So, you know, I mean, it's just, again, I mean, it cited people didn't do that well, uh, with, with, uh, you know, kicking accuracy back then. So, it's actually, you know, pretty darn amazing what they did.

Definitely is. I thought that was great. It was a great story.

Especially like you said, the, the part where they completed a forward pass, I mean, that, that had to be so well-timed when we talk about timing between a quarterback and a receiver. Now, you, you would have to put it right where a guy's expecting it or at the right time or, you know, it had to be like a basket catch, you know, you gotta, gotta believe. Right.

Yeah. That's, that's great stuff. This is, is that's what makes these tidbits so interesting because they're just such off-the-wall topics sometimes that, uh, you know, you, you grab from an old newspaper or book or the postcards or whatever, and, uh, really makes for some interesting reading and, and makes you scratch your head sometimes and sit there in amazement like this one is because these, uh, these guys really did some amazing things.

So really appreciate you chatting about that and, uh, and sharing this with us. So it's a good story. Yeah, definitely is.

And Tim, uh, maybe if you could share with the listeners where they too can, uh, pick up on some of the tidbits that you have each and every day, that'd be a great thing. Yeah. So, uh, footballarchaeology.com is my website.

I post a new story or what I call a tidbit every day at seven o'clock Eastern. Periodically I post other, you know, longer form stories as well. I also post it on, on Facebook or not Facebook, but Twitter.

And so, you know, just a reminder, if you're, um, if you go find the site, you know, you can, you know, now there are, I don't know, 400 some different articles sitting out there. So, um, you know, just use a little magnifying glass to search, uh, search whatever topic you want and see what's out there and, um, have at it. I mean, if you like it, then sign up, subscribe, and, uh, you get the email every night at seven o'clock.

It's great stuff and, uh, really makes your football brain work each and every night and, uh, really enjoyable. So, uh, Tim Brown, thank you very much. footballarchaeology.com is the site, and we'll talk to you again next Tuesday.

Okay. Very good. Thank you, sir.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

Up until about World War II football players by rule pretty much had to play the entire game. There were not offensive and defensive specialists. The skill sets that soldiers who trained for war by playing football gained added a surplus of roster talent and the rules were then adapted post war to allow mass substitution as often as coaches wanted to.

This ushered in the era of two-platoon football and Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology wrote a great post on the first All-America team from this new era.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on the 1st Two-Platoon All-America Team

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 day where we get to talk to footballarchaeology.com's Timothy P. Brown about one of the great tidbits that he writes every day about football of yesteryear. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin. Thank you for having me on. I look forward to talking about two-platoon football.

Yeah, why don't you first let's give you a title? You titled this tidbit back in October of 2022, the first two-platoon All-America team. And why don't you explain to the audience what two-platoon football is and what was significant about this All-America team? Yeah.

So, back in the day, if you played a football game, you put your 11 guys or 15 guys out there, and that's who you played with. There were no substitutions. Then they started allowing substitutions, but pretty much, once you left the game, you were out, just like soccer remains today.

It was the same game; they came from the same origin, so similar rules applied. But over time, football allowed substitutions in certain instances, but for the most part, until 1941, if you, once you're out, you're out. There were no go-backs. And so, in 1941, because of concern about the, you know, there were a lot of guys enlisting, and they were, you know, I'm not sure if they were being drafted yet or not, but either way, there were a lot of college-age men heading into the military, even, you know, pre-Pearl Harbor.

And so, they were concerned about roster sizes. And so, they passed a rule allowing coaches to substitute anytime they wanted to in a game. And so, the funny thing is, this is, you know, I think at multiple levels, this is a story of how much people follow tradition as much as the rules.

So, even though the rule was passed in 41, pretty much without exception, the only people who got substituted, in the way that we think about it today, were kickers and punters. You know, coaches would bring in those kinds of people, but they and even those were very few because typically your punter, the kicker was your halfback or somebody, you know, one of the regular players. And so, but then in 1945, Michigan had a really depleted roster, and they were going to play, you know, Army, which had, you know, Blanchard and Davis and a bunch of other guys.

And they just knew they were just going to get their lunch handed to them. And so, Fritz Crisler, the coach, was looking for, you know, some way to try to, you know, give his team an advantage. And so, he realized, hey, the way this rule is written, I can swap my offense and defense out whenever I want to or swap players in whenever I want to.

Even though nobody's done it, the rule says I can't. So, from his vantage point, he was exploiting a loophole, right? I mean, not in the way the rule was written, but in the way it had been traditionally applied. So, he does that against the Army.

He basically plays offensive and defensive units. I think there were three or four guys who played both ways. They're, you know, that much better players.

Other coaches picked up on that, and they started doing it. Over the next couple of years, the two platoons, you know, the old no substitution was called the single tune. And two platoon, what became, you know, kind of the standard term for swapping offensive and defensive players.

And so, then, that's fine. And there, it was raining, you know, gaining speed. But it wasn't until 1948 that anyone named an all-American team with two platoons.

So, in 1945, 46, and 47, they still kept naming a single platoon all-American team. So, 11 guys, no specialists, right? And so, finally, this organization called the NEA was a big one, kind of like the UPI or the AP or somebody, you know, along those lines at the time. They named a two-platoon all-American team in 1948.

So, just, you know, some of the guys whose names, you know, a lot of people probably will recognize as Charlie Justice, who was back at, you know, North Carolina, Doke Walker of SMU, Eddie LeBaron, who played at Pacific, some guy named Darryl Royal, who was at Texas. Leon Hart was the only player named to play on both the offensive and defensive teams at Notre Dame. So, then the other thing I just said is that it doesn't so much relate to 1940. I just find it really interesting that it was not until the 1980s that all-American teams added kickers and punters to their rosters, right? So, I mean, it took all that, so, you know, we had moved into specialist players.

I mean, even through the 60s, there were still a lot of kickers and punters who were everyday players, right? You know, Don, like I grew up, so Don Chandler, an end originally and kicked, was a kicker as well. Honey Anderson was the punter, and he was a halfback, you know, so there was a lot of that going on. And like George Blanda, you know, he was a quarterback.

Yeah, Lou Groza is a lineman. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you can just go through it; there's a whole slew of guys like that.

And so, but so anyways, you know, but clearly specialists had come into the game, especially after the, you know, onset of the soccer-style kicker in the 60s, you know, with the Go-Go Axe and others. But it wasn't until the 80s that they, you know, they named separate punters and kickers. So just, you know, it's an amazing thing that it took that long.

Yeah. Wow. I didn't realize that about the punters and kickers.

I thought that would have been, you know, going on for a while. I was like, man, that's great stuff. So, you know, I guess the kickers today, even though they feel that they're shunned by the rest of football and looked down upon a little bit of not being, you know, sometimes called not real football players and everything, they would have been pissed back in the 70s when they weren't even honored.

Yeah. Well, you know, and the funny thing about it is like, you know, if you go back and you read the newspaper reports of guys who were named all American in the teens and the twenties and thirties and whatnot, a lot of backs were named, you know, especially in the heavy punting years, you know, they were named as much for their punting ability as for their running ability or their passing ability. You know, punting was just so important to the game, and they were the ones who did it.

Yeah. It wasn't like Jim Thorpe, one of the greatest punters and dropkickers ever. And that was sort of what some of his fame was besides his running.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. I mean, that's the triple threat. You know, the whole thing is running, passing, and kicking. You know, it is either a form of kicking or typically punting. So yeah, I mean, it was, there's, I mean, you just can go on and on about the, the number of guys who, who were especially running backs with, you know, fullbacks, fullbacks, a lot of times were like the big studs of the teams in the twenties and thirties.

And, you know, a lot of them were, were really, really effective punters. Yeah. So I guess, you know, World War II changed the world, and it changed the world of football, too.

So it's sort of that line of debarkation between the single platoon and the dual platoon because of the rule changes and, you know, a substitution. So very interesting. Great stuff.

Well, then, in college, they went back to single platoon in 52. The pros, you know, once the pros went, you know, swapping offensive, offense, and defense, they never looked back, you know, their game was much more about entertainment and everything. But once you went to platoon, you needed more coaches and bigger rosters.

The coaches became more specialized. I mean, think about how much more complicated the game has become. And a lot of that's because it's two platoons, you know if you only have so many minutes a week to impart, you know, knowledge and techniques to players, if you got to cut it in half, well, you know, it can't be as, you know, you just can't complicate it as much.

So, these coaches studied just defense and coached just defense. So, I mean, it's, you know, certainly among the top four, five, six rules in terms of the effect on the game, but the colleges went back in 52 to dual platoon really as a cost-saving measure. And then, you know, kind of slowly, and then especially in the late fifties and early sixties, swapped it over.

By 64, Katie had barred the door, you know, a total of two platoons. Wow. Amazing stuff.

And you sit there, and you think about how good athletes these guys had to be to be on the field for, you know, 60 minutes or 48 minutes, whatever it was at the time. It might've been longer than that back in that era, but they had longer, longer halves back then, too, like 35-minute halves. Yeah, that was more; that was all like pre-1912 or something like that.

I mean, that was earlier. Yeah. But I mean, just think about it in terms of just the shape of, you know, what players look like.

I mean, you know, you've got these six, eight, six, nine, 340-pound guys running around now, can't play a 60-minute game. They just can't. No, they can't even take all the offensive-defensive snaps, you know, unless you're an offensive lineman or a quarterback, you're, you're probably going to get substituted in while your team is on the field, and that, uh, that genre, that offense or defense.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, my part of my argument is always looking at world-class rugby teams, and they've got guys for six, three, two 60, you know, running around as the, you know, kind of the forwards blocking, um, you know, they're the guys leading the scrum, but there aren't, you know, there aren't the kind of guys that you see in the NFL or, you know, almost any major college team.

And nowadays, half the D3 teams have kids who weigh more than 300 pounds, right? Um, you know, so it's, you know, you just can't, you can't play like that in a, in a 60-minute game, especially when there were far, there weren't TV titles, there weren't, you know, anywhere, there weren't anywhere near the number of passing completions or weren't that many balls out of bounds. The ball went out of bounds, and the clock kept running.

I mean, all that kind of, you know, the rules were so different. Um, the body types were different, but yeah, amazing stuff. Yeah.

Tremendous. Tim, you know, we enjoy these stories and, and, you know, learning about these little pieces of football, which this one's a pretty major story of the evolution of football, but, uh, you know, you, you share with these, uh, these stories and sometimes they're just fun. Sometimes they're really serious and game-changing like this one was. You call them your daily tidbits, and maybe you could tell folks how they can enjoy your daily tidbits.

Yeah. So, you know, the best thing is just to go to footballarchaeology.com and, you know, subscribe. You can subscribe for free.

You'll get an email. As a result, you'll get an email every night at seven o'clock with that day's story. Otherwise, you can follow me on Twitter, sometimes called X, but I don't call it that.

And then, catch me on the Substack app on threads or just bookmark the site and pop in whenever you want. Well, Tim, we appreciate you educating us and sharing your knowledge on football history. And we'd love to talk to you again next Tuesday about another one of your tidbits.

Well, I think we can find something to chat about next week. I'll leave that up to you. Thanks much.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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The football helmet symbolizes resilience and power and has radically transformed throughout history. Initially conceived as a rudimentary leather cap, it has become sophisticated protective equipment. But the quest for player safety in this high-impact sport continues. In this episode, Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology explores the evolution of helmet attachments, especially Absorblo, and highlights the ongoing efforts to mitigate the risks associated with football.

Early helmets, introduced in the late 19th century, offered minimal protection. They were primarily leather shells designed to prevent scalp lacerations. As the game grew faster and more physical, concerns about concussions and head injuries rose. The introduction of soft inner padding in the 1930s marked a significant step forward, absorbing some of the impact from collisions.

Tim's original Tidbit can be seen at Absorblo, the 1960s Helmet Exterior Padding.

Check out the audio at Podcast version.

The 1940s and 1950s saw the adoption of hard plastic shells, which offered better protection for the skull. However, the lack of facemasks left players vulnerable to facial injuries. The invention of the single-bar facemask in the 1950s addressed this concern, but it limited visibility and restricted airflow.

In the '60s, Absorblo was a product developed through funding of sporting goods manufacturer MacGregor with testing and engineering at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory.

Over the next three decades, some attempts were made to improve the inner padding of the helmets, both for the player's comfort and safety.

The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a focus on impact absorption. Advanced padding materials and chin straps were adopted to manage better the forces transmitted to the head and neck during collisions. The Pro Cap attachment was designed to fit outside the hard shells on the crown of the head, providing impact absorption protection for its wearer. Mark Kelso of the Buffalo Bills made the device famous and claimed it extended his career. Sadly, it never caught on, and only a few other players tried it on the pro circuit—the poor aesthetic appearance needed to be improved for many players to overcome. Additionally, research on the role of helmet fit in mitigating concussion risks began to gain traction.

Innovative attachments like inflatable bladders and shock-absorbing inserts within helmets have been explored in recent years. These technologies aim to reduce impact forces further and mitigate the risk of concussions. However, their effectiveness remains debated, and ongoing research is crucial.

The Guardian protective caps used by teams at all levels, including the NFL, are still in their infancy but are providing sound data for research during practice sessions and, most of all, are affording players that extra layer of protection. According to the Guardian website, the soft external padding fits externally on the helmet shell and provides impact absorption. It also moves independently of the helmet to further deflect the impact blows. There are still player injuries that involve serious injury or worse, so the progress has yet to go far enough.

Despite the progress, the quest for a foolproof helmet continues. The science of head injuries is complex, and concussions remain a significant concern. The NFL and other leagues are actively collaborating with researchers and equipment manufacturers to develop even more sophisticated helmets and attachments.

The evolution of helmet attachments is a testament to football's ongoing commitment to player safety. As research advances and technology evolves, we can expect even more innovative attachments to emerge. However, it's crucial to remember that helmets are just one piece of the puzzle. Coaching techniques that emphasize proper tackling form and rule changes that penalize dangerous hits are equally vital in mitigating the risks associated with this high-impact sport.

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

-Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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