Gridiron Guts, The Story of Football

A Collegiate football power that we have all heard of was around from 1893 until 1917. The famous Carlisle Indians football team represented the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. The school was the first institution set up by the U.S. Government as an educational instrument to help young Native American men become immersed in Western culture, literature, and science. They became a football powerhouse of the early twentieth century, competing with the Eastern Ivy League schools and beyond. Glenn Pop Warner was their coach in two different stints, and his training and innovations were a perfect fit for the athletic prowess that the men of Carlisle needed. Disciplined, fast-paced, but finessed football in the single-wing offense became all the rage. Athletic gridiron stars like Joe Guyon, Bemus Pierce, Albert Exendine, and Jim Thorpe thrived in the system, and the team could compete with darn near anyone. The Indian team was commonly undersized against the competition, so trickery and deception were two of their weapons to level the playing field. Carlisle's playbook gave rise to many trick plays and other innovations that are now commonplace in American football, like the overhand spiral throw and hand-off fake that go to Carlisle's credit.

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Gridiron Guts, The Story of Football's Carlisle Indians

At the turn of the 20th century, the little-known Carlisle Indian Industrial School was a gridiron powerhouse. As author Sally Jenkins recounts in a new book, many of football's tricks were born at the experimental boarding school for Native Americans.