Football Daily

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

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

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

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on Opponents Visitor Scoreboard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very good. Thank you.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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

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

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

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

-Arthur Irwin and the First Football Scoreboards

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

-Transcribed Conversation on Arthur Irwin Scoreboard with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to another evening when we will be honored with the presence of Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.
Hey, thanks, Darin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. Yeah. From a representation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay. Thanks, Darin. All right.

Bye.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

In the modern era of College football, the reward for a team at season's end is to make it to one of the big holiday bowl games and win it. Hoefully they are ranked high enough to be playing in the college playoff format for a National Title.

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeoloogy joined us in 2023 to tell the tale of the first team to win at least one of each of the "Major" Bowl games.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on the Georgia Tech Grand Slam

Hello, my football friend, Darin Hayes, of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history, and welcome to Tuesday at FootballArcheology.com. Timothy P. Brown joins us to talk about another one of his amazing tidbits on football history. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin. Thank you. I look forward to chatting once again about old-time football.

Yeah, this podcast airs in December, and we're getting into the college football championships, the end of the season, and bowl games.

And that's what we're thinking about as far as college football. And you posted a very interesting story back in June about the Ramblin' Wreck of Georgia Tech. And we'd sure love to hear about this old-time football.

Yeah, so this story is, uh, you know, I called it the, um, I forget exactly what I called it. It was basically about Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech hits football's first Grand Slam, which is your title.

Yeah. So football's first Grand Slam. I knew the Grand Slam.

I didn't know exactly how I worded it, but I also want to point out that they hit the reason; well, part of the contribution to the Grand Slam was that they hit a rare triple as well. And the rare triple was the fact that Georgia Tech, I mean, had three absolute stud coaches right in a row. Those three coaches have handled the team for 63 combined years.

You know, it's just one of those, like, you know, how many, you know, I mean, like, if you just think about, try to think about other places that have had phenomenally, or just very successful coaches, uh, and to have three in a row, I mean, Notre Dame has had some great coaches, but a lot of them didn't really last that long. No, not 63 years between the three of them. Yeah.

I mean, you know, Ohio State and Michigan, and you know, I mean, there's a USC, I mean, name, and whoever you want. There just aren't too many. Maybe Oklahoma or Texas or somebody had, you know, but they've tended to have somebody that just wasn't great in between or didn't last that long. But here are the three for Georgia Tech, which started in 1904 and ran through 1919 with a 102-29-7 record.

So, John Heisman won 70, nearly 78% of his games. So, most football fans have heard of him. Um, he was followed by a guy who played there and then coached under Heisman named, you know, Bill Alexander, who, you know, isn't as, uh, didn't have as great a record.

He had some uneven seasons, but he also had just some absolute stud seasons. So he went 134 and 95 and 15, um, you know, for 0.585, you know, a record. And then he was followed by Bobby Dodd, who, you know, was an assistant under Alexander.

And so Bobby Dodd goes from 1945 to 1966, and he goes 165-64-8. So, for 0.721 percent. So, basically, those three guys from 1904 to 1966 are the three coaches of Georgia Tech, you know, it's just crazy.

So then during, um, so of the three, just from a pure record standpoint, Alexander is the least successful. And yet it was during his time that Georgia Tech, I mean, think about it. He's the least in terms of winning percentage.

And yet, during his time, he won, and they beat Cal in the 1939 Rose Bowl. He beat Missouri in the 1940 Orange Bowl. They lost to Texas in the 1943 Cotton Bowl.

And then they beat Tulsa in the 1944 Sugar Bowl. And so his grand slam was that they were the first team to play in the Rose, the Orange, the Cotton, and the Sugar, which were the four games until, I don't know, uh, 85 ish or something like when the Fiesta started, you know, being considered along those lines as a, you know, in terms of the top four bowl games. So, um, you know, so at the time that, you know, it was, people considered it a big deal that they were the first ones to play in all four.

Now, some teams didn't go to bowl games at all. And conferences that didn't go to bowl games at all. And, you know, they were able to do some things, maybe other teams couldn't, but I don't care what, you know, they were the first ones.

And so, you know, really an impressive feat. Just think about that. What are, I mean, you have to have many things fall into place to be invited to each of those particular bowl games because they're looking for certain criteria each year. You have to fall in that to get an invite first of all, and then to go and beat an opponent who is a worthy opponent that's, you know, looked upon as your equal because they're trying to get the best matchup they can in those games and, you know, and to win each of those.

I mean, that is quite a feat if you really sit there and think about it. Yeah. And I think, you know, these, you know, like last week's podcast, we talked about warriors.

And so this, you know, a couple of these wins occurred during war years. So, they probably chose Southern teams a bit more than they would have otherwise, just to reduce travel and, you know, easier access for their alums to attend the game. But again, make up any scenario you want.

They were still the first ones playing in a game, so it's a big deal. And, you know, they ended up. He stepped down after winning, or no; he then took Georgia Tech to the 45 Orange Bowl.

So he ran through those four, the four we already mentioned. Then he went to the Orange Bowl again in 45. And then he resigned after that.

And Bobby Dodd took over. He can stick it out three more years and try to get the double. Yeah.

Yeah. Hit everyone twice. Man.

Yeah. So, I mean, it is a pretty remarkable record. Alexander was also one of those guys who was just a pretty innovative guy.

I mean, some of the things he did now seem kind of goofy. I've written in the past about him using the reverse QB. And I think he may have used a side-saddle QB at times.

But, you know, the reverse QB took the ball, like had his butt against the center's butt, and then took the snap between his legs, and then tossed it, you know, to a single wing kind of formation, tossed it left or right or backward. But. Yeah, I remember our conversation.

We did a podcast on your side saddle, probably back a year ago. But I remember that. That's, man, that is fascinating.

So, going back 80 years ago, and just actually 100 years ago or more with Heisman, when you think about it, I mean, just a great program. And we don't think about Georgia Tech in that light anymore because there's sort of they're overshadowed by some of their fellow teams that are in that area, you know, Georgia, for one, who's phenomenal the last few years, especially. But you have to look back at some of these teams and give them credit because they had some really strong programs back in that day and the errors with, you know, those three coaches 60 some years.

Wow, that's a tip your hat off to the program directors there. Yeah. And I mean, they played in a lot of big games.

I mean, back in, you know, in the World War One era, you know, Pitt and Georgia Tech came a couple of really big, you know, games that they played kind of national championship consequences, you know, that kind of thing. And, you know, they played in the 29 Rose Bowl when, you know, the wrong way Regal ran, the tip California who picked up the ball ran the wrong way. And, you know, it ended up at the end of the day, which is the reason Georgia Tech won the game.

But, you know, so I mean, they were involved in some really, some really big games. And, you know, like you said, not quite as much anymore, but, you know, they still play at a very high level and, you know, great school, all that kind of stuff. Well, Tim, it always amazes me, the stories that you come up with, and you do this daily in your tidbits, just some, you know, maybe not the mainstream of what we think of mainstream football today, you know, very popular from 80 years ago, but, you know, some of these teams that probably should get more attention, like these Georgia Tech teams, and some of the elements that we discussed today with going to the four bowl games, but you're doing this daily.

Why don't you share with the audience how they, too, can participate in reading your daily tidbit? Yeah, so, you know, the easiest thing to do is just go to footballarchaeology.com. And, you know, at the end of every article, there's an opportunity to subscribe. Just hit the button to subscribe and sign up; it's free. And then every day, you'll get an email that, basically, seven o'clock Eastern, you'll get an email story.

Otherwise, you know, you can follow me. I'm still publishing on Twitter, threads, and the Substack app, or you can bookmark the site and show up whenever you want to. Yeah, and I must add that when you go into your Substack on footballarchaeology.com, on your Substack, and you go into the tidbit section, there's a nice little search function there. So if you want to look up, you know, anything else about, you know, coach Bobby Dodds on there, any other articles that you have them in there, it'll take you right to those and give you a nice listing.

You get a nice round, I guess, a full belly of what Bobby Dodds was to football. It's the footballarchaeology.com site. Tim, we really appreciate you coming on here and sharing this.

And we would love to talk to you again next Tuesday about some more great football. Very good. Look forward to it.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Intentional Grounding is not something you see every game, especially in the NFL, where once a QB leaves the pocket, the foul becomes non-existent. The history of the foul is almost as old as the forward pas itself, and our Guest Timothy Brown has written about this football no-no in a recent Tibit titled: How Intentional Grounding Came to Pass How Intentional Grounding Came to Pass

What is Intentional Grounding?

Intentional grounding is a penalty called against the offense when a passer throws a forward pass that meets these two criteria:

-Facing Imminent Loss of Yardage: The passer is facing pressure from the defense and is likely to lose significant yardage if he sacks the ball (takes a knee) or throws it away.

-No Realistic Chance of Completion: The pass is thrown towards an area of the field where there are no eligible receivers in the vicinity, or the receiver has little chance of catching the ball.

-Why is the Rule in Place?

The intentional grounding rule protects quarterbacks from unnecessary hits. Without this rule, quarterbacks under pressure might be more likely to force throws into tight coverage, risking interceptions and injuries.

-Exceptions:

There are a few exceptions to the intentional grounding rule:

-Spike: A quarterback can legally throw the ball directly into the ground to stop the clock (spike the ball) if he begins the throwing motion immediately after receiving the snap. Note this must be a hand to hand snap, as shotgun would make this be intentional grounding.

-Batted Ball: If a defender tips the ball at the line of scrimmage, it's not considered intentional grounding even if there's no receiver in the vicinity.

-NFL rules allow a QB to escape the pocket and void intentional grounding rules.

-Penalty:

The penalty for intentional grounding is a loss of yardage, typically 15 yards from where the passer released the pass. If the pass is intentionally grounding in the end zone, it results in a safety scoring two points for the defense.

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Football Archaeology takes an in-depth look at a unique down and distance measuring device from the late 1930s called the Honest Headlinesman.

The concept was said to be more accurate on the poorly lined grass fields of the era and would allow for a more "fair and level playing field " for the participants and an easier discernment by officials if the line to gain had been reached.

Football Archaeology has excellent details on the concept and some images of it and its use. Timothy Brown has a nose for the unique stories from football antiquity and can tell a tale to enlighten us of what those in the gridiron past were doing.

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In the hazy days of early American football, before forward passes soared and helmets resembled leather buckets, a curious rule reigned supreme: the fumble out of bounds. Unlike today's automatic touchback, a loose ball crossing the sidelines triggered a bizarre dance of possession.

Fumbles were not over until they were possessed by a player, even if they went out of bounds. This led to some crazy plays that Timothy P Brown of Football Archaeology discusses.

If the offense fumbled near their own end zone, the opposing team gained the ball at the point of recovery, no matter how deep it sailed out. Imagine the frantic scramble, desperation dives into sideline bleachers, and potential chaos as defensive players chased a wayward pigskin like oversized puppies after a chew toy.

However, if the fumble happened near the opponent's end zone, the offensive team retained possession even if it bounced through the stands and landed on a passing pigeon. This paradoxical scenario rewarded sloppiness near enemy territory, potentially turning fumbles into first downs through sheer serendipity.

This strange rule, abolished in the 1930s, reflected the nascent nature of the sport, where improvisation and quirky quirks abounded. While it introduced an element of slapstick into the game, it also highlighted the ever-evolving nature of football's laws, constantly adapting to the growing complexity and athleticism on the field. So, the next time you see a fumble careen towards the sideline, remember: it could have been a winning lottery ticket in the gridiron gamble of a bygone era.

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Timothy P Brown takes his Football Archaeology to a whole new level as he examines an innovation of Amos Alonzo Stagg.

A wind sprint is a short, intense burst of running at maximum speed, typically lasting between 20 and 60 meters (around 65 to 200 feet). It's a training exercise used by athletes in various sports, particularly those that require short bursts of speed like track and field runners, football players, and basketball players.

The exact origin of wind sprints is difficult to pinpoint, as running drills have been used for centuries to improve athletic performance.

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The brand of football played North of the border is closer to the original football formation than our American game. Rugby's very roots are still evident in the game, even in some of the scoring, such as the "single" or "rouge."

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology joins us to explain the history and scoring of the Rouge and the two-point conversions of North American football. This discussion is based on Tim's post from over a year ago titled The Rouge and the Two Point Conversion.

A podcast version of our conversation can be found at Rouge and Two-Point Conversion History with Tim Brown

A Brief History of Canada's Unique Scoring Play

The Canadian Football League (CFL) is known for its exciting, fast-paced brand of football, featuring more expansive fields, three downs, and a unique scoring system. One element that sets the CFL apart is the "rouge," a single point awarded under specific circumstances. Here's a look at the history of this fascinating scoring play.

The exact origin of the Rouge remains a mystery. Theories suggest that in the early days of Canadian football (derived from rugby in the mid-1800s), a red flag might have been used to signal the awarding of a single point. Unfortunately, concrete evidence for this practice is scarce.

While the red flag may be a matter of speculation, the official definition of the Rouge in the CFL rulebook is clear. It is awarded when:

-The offensive team advances the ball into the opponent's end zone, either through a punt, a missed field goal attempt, or a kickoff that goes out of bounds in the end zone (without being returned by the receiving team).

-The receiving team does not attempt to recover the ball in the end zone.

The Rouge adds a strategic layer to the CFL game. Teams often employ intentional punts or "coffin corner" kicks to force a rouge if they believe a touchdown is unlikely. This can create exciting situations where the receiving team must weigh the risk of attempting a potentially game-changing return against the guaranteed single point awarded by a rouge.

Full Transcription of conversation with Timothy Brown

Darin Hayes
We have a great episode for you tonight. It's Tuesday and we have Timothy P. Brown of footballarcheology .com joining us to talk about another one of his tidbits on football history. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Timothy Brown
Hey Darin, look forward to chatting once again about the Rouge or the single.

Darin Hayes
Rouge or a single! We have some Canadian football terms coming at us that many of us Americans are not as familiar with as the Rouge is in a single, and maybe you know some of that explanation will come in here with your article that you wrote a little over a year ago I believe Rouge and two-point conversion was the title of it and boy we'd love to hear your tale.

Timothy Brown
Yeah. So, uh, following up on what you just said, I would encourage people to watch Canadian football. Um, I mean, I think it's a really fun brand of football, very talented athletes. And I give in arguments with some Canadian folks online from time to time; they are not as good as the NFL players. That's all there is to it. But they're supremely talented, you know, athletes, they're really, they're really good. And it's just a fun, open game. It has played in an atmosphere that, to me, feels more like a college atmosphere than a pro atmosphere than an NFL atmosphere, which means I like it. So

Darin Hayes
It's fun, and you get to see a lot more. There are a lot of Americans at play; I think they're allowed to have, like, one -one-third of their team or something.

Timothy Brown
They have, kind of.

Darin Hayes
Go for it, but I know just from my area, you know, we had a couple of, uh, I think, uh, Trevor Harris is still quarterback, he, he quarterbacked at Edinburgh or my Alma mater, which was a few miles from here and Jovan Johnson is originally from Erie. I officiated when he played, and he was a cornerback for multiple teams up there and had a successful Canadian career. So that's a great game; it's wide-open, with three downs and a lot of passing. So it's, it's fun.

Timothy Brown
Well, so what's interesting is that you mentioned the Americans playing there, and it's the fact that I wrote this tidbit in reaction to a mistake made by an American player playing in Canada. So he's relatively, you know, a rookie, and relatively, you know, his early season game may have even been a preseason game. But so, you know, in Canadian football, when the ball, when a live ball goes into your end zone, that you know, the end zone or the end zone that you are defending, you have to get that ball out of there. Or else, the opposing team scores a point, which is kind of similar to safety. But Canadian football doesn't have a touchback. You know, they have safeties. However, what we would consider a touchback is the Rouge or the single; they get one point instead of two. And so it's kind of a, now, there are other rule changes that help that, you know, they've got the five-yard circle around somebody catching a punt. They also still have the return kick, which you don't see that often. But American football had the return kick until the mid-60s; at least colleges did. The return kick is any time a team gets possession of a ball; it could be from a fumble, it could be an intercepted pass, but most often, it came on a punt return. If you caught the punt, you could turn around and immediately kick the ball back to the team that punted it because it was all just a field possession kind of thing. And it was all a remnant of rugby. And so American football got rid of it because people stopped using it. But, you know, Canadian football hung on to it. So anyways, one way to get the ball out of the end zone is to boot, you know, pump it out. So anyways, so, again, the Rouge or single is scored when a live ball goes into the end zone, on a punt kickoff, field goal attempt, extra play attempt, and you know, you're responsible for getting it out of the end zone. If it goes into the end zone, it rolls out of the sideline, then the Rouge is automatic, or the single is automatic. But so it's really, I mean if you think about it at the core, it's a way to reward a team for gaining favorable field position. I mean, that's really what it's about.

Darin Hayes
Now, just to make this clear, this does not apply to a fumble recovery or an interception in the end zone, correct? Just the kicking game?

Timothy Brown
Uh, no, it's it's possible. I'm showing my ignorance, but no, I think anytime the ball enters the end zone.

Darin Hayes
OK, all right.

Timothy Brown
So yeah, so it's possible, and I could be wrong about that, but you know, that's.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, I'm not sure either.

Timothy Brown
As I've watched that, you know, sometimes somebody asked me a question like that about Canada. It's like, I'm not sure. I got to look it up. But so, so then let's switch to two-point conversion, which is why I'm trying to make a connection here that, like, you could add the Rouge to American football. And Americans would say, No, you can't add the Rouge. That's silly. Do you know why we would add the Rouge? We don't need it. But, you know, back in 1959, Fritz Kreisler was on, you know, he was a coach, and then he was AD at Michigan for years. He had been on the rules committee, you know, for at least 15 years by that time. He had been pushing for American football or for college football to add a two-point conversion because he thought the extra-point kick was just boring. He thought playing football was the most boring thing. So he was trying to end, you know, there were too many tie games back then he had he had it. So, you know, he thought it made sense to add the two-point conversion. Now, the two-point conversion actually originated in American football with six-man football. Because what? It was kind of the opposite. So, the two-point conversion is supposed to be a reward for doing it the hard way, right? So, supposedly, running or passing the ball into the end zone is harder than kicking. And so, in six-man football, it was the opposite. If you kicked it, you got two points. If you ran or passed it, you got one point because that was supposed to be harder. You know, you just had fewer players, less skilled players, you know, you had to have somebody who could snap the ball, somebody who could hold it, and somebody who could kick it. So I guess that's three things you need. So anyway, Chrysler finally convinced everybody to add the two-point conversion in 1958. And here's the crazy thing. This is how much football has changed, at least the kicking side of things. So, if you want, here's a quiz for you. In 1958, what percentage of kicked conversions were good? Or, you know, we're. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that.

Darin Hayes
So, so kicked conversion percentage, successful kicks in a college game in 58. I don't know. I'd say 50%.

Timothy Brown
Well, that's a pretty good guess, 48.6. So, what was the two-point conversion percentage?

Darin Hayes
Uh, I'm going to say maybe 25%.

Timothy Brown
51 .8. Really? Yeah, so teams were able to convert the two points at a higher rate than the kicked extra point.

Darin Hayes
Now, were they going from the three-yard line back then or from the two-yard line?

Timothy Brown
I'm not sure. I think it was the three.

Darin Hayes
Three, OK.

Timothy Brown
But what it really points to is how bad kicking was. I mean, I think in the late 50s, there were times, like in the entirety of college football, when there were less than 100 field goals made, at least among what we'd consider divisional on-team sound. I mean, mostly, they just didn't attempt to kick field goals very often because to kick a field goal, you needed a snapper, you needed a holder, and you needed a kicker. And all of them had to be on the field. This is before a lot of open substitution. So they had to all be on the field when you scored, with limited exceptions. And there were times when teams would substitute. But so teams just sucked at the extra point conversions. And at field goals, so they didn't try them very often. So anyway, it's just one of those things that now with specialist long snappers, and typically, it's the punter that is your holder nowadays. And you've got specialist kickers who are also soccer-style kickers, which very few were in 1958. The game is just the kicking game in particular. It's just changed so dramatically since then. So I don't know; it's just part of the reason I think the two-point conversion is great. In part, the Rouge is great because it forces coaches to make decisions. There's a strategic element to it. It's like pinch-hitting in baseball. There's an element of coaches having to make a choice. Then, the players have to be able to execute it. And so if you get the American rookie, he doesn't understand; he's got to get all out of the end zone. Then, the best lead coaching plan sometimes just doesn't work out.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, it's interesting that you say, you know, the specialist of the long snapper. I had a conversation; I had the honor of talking to Craig Colquitt. He was a punter for the Steelers in the late seventies and won a couple of Super Bowls with them. His two sons have both recently won Super Bowls in the NFL. And he was telling me we were talking, and he was, you know, he being the punter, he was first the holder for Roy Gerella and Matt Barr during those Steelers teams we played. And I asked him, I said, well, who's your long snapper then? And Mike Webster, you know, the Hall of Fame center who he was the long snapper and the center. And we forget, you know, that's not that long ago, you know, 40 years ago, that those guys were staying on the field and even doing special teams snapping the ball, whereas today, that's unheard of. I don't think there's any starting center that is the long snapper. And that's just odd how that's changed.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, well, I mean, and so it's even so when, you know, when I was in grad school, I had a chance to coach a couple of different colleges. And, and we didn't, you know, this is like, the early to mid-80s, we didn't have long snappers, you know, it wasn't an offensive tackle, or, you know, whoever it was, you know, sometimes you had a fullback who had learned to snap in high school. And so he was a snapper. It wasn't like, you know, you didn't have extra guys do that. Yeah. And so, you know, it's just one of those things.

Darin Hayes
But you would think today, I mean, there's a lot more shotgun and pistol formations where they're, they're long snapping on regular scrimmage plays. So these centers are used to putting everything back there.

Timothy Brown
It's a whole different thing. Tossing on a short snap on a shotgun versus a long snap. Long snap, both for a place kick or for punts especially. That's a whole different animal.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, that's a funny thing.

Timothy Brown
It's really a specialized technique, so I'm glad these guys make money doing it.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, that's for sure. They're making a lot of money doing it.

Timothy Brown
Yeah. Give me the NFL minimum salary any time you want. I'll take it.

Darin Hayes
Right? Yeah, I don't believe.

Timothy Brown
a

Darin Hayes
They don't let middle-aged men go into a fella and snappy specialist anymore. Tom Brady was pretty much that.

Timothy Brown
and NFL history.

Darin Hayes
right. Go back to what was the guy who wrote paper lions when he went back. He was a little younger than us, I think, when he did it. But George, that's a George pumpkin. Tim, you know, fascinating stuff, a very enjoyable, very interesting. And, you know, thank you for that explanation and give us a little look at Canadian football but also talking about the history of our game, which is always fascinating. And you do a lot of this in your tidbits and some of your other posts on your website. And if you can share with the listeners how they can take a look at your stuff and maybe, you know, subscribe to it and become a regular reader. We appreciate that.

Timothy Brown
As you know, my site is footballarchaeology.com. It's a Substack site. And so you can just go there and subscribe. If you subscribe, there are free and paid versions. You'll get an email every time I send out a new story. Alternatively, you can follow me on Substack app on threads or on Twitter. So on Twitter, I, you know, I post, you know, or respond to other people who are talking football. So there's some benefit to that, at least if you think I have anything to say. But, you know, I don't, yeah, that's it. I don't; everything I post is about football.

Darin Hayes
OK, well Tim, we really appreciate you coming on here and sharing this information and sharing the knowledge and preserving football history and we'd love to talk to you again next week.

Timothy Brown
All right. Very good. Look forward to it. Thanks.

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

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

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

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Football Archaeology goes in depth to some early examples of good sportsmanship by early football players, in avoiding dirty tactics of punishing injured players.

Timothy Brown shares a particular instance where fair play was out the window.

-Transcribed Conversation on Football Dirty Play with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to another Tuesday. FootballArcheology.com's Timothy P. Brown is joining us once again. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin. Thanks for having me once again.

I'm looking forward to chatting about old football stuff. Yeah, and we're going to ask you to keep it clean tonight. But I don't think we can possibly do that with the subject matter tonight because you recently wrote a tidbit titled Dirty Play and a Ring of Truth.

Maybe you could explain what that all means. Yeah, so, you know, it seems like I've had a number of tidbits recently where it starts in one direction and takes a turn, sometimes for the worse. Right.

And so this is one where I started by just telling a story of some examples in the old days, excuse me, of players and teams acting in a chivalrous manner. So, you know, I told a story about a 1953 Clemson quarterback, a guy named Don King, you know, told his team not to hit the Wake Forest quarterback in the knees because he'd sustained an injury. And so they complied.

And, you know, then he ends up winning a sports sportsmanship award. A similar thing happened back in 1925. Davis and Elkins go to Army.

They're playing Army. He's already got one of their quarterbacks hurt. The first-string quarterback gets dazed, probably concussed in the game.

He leaves the game. The second guy comes in. He sustained some kind of bodily injury, and he's out.

So they have to bring back this guy who was dazed and confused. Right. So the West Point trainer just approached the Davis and Elkins captain and said, hey, can you kind of take it easy on this guy? So Davis and Elkins complied.

And they basically took it easy on this quarterback for the rest of the game because they, you know, need the Army to have the guy there. But he shouldn't have been there. And just to ensure that we don't think that chivalrous things still happen in the games today.

The other night, I just, you know, happened to see a, you know, little clip from a high school game. And, you know, wide receivers going downfield get injured. And then, you know, his bad leg and, you know, one of his teammates kind of gets under his arm and helps him hop along.

A D-back from the opposing team jumps under the other arm and helps him off the field. So it's just a good kid trying to help his opponent, you know, so that's all good. Now, there are other times in football when people haven't acted that way.

And so, you know, back in 1926, Princeton and Harvard had a game, and there's just a lot of kind of stuff leading up to it. Princeton had won the last two years, so Harvard wasn't pleased with that because they thought they were better than Princeton. And Princeton was mad because it used to be, especially before the turn of the century, that Princeton and Yale finished the season with a game with one another.

But then it turned into a Harvard-Yale game that we all know ends the season in the Ivy League. But Princeton wanted it to rotate, you know, among the three teams. And Harvard was like, no, you know, we're not going to do that.

So, you know, Princeton was feeling like underappreciated and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, there's this kind of antagonistic relationship. And then so they're getting ready to play.

They're playing in Cambridge. On the morning of the game, the Harvard Lampoon, the student newspaper magazine, publishes a story about the Princeton coach dying. Now, he hadn't really died, but they still published a story about him dying, which the Princeton people didn't particularly appreciate.

So just lots of, you know, kind of ill will going in the game. And so I think the Princeton players did their best to take it out on the Harvard players. Six of the Harvard players had to leave the game with injuries.

And then Princeton wins 12-0. And, you know, it's just kind of this general ill feeling. But then, like at the end of December, early January, a former Harvard player publishes a story in some kind of social magazine or whatever it was.

But he publishes a story basically saying the Princeton players played dirty. You know, they did this and that. One piece that he used as evidence was that one of the Harvard's backs had a bloody nose and black eye.

And that area of his face or nose had a P imprinted on it. And it was because, you know, those signet rings where it's like a, you know, it's a ring that has like a letter on the ring. You know, they were claiming that a Princeton player wearing the letter P ring had punched this guy in the face and left this imprint in his face.

So, you know, apparently, you know, no one else backed this guy up. You know, none of the other people verified it. And all of Princeton's people were up in arms about it.

And they were basically saying, hey, nobody around Princeton wears a P signet ring. But there was one guy, their star player at the time, named Prendergast. And he was like, hey, my last name begins with P. So, guess where that came from? You know, and I don't think that was true.

But, you know, he was just going to keep things stirred up. So Prendergast would be better than Princeton. If anybody actually slugged this guy in the face with the P ring, it was Prendergast.

So anyway, that's kind of the gist of the story. But Harvard, yeah, Harvard and Princeton did not play football against one another for another eight years. So they definitely were not, they weren't, they weren't on, you know, nice, pleasant speaking terms at that darn Prendergast.

He's ruined football for that game for a couple of years. That's wow. That is an amazing part of football there.

Go ahead. And the funny the funny thing, too, is that I. Recently had another tidbit talking about the the executioner's helmets, you know, where they had the mask, so just a normal leather helmet. But then they'd have this mask across the front.

One of the images in that story is of Prendergast going to Princeton in the 1924 season because he had broken a nose and needed surgery in high school. And so then, you know, there were times when his nose got busted up again in college. And so he'd wear that executioner's mask.

So he knew. You know all about broken noses and that sort of thing. Wow.

That is a great story. I thought at first you were going to tell us that, you know, Mrs. Brown put a bee on your head when you didn't take out the garbage or something. But no, in my family, it would be the back of the frying pan or something.

You know, yeah, my wife's shorter than me. So her arms aren't that long. And so, you know, and plus, I'm, you know, you know, float like a butterfly.

So I could I could avoid her. Well, I see. I just think I just saw something flying across the room.

No, I'm just kidding. So, wow, that is a great story. There's, you know, really some opportunity for folks playing football, especially down in the piles.

You know, everybody that's played, we all know there's bad things that happen down there if somebody really wants to do something. And it's really hard for an official to see something that's happening down there. You have guys popping up all the time saying, hey, you know, he punched me in a place he shouldn't punch and, you know, pinch me, bite me or whatever, you know, you have all kinds of crazy things.

So it's nice to hear the the chivalrous episodes like you talked about, even in modern times, or players just. I mean, it's a brotherhood. And these guys are all trying to enjoy playing the same game.

And there should be some camaraderie to it. And it's great when that happens. But every once in a while, you get these bad apples and these scoundrels that decide to take things in a different course.

And they're interesting stories, but not fun if you're the recipient. That's for sure. Yeah.

And well, part of it, too, is, you know, you just, I think we have the impression of the Ivy League is being, you know, these nice. Nice fellows. And that definitely has not always been the case.

And they have some beautiful signature rings, too. Yes. Yes.

All right, Tim. Well, that is a great thing. That's not something you hear anywhere else.

But from you, some of these great little innovative stories that you've come across that are unique to the game of football but tell a certain history of the game and, you know, really round out our appreciation for what players have done and maybe not appreciate something that others have done. But it's all part of the game of football. And you talk about it each and every day.

You have a great little newsletter. Many different sources send it to folks every day. Maybe you could tell us about that and how people can join in.

Yeah. All you have to do is go to footballarchaeology.com. And, you know, if you are pretty much all over the place, you read an article, and you have an opportunity to subscribe. And if you subscribe, you can get an email in your inbox every night at seven o'clock or, you know, Eastern or so.

And, you know, then read it at your leisure, delete it, whatever you want to do. If you don't want the newsletter, you can follow me on Twitter, threads, or the Substack app. And those are also just, you know, search for football archaeology.

You'll find me. That's my name on each of those three apps. OK, and his name is Timothy P. Brown, not the name on the Substack apps, but he has footballarchaeology.com. Tim, we thank you for joining us.

And we will talk to you again next Tuesday.

Always appreciate the opportunity to talk football. Thanks there.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.