Timothy P. Brown's Blog, page 12

Today's Tidbit... 1943 Tulsa and Wartime Conditions

Special thanks to Russell Roberts for suggesting the wartime Tulsa teams as a Tidbit topic.

Henry Frnka had one of the best tenures ever as the coach at a mid-major football program when he led Tulsa from 1941 to 1945, taking them to their first five bowl games while accumulating a 40-9-1 record. While his 1942 squad was his best, ending the season ranked #4, his 1943 team had the most interesting roster, coming as it did in the middle of WWII.

(1945 Tulsa yearbook)

Frnka played at Austin College a...

Today's Tidbit... The Wonderful World of Striped Footballs in 1951

A little over a week ago, I wrote about the ring cleat, a football equipment innovation that did not pan out, after coming across a listing for the shoes in the 1951 MacGregor Goldsmith Fall and Winter catalog. The same catalog contained another fun surprise, a two-page spread featuring numerous double-striped football models, even a few rubber balls.

The NFL does not stripe its footballs today, though they once did. High school, college, and Canadian footballs have one-inch white stripes on eith...

A Yalie Coaches the 1908 Iowa College / Grinnell Team

The composite RPPC below shows the 1908 football team for Iowa College, a school most have never heard of, though it was the first liberal arts college west of the Mississippi. Founded in Davenport in 1846, it relocated to Grinnell, Iowa, in 1858. They renamed it Grinnell College in 1909, making the pictured players the last to take the field under the Iowa College banner, though newspapers commonly referred to the school and team as Grinnell long before the formal name change.

Coach Leon H. Andr...

Terminology: Bull Rush, Swim Technique, and Forearm Shiver

I fell while running in a local 5K recently and have struggled to lift my left arm ever since, so today, I had surgery to repair the torn supraspinatus and subscapularis tendons atop and at the front of the shoulder. I wrote and scheduled this Tidbit in advance and have a few others in the larder, but my ability to consistently produce Tidbits near-term is unclear. Let's hope for the best.

To prepare for my rotator cuff surgery, I wrote a Tidbit about how those with functioning shoulders use thei...

Today's Tidbit... Referees Awarding Points

Today, when the offense commits a foul while behind its goal line, the defense earns a safety if the enforcement of the penalty would leave the ball on or behind the goal line. That approach became part of football's 1900 rules after a controversy arose in a Philadelphia-area high school game in 1899.

Committing a penalty behind the goal line is one of several situations today in which officials effectively award points to one team or the other, but there was another circumstance in the past that...

Pigskin Dispatch Podcast... Letter from a Ewbank

Pigskin Dispatch podcaster Darin Hayes and I discuss my finding two letters from 1928 sent from one semi-pro football team to another. The letters tie into an extended story of two brothers involved in the team, one of them being Weeb Ewbank.

Watch or listen to the podcast here and/or read the original Tidbit.

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Today's Tidbit... A CFL-NFL Penalty Comparison for Victoria Day

It's Victoria Day in Canada tomorrow, a federal holiday and the unofficial start of summer. Besides having the day off work for most Canadians, they can watch the opening game of the CFL preseason, with the Calgary Stampeders visiting the British Columbia Lions at 4 Eastern time. Those south of the "imaginary line" can stream the game on CFL+ for free.

Since Canadians have the day off and Americans are penalized by having to work on Monday, it is a good day to compare how CFL penalties compare to...

Today's Tidbit... The Innovative Ring Cleat

Football coaches perceived increased injuries in the late 1940s, leading many in the broader football industry to consider why that might be the case. According to many, the main culprit was the plastic helmet, which arrived in 1940, but sales did not take off starting until 1946 when plastics again became available for civilian use.

Among those who studied the problem was Frank Kavanagh, Cornell's athletic trainer. Kavanagh was a real Irishman, not an American who claimed the label based on mult...

Today's Tidbit... Getting Married Bowl Game Morning

It is bad luck to schedule a wedding on a Saturday during football season, largely because some of your best friends may choose to attend the game rather than your wedding. Few couples whose friends are sports fans make that mistake, but in at least one case, a three-time All-American said his wedding vows the morning of a bowl game.

The Centre-Texas A&M game in the 1922 Dixie Classic is best known to college fans today as the day Texas A&M's 12th Man tradition began. Teams did not dress many pla...

Today's Tidbit... What Color Is Your Pair of Pants (and Jersey)?

Many of our visual images of 1920s football come from black-and-white photographs from college yearbooks, newspapers, and other periodicals. With many of those images, it is difficult to distinguish the two teams unless one has striped sleeves, socks, or they vary in the pattern of the friction strips on their jerseys.

However, people in the 1920s did not live in a black-and-white world or play football in one. They wore ribbons and waved pennants in school colors, while those on the field genera...