Timothy P. Brown's Blog, page 21

Terminology: 1,000-Yard Rusher

I started publishing Football Archaeology 1,000 days ago today, so applaud if you must, but that realization led me to return to a favorite theme: the emergence of football terms. I chose to investigate the origins of the "1,000-yard rusher," which was once among the highest achievements in football.

My third book, Hut! Hut! Hike!, investigated the origins of 400+ football terms, but 1,000-yard rusher was not among the chosen 400. There was only so much room in that book, so I skipped it and othe...

Pigskin Dispatch Podcast... The Mother of All Overhand Spirals

Pigskin Dispatch podcaster Darin Hayes and I discuss Frank Hering, who Amos Alonzo Stagg claimed threw overhand spirals as far back as 1894. Hering went on to coach and play for Bucknell and Notre Dame before becoming the first to promote the idea behind one of America’s cherished holidays.

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

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1883 Michigan-Harvard Game

Michigan's 1883 team was the only non-Eastern team playing football at their level. This series uses period publications to cover Michigan's trip east to play Wesleyan, Harvard, Yale, and the Stevens Institute in nine days.

Previous posts in the series: Intro | Wesleyan ($) | Yale ($)

Michigan traveled east from Ann Arbor and arrived in Hartford shortly before their Monday afternoon game with Wesleyan. They played Yale on Wednesday in New Haven and then traveled to Cambridge for a Thursday game wi...

Yale's 1901 Bicentennial Team, The Most Accomplished Team Ever?

It's common to see writers and panels name all-time football teams that ignore those who did not play in the last 50 years. While acknowledging the difficulty of comparing players across eras, folks ought to occasionally give it the old college try.

Today's Tidbit flips the script by reviewing an old-time team that might have been the most accomplished ever to take the field. Among the twenty-two players suited up that day were eight Yale captains, seven College Football Hall of Fame members, and...

Turn-of-the-Century Fan Traditions

As we conclude the formerly traditional bowl season, we should consider once-popular fan traditions that we no longer practice, at least most of them.

Throughout the game's history, part of the joy of football fandom has come from anticipating upcoming games. Even the worst teams offered fans a few kernels of hope that victory would come on Saturday. Today's talking heads and the writing heads of the past shared insights about each team's talents, health, psychology, and expected strategies durin...

Pa Corbin and A Trick Well Executed

William Herbert “Pa” Corbin (FindAGrave)

Football centers have snapped the ball with their hands since 1893 or 1894, but they snapped it with their feet until then or kicked it forward to put it in play. Beginning in 1876, football followed slightly modified Rugby Union rules, so play largely amounted to a mass of players on either side pushing, pushing, and kicking the ball toward their opponent's goal. Play was continuous; there wasn't a designated player who started play by snapping the ball.

W...

Tournament Park: Before They Built The Rose Bowl

My favorite element of college football is the Rose Bowl. Nothing else compares. As a kid, it was a location and game my Badgers aspired to reach and never did. The latter changed over time, but my view of the Rose Bowl as college football's nirvana remains unchanged. Whatever playoff system we're using this year and beyond may change my view of the Rose Bowl, and that is unfortunate since I am probably too old to find a new favorite aspect of the game, though I'll try.

Part of what I love about ...

The First New Year's Eve Bowl Game

There may have been an earlier college football bowl game on New Year's Eve, but the earliest I found came in 1968, when Houston hosted the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl, raising issues we continue to witness in college football today.

The Bluebonnet Bowl logo (Wiki)

The bowl began life in 1959 as the Bluebonnet Bowl and featured a team from Texas or Tulsa. It typically drew 50,000+ fans into Rice Stadium, especially when the Longhorns were one of the invitees. Played during the week before Christmas, man...

Boning Up On The 1933 Cleveland Bulldogs

There have been several Cleveland football teams that used the Bulldogs name. One played in the NFL from 1924 to 1927, winning the 1924 championship. Another was a professional football team that took the field during the 1933 season. They were supposed to play a few NFL teams that year but mostly played teams a step below the NFL and a step above semi-pro. While the 1933 Bulldogs had success on the field, they struggled at the gate, shut down after the season, and are remembered today for their...

Tumbleweeds and the Football Helmet Logo Whodunnit

While researching the adoption of helmet logos by NFL teams in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I came across stories indicating that one artist created the logos used by the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants, the Dallas Cowboys' "riding cowboy" alternate logo, and a Cleveland Browns logo that never saw use.

The artist was Tom K. Ryan, who passed away in 2019. He is best known for his syndicated cartoon strip, Tumbleweeds, published from 1965 to 2007.

(The Comics Journal)

Before Tumbleweeds' suc...