Timothy P. Brown's Blog, page 6

Today's Tidbit... Offensive Plays of 1947 or 1955

This is the fourth in a series concerning Everybody's Football, a Massachusetts Mutual Life advertising premium from 1955. The book explains various elements of the game as it existed at that time. Previous stories from the series include:

Offensive Formations in 1955

Offensive Formations in 1955, Part II

Everybody's Football, Authors and Illustrator

Today, we move from covering formations to plays. As mentioned in yesterday's article, they released Everybody's Football in 1947, and I'm working from...

Today's Tidbit... Everybody's Football, Authors and Illustrator

This the third in a series concerning Everybody’s Football, a Massachusetts Mutual Life advertising premium from 1955. The book explains various elements of the game as it existed then. Previous stories from the series include:

Offensive Formations in 1955

Offensive Formations in 1955, Part II

As I prepared another article related to Everybody's Football today, I remembered that the Massachusetts Mutual Life giveaway was an updated version of an earlier book. One of the opening pages indicates that...

Pigskin Dispatch Podcast... Parke H. Davis, the Badger

Pigskin Dispatch’s Darin Hayes and I cover a Tidbit about Parke H. Davis, football’s first historian. A backup lineman at Princeton, Davis spent the following fall in Madison, coaching and playing for Wisconsin. We discuss that season and the many others in which Davis kept his hand in the game.

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

Football Archaeology is reader-supported. Click here to buy one of my books, donate, or otherwise support the site.

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Today's Tidbit... Offensive Formations in 1955, Part II

This the second in a series showing elements of Everybody’s Football, a Massachusetts Mutual Life advertising premium from 1955. The book explains various elements of the game as it existed at the time. Previous stories from the volume include:

Offensive Formations in 1955

The first story in the series covered the Single Wing, Notre Dame Box or Shift, Double Wing, T Formation, the Split T and Wing T. Today, we cover the Punt Formation, Short Punt, Triple Wing, and the Spread.

Few of us today view t...

Today's Tidbit... Offensive Formations in 1955

Regular readers know I collect football-related advertising premiums and regularly use them in stories. Besides being inexpensive, they typically summarize the previous season, project the coming season, detail the upcoming schedule, and add bonus information of various sorts. Overall, they provide point-in-time summaries of the state of football for a given year, and many offer great commercial art of the period.

Most advertising premiums were small giveaway brochures given to any customer or ne...

Pigskin Dispatch Podcast... Minnesota's Spinner Series

Pigskin Dispatch’s Darin Hayes and I cover a Tidbit about Minnesota’s spinner series in 1946. Much of the discussion centers on the precision of the spinner series and the running game generally versus the primitive passing game of the era.

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

Football Archaeology is reader-supported. Click here to donate a couple of bucks, buy one of my books, or otherwise support the site.

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Today's Tidbit... A Look Back At Snapping Between The Quarterback's Legs

Football has evolved and changed its rules over the years, perhaps more than any other sport. The need for so many changes likely results from football’s system of downs and its resulting structured play involving 22 or 24 players at a time. The combination has allowed players and coaches to regularly devise new tactics, some of which are deemed unsafe, unsportsmanlike, or just unappealing, so rules are made to discourage one thing and encourage another.

One tactic that has popped up from time to...

Today's Tidbit... Football and Facial Hair

I've never cared much about facial hair or skinny jeans since my pull from the hereditary lottery provided limited facial hair and no skinny genes. Nevertheless, for the fourth time in my life, I am letting my facial hair grow out and will see if my friends and neighbors notice. They never have in the past.

Anyway, the stubble got me thinking about facial hair in the context of football. Beards and mustaches were popular in American society when football began, so facial hair was common among foo...

Today's Tidbit... Putting Offensive Football On Hold

I haven't posted much lately since I'm working hard to finish my next book, but here's a story from our old friend, Walter Camp. You can find this information in Walter Camp's The Book of Foot-Ball, published in 1910, which you can download for free from the Library of Congress.

The story concerns why football prohibited offensive players from using their arms when blocking for many years. In its early days, football was rugby. Americans adopted England's Rugby Union Rules in 1876, other than a ...

Pigskin Dispatch Podcast... Factoid Feast XV

Pigskin Dispatch’s Darin Hayes and I cover a Factoid Feast that covers Carlisle’s Bemus Pierce’s punt with great hang time, Bennie Owen’s locker room innovation, and the Army-Navy Life Trophy once awarded to the winner of the Army-Navy game.

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

Football Archaeology is reader-supported. Click here to buy one of my books or otherwise support the site.

Subscribe now