Timothy P. Brown's Blog, page 89
February 4, 2023
"How Football's Zebras Got Their Stripes" on Uni Watch
The other day I included a link in a Tidbit to my 2020 article, How Football’s Zebra’s Got Their Stripes. The article caught the eye of the gents at Uni Watch, so they asked to republish it on their site this morning. So, look at the article on Football Archaeology using the link above, or head over to Uni Watch for the same content.
Either way, I hope you enjoy it!
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February 3, 2023
Today’s Tidbit… IFA Rule #16 Goal Line
This is #16 in a series covering football’s original 61 rules adopted by the Intercollegiate Football Association in 1876. We review one rule each Friday.
As the mishmash of kicking games in the United Kingdom began separating into distinct games in the 1850s and 1860s, the Association game (aka soccer) went down a path in which the ball could not be handled (carried in the hands), with goals scored by kicking the ball under the opponent’s crossbar.
Rugby took a different route. Goals were scored ...
February 2, 2023
Today's Tidbit... Triple Timing in Boonville, Missouri
Boonville, Missouri, sits on the Missouri River about 25 miles west of Columbia. Named after Daniel Boone's sons, it was a key launching point for those heading west on the Santa Fe Trail and was home to Kemper Military School, so it had a lot going on for a town unknown to most.
Boonville High School had a football team early in the 1900s. While information about the BHS team is limited, several images help us understand the football experience from their glory days.
Although they shared the sam...
February 1, 2023
Today's Tidbit... Moving The 1942 East-West Shrine Game
Most everyone that follows football history is aware that the 1942 Rose Bowl moved to Durham, North Carolina, due to concern the Japanese might follow the attack on Pearl Harbor attack with one on Pasadena when 92,000 Americans planned to gather for a football game. Less recognized are the parallel transfers of the East-West Shrine Bowl from San Francisco's Kezar Stadium to Tulane Stadium in New Orleans and the shift of the Pro Bowl from the Los Angeles Coliseum to New York’s Polo Grounds.
The fi...
January 31, 2023
Today's Tidbit... Football's Heaviest Player Pre-WWI
During the first eighty or ninety years of football, the linemen were often the same size as the backs, though there were occasional guards like Pudge Heffelfinger, who carried 210 pounds while playing at Yale from 1888 to 1891. Pudge's size was legendary, in part, due to pairing it with tremendous mobility.
Pudge Heffelfinger and halfback Lee McClung at Yale in 1891. (Yale University Library)Another sizable early player was Tiny Maxwell, whose 240 pounds moved the needle on the scale while donni...
Pigskin Dispatch Podcast: Football at the Kentucky School for the Blind
Pigskin Dispatch podcaster Darin Hayes and I discuss a recent TidBit about football being played by students at the Kentucky School for the Blind shortly after the forward pass came along. Click here to listen, or subscribe to Pigskin Dispatch wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen in as we cover this amazing story!
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January 30, 2023
Today's Tidbit... Happy Birthday, FDR, A Second-String Lineman
The first future U.S. President known to play football was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, born 141 years ago today. Although young FDR achieved the highest score among his Groton classmates on Harvard's entrance exam, he was not a gifted athlete. He tried out for the baseball team early in his Groton days but did not make the roster and became the team manager instead.
FDR stands third from right with the Groton School baseball team. (National Archives, 196066388)FDR also played football as a second-...
Hut! Hut! Hike!: Two-A-Days
The Hut! Hut! Hike! series examines the origins of football terminology and how the game’s evolution drove changes in its vocabulary. Over 400 football terms are defined in my book of the same name (published in November 2022). This article (#1 in the new series) is available to paid subscribers.
Few football terms combine a sense of joy and horror as well as “two-a-days.” The term brings delight and optimism in that every team begins practice anticipating a winning season, but the start of pract...
January 29, 2023
Today's Tidbit... Old and New Football: Harvard-Yale of 1906
The 1906 Harvard-Yale game included numerous elements of old-school football, but the game's sole touchdown came following two plays enabled by the 1906 rule changes. One involved an onside kick from scrimmage and the other a forward pass.
Both teams entered the game undefeated. Yale was 9-0-1, having tied Princeton 0-0 the week before, while Harvard was 10-0, partly due to their refusing to play Princeton between 1897 and 1910.
As always, the game attracted a capacity crowd to Yale Field. The cro...
January 28, 2023
Today's Tidbit... A Tall Tale About Coaching Towers
A tower looms behind the stands at an unknown location, c. 1925. (Personal collection)Bob Dylan wrote All Along the Watchtower in 1966 or 1967 when recuperating from a motorcycle accident, none of which has anything to do with football other than the reference to watchtowers, which football coaches have used since at least the early 1920s. Some coaches built towers at smaller stadiums to film games or to give assistant coaches a high-level perspective on the action occurring on the field. Howeve...
