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Home , College football, Flat (gridiron football), Scrum (rugby), The Harvard Advocate

[H]ISTORY HOW “ EXPLAINS AMERICA The excerpt from How Football Explains America by Sal Paolantonio is reprinted with permission from triumphbooks.com

Long before And here was a as we know it, there was rugby. And it was boring. Here was RESTLESS NATION in the this primitive Old World game, brought over from England and year 1876, the year of played mostly by college boys at Harvard, Princeton, and Rut- the Centennial, when gers. And here was a restless na- tion in the year 1876, the year of THE THIRST for new the Centennial, when the thirst for new territory, for westward territory, for westward expansion, seemed unquench- able. So, it didn’t fit. Football, as expansion, seemed it was being played by European rules in the New World, wasn’t UNQUENCHABLE. So, it an attractive game. The rules of the London Football Associa- didn’t fit. Football, as tion called for players from both teams to mass about the , all it was BEING PLAYED by trying to kick it out to a team- mate. In essence, soccer—with European RULES in the a .

New World, wasn’t an “The rules,” wrote , the founding football father attractive game.” from Yale, in his landmark book American Football, first published in 1891, “forbade any one’s pick- ing up, carrying, or throwing the ball in any part of the field. There were no ‘off’ or ‘on’ side rules, and the goals were made by sending the ball under the crossbar instead of over it. Fouls were penalized by making the player who had committed the foul toss the ball straight up in the air from the place where the foul occurred, and it was unfair to touch the ball until it struck the ground.”

Under these rules—this is hardly what we now call football—

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Instead, one team was given possession of the ball, and a line of “ scrimmage was created—a line on the fi eld clearly delineating which team had the ball, and which team did not.

Princeton and Rutgers played competed under the I modifi ed American audience gaining in a game in 1869, a contest that Boston Game. Something had literacy rates and sophistication. has often been called the fi rst to be done. Th e four schools ‘The MAN who fi rst intercollegiate American foot- held a convention on Novem- Possession, the ability to quickly ball game. But this Old World ber 26, 1876, in Springfi eld, advance to the ball, hold the RECEIVES the ball from game—a blend of soccer and Massachusetts, and formed the territory, and advance—these the -back shall rugby—had no compelling ac- Intercollegiate Football Asso- American concepts needed to be tion or story line. It was just a ciation. Th e Harvard boys con- incorporated into the European be the mass of humanity moving in vinced the group to adopt the game, the writer argued. Ameri- called what was then called a “scrum- Boston Game. It was far more can players and, more important, mage.” Not enough happened. compelling. It simply asked the American audiences wanted it. ,’ the Th ere was no premium placed players to do more in more wide- Fans “demanded action,” wrote on advancing the ball, capturing open space. Parke H. Davis in Football: Th e new rule stated.” territory, quickly defeating your American Intercollegiate Game. opponent—the core of what For the next six years—while “A great clamor broke out.” America was becoming. And the the nation was undergoing rapid players and, most important, the change in every other walk of So, the tinkering was over. Time spectators quickly grew tired of it. life, and while the best and the for dramatic change. Th e year brightest from the top eastern was 1880. Another convention Th e boys at Harvard made the schools were being drawn to the was held. Th is time, representa- fi rst move. Th ey called it “the wide-open opportunity of west- tives from Boston Game,” which allowed ward expansion—this new “foot- joined in. fans were running with the football and ball” game still proved to be too among the most clamorous for tackling. Th eir game was a lit- slow, too stodgy for the players change. First thing to go: the tle more open and much more and the fans. Indeed, there were scrum. It suggested everything physical brand of rugby that had too few of the latter. An analysis that was un-American: a mass of for years been played in Wales without a byline in the Princeton- humanity moving in no particu- and England. Still, it wasn’t a far ian in 1879 off ered an opinion of lar direction, with no particular cry from “kicking a pig’s blad- the game that demanded action: purpose. Instead, one team was der in skylarking fashion after “Keeping the ball and working it given possession of the ball, and Th anksgiving dinner,” as Camp by passing, running, and rushing a was cre- described early football in Amer- is superior to the kicking game ated—a line on the fi eld clearly ica. As the Harvard Advocate said now in vogue.” delineating which team had the in 1874, the Boston Game was ball, and which team did not. much better “than the some- Not bad for 1879. Blame this what sleepy game now played by mystery man in Princeton, New “A scrimmage takes place when our men.” Jersey, for America ditching soc- the holder of the ball, being in cer. Th at analysis argued that the fi eld of play, puts it on In 1876, however, Princeton adding these upgrades would the ground in front of him and and the University of Pennsylva- make the game more competi- puts it in play with his foot,” nia still competed under soccer tive for the players and a more said Amendment #1, adopted rules, while Harvard and Yale compelling story line for an in 1880. Okay, so it’s not exactly

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[H]ISTORY REMEMBER, this was Jeff Saturday snapping the ball Ah, Manifest Destiny! Now, to . We’re not that’s something American foot- happening at the there yet. ball players and spectators could embrace. Capture territory. Hold height of the “The man who first receives the it. Advance. ball from the snap-back shall WILD WEST—in all its be called the quarterback,” the Remember, this was happening at By the 1890s, crowds of 10,000 , and Yale—and recre- new rule stated. So, here’s where the height of the Wild West—in and 20,000 fans were routine. ated the game on what the news- rationalized glory. Manning’s prototype is born. By all its rationalized glory. America And interest in the game quickly paper called a “Miniature Grid- creating the position of “quarter- needed a game that had a chance migrated west. The University iron,” a diorama displayed in a AMERICA needed back,” football’s founders created to reflect this bold, multilayered of Michigan, which began foot- picture window in the front of a man on the field who would panorama of experiences. ball in 1878, went east as early the building. Hundreds of foot- a game that HAD A stand out among equals (a deli- as 1881 to play the ball fans would gather in front ciously American concept that “The Rugby code was all right teams. The father of the mid- of the building, waiting for the chance to reflect this needs plenty of interpretation). for Englishmen who had been western game, Amos Alonzo game’s drama to unfold, play by brought up upon traditions as old Stagg, created a squad at the play, on a replica of the field. BOLD, MULTILAYERED That was not enough. Another and as binding as the laws them- , and the Think of the electric football convention was held in 1882, selves,” wrote Camp. American Chicago Tribune and other mid- game we played as kids grow- panorama and the participants implement- football, he wrote, was evolving western newspapers responded ing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, ex- ed a great idea, an idea complete- from “the nondescript running by writing about the game in all cept the pieces on the field were of experiences.” ly foreign to the football/rugby/ and kicking.” Camp wanted to its violent glory. moved by hand, one by one. soccer players around the world: bring scholarship and rationality the concept of the first down. to the game, make the game look Teams from the East boarded That’s just how attractive the nar- It was like somebody flipped a more like his country. buses and headed west to play, rative of the game of football had light switch. too. And this left fans in Phila- become, nearly overnight. Inter- So, back to the simple rule delphia and New York, now estingly, there was nothing simi- Here was the new rule they creat- change, the creation of the first fully engaged in the stories of lar to the “Miniature Gridiron” ed: “If, on three consecutive fairs down simply mirrored the na- their gridiron heroes, starving for baseball, even as that sport and downs, a team shall not have tion’s quest for territory. As ad- for updates. grew in popularity. Why? There advanced the ball five yards or lost vancing the ball became more were clearly more baseball games ten, they must give up the ball to innovative, the first down rule So, The Inquirer available to attend during the the other side at the spot where would be changed from five came up with a pretty ingenious spring and summer. But a base- the fourth down was made.” yards to ten. With these new idea—an idea that is the forefa- ball game goes at a much slower rule changes, with the use of ter- ther of the American sports bar. pace, making updates much few- It was a somewhat backhanded ritorial advancement in five- and It’s not quite twelve flat screens er and far between. The narrative way of saying that the team with then ten-yard increments, there showing every game of the NFL’s takes place at a much slower rate. possession must advance the ball would be a defined structure to But it also served another pur- Ticket. But for 1896, it Fans would probably not stand five yards or surrender it. But, the game, allowing for the for- pose. Not everybody could go would do. The editors of the In- for that. more important, it meant that if mation of a narrative and the cre- fight on the frontier or whip out quirer took the teletype updates of the team with the ball advanced ation of another set of stories to a pistol in Tombstone. What University of road Thus, the “Miniature Gridiron” it five yards, it kept the ball and satiate the American public. And was happening in the capture football games—at Columbia, really foreshadows why America’s the territory it had earned and it happened almost instantly. and surrender of territory on the game of football was perfectly kept going—kept possession of football field in urban settings suited for television. The picture the football. It was the daily press in New York, back east was a mythological ex- window in the front of the In- Boston, and Philadelphia— hop- tension of what was happening Hundreds of football fans would gather in front quirer was shaped like the field, So, that rule also established pos- ing to build its readership, of from Missouri to Arizona. and the action is linear—the session—another particularly course—that went looking for of the building, waiting for the game’s drama to march to gain territory, all hap- American notion. But to clearly stories on the football field. As “The champions of necessary pening in a definable rectangular translate the American geopo- the game opened up, it became roughness” in the new American unfold, play by play, on a replica of the field. space shaped like the country litical mind-set of the time to a more of a story. The characters, game of football, writes Oriard itself. A newspaper picture win- game on the field, there needed with the invention of the quar- in Reading Football, “were con- dow was the forefather of the TV to be one more critical change terback and other distinct po- cerned that the ‘free-born Ameri- set—both, in essence, a mirror of in the game: the team possessing sitions, became more defined. can college boys’ might lose their H American society. [AL] the ball had to be able to advance To be sure, early sportswriters instincts of their ancestral ‘fight- it—while holding onto the ter- were encouraged by their edi- ers from way back.’” ritory it had already captured. tors to glorify the game’s blood That was critical: hold and ad- and violence. It was a way to These games vance. Or surrender. sell newspapers. quickly gained in popularity.

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