Posted on 09/08/2010 12:27:27 PM PDT by Kaslin
It is ironic that the most boring contest ever played -- the Princeton-Yale game of 1881 -- helped make American football the world's greatest game.
The college men who invented American football in the decades after the Civil War approached the game with the same imaginative spirit that drove American capitalism in that era. When their invention did not work, they simply reinvented it -- until they developed something thrilling to players and fans alike.
Even the dullness of the 1881 Princeton-Yale game was driven by an irrepressible inventiveness.
The rules and precedents of that year gave Princeton an incentive to develop a game plan for a scoreless tie -- and they executed it with mind-numbing brilliance.
How did such an incentive arise?
Games containing the essential elements of football have existed since ancient Greece. But written rules for such games are relatively new in the English-speaking world. It was only in 1871 that the Rugby Football Union drafted its initial rules at a London restaurant.
Two years before that, when Princeton and Rutgers competed in the first-ever home-and-home intercollegiate football series, each game was played by the home school's rules. Both were more like soccer than either rugby or American football.
After watching Harvard play rugby against Canada's McGill in 1874, players at Princeton and Yale decided it was a better game. As recounted by early football historian Parke H. Davis (a former Princeton player and Lafayette and Wisconsin coach), two Princeton players invited counterparts from Harvard, Yale and Columbia to meet in Springfield, Mass., on Nov. 26, 1876, to form an "Intercollegiate Football Association" and adopt a uniform set of rugby-style rules.
Yale objected to two of the rules adopted: one allowing teams to field 15 players (as opposed to the 11 Yale wanted); another that included touchdowns as part of a complicated scoring system (Yale wanted only kicked goals counted).
As related by the late Delaware football coach David Nelson in "Anatomy of a Game," Yale player Walter Camp attended the 1878 IFA meeting, calling for a reduction to 11 players. He was ignored. Princeton defeated Yale that year and took the national title.
Camp attended the IFA meeting in 1879, again calling 11-player teams and also for safeties to count in the scoring. At the time, a team making a safety lost no points and got to retain possession at its own 25 yard line. Camp's proposals were rejected again. That year Yale tied Princeton 0 to 0, while Yale only took two (unscored) safeties to Princeton's five.
The IFA gave Princeton the title -- carrying over its 1878 championship.
Camp again attended the 1880 IFA meeting. This time, he won two rule changes. Teams were restricted to 11 players. More fundamentally, one team at a time would now be given undisputed possession of the ball, which they could put in play be snapping it back -- by foot -- from a scrimmage line. American football left rugby behind.
"This is the device which introduced into our game the principle of an orderly retention of the ball by one side, thereby making possible the use of prearranged strategy, the most distinctive and fascinating characteristic of the American game," wrote Parke Davis.
Yet there was no limit to the number of downs a team could keep the ball, so long as it did not fumble or kick downfield.
In the second half of that year's Princeton-Yale game, with the score tied 0 to 0, Princeton held the ball to run out the clock. In the process, the Tigers took 11 unscored safeties. Princeton then claimed it had retained a national title it had not won on the field for two years. Yale claimed the title for itself.
The 1881 IFA meeting adopted a rule to give negative value to safeties in a game tied after two overtimes: "If the game still remains in a tie, the side which makes four or more safeties less than their opponents shall win the game."
At the 1881 Princeton-Yale game, the lawyerly Tigers unveiled a new stalling tactic: the touch-in-goal. This was achieved by throwing the ball to a player standing in the angle of space behind the goal line but beyond the sideline. As with an old safety, this allowed the offending team to retain possession on it own 25. Princeton held the ball for most of the first half; Yale, replicating Princeton's tactics, held it most of the second. They tied 0 to 0.
Princeton again claimed the title based on 1878. Yale counterclaimed, pointing out it had played a superior game against Harvard that very year -- when Harvard scored four safeties to Yale's none. The title went to Yale.
After the 1881 Princeton-Yale debacle, some argued that the American colleges should give up their unique rules and simply conform to the British rugby game.
American college players would have none of it. As Coach Nelson reported in "Anatomy of a Game," Camp again attended the rules meeting in Springfield, Mass., on Oct/ 12, 1882. This time he proposed the concept now known as a first down -- only as originally approved a team needed to get five yards in three downs to retain possession of the ball. The rule was accepted.
A new game was born -- wholly American and unmatched by any other in the world.
Yes, the pro players of football and baseball had their "fun", but they were discrete and insured that they didn't sully the game.
Today's players are primarily spoiled children with little consideration for their impact on the impressionable youth.
NFL ping
Amen!
Great except for those butt-ugly uniforms Nike had them wearing. Even worse than last year's crap-i-forms for Clemson, Florida, U-Miami, VT, LSU that made it appear as though the teams were wearing chaps and sporting Tramp Stamps and fanny packs.
Did they have matching man-purses to go with those abominable threads?
Instead of FEDEX Field the game should have played at Fire Island.
Each has its advantages ~ baseball could be played in urban and rural environments. Soccer can be played by rich or poor in any nation.
Otherwise there's not much there there!
I LOVE watching the NFL. They’re our modern day gladiators imo. I for one don’t begrudge them for the millions they make, considering the horrific injuries they quite possibly will suffer in their careers. I’m looking forward to the first game tomorrow, Minn-NO.
“I’m especially blessed to be able to listen to Vin Scully call games out here in LA.”
Simply put, the most talented man ever to man a microphone, in the history of sports. There are many who are good, and some who are great, but he is in a league of his own. My dad has been a Dodger fan since he was a young boy and they were playing in Brooklyn. I spent many a lazy evening laying next to my dad on his bed, listening to Vin Scully paint a picture of what was happening on the field. Truly great memories.
“How American Football Became the World’s Greatest Game”
It is the world’s greatest game in the U.S., but no where else.
The crowds are different, too, at least here. The baseball crowd is much more family oriented and there are few drunks.
That said, I really love being a football fan, too, both college and pro. My main knock on it is all the standing around doing nothing. There are enough time outs anyway, but attending a game where they have TV time outs too really slows the pace.
Baseball was America’s favorite sport until the merger of the AFL and NFL in 1960, and televised Monday Night Football.
I like both. I see professional baseball getting better and pro football getting worse, mostly because of general player attitudes and recent rule changes (taunting in the NFL??? vs winner of the All-Star game sets World Series home field advantage!!!).
Because American football is quintessentially American, a contest between “Crushing your enemies, driving them before you” and “You shall not pass”.
Soccer is quintessentially European, a bunch of guys running around for an hour-and-a-half, ending in a 0-0 tie.
I believe we now have the technology to build robots that could play American Football
Thanks for posting this interesting history... Nice to see Davey Nelson quoted — one of the great coaches of all time with some of the most intricate offense ever (I think they called it the “Winged-T” at the time) executed brilliantly by his Blue Hens.
P.S.
WSJ: Typical NFL game has only 11 minutes of actual football
Totally unique. As opposed to only slightly unique?
It's a fun game, but for much of the country it's more watched than played, especially among adults.
Seems like people are more likely to watch football on TV and toss a basketball or baseball around in their spare time for fun.
Football may not even be ahead of soccer in the number of people who actually play the game.
Still, once you've seen Australian Rules Football on cable, it's hard not to be grateful that we didn't get saddled with that mess.
There’s something exquisite about baseball that no other sport has. It gets my vote as “best” (since we’re making idiotic votes, wth). It’s hardass, delicate, poetic, dramatic, and has a great pace (no, it’s not slow - you just need a beer to calm down while you watch it).
Football is war training, Roman version. Great sport, too, as long as you have good coaches - i.e. people who can blend war training while remembering it really is just a game.
Soccer is for kids. There’s something a bit unsettling about watching adults play soccer, because soccer is so relentlessly non-hierarchically group oriented and nonstop. Kids running around like crazy without stopping is normal. Kids learning group cohesion is normal. But adults are adults because they’ve individuated, and work with the group only as it balances their own independence. Soccer goes too far with the non-hierarchical group requirement to fit adults. Leftists, of course, love it for just that reason - which is why it’s the most popular game in the world.
Basketball has millions of rabid fans who are convinced it’s the best of the best. Frankly, it never did anything for me. Can’t tell you why, except maybe I prefer outside sports. Same with hockey. Although hockey has the added benefit of a level of speed and violence that guarantees an interesting match no matter what. Perfect for venting the frustrations of a long arctic winter.
I will take baseball over football any day. There is more stategy involved, there is no time clock so one can relax while watching a game and the defense controls the ball. I know many consider it boring but I find it refreshing in a world dominated by speed an instant gratification. Sitting on my deck at night, smoking a cigar and listening to a ball game is the most relaxing thing in the world. Footbal is hyperactivity on steroids...
Amen to that... The NFL is Pro ‘Rasslin with pads.
A better article would have examined how we ended up in 2010 with a typical "American football" game that is nothing more than 11-13 minutes of actual activity in a 3.5-hour television extravaganza.
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