INJURIES AND FOOTBALL RULES THAT LED TO GREAT CHANGES IN THE GAME

As David Maraniss wrote recently in his book “Path Lite By Lightning, the Life of Jim Thorpe:

“Before 1906 there were rules in football, but few to tame its ferocity.  The game seemed a case of unnecessary roughness.  Teams would line up head-to-head with no neutral zone and bang away at each other, hold, scrap, lock arms for brutal-like flying wedges, slug, bite, pile on and attack with deadly force.  Helmets, more like thin leather straps on bonnets, had been around since the 1890’s, but were not yet mandatory, and few players wore them.  From 1901 to 1905 there were 71 recorded deaths in football.  In 190.5 a Union College back, Harold Moore, died from a cerebral hemorrhage after being kicked in the head while trying to tackle a New York University runner.  He was one of 18 players who died that year.  An unofficial casualty count of the 1905 season read like a military after action report: deaths, 18, partially paralyzed, 1, eyes gouged out, 1, intestines ruptured, 2, backs broken, 1, sculls fractured, 1, arms broken, 4, legs broken, 7, hands broken, 3, shoulders dislocated, 7, noses broken, 4, ribs broken, 11, collarbones broken, 7, jaws broken, 1, fingers broken, 4, shoulders broken, 2, hips dislocated, 4, thighbones broken, 1, brain concussion, 2, and these numbers are likely an underestimate”. 

 The number of concussions is certainly understated.  And this list was only information from colleges.  The Chicago Tribune counted 19 college deaths that year.  The number of deaths and injuries were higher in high schools, grade schools and with “town” teams.  The documented deaths occurred with the U.S. population in 1900 set at about 76.3 million people.  By 1910 it had jumped to 92.2 million.  If you half the numbers there were about 84 million in the country in 1905.  With the reported number of deaths, 18 or 19 in colleges alone.  Reform was defiantly needed in the rules.  In 2022 there were a reported 11 deaths nationwide.    

Like the origins of baseball, football in America goes way back to the “Old World” (Europe) as well as the “New World”.  A form of rugby was played in many countries in Europe.  The ancient Greeks played a variation of the sport and they may have been the earliest ones to do so.  The Romans may have brought the game to Brition when that island was occupied.  A reference in a book written in France in 1147 mentions a similar game.  Looking at newspapers from the 1880’s and early 1890’s in Wisconsin, before there were high school teams, adult squads formed in some towns and they would become the "town team". “Foot ball” was played at a fair, picnics and other celebrations. The rules were often inconsistent.  That’s where Walter Camp, a football player from 1876-82 at Yale, stepped in and for the next 50 years ruled the college sport.  After graduating from Yale, he worked for in the family business, the Manhattan Watch Company but each year he had his hand in the college game.  Camp authored many books and pamphlets on the game as well as naming his All-America teams.  His influence was immense and early in his writings he thought that the only good teams and players were those from the East.  The players and teams in the south and west (Wisconsin was considered the west) didn’t know the sport like those from the Ivy League schools. Their feeling was that any school west of the Allegany Mountains or south of the Potomac River played substandard football.

The first attempt to take the game away from its origins of the multiple forms of rugby and to adopt a commonly accepted way of playing American Football was in November, 1876 when a group of young men from Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Columbia formed the Intercollegiate Football Association.  Walter Camp of Yale gathered the group as committee to regulate the game the proper way, the Eastern Way.  The rules slowly changed year by year as the game was evolving but it was still a game totally different from what we know today.  Moving from kicking to more running and from a free-for all scrum to a line of scrimmage with one team at a time possessing the ball.  The sport moved away from team captains assessing penalties to having judges and referees.  Plus, eventually eliminating endless line plunges to the advent of the forward pass in 1906.  The advent of their being a coach also developed.  Often times the team had no official coach but a team manager who set the schedule and helped with the players in drawing up plays.  For the colleges the new major forces on the sidelines were Amos Alonzo Stagg, Pop Warner and John Heisman to name a few. 

After the 1905 season, one which saw President Teddy Rosevelt’s son, Theodore Jr. being injured while playing at Harvard, the “Rough Rider” bowed to additional outside pressure as well and called a meeting on the sport.  Representatives from various colleges and others (Maybe Walter Camp, considered the “father of American football”) attended.  Now Teddy thought that the sport was a “manly” one but the number of deaths and injuries reported was putting pressure on him to ban the game.  He ordered the representatives to come up with a way to make the sport safer. They came up with three major changes: 1) Instead of a first down being five yards it was moved to 10 yards. 2) A neutral zone between the offense and defense was authorized. 3) The adoption of the forward pass would allow teams to move the ball down the field easier and not have the defenses bunched up so much.  Beginning in 1906 the number of deaths went down a little at first and then dropped to an “acceptable” level.  Some years there would 10-15 deaths and others only five or six from actual playing, not including those deaths from practice.  And, the equipment got better for more injury protection.

Some coaches welcomed the use of the forward pass but others thought that it made the game a “sissy” or “parlor” game.  One of those who opposed it was the “king” of the sport, Walter Camp.  He thought that passing was undignified.  But in fact, while playing for Yale, Camp inadvertently threw a pass as he was about to be tackled.  Yale was penalized with a loss of a down.  For several years Heisman had been lobbying for the forward pass and along with other supporters he got his wish. While Heisman, Stagg, Warner and a few others got the new rule change, other coaches held back in its use.  The pass itself didn't immediatly eliminate many deaths buit as time went on, it helped.

In 1908 the playing field was 110-yards from goal line to goal line.  It had both parallel and horizontal lines so as to look like a gridiron, a term still used today. If a player left the game, even with a minor injury, they couldn’t return so most of the 11 starters played the whole game.  The game clock could be 70-80 minutes with a halftime.  The two teams would decide the length before the start of the contest.  Offensive linemen could take handoffs, catch and run with the ball.  The goal posts were on the goal line.  The team on offense had three plays to get a first down, not today’s four and they had to gain 10-yards.  There had been rules earlier, in the 1880’s and 1890’s about a first down being five yards and I’ll mention this later.  The kickoff was from mid-field.  If you kicked off and the ball went nthrough the goal posts it counted as a field goal.

Scoring changed over the years as well. In 1883 a touchdown was equal to only two points; a field goal was five points and a kick conversion was four points.  This put a premium on kicking, hence the name football. From 1884-97 a touchdown was worth four points, the field goal stayed at five points and the extra point kick conversion dropped to two points.  Between 1898 and 1911 a touchdown became worth five points.  Between 1904 and 1908 the field goal dropped in point value to four points.  But, since 1898 the extra point conversion kick has remained worth one point.  In 1909 the field goal value dropped to the current three points and in 1912 the current touchdown score of six points began. Suffice it to say, since 1912, all of the scoring has remained the same except for the two-point run/pass conversion instituted in 1958.  The safety was originally worth one point in 1883 but changed to the current two-points for the past 141-years.     

Why all this talk about college football changes you might ask?  Well, high schools generally follow what colleges do as far as rules and innovations. It may take a few years to institute the changes but high schools and colleges are very similar.  Also, it was the colleges in 1876 that formed the modern rules.  There were no professional teams until the early 1900’s.  The last major rules changes from the original rules set in 1876 occurred in 1883 and that is what high schools would follow.

A couple of notes before I close my blog. 

First, I will write about the seven-yard rule vs. the five-yard rule next time.

Second, Look up Eddie Cochems on Wikipedia.  Look for other stories about his innovations in the passing game on the internet.  He came from a big family in Sturgeon Bay.  His is often a forgotten but important part of the game.  Yet, the school, Sturgeon Bay High School, has no plaque or picture honoring this great football pioneer.  That’s a shame!! Write you congressman or senator…in this case the AD, the principal and the school board as ask that they consider doing something to honor him.  

I’m off my soap box now.  Hope you liked what I wrote and if you have time, read “Path Lit By Lightening: The Life of Jim Thorpe”.  It has so much more about American history than just recounting Thorpes athletic prowess.

SOME GREAT GAMES…PART 2

Fond du Lac St. Mary’s Springs at Milwaukee Marquette, November 1. 1985 and November 13, 1985

There were some questionable comments and actions after the first game in 1984.  These comments and actions all led up to even more events leading up to the second game

Playing football in November can be a dicey affair in dealing with the weather in Wisconsin.  It’s like, as Forest Gump, said in referring to a box of chocolates, in this case the weather, you never know what you will get.  Both in the 1984 and 1985 football seasons some teams like Milwaukee Marquette seldom played in good weather or on a dry field.  Coach Bob Hyland of Fond du Lac St. Mary’s Springs was quoted as saying, after a November 1, 1984 15-6 win over Milwaukee Marquette, “I think that it’s nice out.  It’s a beautiful night to play football.”  He was smiling as his team overcame the elements and won.  The game was played in Fond du Lac at Fruth Field, in what is better known as the “Freezer Contest”.   With the falling temperatures and gusting winds bringing the wind chill factor down to near zero and both teams playing on a soggy field that had endured an intermittent rain for much of the week the field began to freeze.  A picture in the Fond du Lac Reporter newspaper the day before showed the field and the tag line questioned if the field would be in shape for the game. Instead of playing in slosh, the freezing ground allowed players to get firmer footing as the game progressed. Somehow the lighter Springs team was able to totally dominate their opponent in yardage, 210 to 79, despite committing 13 penalties for 112 yards vs. the Hilltoppers having only 3 for 12 yards.

 All this is a setup for the rematch of sorts for the 1985 game between two very good teams and great coaches.

Both coaches had known each other for years.  Bob Hyland took over at Springs in 1971 and Dick Basham had headed Marquette since 1972.  Coincidentally, Hyland had grown up outside of Wisconsin Rapids and had attended Assumption High School there before going off to college.  Springs would be the only place he has coached at.  Basham became the head coach at Assumption in 1970 and stayed for two years before moving to Milwaukee and taking the head coach spot at Marquette. His 1970 team went 2-7 but he turned things around with an 8-1 record in 1971.

These two teams have only played each other in football three times.  In 1975 Marquette destroyed St. Mary’s 28-6 in the playoffs, ending the Ledgers dreams of an undefeated and the WISAA state title.  Instead, the title went to the Hilltoppers.  Even though Hyland had expressed respect for his Milwaukee opponent he thought that his team now had a good chance of winning going into the 1984 match.  Even Pius coach Ron Wied had predicted that Springs would be the winner.  Pius had given Marquette their only loss on the season in conference play.

The newspapers, both those from Milwaukee and Fond du Lac, played it up as Hyland wanting revenge against Basham for 1975 when they met in November 1984 and to a degree there was some motivation there.  Springs didn’t want Marquette to run over them in 1984 like they had in 1975. Running back Steve Guhl ran for 204 yards on only 16 carries as he scored all four of his team’s touchdowns.  But now in 1984, psychology of sorts was employed to give Marquette an advantage, or so they thought.  Could this be a battle between the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s?

The members of the WISAA football selection committee had a set of rules to determine which team, whether they played at their own field, their opponent’s field or a neutral site, who would be the home team.  First the teams involved in the playoffs would be determined by a point system.  Then, using the points system would then match up the first-round games.  That would then determine where the games would be played. Sometime after 1975 the WISAA decided the home team would be determined each year by alphabetical order.  That order would flip each year. As it turned out in 1975, before the alphabetical process the game was set by WISAA before a crowd of over 8,000 fans at the neutral site of UW-Oshkosh Titan stadium and Marquette was determined by WISAA to be the home team.  By 1984 the home team process was in action and Marquette was again the home team as alphabetically it was there year.  The game had been scheduled to be played at their home field, Hart Park in Wauwatosa.  However, the heavy rains made that field unplayable so the game was switched to Fruth Field in Fon du Lac which was supposed to be “dryer”.  So, with the switch in stadiums Marquette was the home team.  When the change of locations was made, according to Bob Hyland and other Springs officials, Marquette coach Dick Basham said he was fine with being on the visitor side of the field.  But then he reneged about a day before the game.  As any fan knows that if you are the visitor the number of seats on that side of the field is usually much smaller than the home side.  Marquette had a larger fan following so Basham wanted whatever advantage he could get.

This change didn’t make Hyland and his team happy. According to the Fond du lac Reporter newspaper the theory was that Basham made the change really to upset Hyland to make him lose site of the primary objective, which of course, was to win the game.  Basham instead used the change to motivate and fire up his team.  It worked. 

Marquette did score first in the 15-6 contest as Bill Axt recovered a blocked Springs punt in the end zone with 6:28 left in the first quarter.  The extra point was missed.  In the second quarter on a third-and 16 on Marquette’s five-yard line Springs Keven Grunwald blocked a quick kick by Axt.  The ball bounced off his chest and through the back of the end zone for a safety.  Four minutes later the Ledgers Dave Casalena ran one-yard for a touchdown.  The two-point conversion pass failed and the half would end with Springs ahead, 8-6.  Casalena would score again in the third period, again on a one-yard run.  Tony Berenz would kick the extra point and that’s how the game would end with the Ledgers winning 15-6. 

After the switching of the seating positions, there were lots of words on the field and in the press.  Reportedly, according to a November 12, 1985 newspaper story in the FdL Reporter, when Basham and Hyland met after the game, Basham accused the Ledgers playing “overly-aggressive” (But not in those words) football.  He didn’t think that was the way the game should be played and in particular he accused Springs of using “harsh tactics” directed at the ankle of his all-state punter, Bill Axt   Bill Cary in his FdL Reporter byline, “Carried Away”, reported several other things.  After Marquette’s defeat Cary got a very nasty letter from coach Basham’s son.  The words used were full of explicates and indicated that Cary was not one of his favorite people.  The writer, use to such comments said he replied: “Stand in line.”  The story didn’t end there so now the blog is about two games from the 1980’s. 

Moving on to 1985, besides Carey’s November 12th article, there were other stories in the Fond du Lac Reporter leading up to the matchup that may have fueled the so called “feud:

After the Hilltoppers eliminated Waukesha Memorial, 24-7 on November 9, 1985, Basham indicated to a Milwaukee Journal reporter that he planned to extract his pound of flesh when Marquette played Springs next.  In a dispatch sent to Bill Cary that said leading up to the game, Basham was fuming: “Bill: here is my roster and starting lineups.  I’m sure you will think of something to write.  Don’t bother to call- Dick Basham, football coach at Marquette High School.”

Carey followed up his postgame comments from the 1984 game with a large article on Sunday, November 4. 1984. This is probably what precipitated Basham’s terse note to Carey in 1985 as well as Cary’s again mentioning the letter that Basham’s son wrote after the 1984 loss.  I would love to copy and post Cary’s story but it might be too long for this blog.  If you have Nerwspapers.com you should read both stories. To say that the article was from a Springs viewpoint would be correct but Carey tried to keep it balanced. 

However, Hyland tried to use some physiology of his own.  This was the year that even though WISAA picked Hart Park to be the site of the game, Springs was the designated home team.  What did Hyland do?  He chose to have his team sit on the visitor’s side.  As Hyland said to reporters: “We will be on the visitor’s side.  We have not changed our philosophy (A dig at Marquette for 1984) that the home team is the host school.  Alphabetically, it is our turn, but Hart Park is Marquette’s home field.”  So, the Ledgers would don their white road jerseys. Tom Kohl, assistant sports editor for The Reporter, stated that Ledgers didn’t have be so generous but that was Hyland’s and the school’s philosophy (Another dig at the Hilltoppers).  Another set of comments from Hyland was directed at Basham.  He said that in the years he had been at Springs he had never been accused of dirty play.  He taught his team to hit and hit hard but legally.  Never the less Hyland said he didn’t have any hard feelings, “there’s no feud on our part.”

 As I said earlier, look out for November weather. It had rained a little the day before the game but now Hart Park received over one half of an inch the day of the contest.  The temperature was in the 40’s but the field was soggy.  So soggy that the lighter sized Ledgers couldn’t get any traction.  For some reason the heavier Hilltoppers were able to get traction of their own somehow outgained them 249 yards to 98.  Springs only tried four passes but lost two yards.  Marquette’s Dave Novotny tried 19 passes and completed only seven while tossing two interceptions.  After three scoreless quarters Novotney was able to hit speedy Mike Waddick, who had split wide to the right down the sideline streaked have a fairly dry patch of turf and hauled in a pass for a 61-yard score.  When they came up to the line Hyland thought this would be the “the play” and he was correct.  Waddick simply blew by his defender.  Carl Wengelwski kicked the extra point and that was it. 

Earlier in the second quarter Novotney had first been sacked by Pat Crowley and then on the next play he broke out of the pocket and was leveled by the Ledgers Mike Riggs.  Novotney was left writhing on the field for a couple of minutes before being helped off the field.  He, of course, would come back in later.  Wengelwski did miss two field goals with one being blocked but the game would end as a 7-0 win for the Hilltoppers.   

Springs would end up with a 10-2 record while Marquette would beat Green Bay Premontre 21-7 to go undefeated with a 12-0 record.  Marquette would have some great WISAA championship battles with fellow Catholic Conference foe, Waukesha Catholic Memorial in 1994 and 1996.  Springs would, as well, meet up with Memorial in 1989-91 for the title.  These would all be great battles.

SOME GREAT GAMES…PART 1

Eau Claire Memorial at Chippewa Falls, November 11, 1932:

Often times what determines the outcome of a game is the weather, a factor that determines how the fates of a contest.  Such was the case of the Armistice Day game in Chippewa Falls between the home team Cardinals and the Old Abes of Eau Claire Memorial.  The game was for the unofficial championship of the top schools of the Northwest.  Earlier, in October, the two teams played at the Eau Claire Teachers College field and Memorial came out on top, 7-0 on a dry field.  A first quarter touchdown run by Whit Rork.  A drop-lick for the extra point by junior quarterback Arnie Hanson (See a previous blog on his son, Dick, for more details on Arnie) was good and the teams then battled to a deadlock for the rest of the game.

1932 was a good season for Memorial as they won the next four games.  They opened against Stevens Point, winning 12-0, then played Falls next.  Then they followed up with wins against La Crosse Central (9-6), Menomonie (19-0) and Ladysmith (13-0). The team didn’t score much, only 63 points total in the six games the Abes played, but it was their defense that kept them undefeated.  Arnie Hanson, who played halfback as a senior in 1933, was the team’s top defender as he intercepted six passes and was a solid tackler.  Only one receiver caught a touchdown against him as most teams didn’t pass that often unless they were behind in the score.  Memorial’s coach Ade Olson’s team featured a punishing ground game that had won five straight games leading to the second match up of the year against Chippewa Falls.  They were looking for an unbeaten season.

The Cardinals were 5-2 having lost the season opener against Hastings (MN) 6-7.  They beat Rice Lake 13-0 before losing to Memorial 0-7.  Falls followed up with wins over Bloomer (44-12), Menomonie (8-0), Eau Claire St. Patrick’s (46-7) and La Crosse Central (12-0).  Coach Carleton Roel had been pointing to the season finale to gain revenge.  Talking a perfect season away from their rivals would make the Cardinal season a happy one. 

The game was on a Friday.  Three days earlier Franklin D. Roosevelt had won the presidential election, the first of four.  Drinking fans, the alcohol type, were hoping that Prohibition would end soon but the city added extra police to keep the crowd in line.  In Madison the next day, Saturday, the Badgers would surprise Minnesota in a 20-13 victory, paced by halfback Walter (Mickey) McGuire’s opening kickoff return of an 85-yard touchdown. The stage was set for the 2pm start.  The problem was the weather. 

On Thursday the temperature plunged and then a mild blizzard hit overnight leaving a bit more than a half of an inch of snow on the field of the Fairgrounds in Chippewa Falls.  The temperature didn’t get much above freezing and there was a blustery wind to meet the brave fans.

Falls had a good running game mixed with some passing as needed. I had mentioned that Memorial had a bruising ground game but they had no passing game.  In fact they had NOT thrown a pass in their first five games but as the EC Leader-Telegram and The CF Herald-Telegram both had stories early in the week stating that the Abes were working on developing a passing attack.

The two teams battled to a scoreless first quarter although Chippewa dominated.  In the second Eau Claire got a break when on fourth down the center for Falls snapped the ball over the punters head and it was recovered by the Abes on the 13-yard line.  Three rushing plays gained eight yards so they called on Whit Rork, with Arnie Hanson holding, to kick a field goal. It was good and EC led 3-0.  After the kickoff the Cardinals could only gain four yards so they decided to throw a long pass.  As it sailed down the field it appeared that Hanson would intercept.  He went into the air to make the pick but the ball bounced out of his hands and into the hand of Colonial (Yes, that was his name) Larson who raced to the endzone.  The extra point was missed and the score would remain 6-3 going into the halftime break.  During the second half Memorial would go to the air 11 times with only two completions in a desperate attempt to score but they could not but neither could Chippewa so the game ended 6-3.  The biting wind and the frozen filed made life for both teams.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog Eau Claire Memorial would dominate the rivalry for many years.