THE SEVEN YARD RULE AND A BIT MORE ON EARLY OSHKOSH

The seven-yard rule:

In the last blog I discussed some major rule changes in the early days of “modern” football.  I say “modern” but as I said in the blog it would be a while before the game would reflect the game of today. The game was evolving slowly from a rugby scrum to a more polished offensive attack.

An April 2, 1898 article in the Oshkosh Northwestern newspaper told of an Appleton convention of over 100 teachers and administrators that gathered in a semi-annual event of the Northeastern Teachers Association.  Among the topics there were discussions on manual training, something about semi-annual promotion (I’m not sure what this was about), and there was a talk on the phases of kindergarten work.  One person, Oshkosh high schools Prof. White talked about safety in foot ball and he campaigned for the new seven-yard rule.  As a result, the principals voted unanimously in favor of the new rule that had been semi-adopted in the state in 1897. There was so much enthusiasm by the attendees that they decided that they would do all in their power to influence the clubs of what was called in the story the state league.  Evidently this rule was not, at the time, enforced by the fairly new WIAA. 

So, what was the seven-yard rule?

Up to this time, the rules of the game had a team on offense required to gain five yards in three plays. By making it seven yards it was hoped to open the game up more and to help do away with so much roughness. Instead of, as today, four downs to get a first down, the teams of the era had only three downs. Hence, if you weren’t close to picking up the first down in two plays, you punted. Games were often a matter of a punting match unless a runner was able to break away from the scrum. The game was often a series of line plunges going for a few yards.

Maybe Menasha High School wasn’t at the meeting, or the football team reneged on the adopted rule change. Several weeks before Menasha was to meet Oshkosh, a list of demands was presented to them to clarify the rules of the game. Oshkosh had heard that Menasha was using the five-yard rule. While Menasha was able to generally agree to the format outline presented to them by Oshkosh, they would not agree to the seven-yard rule. Messages were exchanged but no agreement could be reached and so the game was called off. Harsh words in the Oshkosh Northwestern were written:

“The Oshkosh High school, wishing to please the more refined patrons of the game, decided at the beginning of the season to adopt the seven-yard gain, although this was left entirely optional to the rules”.

“From the stand taken by Menasha it is evident that the team is not in favor of a clean, open game, but desires the former “slugging matches” which have so materially injured the sport by reducing science to pugilistic brutality. The Oshkosh team regrets that Menasha has no desire to elevate foot ball that point where a consensus of opinion in its favor is obtained, thereby regaining the patronage it has lost because of its roughness”.

Back in September Oshkosh High school released a season schedule, unusual for the era by most schools. Often teams set up their first two-three games then scrambled each week to add more opponents. What is also unusual is that, for the most part, the schedule was played as reported.

*The game against Ripon College’s 2nd team could have been considered a loss anyplace but Oshkosh. In a moment you will learn why.

**A note later about the Normal 2nds from November 5 concerning Menaha.

First, a note about the schedule.

At this time Appleton High was more commonly known as Ryan High of Appleton. The seven-yard rule controversy occurred in October with Oshkosh’s attempt to make sure Menasha “played by the rules”. As you look at the original schedule Oshkosh wasn’t scheduled to play Menasha until mid-November. The war of words occurred about five weeks in advance of the game which was cancelled by Oshkosh. The second game against Neenah was moved to November and a game with Ripon College’s varsity was added as was a November 5th game vs. Oshkosh Normal (UW-Oshkosh today). And yes, some colleges in the 1890’s didn’t have set schedules as well.

The game against the Ripon College 2nds was a controversial event as Ripon left the field in a huff in the middle of the second half (They were playing 35-minute half’s, no 12–15-minute quarters at the time. But the length of the half’s could vary between 25-35 minutes. The problem developed at the location of the game which had a, then, regulation field…110-yards, with goal posts BUT the goal posts had no cross bars. Crazy. For some reason the crossbars had been removed. The officials had to judge, when a field goal or extra point was attempted, to determine if the proper height was obtained for a score. As the game progressed each team missed a field goal kick. In the newspapers opinion there was no question that the goals were missed. As the second half opened Ripon was ahead 11-5. Then, Graves of Oshkosh scored a touchdown, and the score was now 11-10. Gilkey of Oshkosh made a try for the extra point, tying the game but Ripon complained to the officials and when their protest was turned down Ripon left the field. A representative for the Northwestern newspaper reported that the section that held the goal cross bars had a small piece of pipe sticking out. The kick appeared to him that the ball hit the piping and if the crossbar had been in place the ball would not have gone over. By Ripon walking off referee Larish of Oshkosh awarded the game to Oshkosh with a score of 11-0.

Next, I found an unusual November story in the Oshkosh newspaper. Not only was the early September school schedule but I located a season recap that was confusing. The story appeared in the November 29 paper. The story offered the scores of the games that the team played but left out the loss to the Normal school and yet they claimed to be undefeated, winning 10 games with two of them being forfeits. The second Berlin game was in fact a forfeit but the recap listed a second Green Bay game that was also declared a forfeit win. Do the math. If you look at the dates of the games played, always on a Saturday, when could they have played Green Bay, or at least receive a forfeit? The team played every Saturday from the last Saturday in September to the third Saturday in November. No open dates. The November 24th game was on Thanksgiving, a Thursday. There was no time to schedule an eleventh game so I conclude that Oshkosh only played, with a forfeit included, 10-games. I also found a season ending recap, again unusual to the era, in the Green Bay Press-Gazette and there was only the mention of the Thanksgiving score.

One additional note. The last game of 1897 was on Thanksgiving and Oshkosh defeated Waupaca 12-4. The story from the November 29, 1898, recap of the season stated that Oshkosh had been undefeated for 11 games. It ignored the loss to Normal. Later, in the 1900-1910’s Oshkosh would claim that they were state champions in 1908-1913 even though they were considered statewide as the 1908, 1910 and 1912 champs. It’s true that they were often undefeated against other high school teams, but they often lost, and sometimes badly to college teams.

How good was the Oshkosh football program? In addition to the nine games the first team won, the seconds were 4-0-0, the thirds were 3-0-0 and the fourth team was 2-0-0. Having four teams (11-14 players on each team to allow for substitutes) was also VERY unusual. Most schools had only pictures of the varsity (First team) and occasionally the second team. They were certainly one of the top teams in the state, but the best was Milwaukee South Side (Later South Division), a team that went undefeated, untied, and unscored upon with an 8-0-0 record. That team would be later rated, when early teams were evaluated by national prep experts in the early 2000’s, ranked as the mythical national champion as well as the state mythical champs.

More on the seven-yard rule:

The seven-yard rule must have been brought up by Oshkosh Normal, even though it wasn’t reported in the paper. The Normal 2nds played Menasha on November 5th and was destroyed, 39-0. What might have happened if Oshkosh and Menasha had met?

A few years ago, a blog from someone in Menasha used the two articles from the Northwestern that I referred to earlier concerning the seven-yard rule. Check it out: MENASHA: That Seven Yard Rule (menashabook.blogspot.com)

Thanks for reading.

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.