In the sport of American Football the first footballs were made of a pig's bladder covered with leather (not necessarily pigskin) for added protection. Pig's bladders faded from the scene not long after intercollegiate football began in 1869. One account indicates rubber bladders were being used in 1871 and they were probably around long before that, Charles Goodyear having patented vulcanization in 1844.
Football is a game of antiquity, known to many peoples. The ancient Greeks played a form of football known as harpaston, and the Romans played a similar game, harpastum. In medieval times a form of football known as calcio flourished in Italy. Natives of Polynesia are known to have played a variety of the game with a football made of bamboo fibers, and the Inuit played a form of football with a leather ball filled with moss.
American football historians, those who have studied the game and its origins, place the game’s beginnings in rugby, an English game played with many similarities to football. Rugby began in 1823 at the famous Rugby Boys’ School in England. Another cousin of the game of football is soccer; its beginnings can also be traced to English origin, being played as early as the 1820s. The first game was played at Rutgers University in New Jersey on Nov. 6, 1869. But even though the forward pass was legalized in 1906, until the ball took on its present size and shape in 1935, the pass was a nonplay. The ball used in the very first game was round, like a soccer ball. It was tough to carry, and awkward to throw. Then, in 1874, a rugby-type ball was used in a contest between McGill University Foot-Ball-Club and Harvard University Football Club. This new ball looked like a watermelon and wasn't much easier to throw. But laterals and short flips were becoming common.
Today, almost one hundred years since the inception of the NCAA, the sport of college football flourishes as one of the most popular of collegiate games. Colleges and universities are placed into three divisions under NCAA guidelines and each division has many conferences. Seasonal and conference play leads to post-season bowl games, where the champions of conferences meet to play in front of a world-wide television audience. Some of these bowls include the Rose Bowl, played on New Year’s Day in Pasadena, California, between the Big Ten and Pacific Ten conference champions. Other bowls include the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, and the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia.
The best way to score at the goal line?
Running Plays
Power Run: A perennial gridiron go-to, the jumbo formation is built for fullbacks and tight ends to ram the ball up the middle. With so little turf to defend, the D line can't get much of a push and struggle to hold their ground, hoping their linebackers can make a play. They usually can't. Stats: Used for 55 percent of goal-line plays; 52 percent converted.
The Sweep: The wide-out blocks his cornerback while two guards veer out to lead an end-zone caravan for their running back, with the play often turning into a footrace between the back and linebackers. It's for teams uncertain of their strength at the line but unwilling to risk a pass. Stats: Used for seven percent of goal-line plays; 50 percent converted.
Passing Plays
Play Action: The jumbo formation fakes the power run. Defenses often commit 10 defenders to stopping the running back, so coaches counterattack with passing plays. The tight end and fullback pretend to block, then slip out into pass routes. Sure-handed tight ends make the best targets. Stats: Used for 15 percent of goal-line plays; 56 percent converted.
The Fade: As receivers become bigger and bigger, fades and other passes to wide-outs who are taller and stronger than the cornerbacks defending them are increasingly common. The quarterback takes a short drop, then lofts the ball toward a spot near the back corner of the end zone. Stats: Used for 13 percent of goal-line plays; 49 percent converted.
Lorin Deland invented the "flying wedge" - a football play based on using mass momentum provided by advance blockers to clear the way for the tailback carrying the ball - after studying Napoleon's military campaigns. The dangerous "flying wedge," became routine. Hard-running backs like Jim Thorpe of the Canton Bulldogs and Red Grange of the Chicago Bears were the big stars of the day.
Professional football was first played soon after the demise of the Intercollegiate Football Association, around 1895. In 1920, the American Professional Football Association was formed; one year later it was reorganized and in 1922 was renamed the National Football League.
Unlike the APFA, which handed out franchises far and wide with little discretion, the NFL, from 1946 to 1949, was limited to ten teams. The APFA, on the other hand, consisted of twenty three teams in the year between its inception and the change-over in becoming the NFL.
A merger in 1970, fifty years after the inception of the first pro football association, combined sixteen NFL teams with ten AFL teams to comprise one league with two conferences. In the 1980s, further expansion was proposed and by the 1993-94 NFL season, approval was given for a thirty-team league.
The next step towards growth of the league would be to realign the NFL into eight different divisions, each with four teams. Pro football, like its college counterpart, was not without its failures. Among the number of competitive leagues that have folded in failure are the All-American Football conference, 1946 to 1949 and the World Football League, 1974 to 1975.
Once watched by no more than a handful of loyal sideline enthusiasts, football is now available for worldwide viewing. With the advent of cable television, dozens of high school and college games can be watched over Friday and Saturday afternoons. At the end of each NFL season, champs from both the National and American conferences meet in the Super Bowl to determine a national champion. This game, always played in January, has been called the most watched sporting event of all time, with a viewing audience from around the entire globe, watching and listening to the television in dozens of languages.
Football Movies
North Dallas Forty (1979) A teammate tells a receiver (Nick Nolte) he has too much respect for his body to do drugs. The receiver answers, "You'll get past that."
Stars: Nick Nolte, Mac Davis, Charles Durning Director: Ted Kotcheff
Why It's No. 1: For better or worse, without this version of ex-Cowboys receiver Peter Gent's novel, there wouldn't be Any Given Sunday. Nolte and especially Davis are terrific in a gritty serio-comedy that nails pro football's cynical brutality — both on and off the field — and the drug use that often accompanies it. And this was before steroids and ephedra.
Memorable Moment: Physically beat-up and constantly butting heads with management, wide receiver Phillip Elliott (Nolte) hates pro football. Yet, he loves it, too. Ultimately he wants to play so badly that he gives into his coach's demand to "take the needle" in his injured knee. You know then that he is doomed.
They Said It: "You had better learn how to play the game, and I don't mean just the game of football." — Quarterback Seth Maxwell (Davis) to Elliott.
Look For: Late Oakland Raiders lineman John Matuszak, more or less playing himself as rowdy O.W. Shaddock.
Runner-Up:The Longest Yard (1974). A former pro QB (Burt Reynolds) leads prison inmates in a game against the guards. Cool Hand Luke meets Semi-Tough. Eddie Albert is the perfect warden, and Burt Reynolds is the perfect ballplayer.
Contenders:
Invincible (2006): Pursuing a lifelong dream, bartender Vincent Papale attends tryouts for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1976 when Coach Dick Vermeil announces an unprecedented open call for the struggling football team. Papale makes the squad, but must prove himself all over again to his teammates on the field.
We Are Marshall (2006): After a 1970 airplane crash claimed the lives of Marshall University's football team and coaching staff, the West Virginia college's president agrees to give the team's new coach a chance to prove that the football program can be salvaged despite the community's shock and grief.
The Replacements (2000): Rousing football farce, inspired by the 1987 NFL strike, in which washed-up coach Gene Hackman recruits a colorful assortment of has-been and never-were players to take to the gridiron for the pro Washington Sentinels during a labor walk-out. If for no other reason; THE CHEERLEADERS. Play Movie Trailer
Jerry Maguire (1996): Can a movie about an agent be a sports movie? Hey, check out the sports pages. What's more, Cameron Crowe's script is brilliant — moving and real. Cuba Gooding Jr. won the Oscar for this movie.
Everybody's All-American (1988): Near 40, Jessica Lange looks old for a campus queen, but Dennis Quaid is terrific as a BMOC turned museum piece.
The Program (1993): Director David S. Ward got more things right in this football story than he did in his better-known movie, Major League.
Brian's Song (1970): Wow. Emotionville. James Caan's better here than in The Godfather.
Rudy (1993): OK, I'm a cornball. But I rooted for Rudy.
Diner (1982): I've never seen a more realistic movie about a city in my life. Baltimore is portrayed perfectly by Barry Levinson.
Remember The Titans (2000): The racial tensions filling the halls of a newly integrated Alexandria, Virginia, high school in 1971 spill over onto the football field, where new head coach Denzel Washington tries to overcome resentment on both sides and mold his players into a team...and into friends.
Knute Rockne, All-American (1940): Pat O'Brien's most famous role, the legendary Notre Dame football coach who revolutionized the game, makes this screen biography stand out.
Varsity Blues (1999): The back-up quarterback for a Texas high school team is reluctantly thrust into the spotlight when he's called on to replace the starting QB and finds the hopes of his school--and the entire community--resting on his shoulders.
Wildcats (1986): Giggling Goldie Hawn goes for gridiron greatness as a frustrated gym teacher who finally gets her chance to coach high school football...at the inner city's toughest school.
Friday Night Lights (2004): Based on a true story, this riveting drama from H.G. Bissinger's book stars Billy Bob Thornton as the coach of the Permian High School Panthers, Texas' top-ranked high school football team.
The Longest Yard (2005): Riotous remake of the 1974 Burt Reynolds classic stars Adam Sandler as a washed-up NFL quaterback who lands in jail after a highly publicized drunk driving debacle.
Sensational Scenes:
Knute Rockne, All-American: If Knute Rockne, All-American isn't the original sports movie, it's close. Pat O'Brien's famous speech has become a cliché, but that doesn't negate its power. "None of you ever knew George Gipp," he tells his players. "He was long before your time, but you all know what a tradition he is at Notre Dame. And the last thing he said to me, 'Rock,' he said, "sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. (pause) I don't know where I'll be then, Rock,' he said, 'but I'll know about it and I'll be happy.'" Anybody need a hanky?
The Longest Yard: Hard to image a more satisfying finish than The Longest Yard's. After his team of inmates, the Mean Machine, wins a brutal, bloody football game with the guards, Paul Crewe (Burt Reynolds) starts to walks away. The warden (Eddie Albert) shouts that Crewe is escaping. "Kill that sonofabitch!" the warden screams at a guard. "Shoot him!" As the guard is about to pull the trigger, Crewe leans over and picks up a football from the grass. Then, to the strains of You Gotta Be a Football Hero, Crewe walks over, tucks the ball into the warden's stomach and says, "Stick this in your trophy case."
Rudy: If the cuddly Rudy, about a runty guy with zero athletic ability but a world of heart who ends up playing on the Notre Dame football team, were fiction, you'd laugh it out of the theater. Especially when Rudy (Sean Astin), after overcoming every sort of adversity, finally gets to suit up. But it really happened. So when a player asks Rudy at the big moment, "Are you ready, champ?" and he replies, "I've been ready for this my whole life," don't be surprised if you find yourself chanting, "Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!"
Jerry Maguire: For lack of a better phrase, we'll call this the money scene in Jerry Maguire. Football player Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) has just told his agent (Tom Cruise) that he's not firing him. But he wants something in return. "It's a very personal, very important thing," says Tidwell. "Hell, it's a family motto. Now are you ready? Just checking to make sure you're ready." Tidwell turns his boom box real low. "Here it is — show me the money." Now Tidwell blasts the boom box at full level. "OHHH! SHOW! ME! THE! MONEY!"
Arena Football League
The Arena Football League (AFL) was founded in 1987 as an American football indoor league. The league's inaugural season featured four teams: the Chicago Bruisers, Denver Dynamite, Pittsburgh Gladiators, and Washington Commandos. The AFL also maintains a minor league called arenafootball2.
Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz
The Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz co-operators Jeff Lund, Horn Chen and legendary coach Barry Switzer are bringing excitement to Oklahoma City in their 2004 inaugural season. Head Coach Gary Reasons will lead the Dawgz on the field against the teams in the National Conference Southwest Division and the af2. The Dawgz will play one of the finest facilities in the nation at the Ford Center, a.k.a. "The Dawg Pound,” that seats over 18,000 Arena Football fans.
Tulsa Talons
The Talons were one of the original 15 teams of the af2 that begin play in March 2000. In 2004 The Tulsa Talons were sold to a group of local investors, led by Henry Primeaux and Paul Ross. Primeaux's company served as executive producer on a movie documentary on the Jenks vs. Union high school football rivalry of the last decade, entitled "King of the Mountain, A Rivalry in the Heartland."
