by Dave Revsine
4. farther away from the field: “Going to the Game,” New York Times, December 1, 1893.
4. began to overflow: Description of elevated cars: “Enthusiastic and Loyal,” New York Sun, December 1, 1893, 2.
5. “. . . single play was made.”: Ibid.
5. estimated at 50,000: Descriptions of the crowd from Richard Harding Davis, “The Thanksgiving Day Game,” Harper’s Weekly, December 9, 1893, 1170; “Princeton’s Great Victory,” New York Herald, December 1, 1893; and “The Orange above the Blue,” New York Times, December 1, 1893.
5. into the upper forties: New York State Weather Bureau, Report for the Month of November 1893, 7.
6. had taken the field: “Spectators Come to Blows,” New York Sun, December 1, 1893, 3.
6. its fine aroma: “The Orange above the Blue,” New York Times, December 1, 1893.
6. 1,285 to 6: Yale year-by-year results from www.yalebulldogs.com/sports/m-footbl/2011-12/files/Year_by_Year_Results_through_2011.pdf.
6. better than two to one: “Now the City Is Football Mad,” New York Herald, November 30, 1893.
6. Tiger halfback Ledu Smock: Alexander M.Weyand, The Saga of American Football (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 17. It is important to note that the word “smock,” describing a loose-fitting outer garment, is well more than 1,000 years old and predates this use of the word. That both refer to shirts is a coincidence.
7. amount they felt comfortable with: Details on protective equipment from “Football Armor,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 3, 1897, 38.
7. grand-nephew of the famous poet: Detail on Poe and Balliett from Weyand, 37.
7. for several years: Ibid., 46.
7. “. . . concussion of the brain.”: “Ready for the Great Struggle,” New York Times, November 30, 1893.
7. “. . . any football player in the country.”: “Ibid.
7. on this Thanksgiving Day: New York Sun staffing detailed in Richard Harding Davis, “The Thanksgiving Day Game,” Harper’s Weekly, December 9, 1893, 1170.
8. “wearing a nose mask. . . .”: “Princeton’s Game 6 to 0,” New York Sun, December 1, 1893, 1.
8. was a risky one: “Princeton’s Great Victory,” New York Herald, December 1, 1893; “Princeton’s Game 6 to 0,” New York Sun, December 1, 1893, 1; “Princeton’s Clever Play,” New York Times, December 1, 1893; “The Orange above the Blue,” New York Times, December 1, 1893; and Richard Harding Davis, “The Thanksgiving Day Game,” Harper’s Weekly, December 9, 1893, 1170–71.
8. “. . . remembered it for years.”: Parke H. Davis, Football, the American Intercollegiate Game (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1911), 97.
9. and his right ear: Princeton’s Game 6 to 0,” New York Sun, December 1, 1893, 2.
9. “. . . let us get to work.”: “Princeton’s Clever Play,” New York Times, December 1, 1893.
9. “Four, four, four yards more!”: Ibid.
10. “. . . dead silence prevailed.”: “Like a Thunderbolt,” New York Times, December 1, 1893.
10. “. . . baffled and chagrined.”: “Princeton’s Game 6 to 0,” New York Sun, December 1, 1893, 2.
11. “. . . the big Princeton centre.”: Ibid.
11. “. . . were a necessary adjunct,”: Ibid.
11. “. . . the men who conquer.”: Richard Harding Davis, “The Thanksgiving Day Game,” Harper’s Weekly, December 9, 1893, 1171.
11. “. . . did play so well.”: “Battered and Joyful,” New York Sun, December 1, 1893, 3.
11. “‘. . . I have nothing to say.’ ”: Ibid.
12. the game’s impact: “More Than Fifty Arrests,” New York Sun, December 1, 1893, 1.
12. “. . . Princeton is everywhere.”: “Princeton Students to Celebrate,” New York Times, December 2, 1893.
12. at the New York Stock Exchange: $100,000 figure comes from “Like a Thunderbolt,” New York Times, December 1, 1893. This article cites $25,000 changing hands at the Stock Exchange and a smaller amount at the Hoffman House; “The Odds Were Too Great,” New York Sun, December 1, 1893, 3.
Chapter 2
13–20. Wisconsin 47, Northwestern 0—Game descriptions taken from the following sources: “Routs Purple Team,” (Chicago) Daily Inter Ocean, November 25, 1898; “Northwestern Was Easy,” Daily Cardinal, November 28, 1898, 1; “O’Dea Great Kicker,” Fort Worth Star Telegram, November 16, 1906; “Analysis of Evanston Game,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 25, 1898, 2; “Story of Purple’s Downfall,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 25, 1898, 2; Caspar Whitney, “Amateur Sport,” Harper’s Weekly, November 25, 1898, 1301; “O’Dea Kicks a 60-Yard Goal,” Milwaukee Sentinel, November 25, 1898, 1; “O’Dea the Hero of the Field,” Chicago Times-Herald, December 1, 1898, 1.
13. “Nine, ten.” Detail on the signal taken from “Modern Punters Were Dubs Compared to Old Pat O’Dea,” (Butte) Montana Standard, October 22, 1934, 7.
14. “abnormally long and wonderfully developed.”: This note and the rest of the physical description of Pat O’Dea is from George F. Downer, “Pat O’Dea’s Kicking Feats Still Amaze Football Fans,” Souvenir Program and Athletic Review, November 17, 1934, 9.
14. “. . . we ever have played.”: “Enthusiastic at Madison,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 11, 1898, 4.
15. “. . . attraction of the day,”: “Stagg Returns Today,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 21, 1898, 4.
15. “. . . all the champagne you can drink.”: Phil King speech is paraphrased from “Modern Punters Were Dubs Compared to Old Pat O’Dea,” (Butte) Montana Standard, October 22, 1934, 7. “Coach King had promised the squad all the champagne we could drink if we scored in the first two minutes.”
15. most prominent citizens: Descriptions of Sheppard Field are taken from the author’s observations of photographs in Northwestern University Archives.
16. fraternities and sororities: “Chaos for the Purple,” Chicago Chronicle, November 25, 1898, 4.
16. “Then shot it down again.”: “Songs for the Thanksgiving Game,” The Northwestern, November 17, 1898.
17. “All 187 had been from the East.”: Alexander M.Weyand, The Saga of American Football (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 200–5.
17. well below freezing: US Department of Agriculture, Report for November 1898, Illinois Section.
17. shores of Lake Michigan: “Chaos for the Purple,” Chicago Chronicle, November 25, 1898, 4.
17. jump at the pigskin: Description of O’Dea’s kicking style from Harry Grayson, “Pat O’Dea Wrecked Minnesota with 60 Yard Drop Kick on Run,” Milwaukee Journal, October 15, 1943, 2.
18. 300-yard hurdles: “Are Good Jumpers,” Milwaukee Journal, May 12, 1897, 7.
18. sprinted down the gridiron at the snap: “O’Dea Great Kicker,” Fort Worth Star Telegram, November 16, 1906.
19. Spanish-American War: “O’Dea Kicks a 60-Yard Goal,” Milwaukee Sentinel, November 25, 1898, 1.
19. “. . . big Thanksgiving game.”: Ibid.
19. “. . . most ardent supporters.”: “Analysis of Evanston Game,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 25, 1898.
19. “Pat O’Dea is king.”: “King of Kickers,” Duluth News Tribune, November 25, 1898.
20. “. . . from the sixty-yard line.”: “O’Dea the Hero of the Field,” Chicago Times-Herald, December 1, 1898, 1.
20. “. . . of this new record.”: Ibid.
20. “. . . at making the goal,”: Ibid.
20. the All-American team: Camp’s 1898 All-American team included Herschberger of Chicago on the first team. Steckle and Cunningham of Michigan, Kennedy of Chicago, and O’Dea were on the second team. Weyand, 205.
Chapter 3
21. around to see it: Alexander M. Weyand, The Saga of American Football (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 1.
21. “. . . as the foot-ball”: Andy Mitten, The Rough Guide to Cult Football (London:
Rough Guides, 2010), 4.
21. kick it into the river: “Foot-Ball,” Harper’s Weekly, December 20, 1879, 986.
21. prohibition with expulsion: Ronald A. Smith, Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 68.
22. “. . . were mind and soul.”: Francis A. Walker. “College Athletics,” Harvard Graduates’ Magazine (September 1893), 3.
22. “. . . slighter hold upon the men.”: Michael S. Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History (New York: Free Press, 1996), 176.
22. “. . . soft, doelike eyes.”: Ibid.
22. “Have we a Religion for Men?”: Ibid.
22. “. . . sacred and the muscular.”: Ibid., 177.
23. “. . . men or affairs.”: Josiah Strong, Religious Movements for Social Betterment (New York: League for Social Service, 1900), 29–30, as quoted in Clifford Putney, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 42.
23. “. . . in this period.”: Elmer L. Johnson, The History of YMCA Physical Education (Chicago: Association, 1979), 47, as quoted in Putney, 46.
23. “. . . searched for students to serve.”: Guy Maxton Lewis, “The American Intercollegiate Football Spectacle, 1869–1917” (dissertation, University of Maryland, 1964), 16.
23. all of Europe combined: Burton J. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York: Norton, 1976), 241.
23. “. . . rise of intercollegiate athletics.”: Merle Curti and Vernon Carstensen, The University of Wisconsin 1848–1925: A History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1949), 694.
24. the latter were conincidental: Descriptions of the first intercollegiate football game are taken from the following sources: Dean Hill, Football Thru the Years (New York: Gridiron Pub., 1940), 11; Weyand, 4; Lewis, 12–15; Frank Presbrey and James Hugh Moffatt, Athletics at Princeton: A History (New York: Frank Presbrey, 1901), 271.
24. for the game: Weyand, 2; Lewis, 11–12.
24. “. . . if they can.”: As quoted in Presbrey and Moffatt, 271.
25. on the results: Ibid.
25. had ever seen before: Lewis, 28.
25. “. . . on the part of any.”: Yale Courant, October 14, 1876, 1.
25. “. . . team to represent us.”: Yale Courant, November 2, 1878, 40.
25. miss class for games: Lewis, 33.
26. respect of his teammates: Camp description from John Stuart Martin, “Walter Camp and His Gridiron Game,” American Hertiage 12, no. 6 (October 1961).
26. “. . . He always won.”: Ibid.
26. “. . . by our men.”: As quoted in Weyand, 11–12.
26. “. . . sold Rugby to the American colleges.”: Weyand, 14.
27. play rugby, rather than soccer, going forward: Weyand, 16. Yale initially refused to join the association due to a disagreement about the number of players on the field, though the school was brought into the fold several years later.
27. “. . . went the ball into scrummage.”: Amos Alonzo Stagg and Wesley Winans Stout, Touchdown! (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927), 56. To Stagg’s point, the games were often quite boring. For instance, the New York Times described a dissatisfied and hissing crowd watching a ten-minute scrummage during the Yale–Princeton game in 1879. See “Kicking the Leather Egg,” New York Times, November 28, 1879.
27. American football was born: Weyand, 21.
27. snapping and downing the ball: See, for example, the New York Times description of the 1880 Yale–Princeton matchup: “A Princeton player would roll the ball six inches over the foul-line so that another could snatch it and bring it back, only to repeat the act. This was allowable, of course, but it looked a good deal like cowardice, and the crowd took it that way. No amount of hissing could make Princeton change her safe policy, however.” “Vain Work at Football,” New York Times, November 26, 1880.
27. three downs to make five yards: David M. Nelson, The Anatomy of a Game: Football, the Rules, and the Men Who Made the Game (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1994), 49–50.
28. converted the kick: Scoring as described in this paragraph is from Weyand, 22–25.
28. “. . . agitate a bag of wind.”: Ibid.
29. “. . . hitting, gouging and howling.”: “Mighty Savage Football,” New York Sun, November 28, 1884, 1. The original sentence read, “All of the maddened giants of both the teams were in it and they lay heaped, kicking, chocking, hitting, gouging and howling.” I have changed “chocking” to “choking” for clarity.
29. “. . . by the opposite side.”: Stagg and Stout, 78.
29. the school banned the game: “The Documents of the Football Question,” Harvard Graduates’ Magazine (June 1894), 520.
29. “. . . elements of manhood may emerge.”: “Speech of Professor Francis L. Patton, DD, LLD, President-Elect of Princeton College at the Annual Dinner of the Princeton Club of New York,” March 15, 1888, 5, 7, as quoted in Lewis, 84.
29. “. . . apathy of conscience.”: Charles Grosvenor Osgood, Lights in Nassan Hall: A Book of the Bicentennial, Princeton, 1746–1946 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), 31.
30. “. . . behind Yale in no gift.”: “Speech of Professor Francis L. Patton,” as quoted in Lewis, 84.
30. more than thirteen-fold: Lewis, 68. The rise in football-related profits was even more pronounced. The 1885 team made a profit of $19.49. The 1893 team finished $22,898.59 in the black. As cited in Richard P. Borkowski, The Life and Contributions of Walter Camp to American Football (thesis, Temple University, 1979), 84.
30. “. . . in any other way.”: Weekly University Courier, January 17, 1891. As quoted in John Sayle Watterson, College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 45.
30. more than doubled: Weyand, 37.
30. “. . . science of the game.”: Parke H. Davis, Football: The American Intercollegiate Game (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911), 93.
30. “. . . What will you give [?]”: Telegram from Corbin to Camp, November 4, 1889. Walter Chauncey Camp Papers, Yale University Archives, box 7, reel 6.
31. on the Gridiron: “Gone Football Mad,” Galveston Daily News, October 25, 1894, 10.
31. “. . . he is the president of the university.”: Walter Harding Davis, “A Day with the Yale Team,” Harper’s Weekly, November 18, 1893, 1110.
31. “. . . enhanced her appearance.”: “Society Enjoys the Game,” New York Herald, November 25, 1894.
31. “. . . and a spotted veil. . . . ”: Ibid.
Chapter 4
33. was virtually shut down: P. F. O’Dea details in the first two paragraphs, including story of his funeral, from Kilmore (Victoria) Free Press, December 2, 1880, as excerpted on November 23, 2002, by Dianne Le Quiniat, President, Kilmore Historical Society; from the files of Michael D. Shutko.
33. next to his business: “Pat O’Dea,” Kilmore (Victoria) Free Press, October 11, 1934, 4.
33. jailed for stealing caps: www.historyaustralia.org.au/twconvic/Katherine+Stewart+Forbes+1830.
34. among the survivors: There are several excellent accounts of the massacre: “A Glimpse of Past History,” Euroa Advertiser, October 19, 1906, 3; R. M. McGowan, “The Story of Faithfull’s Massacre,” (Melbourne) Argus, July 8, 1950, 15; and Judith Bassett, “The Faithfull Massacre at the Broken River, 1838,” Journal of Australian Studies 13:24,18–34.
34. in the new village of Kilmore: “Pat O’Dea,” Kilmore (Victoria) Free Press, October 11, 1934, 4.
34. an area that is now known as Victoria: “Kilmore,” Sydney Morning Herald, March 7, 2005.
34. ideal for farming and grazing: The best description of Kilmore comes from Maya V. Tucker, Kilmore on the Sydney Road (Kilmore, Victor
ia: Shire of Kilmore, 1988).
34. operating the flour mill in Kilmore: Details of Patrick Flannery O’Dea’s life are from Andrew M. O’Dea, “Football’s Longest Kicker,” Big Ten Weekly, October 22, 1925, 10–11.
34. seven of whom survived infancy: Elizabeth Kraus, “Known Descandants of Patrick O’Dea and Ann Flannery,” from the files of Michael D. Shutko.
34. to have arrived a day later: Pat O’Dea Birth Certificate, Office of Government Statist, Melbourne, Australia; from the files of Michael D. Shutko.
34. scattered among nearly 300 dwellings: Tucker, 130.
34. a number of churches: Ibid., 108, 144.
34. town proper until 1888: Ibid., 125–26.
34. “. . . against any epidemic.”: Ibid., 136.
35. “particularly worth stopping for.”: Ibid., 126.
35. shores of Port Phillip Bay: “Another Bathing Fatality,” (Melbourne) Age, January 4, 1888, 5.
35. “. . . bringing her to shore.”: “Drowning of a Lady at Mordialloc,” (Melbourne) Argus, January 4, 1888, 6.
35. while interviewing O’Dea: Details in this paragraph taken from “Kicker O’Dea,” Milwaukee Journal, November 24, 1897, 8.
36. were his creation: Bill Leiser, “O’Dea, Lost Grid Immortal, Comes to Life,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 19, 1934, 1.
36. . . . died of a heart attack.”: “Kangaroo Kicker,” Melbourne (Australia) Herald-Sun, December 1, 2007, 94. The same account appears in the 1962 Xavierian yearbook.
36. focused on sports: Elizabeth Kraus, “The Mysterious O’Dea Brothers,” unpublished research article, from the files of Michael D. Shutko.
36. with a goose quill: Andrew M. O’Dea, “Football’s Longest Kicker,” Big Ten Weekly, October 22, 1925, 10.
36. either end of the field: Detail on needing to bounce the ball every 7 yards is from “Capt. Pat O’Dea Talks about His Football Career and His Future,” Milwaukee Journal, December 5, 1899, 10.
37. All-Victorian team in 1894: “Intercolonial Football,” (Adelaide) South Australian Register, July 14, 1894, 7.
37. “. . . with his debut.”: “The Game of the Season,” (Melbourne) Argus, June 17, 1895, 5–6.