Touchdown: An American Obsession [1 ed.] 9781614728238, 9781614720355

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An American Obsession

—Allen Guttmann, Amherst College “Touchdown is essential reading for fans and scholars alike.” —John Nauright, editor of SportsWorld: Global Markets and Impact of Sport

—Bill Mallon, MD, past-president and co-founder, International Society of Olympic Historians “Readers around the world will find the chapters in the book interesting and illuminating, and researchers may also find the book a source of fruitful avenues of research.” —Packianathan Chelladurai, Troy University

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BERKSHIRE

BERKSHIRE PUBLISHING

Gems & Pfister

“Two esteemed sports historians bring an academic perspective to the most popular of American sports. A multi-authored book, Touchdown is comprehensive, covering football in all it guises – youth, high school, college, professional, and also examining all its warts – social problems, concussions, economic problems. Particularly interesting is the last section of the book focusing on American football in other countries. Get this book – you’ll learn a lot.”

An American Obsession

“Gems and Pfister know enough about American football to realize that no single person could write a definitive history of the sport. They’ve used their own vast knowledge of the field of sport history to recruit a score of talented experts who have produced what may well be that elusive definitive history. Awesome.”

TOUCHDOWN

TOUCHDOWN

TOUCHDOWN An American Obsession Editors

Gerald R. Gems Gertrud Pfister BERKSHIRE

15/04/19 6:32 PM

Praise for Touchdown: An American Obsession “Gems and Pfister know enough about American football to realize that no single person could write a definitive history of the sport. They’ve used their own vast knowledge of the field of sport history to recruit a score of talented experts who have produced what may well be that elusive definitive history. Awesome.” —Allen Guttmann, Amherst College, author of Sports: The First Five Millennia and other books, recipient of the first President’s Award for Sports Studies from the International Olympic Committee “Touchdown tells the story of the rise and importance of American football in the USA and beyond. Covering the game from youth to professional leagues, the role of gender, economics and globalization. The editors are world leading sport historians and Gems and Pfister have assembled an all-star cast to deliver a comprehensive analysis of the USA’s most followed sport. Touchdown is essential reading for fans and scholars alike.” —John Nauright, editor of SportsWorld: Global Markets and Impact of Sport “Two esteemed sports historians bring an academic perspective to the most popular of American sports. A multi-authored book, Touchdown is comprehensive, covering football in all it guises  – youth, high school, college, professional, and also examining all its warts – social problems, concussions, economic problems. Particularly interesting is the last section of the book focusing on American football in other countries. Get this book – you’ll learn a lot.” —Bill Mallon, MD, past-president and co-founder, International Society of Olympic Historians “Editors Gerald R. Gems and Gertrud Pfister, eminent scholars and sport historians, have compiled a collection of essays by other outstanding scholars who have highlighted the preeminence of football on the American scene. The phrase “An American Obsession” in the title of the book is very apt indeed. The chapters in the book take the reader through various facets of this obsession with the game. The book also highlights the significant and unique feature of football in America—that of the competing and complimenting entities of intercollegiate football governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the professional football league governed by the National Football League (NFL). While the chapters attest to the strategies, tactics, skills of football, they also discuss the issues of race, ethnicity, religion, and social class. Readers around the world will find the chapters in the book interesting and illuminating, and researchers may also find the book a source of fruitful avenues of research.” —Packianathan Chelladurai, Troy University

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TOUCHDOWN

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TOUCHDOWN An American Obsession

Editors Gerald R. Gems, North Central College, Gertrud Pfister, University of Copenhagen

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Copyright © 2019 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC All rights reserved. Permission to copy articles for internal or personal noncommercial use is hereby granted on the condition that appropriate fees are paid to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA, telephone +1 978 750 8400, fax +1 978 646 8600, email info@ copyright.com. Teachers at institutions that own a print copy or license a digital edition of Touchdown may use at no charge up to ten copies of no more than two articles (per course or program), and should send notice about such use to permissions@ berkshirepublishing.com. For information, contact: Berkshire Publishing Group LLC 122 Castle Street, Great Barrington, Massachusetts 01230-1506 USA www.berkshirepublishing.com Tel + 1 413 528 0206 Fax + 1 413 541 0076 Project Coordinator: Rachel Christensen Copy Editor: Olette Trouve Design and Composition: Amnet Systems Indexer: Olette Trouve Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Names: Gems, Gerald R. Title: Touchdown : an American obsession / editors Gerald R. Gems. Description: Great Barrington, Massachusetts : Berkshire Publishing Group LLC, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019003766 | ISBN 9781614720355 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781614728245 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781614728238 (Ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Football--United States--History. | Football--Social aspects--United States. | National Football League. Classification: LCC GV959.5 .T68 2019 | DDC 796.332--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019003766

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Contents

Touchdown: An American Obsession Goes Global . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Gerald R. GEMS

Part I: Football in the United States 1. American Football . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Ronald A. SMITH 2. College Football . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Brian M. INGRASSIA 3. High School and Youth Football . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Robert PRUTER 4. The Super Bowl: An American Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Brian ACKLEY, David LEVINSON, and Gerald GEMS 5. Scandals and Controversies in Football . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Stephen H. NORWOOD 6. Concussions: Medical and Legal Controversies in Football . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Sarah K. FIELDS R. Dawn COMSTOCK 7. Playing Football . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Michael ORIARD 8. Football and Social Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Gerald R. GEMS 9. Imagining Football Fandom in the United States: Home of the Free or the Branded Pursuit of Belonging? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Sarah EIKLEBERRY 10. American Football and the Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Adam RUGG 11. The Economics of American College and Professional Football . . . . . . . 165 Robert A. BAADE and Victor A. MATHESON 12. Challenging the Gender Order: Women on the Gridiron . . . . . . . . . . 197 Gertrud PFISTER 13. Football Warriors: The Archeology of Football Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 David CHAPMAN vii

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Part II. The Globalization of American Football 14. Canadian Football . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Craig GREENHAM 15. American Football in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Jorge IBER 16. American Football in Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Lars DZIKUS 17. American Football in China: A Story of Resurgence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 HUO Chuansong and Linda J. BORISH 18. American Football in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 Kohei KAWASHIMA 19. American Football’s Pacific Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 Joel S. FRANKS About the Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 Appendix: Super Bowl Winners and Results���������������������������������������������������������� 349 Glossary��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 353 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

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Touchdown: An American Obsession Goes Global Gerald R. GEMS North Central College

T

he American game of football has long been the most popular sport in the United States. Each autumn season, local communities flock to high school games on Friday nights, cheer on their regional college favorites on Saturday, and tune in to telecasts of their professional teams on Sundays. This was a norm for years; but football has so overwhelmed the American sportscape that games are now televised virtually every night of the week, and even high school contests are broadcast to a national audience. Both college and professional teams play abroad in search of new markets and this quintessential American sport is now played in more than 100 countries (http://ifaf.org). How did such explosive growth and interest come to pass? Surely the internet has been a factor, as the chapter “American Football and the Media” demonstrates, but this book intends to take a more comprehensive exploration and analysis of this global phenomenon, from its historical roots to its global presence. The game evolved from English soccer to rugby; but assumed its current form in the college rivalries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The professional variety emerged when an urban athletic club, which had bet large sums of money on the outcome of its annual game with a rival team, paid a former All-American from Yale to bolster its chances of winning. Extensive gambling on games resulted in increasing numbers of talented players being paid, eventually resulting in entirely professional teams. This book covers the history of such developments in the chapters “American Football” and “College Football,” as well as the establishment of youth football programs in “High School and Youth Football.” Football had already become a big business by the 1880s as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale had to rent New York arenas to accommodate their legions of fans that flocked to the big rivalry games. When Harvard erected its own stadium in 1903, other schools were obliged to follow. Such games captured the national interest as entertainment spectacles, long before the Super Bowl and the Football Bowl Series for the national collegiate football championship became commercial bonanzas, as recounted in the chapter “The Super Bowl: An American Institution.” The National Football League has become a capitalist behemoth, where millionaire players argue with billionaire owners over how best to divide the overflow of riches, and “The Economics of American College and Professional Football” shows us how this has happened. ix

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Although NFL Europe, an initial attempt to capture the European market, could not displace the entrenched attraction to soccer, discussed in “American Football in Europe,” the NFL continues to make concerted global efforts to grow the game and its revenue with games in London, Germany, and Mexico. A Mexico City game in 2005 drew 103,467 spectators to the game (http://www.cbssports. com/nfl/news/nfl-games-in-mexico-or-germany-could-happen-by-2017/). Yet that figure pales in comparison to the 120,000 who showed up to witness a clash between two high school teams in Chicago in 1937. College stadiums presumably can no longer hold the multitudes who seek a seat at campus venues. A temporary football field was constructed within the Bristol Motor Speedway to accommodate 156,000 fans for a game between Tennessee and Virginia Tech on 10 September 2016. The previous Saturday, the Texas-Notre Dame encounter drew 11 million television viewers, a new record (TV Guide Magazine, 19–25 September 2016, 20). In Texas, where football has assumed the status of a secular religion, high schools have built stadiums at a cost well in excess of $60 million (Chad 2016). A sport economist examines the commercial ramifications of such developments for readers in “The Economics of American College and Professional Football.” The spirit and atmosphere of the game is further portrayed in the chapter “Imagining Football Fandom in the United States: Home of the Free or the Branded Pursuit of Belonging?” which takes on the rabid fan culture, with its mascots, chants, cheers, painted and costumed bodies, symbols, and rivalries. Such local, regional, and national implications are rampant in the popular culture, often depicted in movies, books, and oral histories that sustain interest over generations. As detailed in “Football Warriors: The Archeology of Football Movies,” football movies have been prominent for nearly a century, since the infancy of American film-making. The chapter “Football and Social Change” shows us how football has been and continues to be a social force relative to racial, ethnic, social class, and gender issues. The Carlisle Indian School football teams, featuring Jim Thorpe (recognized as the world’s greatest athlete at the 1912 Olympic Games), used football to dispel notions of white racial superiority. Few know that Fritz Pollard became the first black quarterback in the NFL in the 1920s, long before Jackie Robinson desegregated Major League Baseball. One of the early professional teams founded in 1901, the Columbus Panhandles, was manned by the six Nesser brothers, working-class boilermakers. It became one of the original members of the NFL, along with other industrial teams that fueled the aspirations of working-class men and sustained the perception of sport as a meritocracy. Masculinity and militarism have been tied to the game since its modern origins in the nineteenth century. It served as a surrogate form of warfare between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War in which young men might display their courage and fighting skills. The early rules, still evident in the game of rugby, required the ball carrier to “touch down” the ball in the opponent’s end zone to score points. A “maul in goal” might result if a defender could wrestle the ball away before the ball carrier earned the points. The early game was considerably rougher than the current version. Players wore no helmets and grew their hair long for some padding. A ball carrier might be brought down by “throttling” or choking him by the neck. Opponents could even slug their foes three times before being expelled from the game. Broken bones and even deaths were not uncommon, which eventually x

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resulted in the formation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in 1906 to regulate the game among college teams (Gems 2000). A brief linguistic analysis of football terminology (such as a long pass known as a bomb, linemen fighting it out in the trenches, or linebackers “blitzing” the quarterback) give some indication of the militaristic links to the game. Promoters and even the US government deemed the sport a means to develop leadership skills and it was readily established at the military academies. Only males were allowed to be school cheerleaders because it was assumed that no male spectators would follow the directions of a female. During and after World War I, the Rose Bowl game was contested not between colleges, but between military teams in 1918 and 1919. By the onset of the Korean War in 1950, the US Navy counted eighty admirals who had played the game and the US Army numbered ninety-eight generals as former players (Gems 2000, 100). More recently, the tragic death of Pat Tillman (1976–2002), who eschewed his career in the NFL to fight with the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been much discussed and commemorated. The NFL alliance with the US military is regularly acknowledged in pre-game and halftime rituals. The violence and aggression that accompanies game play is often highlighted in the media, and the New Orleans Saints were even penalized for a bounty system that rewarded players for injuring their opponents between 2009 and 2011. What do such things tell us about American culture? This book intends to provide some answers. As shown in “Concussions: Medical and Legal Controversies in Football,” the violence and aggression that permeates the sport have produced health and economic concerns as injuries, particularly concussions and brain damage that portend life-threatening debility have become a major concern, as are the scandals, controversies, and issues that occur in players’ increasingly public lives. Scandals and imbroglios in football are longstanding, as revealed in “Scandals and Controversies in Football.” And while the NFL began tying itself to the military and a nationalistic spirit in the 1980s, that synergy backfired after the 2016 season when Colin Kaepernick, quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, failed to stand for the national anthem in a protest against racial injustice. A multitude of players joined in the crusade in the 2017 season, incurring the wrath of President Donald Trump and nationalistic supporters who perceived their actions as un-American. American football appears to be a very gendered, masculine game; but few know that professional women’s leagues have been in existence for decades. The game is even more popular among women in many other countries outside of North America, as explored by one of the top scholars in gender studies in “Challenging the Gender Order: Women on the Gridiron.” In “Playing Football,” an autobiographical account by a distinguished scholar Michael Oriard, who played the game at all levels, from youth sport to the NFL, provides some insight into the psychology that drives participants, as well as the personal and national identity affiliated with the sport. The second part of the book provides an extensive account of the growth of American football around the world. Throughout the twentieth century, American military forces brought the game to foreign shores, creating their own leagues, but also introducing the game to local populations that both adopted and adapted it to their own cultures. A group of prominent international scholars have contributed separate chapters on Canada, Latin America, Europe, China, Japan, and the Pacific Region to show the historical introduction of football to various areas of the globe xi

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and its current status in each. Things change quickly in American football - contact the publisher or check the authors’ blogs or Twitter feeds for recent information. The growth of American football in such regions and the capitalist quest for global markets suggests that the sport will eventually encompass several continents, similar to the American sports of baseball and basketball. Regional professional leagues and an eventual world championship, not unlike the World Baseball Classic, seem inevitable. The International Federation of American Football (IFAF) has been organizing world championships since 1999, including a women’s championship initiated in 2010 (www.ifaf.info). The articles in this anthology cover the sport in both the broad scope of its contents and the depth of its coverage in a manner accessible to both knowledgeable fans and interested neophytes. The stimulating explication and insightful analysis presented in this collection is intended to bring greater understanding to a global audience as to why football remains an American obsession.

Further Reading Benedict, J., & Keteyian, A. (2013). The System: The glory and scandal of big-time college football. New York: Doubleday). Chad, N. (2016, October 16). “Anybody for a library stadium?” Chicago Sun-Times, 69. Chudacoff, H. (2015). How power, profit, and politics transformed college sport. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Gems, G. R. (1996). The Prep Bowl: Sport, religion, and Americanization in Chicago. Journal of Sport History, 23(3) (Fall), 284–302. Gems, G. R. (2000). For pride, profit & patriarchy: Football and the incorporation of American cultural values. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Gwynne, S.C. (2016). The perfect pass: American genius and the reinvention of football. New York: Scribner’s. Holstein, J. A., Jones, R.S., & Koonce, G. E. Jr. (2015). Is there life after football? Surviving the NFL. New York: New York University Press. McClellan, K. (1998). The Sunday game: At the dawn of professional football. Akron, OH: University of Akron Press. Oates, T. P., & Furness, Z. (Eds.). (2014). The NFL: Critical and cultural perspectives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Oriard, M. (2007). Brand NFL: Making and selling America’s favorite sport. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. www.ifaf.info. (March 20, 2017).

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PART I

Football in the United States

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Captain John J. McEwan of the United States Military Academy (USMA) football team, 1916. The annual Army-Navy game, between the USMA and the United States Naval Academy (USNA), is one of football’s biggest rivalries; the first game was held in 1890. New York Public Library.

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Chapter One: American Football Ronald A. SMITH Pennsylvania State University

American football is the most popular spectator sport in the United States and is played on several levels with slightly different rules, from youth teams to the professional National Football League. The full-contact game, almost (but not quite) exclusively played by men and boys, has its origins in English rugby. Both college football and professional football are major business enterprises (often in competition with each other) that rely on television for their wide and growing popularity. Keywords: football, youth sports, NFL, television, intercollegiate sports, Super Bowl, violence, concussions, race

A

merican football is the most popular spectator sport in the United States and is played in organized form in youth, middle school, high school, college, semi-professional, and the professional National Football League (NFL). In many communities, especially in the South and Midwest, the Friday night or Saturday high school football game is a community event that draws thousands of fans to what are often fierce and long-standing rivalries between neighboring communities. About one-quarter of the US population (75–80 million people) are college football fans, many identifying with the teams of their state or alma mater. The NFL is the most popular sport league on television, broadcast in 2015 on five networks and in satellite and cable packages of games and is also the most popular spectator sport, drawing an average more than sixty-seven-thousand spectators to the sixteen games each week. The spillover from football into popular culture in the United States is a significant component of male culture and a contributor to the national economy through the sale of books; movies; interactive video games; participation in fantasy football, which had 74.7 million participants, generating $4.6 billion; and gambling, which has produced much more in the way of wagers.

Overview of Basic Rules Entire books are written on the rules and strategies of modern football. To summarize the basics, a 100-yard field is divided into ten-yard segments. (One yard is slightly less than a meter.) There is an additional ten-yard end zone on both sides 3

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of the field. The beginning of a game is determined by a coin toss. Team captains come forward, and the visiting team calls heads or tails. Whichever team wins the coin toss gets to choose which team receives or makes the kickoff, or which goal the team will defend (an advantage on a windy day); alternately, a team may choose to defer to the other team. This last option can be advantageous, because whichever team doesn’t make the pre-game choice gets to make the same choice at halftime. Once play begins, the team playing offense (the team in possession of the ball) has four downs (or plays) to advance the ball a minimum of ten yards down the field by running or passing (throwing) or else it loses possession of the ball. Strategies for plays are complex, but the basic choices are to run the ball down the field, to throw the ball in a forward pass, or to punt (i.e., kick) it. The team playing defense attempts to tackle the player who is holding the ball in order to halt the ball’s forward progress. The defending team, if it is skilled and fortunate, will be able to intercept a pass so its team members can run the ball to the opposite end in an attempt to score. Interceptions and returning punts provide some of the most exciting moments of a football game, especially when they lead to a long run down the field. If a team fails to advance the ball ten yards or score in its allotted four downs (plays), possession of the ball switches to the other team. The ultimate goal of the game is to get the ball into the end zone (called a touchdown because the original rules required the ball to physically touch the ground), by running it in or completing a pass inside the end zone. Either method earns six points. After a touchdown, the team that scored is given the opportunity to earn an extra point. There are two ways to score an extra point (or, less commonly, two points) after a touchdown. The more common choice is to attempt to score an extra point by kicking the ball through the goal posts at the end of the field. (NFL teams must kick the extra point from the fifteen-yard line). Or, in what is called a “two-point conversion,” the team may attempt to run or pass the ball into the end zone from the two-yard line (or the three-yard line for college and high school players) to earn two extra points. (Football fans and statisticians have analyzed the relative success rates of one and two-point conversions, and the consensus seems to be that kicking, which scores less but has a slightly higher rate of success, leads to more extra points in the long run.) The crossbar of the goal post is ten feet above the ground, and the uprights are twenty-four feet apart. The ball must pass between the uprights and over the crossbar to earn a point. After touchdowns, the next most common way of scoring points is the field goal. Often on the fourth down, if a team doesn’t think a touchdown is possible, but is close enough to be able to kick the ball through the goal post, the team will attempt to kick the ball through the goal post to earn three points. Although this may appear to be an easy task, it is in fact quite difficult; designated kickers are highly trained athletes whose skills are invaluable to a successful team. Field goals are also a fast way to score a few more points if there isn’t enough time left in a quarter for four full downs. The final way to score points in football—one that is somewhat rare—is known as the “safety.” A safety occurs when a member of the offensive team downs the ball, most often unwillingly, behind the team’s own goal line, resulting in two points for the defensive team. (For more complete information on rules, regulations, and strategies, such as offsides and proper possession of the ball, see Long and Czarnecki 2011). 4

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Chapter One: American Football

Origins of the Game Since the nineteenth century, football has developed differently in the United States than in the rest of the world, where the word “football” refers to a much different (and more globally loved) sport of soccer. (The terms “football” and “soccer” will be used in this article, rather than “American football” and “football” which would have been also an option.) The game was thriving in colleges well before the professional game took hold. The sport has remained a game played almost exclusively by boys and men, unlike other popular team sports such as baseball, for which women formed a professional league in the 1940s and 1950s, soccer, and basketball, which girls and women made the most popular sport in schools and colleges for most of the twentieth century. In contrast to its current popularity, football’s appeal was quite modest when it emerged from English rugby during the period from the 1870s to the early 1900s. The game first became popular in the elite colleges of the East after the students of Harvard University refused to play soccer. Led by Yale University’s Walter Camp (1859–1925), players changed rugby football rules to reflect the desire among the college students for an allegedly more scientific, rational game.

Origins in Rugby and Soccer Rugby football evolved at Rugby School, one of England’s elite private secondary schools known as “public schools.” Two distinct forms of football had developed in Britain: association football (a term that came to be corrupted by schoolboys into the term “soccer”) and rugby, a contest emphasizing running more than kicking. The English Football Association, founded by former public school and university players in 1863. The Association, located in London, codified the rules of soccer in 1863 when it was founded by elite ex-public school and Oxford and Cambridge University players working in London. The Football Association had hoped to create one game of the various school and college games but was unable to convince the rugby players of the need for one unified game of football. The Rugby Football Union was formed in 1871 to promote the running version of the game with a specific set of codified rules. During the 1860s and early 1870s, many US college students were playing forms of soccer, whereas Harvard students had created a game more akin to English rugby than soccer. On most US campuses, soccer had evolved as part of class battles. The sophomores would challenge the freshmen to a kicking game in which the kicking of opponents appeared to be as common as kicking the ball. These games were part of the traditional initiation rituals found on all college campuses where cocky sophomores initiated freshmen through hazing. At Harvard the first day of school in the autumn was known as “Bloody Monday,” because the sophomores generally beat the freshmen into submission. Other matches throughout the year might include the freshmen combining with the juniors to battle the sophomores and seniors. These matches became so brutal, especially the Bloody Monday matches, that Harvard authorities banned football in 1860. At many other colleges, however, students continued to play football, including two New Jersey institutions—Princeton and Rutgers—that were located 5

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less than twenty miles (thirty-two kilometers) apart. A year after the US Civil War (1861–1865), when baseball was expanding greatly throughout the United States, a Princeton team had beaten a Rutgers team in their first intercollegiate baseball contest 40–2. Three years later, Rutgers challenged Princeton to a two-out-of-three football competition. On 6 November 1869, the first intercollegiate football game was played on the Rutgers campus with teams of twenty-five on a side. The agreedupon rules resembled those of soccer, but the players could bat the inflated rubber ball with hands or fists as well as with feet. The goal posts were eight paces apart and were located at the ends of a 75-yard field, three-quarters the size of the nowstandard field of 100-yards. Rutgers accumulated six goals first and won 6–4 before a crowd that included a small number of Princeton partisans, who took the train to New Brunswick. They and the Rutgers fans saw a contest featuring “headlong running, wild shouting, and frantic kicking” and a Princeton player who forgot which end was his and sent the ball to his own goal. The game was followed by a gastronomic and convivial evening that included a roast game dinner, impromptu speeches, and the singing of college songs. A week later Rutgers visited Princeton, playing under Princeton’s usual rules that allowed the free kick, whereby a player could catch the ball in the air or on first bounce and kick it without hindrance. Princeton’s 8–0 victory called for a third and decisive game, but it was not played, possibly because of administrators’ interference, but more likely because the two institutions were not able to agree on common rules.

“The Boston Game” and Further Developments Although most colleges were playing a variation of association football, the soccer-like game was short-lived despite the rules being codified on several campuses, as teams could not agree on the rules. Harvard was the only major school not playing a form of soccer. The Harvard men called their pastime “the Boston game,” in which a player could catch or pick up the ball and then kick it or even run with it. The opportunity to run with the ball was the key in the development of a novel football game in the United States. This new game resembled rugby, which was not played by any of the colleges. Yale, Harvard’s chief rival in crew (rowing) and baseball during the early 1870s, played its first intercollegiate football contest against Columbia in 1872. The Yale victory was the beginning of the most successful college program during the first century of intercollegiate football. The next year, a “western” school, the University of Michigan, challenged Cornell to a football match, but Cornell’s president, Andrew D. White (1882–1918), denied permission with the comment: “I will not permit 30 men to travel 400 miles merely to agitate a bag of wind.” With interest expanding, Yale called a convention to write common rules for league play in 1873 (Peckham 1967). Harvard absented itself from the convention, with the argument that the soccer-like game was inferior to their own version of the game, This action drastically changed the history of American football. While the students of Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers agreed to common rules, Harvard kept its own. This decision meant that the Harvard team only played two matches in 1874 against 6

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McGill University from Montreal, Canada. The first game between the most elite institutions in each country was played according to Harvard’s rules and the second by McGill’s rugby rules. The Harvard men enjoyed the rugby game and in the spring of 1875 they played against a team of the nearby Tufts College in the first rugby game between colleges in the United States. Soon players of Yale asked Harvard to play a “football” game, but the Harvard students would agree only if rugby rules were used. The Yale team, to save face, agreed to “concessionary” rules, but they were in fact those of rugby. Some Princeton men traveled to New England to see the game. Wanting to play the more prestigious game played by the Yale and Harvard teams, the students at Princeton changed their rules and played rugby in the future.

The Thanksgiving Tradition is Born After Princeton accepted rugby, a convention was called in which the future “Big Three“ and Columbia met to adopt standard rugby rules and form the Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA) in the autumn of 1876. Yale was reluctant to accept fifteen men on a team rather than its favored eleven. Nevertheless, the IFA decided to initiate a Thanksgiving Day championship contest between the two leading teams of the previous year. Yale and Princeton were chosen for the first of the traditional Thanksgiving Day games, and the two schools continued to dominate the game for the next two decades. By the 1890s, the contest kicked off New York City elite’s social season, giving added social significance to the contest. As many as forty-thousand people viewed the contest in the Polo Grounds or at Manhattan Field, and the Thanksgiving Day tradition spread across the United States as “a holiday granted by the State and the nation to see a game of football” (New York Herald 1893, 3).

Further Refinement of the Rules The eastern elite schools Americanized the rugby rules that the rest of the schools accepted as their own. Walter Camp, the “father” of US football, had played for Yale in the first Thanksgiving Day championship game. Camp, more than any other person, created the US version of football. Camp began attending football rules meetings in 1877 as a sophomore (second year student) and continued for the next forty-eight years. In 1880 he suggested possibly the most radical rule in football history, one giving continuous possession of the ball to one team after a player was tackled. In rugby, when a player was downed, the ball would be placed in a “scrummage.” The ball might go forward or backward, with possession in doubt. To Camp, this rule was not rational. Camp proposed a “scrimmage” in which the team in original possession would snap (propel) the ball back to a quarter-back who would hand it to another back in a logical play. One team could control the ball for as much as an entire half unless the ball was fumbled away or was kicked to the opponents. Camp, by the early 1880s, suggested incorporating the notion of “downs,” in which one team was given three attempts (downs) to advance five yards or lose possession of the ball. The five-yard chalk lines created a “gridiron” effect and a new nickname for the game. The consequence of the short distance to be gained in three attempts created the need for exacting plays, the development of 7

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signals for calling the plays, and the introduction of players running interference for the ball carrier, another modification of rugby. Mass plays led to the charge of brutality during the late nineteenth century. The change from the more open running of the original rugby game to tight line smashes resulted from a rule to allow tackling below the waist in 1887. The low tackle did much to reduce the effectiveness of open field running and contributed to the unfolding of various wedge formations, including the famous “flying wedge.” Wedges were V-shaped formations that “snowplowed” a particular position in the defense. In the flying wedge players began about twenty-five yards behind the scrimmage line and progressed at full speed from two angles to form a “V” formation just before the ball was passed to the runner behind the “V.” The play was so brutal to the defensive player at whom it was aimed that it existed for only one season before it was outlawed. Plays such as the flying wedge and other mass plays eventually led to the forward pass, a radical change legislated in 1906 to open up the game. The game’s brutality was evidenced at a time when US society was urbanizing and thought to be losing manly qualities found on the frontier. College students had often been the symbol of the effete, pale, and dyspeptic scholars, persons lacking the virile element considered to be an important aspect of US society. Football could counteract this negative, demasculinized image and give college life the picture of vitality and manliness. As the century waned, US president Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), more than any other person, stood for the strenuous life needed for US leadership in the world. Roosevelt believed that football, if played fairly, could add to the vigor of the nation. “Hit the line hard: don’t foul and don’t shirk, but hit the line hard” was to Roosevelt and many other people a metaphor worth pursuing in life as in football. Only after football became the most prominent college sport by the 1890s, did the game become professionalized. The professional game did not challenge the dominance of college football until the 1960s, when television coverage of the National Football League (NFL) made professional football popular. By that time African American players had become prominent in both college and professional football. With increased revenues, professional players formed a labor union and demanded a higher portion of the profits being made by team owners. By the end of the last century football had become the most popular spectator sport in the United States.

College vs. Professional Football College football was a US symbol of virility before the first identified contest in which players were known to be paid. The professional game has been traced to the payment of Walter “Pudge” Heffelfinger (1867–1954), the acknowledged greatest college player of the nineteenth century. Heffelfinger was on Walter Camp’s first all-American team in 1889 as well as the next two years. In the autumn after his graduation from Yale, he was playing for the Chicago Athletic Club, as was Ben “Sport” Donnelly, formerly of Princeton. When the club concluded a tour of the eastern United States, Heffelfinger and Donnelly did not return to Chicago. The Allegheny Athletic Association, located near Pittsburgh, saw an opportunity to defeat the rival Pittsburgh Athletic Club with the help of outsiders and recruited Heffelfinger 8

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and Donnelly to play for them. Heffelfinger received the enormous sum of $500, approximately a worker’s yearly wage, plus travel expenses, and Donnelly received $250 plus expenses. In a contest with high betting stakes, Heffelfinger picked up a fumble and ran for the game’s only touchdown. Other “amateur” teams began paying their players in western Pennsylvania, upper New York, and especially Ohio. Most of the better players were collegians, who at times played on Saturdays for college teams and competed under assumed names for pro teams on Sundays. Some of the players were professional baseball players as well as collegians. Christy Mathewson (1880–1925), a Bucknell University player and later a star pitcher in baseball for the New York Giants, played for Pittsburgh Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss (1865–1932), who fielded a football team in 1898. The strongest teams early in the twentieth century were formed in Ohio, where Akron, Canton, Columbus, Dayton, and Massillon created unparalleled rivalries, particularly the Canton Bulldogs and Massillon Tigers of towns a buggy ride apart. A scandal emanating from a bribe offer disrupted continuous play, but pro football in the area was renewed in 1912. By then the game resembled the modern version with the legalization of the forward pass, touchdowns counting six points and field goals three, a standardized 100-yard field size (see ESPN 2013), and four downs to gain ten yards. Ohio again led the way in the professional game. Collegians such as Knute Rockne (1888–1931) of Notre Dame and the great African American stars—Paul Robeson (1898–1976) of Rutgers and Fritz Pollard (1894–1986) of Brown—played in Ohio. Rockne once played for six different teams in a two-month period. Massillon hired forty-five top players for one game to ensure that the opponent would not hire any of them. Jim Thorpe (1888–1953), the star of the Carlisle Indian School around 1910, was paid $250 a game in 1915 to play for the Canton Bulldogs. When Thorpe, the “greatest athlete” of the first half of the twentieth century, made his debut at Canton, eight thousand spectators saw him lead the Bulldogs to a victory over the hated Massillon Tigers. Although the crowds at professional games did not compare with those at the best college games, interest in football was increasing when World War I, momentarily, halted the game. Two of the most important pro franchises were a result of industry-sponsored teams—the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. In Wisconsin in 1919, Curly Lambeau (1898–1965), a Notre Dame dropout, received $500 from the Indian Packing Company of Green Bay to organize a team, the Green Bay Packers. After a 10–1 season playing regional teams, each player was paid $16.75. The following year George Halas (1895–1983), a former University of Illinois player, organized a team with money from the Staley Starch Company of Decatur, Illinois. Players on Halas’s Decatur Staleys were hired by the company and paid $50 a week, with two hours off each day to practice football. After a ten-win, one-loss, and two-tie season, the average payment for playing was $125 a game. Halas, with the blessing of the Staley Company, moved his team to Chicago, where he renamed it the “Bears” because it shared Wrigley Field with the Chicago Cubs baseball team. In 1920, he joined a group that was the forerunner of the National Football League. The NFL was formed as the American Professional Football Association in 1920 and renamed the National Football League in 1922. Green Bay and Chicago, along with the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins, came to dominate the NFL until the end of World War II. 9

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The relationship between the professional game and the intercollegiate game has been a long one and close in many ways. The star players of the early professional teams were mostly collegians from the time of Heffelfinger in the 1890s. Nearly as important, many college coaches had played professional football, including such renowned coaches as Knute Rockne of Notre Dame, Hugo Bezdek (1884–1952) of Penn State, Bert Ingwersen (1898–1969) of Illinois, and Jimmy Conzelman (1898–1970) of St. Louis. Coaches, too, shifted between college teams and pro teams. Examples included Arnold Horween (1898–1985), who moved from the Chicago Cardinals pro team in the 1920s to head Harvard University’s team, and Jock Sutherland (1889–1948), who took over the Brooklyn professional team after a successful career at the University of Pittsburgh. The Midwestern Big-10 Conference and the Ivy League in the East were so concerned about pro football during the mid-1920s that they legislated that all employees of athletic departments who took part in professional football games as players or officials were disqualified from employment in athletics at conference institutions.

Amateurism vs. Professionalism: The “Red Grange” Rule The case of Harold “Red” Grange (1903–1991), a star halfback at the University of Illinois, led to an outcry by colleges against the pros for signing a player before he graduated from college. During his senior year Grange signed a football contract with the Chicago Bears within a week of playing his last college game against Ohio State in 1925. The reaction was so negative that the NFL decided to make an agreement with the colleges not to sign any football player before his eligibility was completed or his class had graduated. The so-called Red Grange Rule lasted for more than a half-century, when the agreement could no longer stand up under federal antitrust law because it violated the freedom of people to sign contracts, a conspiracy in restraint of trade. Pro football received a degree of national attention when Red Grange joined the Chicago Bears and went on an eastern and then southern and western tour, at one point playing seven games in eleven days. Clearly, having the pros feed off the colleges was more important than having the colleges benefit from the pros. Pro football gained stature because its teams increasingly used the colleges as “farm teams.” In an attempt to ensure an equitable distribution of college players within the professional ranks, the annual draft of college players was devised in 1936. When Jay Berwanger (1914–2002) of the University of Chicago (the first Heisman Trophy winner) was chosen by the worst team in the NFL, the Philadelphia Eagles, it was an attempt to give weaker teams an opportunity to improve their teams immediately. That Berwanger chose to enter business and not the NFL was a reflection of the lack of esteem accorded professional football during the 1930s. Some other star college players, however, were drafted and joined pro teams, including Byron “Whizzer” White (1917–2002) of the University of Colorado, who was paid the NFL’s highest salary of $15,800 to join the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1938. White later went into law and was appointed to the US Supreme Court. College football far outstripped professional football until the 1960s. The college game took advantage of claiming to be amateur, with athletes playing for

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the honor of their alma mater. British amateurism’s upper-class notions of participating in sport purely for enjoyment, not financial benefits, applied to college football in the United States as well. Even though the college game had been developed on a commercial model with huge stadiums, highly paid coaches, and subsidized athletes (either overtly or covertly), people generally believed that the athletes were amateurs. The positive virtue of “amateurism” added to the luster of football traditions of homecoming, pep rallies, “tailgating,” cheerleaders, and marching bands. College coaches and other college athletic officials feared the growth of professional football. At about the time the NFL came into existence, college coaches formed the Football Coaches Association (FCA). One of the association’s first actions in 1921 was to unanimously resolve that professional football was “detrimental to the best interests of American football and American youth and that football coaches [should] lend their influence to discourage the professional game” (New York Times 1921, 13). The fear that pro football would hurt the college game continued through the century. That fear was seen early in creation of the Red Grange Rule, and it continued with such actions during the 1960s as forbidding the mention of pro football in college football telecasts and lobbying to pass federal legislation to prohibit pro football from televising games on Saturdays, when college football is traditionally played.

Bowl Games The fear of the pros was a major stimulus in the 1960s decision to allow unlimited substitutions (two-platoon football) to increase fan interest, which was being lost to the more exciting pro game. The fear of professional competition almost led to the creation of a playoff system for college football during the 1960s, but the previous development of “bowl” games at the end of each season made the playoff problematical and less attractive. Season-ending bowl games added to the interest. The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, began in 1902 and has been continually played since 1916. During the Depression of the 1930s, several communities, principally in the South, decided that they could help the local economy by hosting bowl games. The Orange Bowl in Miami and the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans started the rush to season-ending contests and were followed by the Cotton Bowl in Dallas and a host of new bowls after World War II. While most bowls games are financially successful and provide teams with regional or national exposure, they do not produce a national champion. The champion (until 1998) was selected on the basis of end-of-season pools of coaches and sports writers and computer-based ranking systems. In 1998, however, the Bowl Championship Series was established to pick a champion based on direct on-field competition. As structured in 2012, the top ten teams are selected to play in the series. Eight play in four bowl games and the top two play each other for the championship in a national championship game. This approach was also unpopular and in 2013 a new format was introduced in which four teams are selected to play in a two-game elimination playoff. The goal is to produce a champion while also preserving the bowl games.

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Racial Integration College teams and professional teams lacked a large number of African American players during the first half of the twentieth century. Southern institutions of higher learning refused to admit blacks until forced to do so by desegregation during the 1960s, and only a few institutions in the North had black students until after World War II. Outstanding players such as Fritz Pollard of Brown and Paul Robeson of Rutgers in the 1910s; Duke Slater (1898–1966) of Iowa and Joe Lillard (1918–1978) of Oregon in the 1920s; Wilmeth Sidat-Singh (1917–1943) of Syracuse and Kenny Washington (1918–1971) of UCLA in the 1930s; and Buddy Young (1926–1983) of Illinois and Marion Motley (1920–1999) of Nevada in the 1940s were exceptions to the rule. Professional football’s first black player was Charles Follis (1879–1910), who in 1904 played for the Shelby Athletic Club in Ohio. Fritz Pollard played pro football after his Brown experience, becoming the first African American head football coach in 1919 when he coached the Akron Pros. Blacks played in the NFL until the “color line” was drawn in 1933. Football remained segregated until the end of World War II, when the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League and the Cleveland Browns of the All-American Football Conference added black players shortly before Jackie Robinson (1917–1972) desegregated professional baseball. The number of black players grew over the years, and in 2011 some 67 percent of NFL players were black. The league also has seen an increase in the number of Latino players. In the twenty-first century, the NFL has received high marks for its efforts at racial integration. At the start of the 2012 season, five head coaches were black, although this was down one from 2011. In addition, 33 percent of assistant coaches were men of color and six of thirty-two general managers were men of color in 2012. The increase in the number of head coaches is at least in part the result of the Rooney Rule instituted in 2002 (named after Pittsburgh Steeler owner Dan Rooney) which requires teams to interview a black candidate for open head-coach positions. The one remaining issue is the low number of black quarterbacks. At the start of 2012 season only four of thirty-two starters were black and an additional two were Latino, down from six blacks in 2011 and a high of eight in 2008. Critics point out that 65 percent of college quarterbacks are black, suggesting that some consideration other than ability is behind the low percentage of professional black quarterbacks.

Television and Football The introduction of television dramatically affected college and pro football after World War II. Football games were first telecast in the autumn of 1939, but another decade passed before the cable required to carry signals spread from the East Coast as far west as Chicago. By about 1950 the growth of television made commercial telecasts of sport contests profitable. Colleges were concerned that telecasts would have a negative impact on attendance at stadiums, and in 1951 members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) decided to control the number of telecasts of their football games. From 1951 to 1984 the NCAA plan provided for national and regional telecasts each Saturday during the season. 12

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This monopoly existed first to limit games on TV and to preserve gate receipts. Later, when the NCAA contract with television networks was worth more than $65 million per year, receiving television revenues became more important to big-time colleges than preserving stadium attendance. A power struggle erupted between the smaller NCAA institutions and those that had regular game telecasts. The smaller institutions, demanding a greater percentage of television funds, helped spur the creation of the College Football Association (CFA). The CFA was created in 1976 to promote big-time football. Within five years the CFA helped sponsor a legal suit against the NCAA by the University of Oklahoma and University of Georgia to break up the NCAA football TV monopoly. A 1984 US Supreme Court decision went against the NCAA, and colleges were thereafter free to create their own television plans. The result was an oversupply of televised games and lower revenues to most institutions. In the 1990s, it was the conferences rather than individual teams that managed broadcast relations, leading to an expansion of television coverage. As of 2012, college football was broadcast each week on five networks and on satellite and cable outlets as well. College games are shown mainly on Saturday so they do not compete with NFL games on Sunday and during the week. The dominance of the conferences has led to what is called “conference realignment,” meaning that elite teams move from one conference to another, as both the teams and conferences seek to maximize their exposure and revenues. This has led to the distortion of what were once geographically based conferences. Based on the number of fans, the leading conferences in 2011 were the Southeast Conference (SEC), Big-10 (soon to be 14 teams), Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and the Big-12. The leading teams are principally state universities (Florida, Louisiana State, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Oregon), although some private institutions such as Notre Dame and Stanford are highly competitive. The leading team in terms of recent championships is Alabama, which won the national title in the 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2015 seasons. The NFL’s popularity rose greatly after its championship game in 1958, when the Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants in a dramatic overtime contest seen by millions on television. During that decade the NFL solution to protect stadium attendance was to prevent televising within a radius of 120 kilometers without permission of the home team. The NFL also decided to pool television money, dividing the TV revenues equally among all the teams. This brilliant decision allowed smaller-market teams, such as the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, to remain financially competitive.

The Super Bowl and the AFL The Super Bowl, which evolved into an unofficial national holiday, has had some of the highest ratings in television history, easily surpassing baseball’s World Series in popularity. The NFL introduced Monday Night Football to supplement the traditional Sunday games beginning in 1970. “Prime time” evening football was the creation of the NFL’s commissioner, Pete Rozelle (1926–1996), and the innovative Roone Arledge (1931–2002) of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). For two decades, “Monday Night Football” surpassed all regular televised sporting events in popularity. 13

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Competition from a new league also had an impact on professional football. Lamar Hunt (1932–2006), disgruntled at being unable to purchase an NFL franchise, in 1960 decided to form the American Football League (AFL), which soon received a multimillion-dollar television contract from the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). With the signing of star college players such as Joe Namath (b. 1943) of Alabama, the AFL received recognition, and in 1966 the NFL, which fought the AFL, accepted a merger of the two leagues. The merger, under the NFL name, became official as a twenty-six-team league in 1970. A playoff between the NFL and AFL beginning in 1967 added excitement and created greater wealth. The championship was called the “Super Bowl,” and Green Bay won the first two contests. A recent Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLVII, nicknamed the Harbaugh Bowl for the fact that the two opposing teams were coached by brothers, saw the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Baltimore Ravens narrowly defeat the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers 34-31. Professional football’s increase in wealth from television has spurred both new labor disputes and competing leagues. Players formed the National Football League Players Association in 1956, but the union was not recognized by NFL owners until 1968. A desire for a larger share of the profits eventually led to several players’ strikes and lockouts between 1968 and 2011. New football leagues, also looking at the growing wealth in the professional game, were formed. The World Football League lasted only one season in the mid-1970s. Eight years later the United States Football League (USFL) began as a spring sport in 1983. The March-to-July schedule did not conflict with that of the stronger NFL for a television audience, but the USFL survived for only three years because of low television ratings. Three years later, the NFL established the World League of American Football (WLAF) with teams in Europe and North America. The league did not survive but the NFL remains interested in placing a team in Europe and toward that end schedules one regular season game between NFL games in Europe each season. The WLAF acts like a farm system for the NFL and expanded the college football feeder system that has existed for much of the century. As of 2016, the NFL consists of thirty-two teams, all individually owned (the NFL prohibits corporate ownership) except for the still-publicly owned Green Bay Packers.

Injuries and the Future A major issue facing the NFL and football at all levels in the early twenty-first century is concussions, and especially the long term effects of concussions on former players’ well-being. Concussions are nothing new in football (or sports like soccer and ice hockey) but were never taken very seriously, with “having your bell rung” part of the game and players returning to action as soon as their vision cleared. It became a major issue first when anecdotal evidence and then medical research indicated that some former professional players suffered from depression, suicide, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease at a higher rate than the general population. Although a direct link has yet to be established, the medical establishment and the players believe that these problems are the result of concussions suffered while playing football. 14

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East Carolina running back Brandon Fractious eludes US Naval Academy defenders during a football game in Annapolis, Maryland, in September 2006. US Navy photo by Damon J. Moritz. National Archives.

The problem is not just a single concussion but multiple concussions, and concussions suffered before a player has fully recovered from a previous one. The NFL has been hesitant to accept a link between concussions and later neurological problems, although it has taken steps to control the problem with new rules on when a concussed player can return to play, penalties for hits like helmet-to-helmet tackles that cause concussions, and funding for medical research. The former players remain unsatisfied and in 2012 over two-thousand of them joined in a suit against the NFL, charging that the league ignored the problem and hid information it had from their players, thereby putting them at risk. Concussions are an issue across football at all levels of play, with one estimate suggesting that 75 percent of players suffer at least one concussion. The long-term effects of concussions in young players are not well-understood. This issue is especially critical in light of the bounty scandal in 2012, where players were paid bonuses if they were able to injure an opposing team’s quarterback enough to take him out of the game. Higher monetary prizes were awarded if the targeted quarterback had to sit out the rest of the season. (Please see the chapter “Concussions” for more details.) Despite the challenges and criticism of college and professional football in the United States, the game continues to grow. Football still fills stadiums from 70,000 to over 100,000 spectators, and it draws the largest television audiences, producing more income than any other sport, collegiate or professional. This suggests that football will continue to dominate sport in the United States into the foreseeable future. 15

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Further Reading Baker, L. H. (1945). Football: Facts and figures. New York: Farrar & Rinehart. Bissinger, H. G. (2000). Friday night lights: A town, a team, and a dream. New York: DeCapo Press. Braunwart, B., & Carroll, B. (1981). The Alphabet wars: The birth of professional football, 1890–1892. Canton, OH: Professional Football Researchers Association. Carroll, L., & Rosner, D. (2012). The concussion crisis: Anatomy of a silent epidemic. New York: Simon & Schuster. Cope, M. (1974). The game that was. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. Crepeau, R. C. (2014). NFL football: A history of America’s new national pastime. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Davies, R. O. (1994). America’s obsession: Sports and society since 1945. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace. Davis, P. H. (1911). Football, the American intercollegiate game. New York: Scribner’s Sons. Editors at the NFL. (2012). NFL record & fact book 2012: The official National Football League record and fact book. New York: NFL. Falla, J. (1981). NCAA: The voice of college cports. Mission, KS: National Collegiate Athletic Association. ESPN. (2013). Answer guy: Why is a football field 100 yards? Retrieved February 7, 2013, from http://proxy .espn.go.com/espnmag/story?name520070117/FOB/AnswerGuy/Lengthoffootballfield Jable, J. T. (1978). The birth of professional football: Pittsburgh athletic clubs ring in professionals in 1892. Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, 62, 131–147. Lapchick, R. (2012). The 2012 racial and gender report card: National Football League. Retrieved November 18, 2012, from http://www.tidesport.org/RGRC/2012/2012%20NFL%20RGRC.pdf Long, H., & Czarnecki, J. (2011). Football for dummies (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing. March, H. A. (1934). Pro football: Its “ups” and “downs.” Albany, NY: J. B. Lyon. McClellan, K. (1998). The Sunday game: At the dawn of professional football. Akron, OH: Akron University Press. Neft, D. S.; Cohen, R. M.; & Korch, R. (1992). The sports encyclopedia: Pro football. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Neft, D. S.; Johnson, R. T.; & Cohen, R. M. (1974). The sports encyclopedia: Pro football. New York: Grosset & Dunlap. Nowinski, C. (2006). Head games: Football’s concussion crisis from the NFL to youth leagues. Plymouth, MA: Drummond Publishing Group. Oriard, M. (2007). Brand NFL: Making and selling America’s favorite sport. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Oriard, M. (2009). Bowled over: Big-time college football from the Sixties to the BCS era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Ours, R. (1984). College football almanac. New York: Harper & Row. Peckham, H.W. (1967). The making of the University of Michigan, 1817–1967. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Porter, D. L. (Ed.). (1987). Biographical dictionary of American sports: Football. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Roberts, R., & Olson, J. (1989). Winning is the only thing: Sports in America since 1945. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rowe, P. (1988). American football: The records. Enfield, UK: Guinness Publishing. Schatz, A. (Ed.). (2012). Football outsiders’ almanac 2012: The essential guide to the 2012 NFL and college football seasons. Framingham, MA: Football Outsiders, Inc. Silver, N. (2011). The geography of college football fans (and realignment chaos). The Quad, The New York Times. Retrieved February 7, 2013, from http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography​ -of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/ Smith, R. (1972). Illustrated history of pro football. New York: Grosset & Dunlap. Smith, R. A. (1988). Sports and freedom: The rise of big-time college athletics. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, R. A. (1994). Big-time football at Harvard, 1905: The diary of Coach Bill Reid. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Smith, R. A. (2001). Play-by-play: Radio, television, and big-time college sport. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Smith, R. A. (2011). Pay for play: A history of big-time college athletic reform. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Watterson, J. S. (2000). College football: History, spectacle, controversy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wetzel, D.; Peter, J.; & Passan, J. (2011). Death to the BCS: Totally revised and updated: The definitive case against the bowl championship series. New York: Penguin. Weyand, A. M. (1926). Football, its history and development. New York: D. Appleton. Whittingham, R. (1984). What a game they played. New York: Harper & Row.

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Rose Bowl football game, 1923. Library of Congress.

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Chapter Two: College Football Brian M. INGRASSIA West Texas A&M University

American “gridiron” football began as an intercollegiate game in the 1800s and soon became a popular spectacle. Marred by fatalities and scandals, college football was reformed and regulated as part of early-1900s America’s “Progressive Era.” But by the 1920s, college football had become a quasi-professional activity. The game continued to commercialize after World War II, when American society underwent a period of social and cultural turmoil. Today, college football is big business with a prominent economic and media presence in American life. Keywords: athletic conferences, NCAA, race, ethnicity, television, commercialism, scandal, reforms, Native American mascots

A

merican intercollegiate football originated in the 1800s. Virtually since the first contests, the game has existed in a precarious space between amateurism and professionalism. The history of college football is as filled with controversies, scandals, and reforms as it is with star players, coaches, and stadiums packed on Saturday afternoons. Nowhere else in the world has a nation created a commercialized sporting spectacle so thoroughly entrenched in the culture and structure of higher education.

College Football’s Emergence Before the Civil War, students at colleges in the Northeast played inter-class rivalry ballgames that could be particularly violent and disorderly. But after the war, enhanced transportation networks—especially the development of railways— encouraged athletic competition between colleges. America’s first intercollegiate football game took place just four years after the end of the conflict. On 6 November 1869, the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University) squared off against Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, with Rutgers winning, 6-4. The game then started to gain popularity in the region, although it did not yet resemble the rationalized sport that became widespread in the 1890s. In 1874, Harvard University played a football series against Montreal’s McGill University. Since the two schools played by different rules, they agreed to contest 19

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some matches under rugby rules (as played in Canada). Afterward, Harvard students adopted rugby and convinced other colleges in New England to do the same. But in the early 1880s, the game went through a fundamental transformation. Walter Camp (1859–1925), a student and football player at Yale University in the industrial city of New Haven, Connecticut, introduced rules innovations that eventually transformed the game into the one familiar today as American football. Hoping to make the game more efficient, Camp reduced the number of men on each team from fifteen to eleven. He also suggested a rule whereby a player could stop play by setting the ball down on the ground—after which play started over again. Camp, who would later serve as president of a clock company, was essentially creating a rationalized version of football that resembled late-1800s industrial production. Additional changes ensued. Subsequently, play started at the “line of scrimmage“ (replacing the rugby “scrum”) and players were granted three chances (later four) to move the ball down the field. These units of scoring production became known as “downs.” Subsequently, yardage lines were added to the field and games were timed. These innovations allowed progress toward the goal to be measured, as well as for each game’s duration to be regulated. The resulting markings on the field led to it being dubbed the “gridiron.” For his efforts, Walter Camp became known as the “Father of American Football” (Smith 1988). By the early 1890s, college football was becoming popular throughout America. The most well-known athletic powers at this time were in the Northeast, where football originated. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton drew the biggest crowds and headlines. But the game was spreading. In the Midwest, the Universities of Michigan and Chicago pioneered big-time football. Chicago was led by famed coach Amos Alonzo Stagg (1862–1965). Stagg was the nation’s first tenured professor of physical education, with coaching and administrative duties that approximated those of modern athletic directors. His position represented the close ties that would develop between institutions of higher education and their athletic teams. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Stanford University and the University of California (both located in the San Francisco Bay Area), started playing their annual “Big Game” rivalry match in March 1892. While students frequently initiated the contests, in some cases professors introduced football and even served as coaches. The first major football contest in the South was played in early 1892 in Atlanta, Georgia, between the University of Georgia and Auburn University of Alabama. Atlanta, a growing industrial and commercial hub for the post-Civil War “New South,” was a convenient midpoint between the two schools. The two coaches in this game were an Auburn history professor and a Georgia chemistry professor, both of whom had earned their graduate degrees at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. After 1900, college football began to transcend regionalism. In 1902, the southern California town of Pasadena hosted a game in conjunction with its Tournament of Roses festival. Michigan defeated Stanford in a championship contest that would become known as the annual “Rose Bowl.”

Progressive Era Controversies and Reforms Football was growing in popularity at the turn of the century, but it was also becoming problematic. For one thing, the game was dangerous for the human body. The 20

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new rules that Camp introduced in the 1880s had created a game that replaced rugby’s apparent disorder with seemingly “scientific” precision. Now, teams rushed down the field in precise offensive formations such as the dangerous “flying wedge.” These so-called “mass plays” facilitated scoring, but were also deadly. Players were frequently injured on the field in an era before helmets or padding. A notorious case was that of Georgia’s Richard “Von” Gammon (1879–1897). The seventeen-year-old fullback suffered a spinal injury in a game played against the University of Virginia in Atlanta in 1897. The state of Georgia nearly banned intercollegiate football in the wake of Gammon’s death. But the game was saved when Georgia’s governor vetoed the bill, explaining that America needed strenuous games to instill “manly” virtue in citizens (Ingrassia 2012). Football also seemed to pose a danger to public morality—as well as to the effectiveness or prestige of the nation’s universities. Football seemed to be teaching college-age men—most of whom were middle or upper-class whites who would become political or economic leaders after graduation—to engage in dishonest or apparently immoral practices. For instance, gambling was becoming a growing concern among the young, middle-class men who flocked to turn-of-the-century colleges. Additional concerns regarded issues of player eligibility. Squads would often pay men who were not full-time students—or may not have been students at all—to suit up for intercollegiate games. These semi-professional athletes seemed to discredit the higher education institutions that were growing larger, developing graduate and professional programs, and becoming an essential part of American society. Some university leaders began speaking out against football. Most notably, Charles William Eliot (1834–1926), president of Harvard and himself a former rower, wrote a scathing critique of football in 1894 and proposed alterations that would presumably limit the game’s commercial appeal and its potential dangers. Some saw Eliot’s charges as a threat to ban football. Some critics agreed, yet others resisted calls for abolition. Stanford’s president, David Starr Jordan, for example, said that football was a strenuous game that bolstered players’ manhood. Such defenses, though, would be stretched to their limits by 1905 (Ingrassia 2012). For many Americans, football was strictly an amateur, collegiate game played by white men. This was one reason why potential damage to players’ minds and morals seemed so dangerous to those who saw colleges as conduits of Anglo-Saxon culture. Yet non-whites were also playing college football. New England colleges, including Amherst College and Harvard, featured African American players by the late 1880s and early 1890s. Historically black colleges and universities (“HBCU”s) also fielded football teams. For leaders of black schools such as Tuskegee Institute in Alabama or Atlanta University in Georgia, football prowess was a way to prove that African Americans were just as civilized and “scientific” as white Americans in their pursuit of education and sport. As football became more popular, accounts of games were reported in the many daily newspapers that proliferated in turn-of-the-century America. As the scholar Michael Oriard (1993) has shown, many American readers learned about football through popular periodicals. Magazines and newspapers reported widely on the sport, providing a window onto the era’s ideas about gender and race relations. For example, athletes of the Carlisle Indian School, a western Pennsylvania boarding school for Native American children displaced by western Indian Wars, were scrutinized in daily newspapers when they squared off against white teams. 21

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One famous such contest was a 1912 game between Carlisle—which included Jim Thorpe (1887–1953), an athlete who later became legendary for winning multiple gold medals at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics—and the US Military at West Point, which featured future World War II general and US President Dwight Eisenhower (1890–1969). The Carlisle “Indians” were sometimes portrayed in newspapers more as anthropological specimens than as football players. The period when football emerged is frequently known as the Gilded Age, a time when American industries and cities grew quickly and attracted millions of immigrants from overseas, especially from Europe. This period was followed by the so-called Progressive Era (circa 1890s–1910s) when many middle-class reformers sought to alleviate the problems of urban-industrial society; progressive-minded Americans even borrowed ideas from European nations or their imperial holdings as they tried to improve modern society. Progressive reforms included outlawing of child labor, passage of pure food and drug laws, and electoral innovations such as the “Australian” (secret) ballot. College football also underwent a period of Progressive Era reform. One early attempt to regulate the game was the regional athletic conference—a group of similar colleges in bordering states who banded together to create common rules governing athletics. In 1896, representatives from seven Midwestern universities (located in the Great-Lakes states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) met in Chicago to found the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives. After additional members (from Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio) were added by 1912, this organization was called the “Big Ten.” The Big Ten did provide oversight for regional intercollegiate athletics—and the resulting ticket sales—but it and similar organizations could not eliminate all of college football’s problems. As multiple historians have noted (such as Watterson 2000, Smith 2011, Ingrassia 2012), football underwent a significant period of reform starting around 1905. That year, progressive journalists—then often pejoratively referred to as “muckrakers”—attacked the game’s corruption. Meanwhile, progressive Republican President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) held a White House meeting in which he ordered representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to reform the sport. In November, widely publicized incidents, including the fatal injury of a player in a game contested in New York City, prompted nationwide reforms. Henry M. MacCracken (1840–1918), the chancellor of New York University—who worried about injuries to players as well as the potential damage to the reputation of American higher education—convened a meeting in New York to discuss football’s potential abolition or alteration. This convention resulted in the creation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, which was renamed the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) by 1910. At this time, the NCAA was merely an advisory body, although by the 1950s it would assume broader regulatory roles. The NCAA’s first major intervention was to form a committee that proposed new football rules. In particular, the committee recommended legalization of the forward pass and the placement of more officials on the field. The forward pass— throwing the ball downfield past the line of scrimmage—added a vertical dimension to play that reflected the verticality that aircraft were then beginning to add to modern transportation. The forward pass was intended to create an “open” style of play that would presumably make the game safer for players’ bodies and more 22

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entertaining for spectators, while also enabling officials to better see and punish violent or unethical play. Additional changes occurred in the next few years, but by the late 1910s football had essentially taken its modern form. Some universities even constructed steel-reinforced concrete stadiums in this decade, including Harvard Stadium (1903), the Yale Bowl (1914), and Princeton’s Palmer Stadium (1914). These arenas represented the Progressive Era desire to build sturdy, fireproof structures to safely accommodate large public gatherings. Not everyone embraced these reforms. As biographer Julie Des Jardins (2015) has noted, Walter Camp disliked the forward pass, largely because it reintroduced an element of chance that he had sought to eliminate in the 1880s. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, some universities in California, Nevada, and surrounding states switched to rugby (Park 1984). This constituted the region’s own, distinctive variety of progressive athletic reform. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake devastated the Bay Area, Stanford University even imported athletes from Vancouver and New Zealand to teach their students how to play the unfamiliar game. For nearly a decade, the “Big Game” between Stanford and Berkeley was played as rugby rather than American football. West Coast schools never entirely abandoned rugby, but they did rejoin the national mainstream by returning to standard American football between 1915 and 1918, especially after the United States entered World War I in 1917. Although American society remained harshly segregated in the 1910s, that decade saw the emergence of two prominent black football stars. Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard (1894–1986), named after a famous mid-1800s American abolitionist, played football at Brown University in Rhode Island and was the first black player to appear in the Rose Bowl in 1916. After World War I, Pollard became one of the first African American players (and coaches) in the professional National Football League (NFL). Paul Robeson (1898–1976) played for Rutgers from 1915 to 1919, where he (like Pollard) was an All-American. Later, Robeson went on to a successful career as a prominent singer, actor, and civil rights activist.

Football Spectacle in the “Roaring Twenties” World War I altered global sporting culture, and college football was no exception. After the war, leather helmets were introduced. Military men who had led wartime squads became college coaches, such as Robert Neyland (1892–1962) at the University of Tennessee and Frank Cavanaugh (1876–1933) at Boston College and then at New York’s Fordham University. Military terminology permeated postwar football. Perhaps the war’s most visible effect was the construction of large concrete football stadiums on campuses. Similar in structure to the 1910s stadiums, many 1920s arenas were built as war memorials, to commemorate the many young men who had fought or died in Europe. So-called memorial stadiums were constructed at the Universities of California, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Texas, among others. Even some stadiums not specifically styled as war memorials were built with similar intent. Such stadiums typically seated between 20,000 and 60,000 spectators. These were large venues for the era. By comparison, Yankee Stadium in New York seated 58,000 when it opened in 1923, Los Angeles’s Memorial Coliseum (1923) originally seated 75,000, and Chicago’s Soldier Field (1924) seated over 100,000. 23

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By the 1920s, college football was a major part of America’s sporting culture. The postwar decade was a time of economic boom, when increasing numbers of Americans purchased consumer goods such as automobiles and radios. Such technologies allowed more Americans to follow both professional and collegiate teams, leading to this era being dubbed the “Golden Age of Sports.” Major sports celebrities included boxer Jack Dempsey (1895–1983) and New York Yankees baseball star Babe Ruth (1895–1948), as well as collegians like Harold “Red” Grange (1903–1991), a talented halfback for the University of Illinois. Grange, also known by colorful nicknames such as the “Galloping Ghost,” gained legendary status with a dominating 1924 performance in one of Illinois’s first games played at its Memorial Stadium and one of its first games broadcast on radio. He also became the first prominent player to leave college early for a professional league, announcing his signing with the NFL’s Chicago Bears at the end of the 1925 season. Grange was criticized widely in the media—and even by his coach—for going pro. His decision, though, made sense. Sportswriters were then helping to make college athletes legendary, such as when Grantland Rice (1880–1954) famously dubbed the University of Notre Dame’s backfield “The Four Horsemen” (a reference to the Biblical apocalypse) in a New York newspaper in 1927. It was only a matter of time before some players started cashing in on their fame. The 1920s also saw the proliferation of athletic departments, led by professional athletic directors, and the continued professionalization of coaching. Salaries rose to a point where some football coaches were the highest paid individuals at their universities. The most famous or ambitious coaches bolstered their authority through publications. The historian Brian Ingrassia (2012) argues that well-known football leaders like John Heisman (1869–1936) of Georgia Tech and Howard Jones (1885–1941) of the University of Iowa published books that stressed their roles as teachers well versed at the art of instilling discipline in college men. Although coaches like Illinois’s Robert Zuppke (1879–1957) were often loath to see their players profit from fame, they seemed not to mind doing so themselves, and often made money from endorsements or other aspects of popular culture. For instance, Notre Dame’s legendary coach Knute Rockne (1888–1931) was flying to Los Angeles to participate in the making of a Hollywood movie when his airplane crashed in a rural Kansas wheat field (Sperber 1993). In football’s early years, university teams did not always have standardized names or mascots. But by the 1920s many universities settled on names or symbols, with some institutions choosing Native American mascots that would become controversial by the late 1900s. Historian Jennifer Guiliano (2015) has shown how Stanford University, Miami University of Ohio, and other schools introduced Indian imagery during the 1920s and 1930s. Perhaps most notoriously, the University of Illinois introduced its “Chief Illiniwek” mascot in 1926. The “Chief” was represented by a (typically white) student who dressed as a Native American and danced at football and basketball halftimes. This tradition ultimately lasted over eight decades until it was banned, due to its offensive nature, by the NCAA. Football was also becoming more popular in southern states in the 1920s. The game had been played in the South since 1892, but it was still seen as a predominately northern game. But in the 1920s—when professional leagues started flourishing in the Northeast and Midwest—southern universities gained more national success and exposure in college football. The University of Alabama made its first 24

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appearance in the Rose Bowl in 1926, when it defeated the University of Washington. With this and subsequent bowl-game appearances, Alabama showed that southern football could compete against northern schools. Historian Andrew Doyle (2002) notes that “the deluge of sectionalist passion that greeted Alabama’s triumphant Rose Bowl performances reflected the perennial desire of southerners to extract vengeance for the many humiliations they had suffered at the hands of the Yankees” during and after the Civil War. Southerners, in short, could finally boast of having beaten northerners. By 1930, universities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee formed the Southeastern Conference (SEC), which would become one of America’s major football powers by the end of the twentieth century. By the late 1920s, many educators once again grew concerned that football was too commercialized and was corrupting higher education. In a well-known case, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching launched an investigation into the commercialization of American intercollegiate athletics and published its findings in October 1929, just days before the catastrophic stock market crash that sparked the Great Depression. The modestly titled “Bulletin Number Twenty-Three” was one of the most significant reports the Carnegie Foundation ever published. Widely cited and discussed, this lengthy volume indicated the extent to which colleges paid athletes and overemphasized football to the detriment of academics. It also naively proposed that colleges could revert to an era of amateur football. Historian John Thelin (1994), nevertheless, has argued that the 1929 Carnegie Report “set the standard for reform proposals and policy analyses about the place of intercollegiate sports in American colleges and universities.” In the wake of the report, the Big Ten even briefly suspended the University of Iowa in 1930 when the conference discovered that its athletic department maintained a secret “slush fund” that improperly subsidized athletics (Schmidt 2007). Such subsidies were by no means a new practice—and even paragons like Walter Camp had utilized them at Yale—but they had become controversial by the time of the Carnegie Report.

The Great Depression Years The Great Depression of the 1930s had a significant effect on college football, causing it to become further ingrained in American life, despite the revelations of the 1929 Carnegie Report. Even though the global economy suffered greatly during the 1930s, many Americans still had enough discretionary income to keep reading newspapers, watching movies, and following their favorite sports teams. In addition, the 1930s was the decade in which some universities started openly granting financial aid to football players. Before the 1930s, under-the-table payments or sham jobs for athletes were not unheard of, yet such practices were scorned and prohibited. But the SEC changed this. For public universities usually located in smaller towns in southern states with large amounts of rural poverty, scholarships were deemed necessary to attract talented players and to give them the support they needed to stay in school. In the 1930s, southern universities also pioneered female “cheerleaders,” a notable shift from the male yell leaders that had been common since the early 1900s. 25

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Football was also a way for many immigrants to demonstrate their assimilation to American culture in the years between the world wars. From the mid-1800s until the early 1920s, millions of immigrants flocked to the United States from Europe and Asia, especially the “New Immigrants” (circa 1880–1920) who hailed from Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as Scandinavia. After Congress passed restrictive federal legislation limiting immigration in 1924, many of the immigrants and their children adapted to American life. A good example of this phenomenon was Bronislau “Bronko” Nagurski (1908–1990), who played for the University of Minnesota from 1927 to 1929 and then later became a professional football player and wrestler in the 1930s and 1940s. Nagurski played at a time when many New Immigrants (or their children) were adopting a pan-ethnic “white” identity. Michael Oriard (2001) even notes that Nagurski was long identified as having Polish ancestry although he was actually Ukrainian. One university that transformed its popularity among an ethnic and religious fan base into athletic fame and fortune was the University of Notre Dame. Located at South Bend, Indiana, not far from Chicago, Notre Dame’s football team first tasted success in the 1910s. By the 1920s, Notre Dame scheduled games in front of 100,000 or more spectators at massive venues like Chicago’s war-memorial Soldier Field. The Catholic school, founded by French missionaries in the 1840s, recruited many students and athletes from America’s Catholic immigrant families. Although the university tried to join the Big Ten multiple times, it was repeatedly rebuffed, likely due to anti-Catholic sentiment, and maintained its independent status. Notre Dame’s highly successful team, known as the “Fighting Irish,” was led from 1918 to 1930 by Norwegian-born Knute Rockne, who later converted to Catholicism. Shortly before Rockne’s death, the university opened its own stadium, a sixty-thousand-seat brick-and-concrete arena located on campus. Football spectacles, known as bowl contests, proliferated in the 1930s as cashstrapped municipalities looked for ways to boost revenue. Cities in temperate locations were inspired by the Rose Bowl to get in on the New Year’s Day bowl-game action. New bowls included the Orange Bowl (Miami, 1935), Sugar Bowl (New Orleans, 1935), Sun Bowl (El Paso, 1935), and Cotton Bowl (Dallas, 1937). Local and regional rivalries also flourished during the Great Depression. In 1932, two Louisiana HBCUs—Grambling State University and Southern University—started playing a rivalry game later dubbed the “Bayou Classic.” In the era of “Jim Crow” segregation that lasted until the 1960s, some of the best African American players participated in this contest. Since 1974 the Grambling-Southern game has been contested in New Orleans, with the exception of 2005, when damage resulting from Hurricane Katrina prompted the game’s relocation to nearby Houston. The 1930s also saw the elimination of big-time intercollegiate athletics at some universities, most famously at the University of Chicago. Chicago was bankrolled by oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller in the 1890s, and when it opened it was a leader in academic scholarship, public outreach, and intercollegiate athletics. But by the 1930s, Chicago’s athletics program had fallen on hard times. The football team played in an outdated stadium and Coach Stagg was not as effective at recruiting star players and winning games as he had been decades earlier. One bright star was the 1935 team led by Jay Berwanger (1914–2002), a halfback from Iowa descended from German immigrants. Berwanger won the first trophy given by New York’s Downtown Athletic Club to the nation’s top collegiate player—an award later renamed the Heisman 26

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Trophy. But after Berwanger graduated, Chicago continued its slide, regularly losing to Big Ten rivals and even faring poorly against small colleges located in rural Illinois or Wisconsin. After 1929 the university’s new president, Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977), took Chicago in a different direction. He instituted a new undergraduate curriculum based on the “Great Books” and deemphasized athletics. Stagg had to retire (due to advanced age) in 1932 and was replaced by an athletic director sympathetic to Hutchins’s views. By 1939, Chicago stopped playing intercollegiate football, and it resigned its Big Ten membership in 1946 (Lester 1995). During World War II, a racquet court under the stands of Chicago’s abandoned Stagg Field stadium was the site of a Manhattan Project laboratory, a place where physicists collaborated to create the atomic weapons that ended the war in the Pacific.

The Game Transformed after World War II World War II dramatically affected college football. Shortly after the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in December 1941, fear of attack on the West Coast prompted the 1942 Rose Bowl game, between Oregon State and Duke Universities, to be moved to Duke Stadium in North Carolina. There were other, more systemic, changes to college football during the war. Due to the shortage of male students, the NCAA began allowing freshmen to play on varsity teams; it also changed rules to allow two-platoon play (which allowed players to specialize on separate offensive and defensive units). Now, players could return to the game after they had been substituted. Even then, some universities chose to suspend or even terminate their football programs due to a lack of players. Yet the game persisted, in part because some military leaders argued that athletics complemented military training. During the 1940s, the service academies (Army at West Point and Navy at Annapolis) assembled some of America’s best football teams. Naval and military stations fielded teams that competed against the best college and university squads. After the war, many older men in their twenties with military experience— including many who benefited from the 1944 Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, or “GI Bill”—returned to college and to intercollegiate football. Once again, as after World War I, some former military men became coaches. Stadiums, meanwhile, were flooded with spectators as the nation discontinued rationing and returned to prosperity. The most prominent athletic conferences at this time were the Big Ten in the Midwest and the Pacific Coast Conference on the West Coast. In 1946, these two conferences made a secret pact to provide the two competitor teams in the annual Rose Bowl game. Many Americans, including southerners, were upset with this arrangement, which limited the ability of universities in other regions to compete on the biggest national stage (Kemper 2009). More bowl games would be founded in subsequent decades, such as Atlanta’s Peach Bowl in 1968. As money poured into college football, the NCAA tried to address the excesses, and it asserted an increasingly large role for itself in regulating intercollegiate athletics. In the late 1940s, the NCAA created a new set of bylaws that became known as the “Sanity Code.” Historian John Sayle Watterson (2000) argues that the Sanity Code was designed to return college athletes to amateur status yet allow some subsidization of athletics. These new NCAA bylaws allowed universities to provide aid for athletes based on financial need, yet they did not allow athletic boosters (fans 27

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who offered aid to their favorite teams) outside the institution to provide such aid. The Sanity Code was adopted in 1948, but within several years it was challenged by a group of member institutions—especially from the South—who were less than willing to follow its restrictions. The Sanity Code was rescinded in 1951, and within just a few years limits on subsidies were lifted even further. By 1956, the NCAA agreed to allow grants-in-aid to athletes. As Michael Oriard (2009) has noted, the NCAA insisted that these were athletic “scholarships” to “student-athletes”—not simply grants to athletes. This distinction allowed the NCAA to maintain the pretense of amateurism and to shun the reality that athletes were essentially being transformed into workers. Such mental gymnastics allowed both the NCAA and university athletic departments to avoid the implication that athletes could be subject to labor regulations, such as worker compensation laws. Although college football was immensely popular after World War II, by the 1950s a number of factors threatened its sustained viability. Television, which first became common in northeastern cities like Philadelphia, prompted some spectators to stay at home and watch the games instead of purchasing tickets and venturing out to the stadiums. In response, the NCAA insisted upon “blacking out” games from local television networks, to enhance ticket sales. Subsequently, the NCAA signed lucrative television contracts. Until court decisions challenged this practice in the 1980s, only one national game and one regional game were broadcast most weeks. In addition, a number of gambling and eligibility scandals tarred 1950s intercollegiate athletics. At the College of William & Mary in Virginia, for instance, it was discovered that football players were being paid outright, their transcripts were being altered, and professors were being pressured to change their grades. At West Point, a cheating scandal was discovered and most of Army’s team was dismissed. In the wake of these scandals and the rising costs of athletics, a number of universities—including some located in urban areas, such as Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and New York University—eliminated football. Other universities chose to deemphasize athletics. In 1952, eight elite northeastern universities with historic ties banded together to create the Ivy League. Led by Harvard and Yale (but also including Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Pennsylvania, and Princeton), this organization eliminated aspects of college athletics that commercialized sports like football and also threatened academic integrity. By the mid-1950s, the Ivy League schools no longer fielded football teams that could compete at an elite level. The Ivy League’s example inspired other universities, including Washington University in St. Louis, to similarly deemphasize athletics. While some universities were curtailing athletic programs in the 1950s, others embraced the spectacle. Public universities in the Midwest, South, and West Coast continued pouring resources into football. Historian Kurt Edward Kemper (2009) has argued that college football reflected America’s Cold War mentality. As fears of military declension and physical decline permeated the nation in the face of the Soviet threat, athletics seemed a way to prove the strength of American society and its college men. Some even criticized the Ivy League for deemphasizing manly sports. By the 1960s, moreover, televised games helped make both the collegiate and professional football spectacle a fixture in American households. A notable example of the media’s impact was a famous televised late-season game in 1966 between undefeated Notre Dame and Michigan State University, which ended in a controversial tie. 28

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College Football in the Socially Turbulent 1960s Although African Americans participated in college football virtually from the late-nineteenth century, issues of racial equality became more prominent at the middle of the twentieth century. On the West Coast, several prominent black players led the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) football team to victory in the late 1930s; they included Jackie Robinson (1919–1972), who later gained fame for desegregating Major League Baseball in 1947. But violent encounters still occurred when black players faced off against segregated teams. In 1951, Johnny Bright (1930–1983), a player for Drake University of Iowa, was targeted on the field by players from Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University). A flagrantly violent tackle broke Bright’s jaw; Bright had to leave the game and soon was forced to abandon his football career. Drake petitioned its athletic conference to discipline the offending player, but no punishments were forthcoming. During the 1950s and 1960s, many African Americans launched a sustained challenge to the segregationist order created during the late 1800s. This was the era of Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), a prominent spokesman in the national and global struggle for racial equality. Sports, including college football, served as a major venue for both civil rights activism and the later “Black Power” movement. Traditionally, segregated teams from southern states would either refuse to play integrated northern teams, or else the two teams would agree to bench (not use) black players. Such conventions were challenged in the 1950s. The University of Pittsburgh, for instance, refused to bench star fullback Bobby Grier (b. 1933) in the 1956 Sugar Bowl, contested at New Orleans against the Georgia Institute of Technology. Despite intervention from Georgia’s segregationist governor, Grier played in the game (Demas 2010). Although some southern states retaliated with laws prohibiting integrated football, it soon became apparent that Jim Crow segregation could not last. In 1967, the University of Kentucky integrated SEC football, and by 1971 even the University of Alabama’s legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant (1913–1983) integrated his team, knowing he could no longer win championships without African American players. Non-white athletes were becoming more prominent during the 1960s. Syracuse’s Ernie Davis (1939–1963) was the first black winner of the Heisman Trophy in 1961, and the University of Southern California’s agile halfback O. J. Simpson (b. 1947) won the coveted award in 1967. Football—and sport more generally—became a flashpoint in the debate over racial equality and Black Power. While some black players wanted to retain facial hair or natural “Afro” hairstyles, more traditionally minded white coaches insisted upon a more conservative clean-cut style that led to clashes with black athletes. In other instances, black athletes protested when they played against all-white teams. This position reflected the arguments of San Jose State College sociology professor Harry Edwards (b. 1942), who raised consciousness among black athletes through his writings and his proposed boycott of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. One of the most famous instances of a late-1960s black football protest was at the University of Wyoming. Located in a largely white area of the Rocky Mountains, Wyoming built a strong football program by recruiting African American players from outside the region. In 1969, fourteen black players indicated their plan to wear black armbands in a game against Brigham Young University, a school in Utah affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), which at that time 29

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did not allow African Americans into its priesthood. But Wyoming’s coach, Lloyd Eaton (1918–2007), denounced the protest and proclaimed that any students wearing armbands would be thrown off the team. As Lane Demas (2010) has shown in his analysis of Wyoming’s “Black 14,” many white Wyoming fans and residents supported the coach rather than the players—an attitude that explicitly reflected the “Silent Majority” mentality that had helped elect Republican Richard Nixon (1913–1994) to the presidency a year earlier, in internationally turbulent 1968.

Deregulation and Continued Commercialization The turmoil of the 1960s—as well as the rising price of college athletics, which was tied in part to athletic scholarships—led to more changes in college football. In 1967, a decade after grants were first openly allowed, the NCAA started tying aid to athletes’ performance and behavior. As Michael Oriard (2009) has shown, by 1973 the NCAA ended guaranteed four-year scholarships. This change meant that student-athletes now depended upon continued athletic success to maintain their financial aid. Coaches thus gained power to dismiss athletes who no longer played up to expectations, and could now reassign scholarship monies to more talented players. Meanwhile, the NCAA implemented other changes that would drastically change the landscape of intercollegiate football. In 1973, the organization sorted member institutions into three divisions: Division I encompassed the most competitive programs (usually at large universities) with the highest scholarships and revenues; later it was split into Divisions I-A and I-AA, with the former being the highest-revenue teams. Meanwhile, Division II allowed a limited number of scholarships, usually at mid-sized universities. Division III—typically populated by smaller “liberal arts” colleges—in theory allowed no athletic scholarships. While some institutions were foregoing big-money athletic competition, others were able to fully embrace it. As televised college football became more profitable in the 1970s, some universities began challenging NCAA control. A group of big-time football universities joined together in 1977 to form the College Football Association (CFA), which lobbied for an increased number of televised games. By the early 1980s, the CFA went even further, threatening to split from the NCAA. The new organization’s aims reflected the larger trend of economic deregulation ushered in during the era of Republican President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004). In 1981, two institutions, Georgia and Oklahoma, sued the NCAA in federal court, and eventually their case went to the United States Supreme Court. The high court ruled in NCAA vs. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma (1984) that the NCAA’s restriction of televised athletics violated antitrust laws that dated back to the 1890s. In other words, NCAA policies were unfairly restricting economic competition. By the 1990s and 2000s, universities with major athletic programs—especially Notre Dame—profited tremendously from televised football. Both cable and network television increased possibilities for profits. In 2007, the Big Ten athletic conference launched a cable enterprise, the Big Ten Network, which then prompted universities and conferences in other parts of the country to create their own networks. The 1970s and 1980s were the era of free agency in American sports, especially in Major League Baseball, and college football likewise witnessed the rise 30

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of the free-agent coach after 1980. After the turbulent 1960s, many universities had stopped treating coaches like professors who could earn tenure. As a result, coaches had less job security and began moving from school to school in search of the highest salary—meanwhile assuming a greater risk of being fired if they did not perform at a high level. In 1982, for instance, Texas A&M University hired Jackie Sherrill (b. 1943), former University of Pittsburgh head coach, to a six-year contract worth over $1.7 million (Oriard 2009). Today, big-time college football coaches routinely earn millions of dollars per year in salary and performance bonuses, in addition to money they garner for publications and endorsements. This pattern had first emerged in the 1920s but it gained magnitude by the 1990s. In 2007, Nick Saban (b. 1951)—who had most recently coached in the NFL—entered into a record-breaking, multi-million-dollar contract with the University of Alabama. Money found other ways to infiltrate college football in the free-spending 1980s. In one of the most notorious episodes, in 1987 Southern Methodist University (SMU) received the NCAA’s notorious “death penalty,” which essentially shut the football program down for two seasons. Investigators had discovered that wealthy boosters in the Dallas area had maintained a slush fund that spent large amounts of money to recruit and retain players, despite multiple previous warnings against such practices. It took decades for SMU to rebuild its program. There were also late-twentieth-century changes to college football that reflected the lasting impact of the Civil Rights era. Around the 1980s, Native American activists began speaking out against stereotypical Indian imagery in sports. Stanford abandoned its “Indians” name and became “the Cardinal” in 1981; Miami of Ohio switched from the “Redskins” to the “RedHawks” in 1997. A decade later, Illinois retired its “Chief Illiniwek” mascot and logo after a protracted debate among its students and fans. Similar controversies and discussions have taken place at the University of North Dakota, which is now the Fighting Hawks instead of the Fighting Sioux. In 2005, the NCAA banned most universities with Native American mascots from postseason tournaments. In one notable exception, Florida State University was able (with the support of the Seminole Nation) to retain its “Seminoles” name.

Twenty-first Century Controversies Although college football’s popularity has continued to loom large in the twenty-first century, it has also experienced more scandals and crises in an era when bigtime college athletics are sometimes hard to distinguish from professional sports. In 1998, in an attempt to create some order out of the chaos of the dozens of holiday bowl games, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was created to determine college football’s national champion. Michael Oriard (2009) writes that the BCS— which privileged major conferences like the Big Ten, SEC, and Pac-10 (successor to the Pacific Coast Conference)—masqueraded as “a system for naming a national champion in the absence of a playoff tournament,” but was in reality “a mechanism for divvying up hugely inflated bowl revenues.” Roundly criticized, the BCS was replaced with a four-team playoff starting in 2014. College football in the early twenty-first century has frequently recalled earlier athletic scandals and reforms. The intercollegiate game—along with the professional game—has been swept up in debates about concussions and traumatic brain 31

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injuries, an ongoing discussion that echoes Von Gammon’s 1897 death. Likewise, in a move that recalls Theodore Roosevelt’s involvement in pushing 1905 reforms, Democratic President Barack Obama (b. 1961) periodically lent his support to the idea of a college football playoff during his election campaign and administration. Major football programs have continued to become immersed in scandals, several of which rival or surpass Southern Methodist University’s 1980s situation. At Ohio State University, the revelation that athletes were selling memorabilia— including championship rings and game-worn jerseys—with the knowledge of their coach Jim Tressel (b. 1952) led to Tressel’s resignation in May 2011. That same year, the public learned that boosters had built the University of Miami’s perennial champion-contender football team with lavish gifts to recruits and players, including the services of prostitutes and strippers. In the most dramatic scandal, news outlets announced in November 2011 that Jerry Sandusky (b. 1944), a well-known assistant coach at Pennsylvania State University, had allegedly used a charity organization he founded to sexually assault dozens of boys. Some sources even charged that Joe Paterno (1926–2012), the legendary and beloved Penn State head coach, had known about the accusations for years and had actively covered them up. Paterno, who had been a fixture at Penn State since he first started coaching there in 1950, had won two national championships in the 1980s and was one of the last tenured big-time football coaches. Paterno quickly resigned and then passed away just weeks after the allegations surfaced. In 2012, Sandusky was sentenced to sixty years in a Pennsylvania state prison. Increasingly, critics have accused the Indianapolis-based NCAA of being a cartel that professes high-minded amateur ideals yet really enforces amateurism in order to fill its own coffers with profits from lucrative media deals. In a prominent article that resembled the muckraking pieces of the early-1900s Progressive Era, civil rights historian Taylor Branch compared college athletics to coerced servitude (such as slavery) when he alleged that modern-day intercollegiate athletics resembled pre-Civil War American plantations (2011). Football players at Northwestern University near Chicago attempted to organize a labor union in 2014, although they were ultimately not successful. In 2015, African American athletes at the University of Missouri publicized the “Black Lives Matter” civil rights movement through their protests. In response to charges such as Branch’s, the NCAA began discussing the possibility of paying players stipends that go beyond mere athletic scholarships, a well-intentioned reform that nevertheless has the potential of allowing commercialism to further permeate big-time athletics: squeezing less-profitable programs out of the market, while not changing the fact that athletic labor is controlled so that most profits go to coaches, universities, and the NCAA. Although a few colleges and universities have de-emphasized intercollegiate athletics in recent years, other schools have added football teams. Such institutions often see football as a way of attracting and retaining students, especially in an era of declining male college enrollments. In one noteworthy example, Georgia State University started a major football program in 2010 as a way to attract students to its downtown Atlanta campus and to compete with other regional football powers, including the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech. The history of American college football has been intertwined with commercialization for virtually its entire history, since the late 1800s. Although Americans often profess that their beloved collegiate sport is an amateur activity that reflects 32

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the ideals of institutions of higher education, the reality is much more complex. One can only conclude that as long as football is a part of American collegiate life—located uneasily between universities and popular culture—it will most likely continue to be controversial.

Further Reading Aiello, T. (2010). Bayou classic: The grambling-southern football rivalry. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University. Bernstein, M. F. (2001). Football: The Ivy League origins of an American obsession. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Branch, T. (2011, October). The shame of college sports. The Atlantic. Carroll, J. M. (1992). Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in racial advancement. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Carroll, J. M. (1999). Red Grange and the rise of modern football. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Demas, L. (2010). Integrating the gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American college football. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Des Jardins, J. (2015). Walter Camp: Football and the modern man. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Doyle, A. (2002). Turning the tide: College football and southern progressivism. The sporting world of the modern South (101–125). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Guiliano, J. (2015). Indian spectacle: College mascots and the anxiety of modern America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Ingrassia, B. M. (2012). The rise of gridiron university: Higher education’s uneasy alliance with big-time football. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Kemper, K. E. (2009). College football and American culture in the Cold War era. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Lester, R. (1995). Stagg’s university: The rise, decline, and fall of big-time football at Chicago. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Martin, C. H. Benching Jim Crow: The rise and fall of the color line in Southern college sports, 1890–1980. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Oriard, M. (1993). Reading football: How the popular press created an American spectacle. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Oriard, M. (2001). King football: Sport and spectacle in the golden age of radio and newsreels, movies and magazines, the weekly and the daily press. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Oriard, M. (2009). Bowled over: Big-time college football from the Sixties to the BCS era. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Park, R. J. (1984). From football to rugby—and back, 1906–1919: The University of California-Stanford University response to the “Football Crisis of 1905.” Journal of Sport History, 11(3), 5–40. Schmidt, R. (2007). Shaping college football: The transformation of an American sport, 1919–1930. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Schultz, J. (2015). Moments of impact: Injury, racialized memory, and reconciliation in college football. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Smith, R. A. (1988). Sports and freedom: The rise of big-time college athletics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Smith, R. A. (2011). Pay for play: A history of big-time college athletic reform. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Smith, R. A. (2016). Wounded lions: Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, and the crises in Penn State athletics. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Sperber, M. (1993). Shake down the thunder: The creation of Notre Dame football. New York, NY: Henry Holt. Thelin, J. R. (1994). Games colleges play: Scandal and reform in intercollegiate athletics. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Watterson, J. S. (2000). College football: History, spectacle, controversy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Two youth football teams from the western suburbs of Chicago, 2017. The teams, composed of eighth graders, are members of the local Bill George Youth Football League, part of a large number of independent leagues nationwide that sponsor football alongside national organizations like Pop Warner. Photo by Mark Paloucek.

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Chapter Three: High School and Youth Football Robert PRUTER Lewis University

Throughout most of the history of football, the numbers of players participating in youth and high school football have far exceeded the numbers of college and professional players. As the game developed, it rose to ever-higher planes—local rivalries, state championships, intersectional championships, and national championships. This often violent and very popular sport has faced periodic challenges as being dangerous, overemphasized, and commercialized, but it has managed not only to survive but to flourish and become a rich part of the American cultural experience. Keywords: Catholic schools, competitive balance, concussions, football, high schools, interscholastic sports, intersectional games, Pop Warner, Prep Bowl, public schools, schoolboy, social control, state athletic associations, state championships, violence, youth football.

P

articipants in youth and high school football have outnumbered players in the college and professional game combined for more than 120 years, and for much of that time the number of young players has simply dwarfed the number of players in the older ranks. As of 2016, the number of participants in youth football stood at 2.17 million (Moore 2016) and in high school football at 1.11 million (National Federation of State High School Associations 2016), for a total of 3.28 million participants. College participation is barely at 94,000 (ScholarshipStats. com 2016) and the professional NFL and Arena Leagues hardly total 1,800 (ESPN. com 2016). Youth and high school players thus constitute 97.2 percent of all players in the United States. Notwithstanding these high numbers, the huge role of youth football in the sport and educational culture has barely been recognized or appreciated. Football for young people, more than the pros and college play, directly impacts the lives of average Americans, who intensely follow their children who play the game and their local high school or youth teams. Youth football has been around for as long as the game has existed in the United States, and high school football contests have been played since the early nineteenth century. Some evidence from the seventeenth century in Boston gives reports of city fathers banning boys from playing football. There is little other 35

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Boys begin football training at an early age.

evidence of football, however, until the early 1800s when eastern boarding school students began taking up the sport as an intramural activity. One early mention dates from 1811, when a new student at Phillips Exeter Academy encountered his fellow Latin class students playing a football-like game. Schoolboys at the Round Hill School during the 1830s played a crude form of football involving two teams of boys kicking a stuffed bag back and forth across a goal line (this game was common in English towns going back to the Middle Ages). The first loosely organized football games took place at Lawrenceville Academy in 1853—the schoolboys splitting the student body in half to develop sides for each contest. From the late 1850s, the Boston public and private high schools—notably Dixwell Latin, Boston Latin, and Boston English—played against each other for nearly a decade before the games died out in 1867 (Smith 2008, 29, 39–48).

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The Emergence of High School Football Teams The outbreak of the Civil War in 1860 deferred further developments in football until the end of that decade. With the 1870s, football began a steady growth in preparatory schools. At this time, students in most of the prep schools organized athletic associations (or clubs) to support and sponsor interscholastic competition. By 1875, interscholastic football contests reemerged in the Boston area, when Boston Latin, Phillips Andover, and Adams Academy began playing against each other. The earliest football games were no more than scrimmages (less than fully competitive practice sessions). The manner in which the secondary schools, as well as universities, organized football teams was to form a club first, around which an “eleven” would be built. The clubs then issued challenges to other schools to participate in games. There was no involvement by teachers, coaches, and no adult supervision. School administrators felt that what the schoolboys did outside school hours was not their concern, even though the teams claimed to represent their schools (Pruter 2013, 16). The earliest public high school outside of Massachusetts to have competed in football appears to have been Philadelphia Central, which met two private academies in the city, Rugby Academy and Episcopal Academy, as early as 1876. By 1877, in New Jersey, Stevens Prep of Hoboken was playing Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. That same year, Brooklyn Polytechnic also began annually competing against Adelphi Academy. The schools in Manhattan of the Interscholastic League were already playing football games among each other as early as 1878. In California, San Francisco Boys High School was meeting Oakland High School as early as 1876. By the end of the 1870s, there were some thirty secondary schools, mostly all in the Northeast, playing various forms of football, which included association (soccer), rugby, and American intercollegiate rules (Pruter 2013, 16–17). During the 1880s, the number of high school football games nationwide rapidly increased and spread through other sections of the country. In Washington, DC, Episcopal High was fielding a team as early as 1881, and Washington High School started a team in 1885, their opponents being local colleges and club teams. A long-time football rivalry between the Baltimore City College High School and Baltimore Polytechnic High School began in 1888. Likewise, in Michigan, Detroit High School and Ann Arbor High School both competed for the first time in football in 1888 (Pruter 2013, 17). A closer look at Chicago-area high schools during the 1880s illustrates how schoolboys went about creating football as a high school sport. They patterned their approach after that of the colleges and universities, forming athletic associations to sponsor the teams, and adopting the ever-changing rules that moved the game from a kicking one to the rugby-based intercollegiate game. The first school in the Chicago area to adopt football was Evanston High School. The schoolboys from the local high school put together a sandlot team in the fall of 1879 and played a couple of games against Northwestern Academy and one against Northwestern University. By 1881, Lake View High School, then in a suburb of Chicago, joined Evanston and the Academy in contests. The middle- and upper-class nature of the contests in the 1880s can be gathered by the social whirl around the game. Typically, the evening after the game, the players would head to a house of a prominent citizen, who would

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serve as the host of a reception with the high school girls providing a lavish spread of refreshments along with entertainment (Pruter 2013, 17). In 1884, the first Chicago public schools began forming football clubs and engaging in games. The first contests were two matches between South Division and Manual Training schools, which appeared to be a kicking game. In 1885, five Chicago-area schools, with the approval of teachers, formed the “High School Foot Ball League,” drawing up a constitution, a set of football rules, and a schedule of games. There was a flurry of sandlot-type games that fall. By this time, there were some seventy-five high schools across the country playing football, but still mostly in the Northeast (Pruter 2013, 18). Chicago schoolboys formed a new league in the fall of 1886, and adopted “intercollegiate rules,” meaning the evolving game of American football. A representative of North Division High School suggested that there was a need of a tangible prize and suggested a pennant. He also thought there should not be a money prize. A pennant thus became the typical award for Chicago schools. Dubious practices, such as the importation of ringers (players not members of the school), had already developed. A permanent football league was established in the fall of 1889 that moved the schools out of the sandlot era. A group of student representatives met and established a constitution and bylaws, elected officers, and drew up a schedule. There were now uniformed teams playing in laid-out fields, under adult officiating, before paying patrons (Pruter 2013, 9).

The First High School Football Leagues The creation of a fully structured football league in the Chicago area in 1889 after a long incubation was indicative of what was happening in the rest of the nation in the years of 1888–1892, when most areas that supported interscholastic football formed leagues beyond the sandlot variety. The earliest high school football league of longtime permanence was the Inter-Academic League of Philadelphia, which brought together five private schools in the fall of 1887. The league was still in operation 130 years later (Pruter 2013, 19). New England, and especially Boston and its environs, produced the most flourishing high school football scene in the nation during the 1880s, with dozens of public and private secondary schools regularly competing among themselves. Thus, it was Boston that formed the largest and most successful of the early football leagues, in 1888, when eight city and suburban, public and private, schools came together in a full-fledged league. Other New England states followed slowly; Connecticut, under the lead of Yale University, formed its first high school football league in 1893 (Pruter 2013, 20). The New York-New Jersey area developed a variety of football leagues at this time as well. In 1888, in Brooklyn, Adelphi Academy and Bedford Institute played for the Brooklyn Scholastic League championship. The league did not survive after its initial year, however, being replaced by another short-lived league, the Interscholastic Football Association, and made up of Stevens Prep (of New Jersey), Columbia Grammar (of Manhattan), Polytechnic Prep, and Adelphi Academy of Brooklyn. This league lasted only through the fall of 1890. At the end of the 1880s there were some 200 secondary schools across the nation playing football (Pruter 2013, 20). 38

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By the fall of 1892, the Interscholastic Association saw enough of its schools permanently adopting football (Berkeley, Cutler, Barnard, Trinity, and Dwight) so that it could initiate a regular schedule, leading up to a championship game. The following year, the public and private schools of Long Island, which included Brooklyn Boys, Polytechnic Prep, Adelphi Academy, and Bryant & Stratton, formed an allaround athletic league that included football, called the Long Island Interscholastic Athletic League. These would be the two principal leagues that would carry on high school football in the New York area until the formation of the Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL) a decade later (Pruter 2013, 20–21).

Football and the American Boy During the first decade of the twentieth century, high school educators saw the value of football and other high school sports, and moved to bring them into the physical education curriculum. They also had great concerns over the student-run leagues which were rife with abuses. In response, they either took over the old student-run leagues or started up new leagues, such as the PSAL in New York in 1903. One of the principle benefits that they saw in football, for example, was its value towards social control of the American teen boy, who was a bundle of hormones and whose aggressive energy could be channeled into the very brutal game of football. Henry S. Curtis (1870–1954), a leader of the playground movement, noted in 1904, “Football…seizes upon a boy, without any large interest, and gives him a great controlling one. It rouses him to think. It impels him to act. It keeps him from committing depredations to ease off the strain of supercharged muscles and nerve cells. It keeps him from social temptations” (Curtis 1904, 263). Colonel Charles W. Larned (1850–1911) of the United States Military Academy focused his concern over raging hormones of young men: “They afford a fine objective for physical energy which, in the young needs an outlet, guidance, and control; and which, if not thus occupied, finds vent in mischief and dissipation…they keep a man sexually clean and healthy, free from morbid emotions and a too highly developed subjectivity” (Larned 1909, 4). Walter Camp (1859–1925), considered the “Father of American Football,” was a huge advocate of the game for the youth of the country, and voiced the notion that nature had shaped the American boy with violent and aggressive tendencies, and during his adolescence football might serve as a useful cathartic for those tendencies. He saw modern civilization as emasculating and football as the preeminent masculine game that could serve as a path from boyhood to manhood. One of his aphorisms was “Better to make a boy an outdoor savage than an indoor weakling” (Des Jardins 2015, 150). The game was character building, and Camp wrote a series of juvenile novels, generally about a prep-school boy entering Yale and learning to become a man with character by playing football. The moral advocates of football for boys had to contend with major attacks on the sport in the early 1900s. Football as it was played then was an unusually violent and dangerous game, in which advancing the ball was almost solely based on bodies crashing into one another. In 1905, the sport was confronted with the game’s first big injury crisis. Many newspapers across the land at the end of each season would 39

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publish an alarming list of deaths from football, and some of them were from amateur youth games and high school games. Some high schools were dropping football in favor of soccer. Many critics called for drastically reforming the game, and some wanted to abolish it. President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), a huge fan of football, stepped in and asked the college rule-makers to reform the game and make it less dangerous. They did, by opening up the game with new rules allowing for more passing and less mass body crunching on the line. With these changes, football was “saved” and many of the high schools that had dropped the sport readopted it within a few years.

High School Football Grows Nationally During the fifteen-year period between the 1900 and World War I, the high school world of football was driven to compete beyond not merely city and county boundaries, or even state boundaries, but to other sections of the country. The high schools were inspired to compete intersectionally by the colleges, where such football games were the source of debate and discussion in the colleges, but rarely actually contested on the field. The big debate in the college game was on the relative merits of the game in the East as opposed to the game in the West (as the Midwest was called then). As the colleges in the East and West were not meeting on the field, they worked with the high schools to act as proxy representatives for each of their differing styles of football. This came to fruition in the 1902 football season, when Chicago’s Hyde Park High School and Brooklyn Polytechnic Prep met in the first ever intersectional high school football game, at the University of Chicago’s Marshall Field. Befitting of the game’s proxy status for the colleges, several days before the big game, Chicago neighborhoods were placarded with big posters with the heading, “The East vs. The West at Marshall Field Saturday.” Prior to the game, Fielding Yost of the University of Michigan and Amos Alonzo Stagg of the University of Chicago helped train Hyde Park for the game. The game was a whitewash, Hyde Park’s relatively open style of play and speed (indicative of the play in the West) destroyed Polytechnic Prep 105-0. The following year, in another proxy contest, Chicago’s North Division High School defeated Brooklyn Boys High School in New York, 75-0 (ending the game after three quarters), and thereafter New York lost its interest in intersectional games (Pruter 2013, 74). The next big intersectional game that earned national attention was between Oak Park High School of Illinois and Everett High School of Massachusetts, in 1912 at Fenway Park in Boston. Once again it was a proxy contest over the merits of Western and Eastern football. Oak Park played a more open game and made use of the forward pass, which was still not used much in the East, and easily whipped Everett 32-14. This was a year prior to the intercollegiate contest between Notre Dame and Army in New York City, which further enlightened the East on the merits of the forward pass (Pruter 2003). In the first decade of the new century, when high school football was becoming better known with its various intersectional contests, the game was slow to catch on as a state championship event. Unlike basketball, where it is easier to schedule a number of games in a short time-period, the rough game of football needs to allow 40

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for at least a week between games for recovery and healing. As a result, state football playoffs leading to championships, which existed in all states by 2013, were slow to emerge in the high schools. State championships first arose in states that had small populations and a limited number of high schools, namely in the West, and where milder weather prevailed, as in the South. The first three state championships were all in the West—Utah (1898), Montana (1900), and North Dakota (1910). The next five state championships established were from the South—North Carolina (1913), South Carolina (1916), Georgia (1920), and Texas (1920). The South thereafter became the most enthusiastic section of the country for high school football. By 1944, when Oklahoma added a state championship, only fourteen states sponsored such contests—six from the South, seven from the West, and one from New England (Rhode Island) (State high school associations 2016).

Unorganized Youth Football, Late 1890s to Early 1920s The rapid growth experienced by high school football from the 1890s to the 1920s paralleled an equally robust growth in the colleges, but also less significant growth in the professional game and in unorganized youth football. Just as youth played baseball in sandlot games long before Little League was organized in 1939, boys similarly played unorganized football. The unorganized game probably was played nationwide, but the evidence available only provides glimpses of the game, and only in the Midwest, particularly in Chicago. There, beginning in the late 1890s, hundreds of teenagers in neighborhoods throughout the city organized club or semipro teams that got together to play on Sunday afternoons in empty lots, which in Chicago was called the prairie. The two teams would pass a hat around to the spectators that gathered to collect money for the players. Rules were agreed upon on the spot (Ziemba 1999, 10). Chicagoans called the game “prairie football.” Many of the teams evolved to become adult teams, but many stayed as youth teams, because the teams were often formed by average weight. Some of the teams that kept their average weight to 125 pounds or so and tended to be mostly composed of teenage boys (Ziemba 1999, 10). Some prairie football teams evolved into adult and highly organized semi-pro teams that played the whole Midwest circuit with other semi-pro teams, notably the Evanston North Ends, formed in 1906. The Evanston North Ends, for example, played against the Toledo Maroons, from Toledo, Ohio, which likewise began as a youth football squad, also formed in 1906 (McClellan 1998, 69, 82). Prairie football produced the NFL’s oldest franchise, the Arizona Cardinals, which traces its origin to a team of teenagers that formed in 1899 on the south side of Chicago (Ziemba 1999, 11). The youth who played prairie football semi-pro ball in the Midwest largely came out of working-class environments. Many of their fathers, who also played football, worked in factories and other manual labor jobs. Notable semi-pro teams as the Columbus Panhandles and Altoona Athletic Club were both made up of railroad workers. In the 1890s, high schools were largely limited to the middle class and college education was not in the realm of possibility. Thus football became the 41

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“Sunday game,” the only day the working class could play or watch the game (at that time Saturday was a “half” working day). Prairie football and Midwest semi-pro football was the game for the working people, and it arose in factory neighborhoods and towns (McClellan 1998, 18–20, 49, 64). While the term grew gradually less common, prairie football continued for the next several decades in Chicago, primarily played by working-class social clubs. During the Depression-era 1930s, such social athletic clubs as the Wizard Arrows and the Hawthorne Athletic Club would have both heavyweight and lightweight teams. The heavyweights were mainly adult teams who played in enclosed parks while the lightweights of the prairie teams of old were mostly teenagers who played on the “prairie” and passed the hat (Gems 1996, March).

High School Football in the Golden Age of Sports The number of intersectional games increased dramatically in the 1920s. In Illinois, for example, where intersectional games began in 1902, there were only twenty-two such contests by Illinois schools from 1902 to 1917. From after World War I to 1929, however, there were forty-two intersectional games by Illinois schools, mostly against Eastern schools. The intersectional football games involving Illinois schools in previous decades were instrumental in spreading the superior Midwest game to the East, but by the 1920s the Illinois game was lagging behind in high school football, passed by the superior game played in Ohio and Pennsylvania (Pruter 2013, 175). Most intersectional games were played by schools that had rich and winning football traditions. The obvious motivation to showcase a winning program was not the only or even the primary reason high schools played these matches. Rather, because of varying cultures of these schools, long distance travel for their football teams was considered desirable and educational, and part of the character building they believed high school football provided for their young men. High schools from the South began entering the intersectional high school football wars in the second half of the 1920s. During the last three seasons of the decade, all eleven of the intersectional games played by Illinois schools, for example, involved Southern opponents. Of the eighteen southern contests during the decade involving Illinois schools, seven of them pitted a predominantly black Chicago school, Wendell Phillips, against segregated black schools from the South (Pruter 2013, 177). Ohio emerged as a preeminent football center in the twenties, and schools from Dayton and Toledo in particular would travel across the country contending for national recognition. The 1923 team from Scott High School in Toledo, for example, in garnering a 9-0 record and national honors, played four out-ofstate teams—from Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington, and Iowa. The final game against Washington High School of Cedar Rapids, Iowa—for the titular national championship—was played before 13,000 fans in Scott High School’s newly constructed stadium (Pruter 2013, 175–76). The following year, another Toledo team, Waite High School, in achieving a perfect 10-0 record and earning media recognition as the national champion, played just three schools in Ohio, along with two in neighboring Michigan, and one each in Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Massachusetts. The 42

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Massachusetts opponent was Everett High School, and Waite’s post-season matchup with that school was publicized as being for the national championship. These titular national championship games would get not only coverage in the home states of the competitors, but also in large metropolitan newspapers in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles (Pruter 2013, 176).

Public Schools and Catholic Schools War on the Football Field From the beginnings of high competition in football in the nineteenth century, the public schools and the Catholic schools competed in separate worlds, each with their own leagues and tournaments. This separation, perhaps, only intensified the growing sentiment that the Catholic and the public high schools must meet and compete. Another powerful influence that helped draw the public and Catholic schools into competition was the success of the University of Notre Dame under Coach Knute Rockne (1888–1931). Its wins against mostly public universities only heightened the sense of athletic competitiveness between the Catholic population and the public school population (assumed or deemed to be mostly Protestant). When in 1927 the Chicago Herald and Examiner newspaper proposed a championship contest between the winners of the Catholic and public-school leagues of Chicago, the time was ripe for the public to avidly embrace the notion of a Catholic and public school sports rivalry (Pruter 2013, 233). The contest would be a charity game, with proceeds going to the Herald and Examiner’s Christmas Basket Fund. By the end of November, Schurz High School had won the public-school playoffs and Mt. Carmel High School had won the Catholic-league playoffs. Each school reflected their separate traditions in their different styles of play. The Schurz coach was a product of both the Public League and Northwestern University, where his pass-heavy game was honed. The Mt. Carmel coach was a product of Catholic schooling and was a Notre Dame alumnus, and drilled his team in the intricacies of the famed Notre Dame shift. The game drew fifty-thousand fans to Soldier Field in Chicago (Pruter 2013, 233–34). The early Prep Bowls were not initially big successes. The Herald and Examiner, expecting at least a seventy-five-thousand turnout for the 1927 game, reported only fifty-thousand. Rancorous disputes over eligibility of players, and biased officiating often marred the series. The 1932 Public League champion, Morgan Park High School, for example, refused to play the game because of parents’ objections over the frozen field and the length of the season. One parent objected on the grounds that religion was not a “proper division” for football games. The Prep Bowl came under firm footing when new mayor Edward Kelly (1876–1950) began sponsoring the contest in 1934, which attracted fifty-thousand fans. Thereafter, the numbers increased significantly each year so that by the 1937 game, when the Public League champion Austin High School played Catholic League champion Leo High School, an estimated 120,000 fans packed into Soldier Field (Pruter 2013, 234–35). The success of the Prep Bowl in Chicago encouraged cities across the nation to arrange similar games between Catholic and public school representatives. In a city without a Catholic football conference, individual public and Catholic schools would often begin rivalries for the “city championship.” Three other big cities besides Chicago had competing high school leagues—New York, Philadelphia, and 43

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Detroit. While New York City had a Public-Catholic basketball competition, it had none in football. Philadelphia was the second city in the nation to form a Catholic League. The city’s Public High School League was formed for the 1911–1912 season by the city public schools. Eight years later, after a sufficient number of Catholic high schools had opened, the schools formed the Catholic League beginning in the 1919–1920 season. The two leagues, however—parallel and in separate realms—were disinclined to compete against each other (Pruter 2013, 70, 241). Perhaps inspired by the 120,000 fans that flocked to the 1937 Prep Bowl in Chicago, the two Philadelphia leagues finally came together to conduct the first Public-Catholic football championship for city honors in 1938. This first contest took place on the University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field—St. Joseph Prep narrowly defeating historic Central High School, 7-0 (Silary 2016). The same year, in Detroit, the public Metropolitan League and the Catholic High School League, also came together in 1938, to conduct a season-ending city championships between the winners of their respective leagues in football. The Goodfellows Game, as the contest was called, like that in Chicago, was played for charity, and was a popular Detroit sports institution until its demise in 1967 (Bak 2012).

Pop Warner Pioneers Youth Football Pop Warner, a national youth football organization, pioneered a football program for boys in 1929. As this was ten years before the formation of Little League baseball in 1939, the program should be considered the pioneer of organized youth sports. Pop Warner began small, when the owner of a factory in Philadelphia called on a friend, Joseph J. Tomlin (1902–1988), to ask what would be the solution of a recurring problem. His factory’s huge ground-to-floor windows were being shattered by young teenage vandals throwing rocks from the abutting empty lot. Other factories in the area were also experiencing teenage vandalism (Pop Warner 2016). Tomlin had excelled in athletics in college, and the solution he suggested was that the factories should band together to fund an organized recreation program for idle kids. With fall approaching, Tomlin suggested a football league, and in no time he formed a four -team Junior Football Conference for the 1929 season. By the 1933 season, when the league was up to sixteen teams, the legendary football coach, Glenn Scobie “Pop” Warner (1871-1954), came to Philadelphia to coach the Temple Owls. In the spring of 1934, after Warner was recruited by Tomlin to speak at the league’s spring football clinic, the program was renamed the Pop Warner Conference. By 1939, Pop Warner had grown to 157 teams, mostly with players aged fifteen years and older. During World War II, when the conflict took away most of the league’s players to the draft, the Pop Warner organization was reduced to 42 teams (Pop Warner 2016). By the 1947 season, the Pop Warner program had rebounded to grow to some 100 teams, but the focus of the league had changed. Many of the returning servicemen had abandoned football, and the league shifted its participation downward in age, to fifteen years and younger, becoming a true “youth” program. The first elementary school age bowl game was played in December 1947, called the Santa Claus 44

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Bowl, featured two “midget” (under age fourteen) teams—the Crickets from Philadelphia and the Frank Sinatra Cyclones from New York. The Crickets win brought the Pop Warner Conference its first national recognition (Pop Warner 2016).

Postwar High School Football and Community Bonds High school sports in the postwar years flourished as American recovered from fifteen years of little growth as a result of the Depression and then World War II. By the late 1940s, high schools were expanding their football programs to include more levels. The traditional varsity (primary team) and frosh-soph (first and second year players) levels were expanded to include junior varsity, sophomore teams, freshman A, B, C, and D teams, and the like for developmental purposes. Coaching staffs were expanded from often two, a head coach and assistant, to include staffs comprising as many as six just for the varsity team alone. As the number of schools increased in each state annually and with growing concerns over competitive balance, more and more states introduced or increased the number of competitive classes (based on school enrollments to equalize competition), which became important at state tournament time. For example, Utah, which began with one class in 1898, expanded to two classes in 1938, to three classes in 1971, and to four classes in 1972. In practically all the states, the classes are usually named IA, 2A, 3A, 4A, etc., because the high school associations do not want to imply inferiority with names like D class, C class, B class, which is what many states started with (Pruter 2013, 315). In the first twenty-five years after World War II, only fourteen more states adopted state tournaments—seven in the South (including the District of Columbia), three in the West, three in New England, and one marginally in the Midwest (Missouri). By 1969, when Tennessee and Kansas added state tournaments, a total of twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia had such competition, a little more than half (State high school associations 2016). As many small colleges increasingly dropped their football programs, local communities directed their focus on their high school teams. Whole towns embraced their local high school football team, and the high schools responded by serving an ever more commercialized and aggrandized spectacle. In states with state championship programs, the intensity of community interest was even greater. High school football in Ohio and Texas, in particular, produced deep community bonds, with ever greater excess. Ohio had a long, rich tradition of football excellence (particularly in the high schools), and even though there was no state championship series until 1972, many of the local programs built fanatical followings. Massillon represented the state’s strongest level of community devotion, supporting the football team of Washington High School with an enrollment of 1,200 students in a city of 33,000, and having a stadium seating 22,000. By 1963, the school was playing before 120,000 to 160,000 fans per season. Besides a large stadium, the school district, typical of such programs, supplied the head coach with six assistant coaches, and coaches for each of the three junior high schools that served as feeder schools for the Washington High School football program (Emery 1963). By the 1950s, Texas high school football exceeded all other states in excess. In many Texas communities, the football players were trained in the most advanced 45

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facilities, traveled on expensive private jets, played in the largest high school stadiums in the country, learned football from the highest paid and largest coaching staffs, and played before the largest and most devoted groups of fans. The University Interscholastic League, as the Texas state association was called, had sponsored a state football championship since 1920. In some Texas high school programs, the teams would play before crowds of twenty-thousand or more many times during season. Abilene High School, in its Class 4A championship game against Ft. Worth High School in 1955, drew more than thirty-thousand fans. In 1963—as reported by journalist Bill McMurray—Texas fielded 926 high school football teams (the largest number in the nation), involving some fifty-thousand boys, and played around forty-eight-hundred games before more than 8 million fans. McMurray commented, “Schoolboy football is big business in Texas” (McMurray 1963), taking in $4 million on a low 50-cent per-person ticket cost.

Youth Football Explodes Nationally, 1950s–1960s The recognition that the Pop Warner Conference was receiving nationally in the postwar years encouraged communities across America to develop youth football teams for their young people. By the early 1950s, Joe Tomlin began to aggressively expand the Pop Warner program nationally. He faced considerable resistance by parents in many communities who feared tackle football was too dangerous for their children, and growth proved slow (Pop Warner 2016). In 1960, the Walt Disney studio aired a two-hour movie on the ABC network, “Moochie of Pop Warner Football,” with its positive and uplifting image of youth football, and it did much to encourage the public to see the value of youth football. By the end of the 1960s, Pop Warner could boast of more than three-thousand teams nationwide. Uncounted thousands more teams, organized into independent leagues, also flourished during the decade (Pop Warner 2016).

High School Football and Friday Night Lights Observers of high school football thought they had seen the ultimate in football aggrandizement in the first decades of the postwar years, but it continued to confound critics with its growth and popularity. Football proceeded to build in importance across the country, as more and more state high school associations added football to their state championships programs. At the beginning of the 1970s, only twenty-seven states sponsored state football championships in multiple classes, but by the end of the decade that figure had rapidly risen to forty-two states. In 1981 and 1988 respectively, South Dakota and Pennsylvania began offering state championships, and in the 1990s, Alaska, New York, and Louisiana made the total forty-seven states (State high school associations 2016). The states of California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts for a long time conducted championships in sections of the state before changing to state-wide contests. California, from 1919 to 1927, conducted a state championship pitting the titular southern California winner against the titular northern California winner. Thereafter, for the next eighty years, the state only conducted sectional championships. In 46

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2006, the state launched a state championship program, leading to “bowl” games involving five divisions. By 2016 the program had grown to thirteen divisions, and critics complained about too many bowl games and the overemphasis on football in California schools. New Jersey for many decades conducted a large number of sectional championships in two divisions, public schools and private schools, each divided into classes. In 2011, the state introduced state-wide championships for various classes, still divided into public and private divisions. Massachusetts in 1972 began conducting title contests for eastern and central/western parts of the state, and finally in 2013 conducted its first state-wide championship (State high school associations 2016). As state championships grew in importance, the issue of competitive balance became a contentious one in a number of states, which found that public schools whose students were drawn from within attendance boundaries were at a disadvantage in building football teams compared to private schools (chiefly Roman Catholic) with their unrestricted attendance boundaries and ability to recruit players. Critics charged the private schools with winning a “disproportionate” number of state championships. By 2011, some half-dozen states had introduced changes in the way they placed schools in enrollment classes in order to restore competitive balance. In 1999, Alabama was the first state to employ a multiplier in assigning enrollment classes to the private schools, by multiplying each private school’s enrollment by a figure—Alabama used 1.35—to put the schools in a higher enrollment class. Illinois introduced a success factor in 2015 on top of its 1.65 multiplier by advancing non-boundary schools up in class if they won two consecutive state championships. In several states a growing sentiment emerged to put private and public schools into separate state championship series, as New Jersey had done since the 1920s (Patsko 2014). In football-mad communities across the land, the educational mission of secondary schools was often forgotten by towns and cities seeking to build football programs to win state championships. High schools lost sight of their ultimate purpose of building the strength, health, and good character in their youthful students in their desire to win at any cost, literally. For example, in a best-selling book, Friday Night Lights (1990), author H.G. Bissinger examined the football program of Permian High School of economically depressed Odessa, Texas. He saw skewed priorities. The community had built a $5.6 million twenty-thousand-seat stadium for the school, which won several state championships. The school, however, reportedly failed to build an educational institution with the same consideration, underbudgeting needed school supplies, for example (Bissinger 2000). What Bissinger revealed in writing about Permian High School in 1990 was only a harbinger of what was to come. Texas high school football has since grown ever bigger and more commercialized each year. A “stadium arms race” soon emerged in the wealthy suburbs of Dallas-Ft. Worth and Houston. The race was said to have begun in 2001 when Southlake, a suburb of Dallas-Ft. Worth, built a twelve-thousandseat stadium for $15.3 million, and soon other rich suburbs began building similarly sized stadiums. The “stadium arms race” so ballooned that by 2016 tens of millions of dollars were being expended for stadiums in Texas—as in the Dallas suburbs of Allen (eighteen-thousand-seats for $60 million) and McKinney (twelve-thousand seats for $70 million). In a Houston suburb, Katy, the community built a $62.5 million stadium for twelve-thousand attendees (Gerber 2016). 47

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The number of national rankings, beginning with a USA Today newspaper football poll in 1982, grew to include ever more sports and more ranking organizations, so that there emerged at least four national ranking services in football. These rankings helped to fuel a boon in intersectional football matches, along with attendant national television exposure. Some state associations dropped their decades-old travel bans on interstate travel. Notable football powers, such as De La Salle of Concord, California, and Evangel Christian of Shreveport, Louisiana, traveled across the country to match themselves against other “national powers” (Pruter 2013, 322–23). Educators expressed growing concerns over the longer football seasons extended by state championships, the expansion of competition to a national scope, the coast-to-coast travel, and increased television coverage of high school sports. Many saw potential damage to their students in the excess media coverage and the star treatment of young, immature players and teams, heightening the pressure for them to perform and win and to get athletic scholarships to play football at American colleges.

Growth of Youth Football Pop Warner Football, since its founding in the late 1920s, was largely the only youth football organization of any consequence, its competition being small independent leagues around the nation. But beginning in the 1970s, many more youth football organizations arose—which included large independent leagues, national organizations, and organizations that sponsored national championships. At the same time, Pop Warner grew by adding girls’ cheerleading to its program (soon adopted as well by rival organizations), adding a flag football program, and expanding its tackle football program to seven age-group divisions (from five to fourteen years old). In 2010, Pop Warner Football was the largest youth football organization in the world with more than 250,000 participants playing football (Pop Warner 2016). The National Youth Football Championships (NYFC), conducted by Sports Network International, began in 1972 in Plantation, Florida, with a modest four-team tournament called the Little Yankee Bowl. By 2016, the NYFC consisted of two national tournaments—the Eastern Division at Daytona, Beach, and the Western Division at Las Vegas, Nevada—involving regular season youth football teams in age categories from seven to sixteen years (National Youth Football Championships 2016). One of the most notable independent leagues that emerged was the Wisconsin All-American Youth Football League (AAYFL), founded in 1977. By 2016, from modest beginnings, it had grown to become one of the largest independent youth football organizations in the country to encompass forty-six member organizations, 180 teams, and more than seven-thousand players, competing at four levels—in fifth through eighth grade (eleven to thirteen years of age) (Wisconsin All-American Youth Football League 2016). American Youth Football (AYF), founded in 1996, soon emerged as the biggest competitor to Pop Warner Football. By 2016, AYF featured nineteen instructional and competitive divisions from age seven through age fifteen. More than 130 teams traveled to Kissimmee, Florida, every year to compete for national championships in their respective age groups (American Youth Football 2016).

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In 2001, the US Army began sponsoring the first youth football all-star game, with the launch of the US Army All-American Bowl Game. The game matches ninety select all-star youth football players from various programs divided into two teams, half representing the East and half the West. The first game was played at Highlander Stadium, in Dallas, Texas, but thereafter the annual match-up in January was played at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. The game was originally nationally televised on ESPN, but later the game was picked up by NBC (All American Games LLC 2016). In 2011, Football University (later FBU) National Championship was launched, involving all-star youth football teams on the eighth grade level (thirteen years of age), representing states and state sections, to compete for a national championship in December and January. By 2017, the program had expanded to include 192 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade teams—a sixty-four-team bracket each for sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders—leading to the top championship games in Naples, Florida. Football University conducted a nationwide program of football camps each spring for middle and high school students. The top high school students from these camps were selected for an annual East-West competition (Football University 2016). A number of leaders in high school and youth football—with support from the NFL and NCAA—came together in 2002 to form a national governing body for youth football called USA Football. The nonprofit organization worked to develop national coaching standards and practice game guidelines to ensure safety in high school and youth football. In addition, USA Football, as the United States representative in the International Federation of American Football (IFAF), selected and managed US National Teams for international competition (which included Under 19, Under 18, Under 17, Under 16, and Under 15 tackle football and boys and girls flag football). The IFAF, formed in 1998, by 2016 had a membership of more than seventy national teams, indicating that youth football competing under American rules had spread to some seventy countries (USA Football 2015).

The Football Injury Crisis Youth and high school football, having undergone tremendous growth in the last decades of the twentieth century, experienced increasing criticism over its dangers thereafter. Fueling this criticism were cases of high-profile professional football players suffering permanent physical and cognitive damages from concussions, in some cases leading to suicides. Nationally, the Center for Disease Control reported on the growing number of concussions in youth football, noting for example that football concussions more than doubled for ten- to fourteen-year-olds from 4,138 in 2000 to 10,759 in 2010. Much of this increase was probably due to better reporting on concussions as people became more aware and alert to its signs. Detractors of youth football, including many medical doctors, advocated eliminating tackle football at all ages below fifteen, and many were appalled at tackle football for those under eight years old (Kelley and Carchia 2013). The concussion and injury crisis began to have a negative impact on the programs for youth and high school football. Concussions had become such a concern

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that young players in high school and youth leagues were often leaving the game permanently after experiencing one or more concussions—either on their own or with doctor’s advice—fearful of permanent damage. Parents reading about the concussions issue were increasingly deciding that they did not want their sons participating in tackle football. A growing number of alarmist newspaper stories fed a rising clamor to abolish football. Two federal acts—the Concussion Treatment and Care Tools Act of 2010 and the Children’s Sports Athletic Equipment Safety Act of 2011—while addressing issues of concussion injury and helmet safety in youth football did little to diminish these concerns in the public’s mind (Navia 2012, 265–93). Participation rates began to drop by the second decade of the new century. Local leagues across the country took hits in their enrollments. Pop Warner, which had reached a record high participation at nearly 250,000 in 2010, dropped by 9.5 percent within two years, with only 225,000 participants in 2012. Nationwide, the decline in tackle football for six- to fourteen-year olds went from 3 million in 2010 to 2.169 million just five years later—a huge 27.7 percent drop. (Moore 2016). High school football saw the first drop in participation in twenty years in the 2011–2012 school year, when there was a small drop by some 13,000 students, from 1.136 million students to 1.122 million students. By the 2015–2016 school year, the steady erosion of participation had increased to more than 21,000 (National Federation of State High School Associations 2016).

High School and Youth Football Work to Save Football The defenders of youth and high school football countered their opponents by arguing that the game had been made safer over the years, both with safer equipment and safer training procedures and rules. A noted defense was made by conservative author Daniel J. Flynn, in his 2013 book, The War on Football: Saving America’s Game. He used the same argument about the value of the game that Walter Camp and other defenders of football used in the 1890s to make the case that American boys and men needed football in a civilized society, where they were now city people no longer hunting in the wild. They needed football to counter the softening and emasculating effects of modern life—years of sedentary school work and non-physical office work, both of which cultivated the mind but not the body (Flynn 2013, 141–43). Flynn downplayed the concussion issue and focused on the relative fatality dangers of football for boys from the 1960s compared to fifty years later. According to the “Annual Survey of Football Injury Statistics,” published by the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research (NCCSIR), from 1931 to 1965, play-induced deaths (direct causes) averaged seventeen in all forms of football. Then, from 1966 to 1970, there was an actual spike in the numbers, to twenty-seven football fatalities a year. Football advocates on all levels took notice and instituted safer rules—particularly penalizing head-leading hits (“spearing”)—and safer equipment—notably the use of padded helmets. The impact of these changes was considerable. By 1990, not one player died from on-the-field contact among the millions who played football at all levels. From 2002 to 2012, among the 4.2 million players of organized football in America the average death from football collision was about four a year (Flynn 2013, 90–92) 50

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A young player awaits his chance.

Besides statistics from fatalities resulting from direct causes, such as tackling, blocking, and warm-up drills, the NCCSIR also recorded and reported on “indirect fatalities,” which can include heat stroke, hypernatremia (water intoxication), and heart attacks and the like. For example, in 2015 statistics on high school football deaths, there were five fatalities from direct hits, but also seven fatalities from indirect causes (Kucera et al. 2016, 20–22). Youth and high school football organizations responded to the rising chorus against football by again working to make the game safer. Pop Warner Football, for instance, cut down on full contact practices, but not eliminating tackle football for its Tiny Mites program for five-six-seven-year olds. USA Football developed a program called “Heads Up Football,” designed to create safer practices and games, and by 2016 some 70 percent of the youth leagues had adopted the program (O’Connell 2016). Nationwide, high school associations created classes for their high school coaches on how to recognize and handle concussions 51

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Since its beginnings, football in the youth and high school ranks throughout the United States has always had a contentious history of periodic conflict over the value of football and challenges to its very existence. The early twenty-first century struggle between the advocates of football for boys as being a manly, character-building rite of passage and the reformers whose concern over the sport’s physical dangers want to ban it outright or at least severely limit it was only the latest such challenge, but will not be the last. Football faced similar challenges to its existence in the past, and has always overcome them. Thus, what is sure to continue will be the American infatuation with football and the value placed on it for the development of boys. While it appears that organized youth football may diminish somewhat in appeal and that high school football may continue at a steady rate, both will survive and continue to play an outsized role in the cultural and sporting life of the United States.

Further Reading All American Games LLC. (2016). U. S. Army All-American Bowl Game history. U. S. Army All-American Bowl. Retrieved December 17, 2016, from http://www.usarmyallamericanbowl.com/about-aab/history/ American Youth Football. (2016). About American youth football. American Youth Football. Retrieved April 17, 2016, from https://www.myayf.com/about Bak, R. (2012, October 1). Annual goodfellows game was tradition at Tiger Stadium for 30 years. Detroit Athletic Co. Retrieved November 19, 2016, from https://www.detroitathletic.com/blog/2012/10/01 /goodfellows-game-was-tradition-at-tiger-stadium-in-detroit/ Bissinger, H. G. (2000). Friday night lights: A town, a team, and a dream, paperback edition. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. Bundgaard, A. (2005). Muscle and manliness: The rise of sport in American boarding schools. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Cantu, R., & Hyman, M. (2013). Concussions and our kids. Boston: Marinar Books. Cook, B. (2015, December 12). How to solve the public vs. private school battle in school sports. Forbes. Retrieved November 13, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2015/12/12/how-to-solve -the-public-vs-private-school-battle-in-high-school-sports/#ce0f322773b7 Curtis, H. S. (1904). A football education. American Physical Education Review 9, no.4, 262–66. Des Jardins, J. (2015). Walter Camp: Football and the American man. New York: Oxford University Press. Emery, L. (1963). Massillon: A rich and glorious tradition. High School Football 1(1), 10–16, 80–81. ESPN.com staff. (2016, September 3). Tracking the final 53-man NFL rosters: Who’s in, who’s out. ESPN. Retrieved December 21, 2016, from http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17443607/2016-nfl-final -53-man-rosters-all-32-teams-cut-day-roster-cuts-tracker Football University. (2016). History of the FBU National Championship. FBU National Championship. Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.fbunc.com/latest-news/fbu-national-championship -history.html. Flynn, D. J. (2013). The war on football: Saving America’s game. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing. Gems, G. R. (1996). The neighborhood athletic club: An ethnographic study of a working-class athletic fraternity in Chicago, 1917–1984. Colby Quarterly 32(1), 36–44. Gems, G. R. (1996). The Prep Bowl: Football and religious acculturation in Chicago, 1927–1963. Journal of Sport History 23(3), 284–302. Gerber, M. (2016, September). Texas high schools in “Stadium Arms Race.” Chicago Tribune, 13. Jable, J. T. (2004). Progress or plight: The growing commercialism of high school athletics in the United States paper presented at the 2004 NASSH Convention in Asilomar, CA. (unpublished). Kelley, B., & Carchia, C. (2013, July 11). The hidden demographics of Youth Sports. ESPN: The Magazine. Retrieved November 5, 2016, from http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/9469252/hidden-demo graphics-youth-sports-espn-magazine King, K. (2004). The little school that can’t be beat. Sports Illustrated 101(7), 78–85. Kucera , K. L. et al. (2016). Annual survey of football injury research, 1931–2015. National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research.

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Chapter Three: High School and Youth Football Larned , C. W. (1909). Athletics from a historical and educational standpoint. American Physical Education Review 14(1), 1–9. McClellan, K. (1998). The Sunday game: At the dawn of professional football. Akron, OH: University of Akron Press. McMurray, B. (1963). Texas: King sized football. High School Football 1(1), 6–8. Moore, J. (2016, March 16). Youth football participation is plummeting: Just don’t expect USA Football to admit to that uncomfortable truth. Vocativ. Retrieved November 26, 2016, from http://www.vocativ .com/298019/youth-football-participation-is-plummeting/ National Federation of State High School Associations. (2016). 2015–2016 High school athletic participation survey. National Federation of State High School Associations. Retrieved October 6, 2016, from http:// www.nfhs.org National Youth Football Championships. (2016). Main event general information homepage for the National Youth Football championships. Sports Network International. Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.thenationals.net/football.htm Navia, J. (2012). Sitting on the bench: The failure of youth football helmet regulation and the necessity of government intervention. Administrative Law Review 64(1), 265–93. Narang, B. (2016, August 24). Public opinion: Football coaches differ on private schools’ advantages. Pioneer Press. Retrieved November 13, 2016, from http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/elmhurst​ /sports/ct-mun-high-school-football-public-private-tl-0825-20160824-story.html Nowinski, C. (2007). Head games: Football’s concussion crisis from the NFL to the youth leagues. East Bridgewater, MA. O’Brien, M. (2016, November 28). Concussion risk wasn’t worth it. Chicago Sun-Times, 76. O’Connell, P. M. (2016, April 29). Spiral in youth football? Chicago Tribune, 1(6). Patsko, S. (2014, May 14). Compilation of how all 50 states handle competitive balance. Cleveland. com. Retrieved November 13, 2016, from http://highschoolsports.cleveland.com/news/article/ -4000324031846785879/ohsaas-competitive-balance-referendum-the-latest-round-in-a-national-fight -between-public-and-private-schools/ Silary, T. (2016). Philadelphia high school city title game recaps. Ted Silary.com. Retrieved November 13, 2016, from http://tedsilary.com/FBCitytitlegames.htm. Pop Warner. (2016). History of Pop Warner. Pop Warner Little Scholars, Inc. Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.popwarner.com/About_Us/history.htm. Pruter, R. (1995). Yesterday’s city: Glory on the gridiron. Chicago History 24(3), 52–64. Pruter, R. (2003). Chicago high school football struggles, the fight for faculty control, and the war against secret societies, 1898–1908. Journal of Sport History 30(1), 47–72. Pruter, R. (2013). A century of intersectional and interstate football contests 1900–1999. Illinois High School Association. Retrieved December 18, 2016, from http://www.ihsa.org/NewsMedia/IllinoisHStoric​ /IllinoisHStoricArticle.aspx?url=/archive/hstoric/football_intersec.htm Pruter, R. (2013). Rise of American high school sports and the search for control, 1880–1930. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. ScholarshipStats.com. (2016). 900 schools sponsored varsity football teams during 2015. ScholarshipStats. com. Retrieved November 26, 2016, from http://www.scholarshipstats.com/football.html Smith, M. I. (2008). Evolvements of early American Football: Through the 1890/91 season. Bloomington, IN: ­AuthorHouse. State high school associations websites. (2016). Retrieved December 18, 2016, from multiple websites. USA Football. (2015). USA Football’s national governing body 2014 annual report. USA Football. Wisconsin All-American Youth Football League. (2016). History of the Wisconsin All-American Youth Football League. WIAAYFL, Inc. Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://assets.ngin.com/attachments /document/0080/6610/AAYFL_History.pdf Ziemba, J. (1999). When football was football: The Chicago Cardinals and the birth of the NFL. Chicago: Triumph Books.

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The field of Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, Florida before kickoff.

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Chapter Four: The Super Bowl: An American Institution Brian ACKLEY, David LEVINSON, and Gerald GEMS North Central College

The Super Bowl, the championship game of American professional football, is the most watched, written about, and talked about single sports event in the United States today. It has become a national ritual, and Super Bowl Sunday is akin to a national holiday—marked by gatherings of family and friends, food, drink, and betting on the outcome. The competitors are the winners of the National Football and American Football conferences of the National Football League playoffs. Keywords: Super Bowl Sunday, football, NFL, playoffs, AFL, commercials, half-time show

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irst played in 1967, the Super Bowl is traditionally staged on a Sunday evening, and is seen by more than 130 million television viewers alone in the United States. Advertisers, who paid as little as $75,000 for a thirty-second commercial during the telecast of Super Bowl I, paid $5 million for the same thirty second commercial in 2016. Apple Computers introduced its first ever line of Macintosh computers with a Super Bowl television advertisement in 1984. The NFL estimates that in 2016 almost one billion people viewed part of Super Bowl 50 in 232 different countries, and the game was broadcast in thirty-three different languages. Some three-thousand media credentials are typically assigned for a Super Bowl, including 400 to international journalists. The game’s number is traditionally referred to in roman numerals, although that practice did not start until the fifth Super Bowl, and Arabic numerals were used for the symbolic 50th game. The game is played at stadium site that is picked years in advance of the actual game date. No team has ever played a Super Bowl in its home stadium. Super Bowl games are usually awarded to stadiums in the southern part of the United States, to help insure good weather since the game is played in either late January or early February, although on a few occasions the games have been played in more northern locations that have a domed stadium. In all, nineteen different cities in the United States have hosted a Super Bowl, with New Orleans hosting the most with nine. Cities are competitive in bidding to host the game, since the economic impact from just one Super Bowl can be as high as $500 million. 55

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The day has become so popular—more pizzas are sold on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year in the United States—that some consider it a de facto holiday. In 2016, more than $119 million in bets were placed on the Super Bowl in the state of Nevada, where gambling on professional sports is legal. Privately, it is estimated that several billion dollars is actually wagered on the game illegally. Part of the Super Bowl tradition is the elaborate halftime show featuring a line-up of top entertainers—usually pop stars, reflecting the game’s merger with the entertainment industry. The 2004 show became controversial when singer Janet Jackson’s (b. 1966) breast was bared; the 2005 show featured former Beatle Paul McCartney (b. 1942) and was much tamer; more recent performers include Beyoncé and Lady Gaga. Commercials have become an integral part of the television broadcast as well, with major corporations vying to produce the most creative, innovative, or amusing commercials—which are then widely critiqued in the media on the day after the game.

History of the Ultimate Championship Game The game was originally known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, and came about because of competition between the two competing professional football leagues—the American Football League, founded in 1960, and the National Football League founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association. It took the NFL name in 1922. The game didn’t actually become the “Super Bowl” until 1968, before the third championship game. Legend has it that the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, Lamar Hunt (1932–2006), whose team played in the first ever Super Bowl, came up with the event’s name after coming across one of his daughter’s favorite toys, a super ball. The Chiefs played the Green Bay Packers, coached by Vince Lombardi (1913– 1970) considered one of the league’s most legendary coaches, in Super Bowl I, played on 15 January 1967. Today, the trophy given out to the winning team is called the Vince Lombardi trophy. The Pete Rozelle (1926–1996) Trophy—named after the man who served as league commissioner for almost thirty years and is largely credited with spurring the growth and popularity of the National Football League— is given out to the most valuable player in the Super Bowl. Far from the popular event it is today, the first Super Bowl only attracted 61,946 fans, almost 40,000 short of capacity at the Los Angeles’ Memorial Coliseum, although every game since has been a sellout. Green Bay won the first game, 35-10, led by quarterback Bart Starr (b. 1934) and receiver Max McGee (1932–2007)— who only saw action in the game because of an injury to starting wide receiver Boyd Dowler (b. 1937). For the entire season, McGee had caught only four passes for 91 yards, but in the newly created title game, he hauled in seven passes for 138 yards and two touchdowns. Each Packer received a “winner’s share”—a monetary reward for being on the victorious team—of $15,000 each, while each Chief earned $7,500. By comparison, the 2016 winning share for each member of the Denver Broncos was $102,000, while the members of the losing Carolina Panthers each earned $51,000. The most inexpensive ticket to the first-ever Super Bowl was $6; the most inexpensive ticket price for the 2016 game was $3, 279, with the average price over $6,000. 56

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Nineteen teams have won the Super Bowl: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

Pittsburgh Steelers Dallas Cowboys San Francisco 49ers New England Patriots Green Bay Packers New York Giants Oakland/LA Raiders Washington Redskins Denver Broncos Miami Dolphins St. Louis/LA Rams Baltimore Ravens Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts Chicago Bears Kansas City Chiefs New York Jets Tampa Bay Buccaneers New Orleans Saints Seattle Seahawks

6 5 5 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

The most significant Super Bowl was the third, when the New York Jets of the AFL beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts of the NFL by the score of 16-7. The victory had been publicly guaranteed by Jets’ quarterback Joe Namath (b. 1943) three days before the game. The victory made the AFL the equal of the NFL, and the next year the leagues merged.

Further Reading azsuperbowl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Jay-Perry-Guest-Blog-pdf (accessed May 19, 2016). Bayless, S. (1993). The boys. New York: Simon & Schuster. Green, J. (1991). Super Bowl chronicles: A sportswriter reflects on the first 25 years of America’s game. Masters Press. Hirschhorn, J. B. (2015, January 31). Super Bowl betting 2015: How much money is wagered on the game and prop bets? SB Nation. Retrieved May 19, 2016 from, http://www.sbnation.com /nfl/2015/1/31/7923869/super-bowl-2015-betting-prop-bets-gambling-wager-nfl Isidore, C. (2016, February 8). What you get paid when you win the Super Bowl. CNN Money. Retrieved May 19, 2016 from, http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/08/news/companies/super-bowl-winners-pay/ Konner, B. (2003) The Super Bowl of advertising: How the commercials won the game. Bloomberg Press. Ourand, J. (2015, February 2). CBS Price for Super Bowl 50 Spot: 5 Million? Sports Business Journal. Retrieved May 19, 2016 from, http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2015/02/02/Media/Super BowlAds.aspx Weiss, D., & Day, C. (2002). The making of the Super Bowl: The inside story of the world’s greatest sporting event. New York: McGraw-Hill. Wolff-Mann, E. (2016). Super Bowl ticket prices are already averaging over $6,000. Everyday Money. Retrieved May 19, 2016 from, http://time.com/money/4192305/superbowl-ticket-cost-price-2016/

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Chapter Five: Scandals and Controversies in Football Stephen H. NORWOOD University of Oklahoma

Violence and intimidation have always been central to football, and concern about serious injury has persisted since the sport’s earliest years. Rule and equipment changes introduced to reduce the dangers have had only limited overall effect. Attempts to disable key opponents remain common. Universities’ obsession with fielding winning football teams has resulted in many nationally publicized scandals involving rape, drugs, and the use of sex in recruiting. Players’ betting has also tarnished the sport. Keywords: body bag game, bounties, brutality, crackback blocks, drug abuse, gambling, guns, hostesses, injections, injuries, pancaking, pedophilia, probation, rape, suspension

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any football scandals and controversies resemble those in other sports, including college programs’ unsavory recruiting procedures and indifference toward athletes’ criminality, and gambling at both the professional and college levels. Given football’s extremely violent nature, however, as in boxing, the sport’s brutality has always aroused controversy.

The Brutality Crisis in Football’s Early Decades Ever since American football emerged as a distinct sport in the early 1880s, a high level of violence has been a major part of its appeal. Multiple players engage in hard physical contact on every play, and crippling injury can occur at any time. Physical intimidation is important in determining who prevails in the many individual matchups on the field. On numerous occasions, beginning in the late nineteenth century, football has been sharply criticized as excessively dangerous, although rule and equipment changes have had only minimal impact. Football, however, was probably less violent in the late nineteenth century than the most popular student rituals that preceded it, such as cane rush, which involved many more participants. Like football players, the press compared the collegians engaged in cane rush to gladiators, which the latter resembled even more closely 59

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because they competed stripped to the waist. Cane rush’s purpose was to forge class unity while testing male students’ ability to suppress fear and withstand pain. The freshman and sophomore classes lined up on a field facing each other, and on a signal rushed toward a cane lying in the middle of the “battleground.” The object was to have more men touching the cane when time was called, usually after five or ten minutes, than the other class. Seconds after the lines collided, combatants were tangled together in an enormous pileup, larger than those that occurred on the football field. Midway through the competition a squad of “jumpers” from each class entered the fray, leaping headlong into the pileup, reaching for the cane. Afterward, students proudly displayed their “battle scars.” Severe injuries were common, with students often knocked unconscious or writhing on the ground in convulsions. By 1905, most colleges had abolished cane rush as too dangerous and barbaric (Norwood 2002, 23–24). During the early twentieth century, opponents of measures intended to reduce injuries in football argued that the sport was less dangerous than cane rush. Football’s brutality was much commented upon almost from the time it was introduced on the campus. The New York Times on 21 November 1889 stated that football had been a “free fight” since it emerged as a significant sport in northeastern colleges in the 1870s. In the early 1880s, however, Walter Camp’s (1859–1925) major rule innovations—the line of scrimmage, the downs system, and restricting each side to eleven players on the field—had made football less of “a slugging match.” Wedge plays introduced in the 1880s and 1890s made football more dangerous. Princeton introduced the wedge in 1884, quickly adopted by other college teams, in which offensive players massed in a tightly interlocked “V” formation around the ball carrier. In 1892, Harvard developed the fearsome nine-man flying wedge, in which several of the players forming the “V” lined up twenty yards or more behind the line of scrimmage. With a long running start, the entire wedge sped toward one of the defenders in an effort to open a hole in the opposing line. This was banned in 1894, but it was permissible until 1906 for teams to position as many as three offensive players behind the line of scrimmage, and have them run forward before the ball was snapped (McQuilkin and Smith 1993, 57–64; Martin 1961, 78). The legalization of tackling below the waist in 1888 significantly transformed the game and increased the frequency of serious injuries. Previously, the line was drawn out across the field, as in soccer, with gaps between the players. The low tackle greatly reduced the effectiveness of open field running. Linemen therefore bunched together, “shoulder to shoulder” (Davis 1925, 19–20). Plunges into the line became the most logical method of attaining the five yards in three attempts required for a first down. This made the game less exciting for spectators, who often could not distinguish the ball carrier among the players massed tightly together. Prior to the 1894 Yale-Princeton Thanksgiving Day game in New York, matching what were considered the two best college football teams, the police superintendent warned that his force would not permit the contest to “assume the character of a brutal prize fight” (New York Tribune, 1 December 1894, 3). A few days earlier, on 25 November, the New York Times stated that the Yale-Harvard game that had just taken place made prizefighting look tame. A South American rebellion was “as child’s play” by comparison. Outing magazine, which covered sports-related issues, however, argued the same year that football players sustained proportionally fewer injuries than tobogganers, skaters, or horseback riders. It claimed that “as many and as serious 60

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accidents” occurred as a result of students walking on “slippery sidewalks between lecture halls as from football” (J.C. 1894, 65–66). During the late nineteenth century football was played with little or no protective equipment. Helmets were not yet in wide use, and players at most protected their heads with a knitted skullcap, a rubber nose guard, and ear protectors. They sometimes grew their hair long as a buffer against blows to the head. Homer Eaton Keyes (1875–1938), a Dartmouth professor, commented that sport in the 1890s was so rough that “canes, crutches, and bandages” were “as important a part of football equipment” as the canvas jackets and padded trousers many players wore (Keyes 1906, 778). World heavyweight boxing champion “Gentleman Jim” Corbett (1866–1933) insisted in 1894 that pugilism, a “manly and honorable” one-on-one battle, could not be equated with football. He recoiled in disgust at the spectacle in football games of “one fellow on the ground with half a dozen others jumping on his neck” (National Police Gazette, 22 December 1894, 2). The New York Times on 27 August 1896 referred to the Yale-Princeton Thanksgiving Day game as their “annual rough and tumble match.” This implied that biting, kicking, scratching, eye-gouging, and throwing dust in an opponent’s eyes were prominent features of these games between elite colleges. Such tactics were easy to conceal, especially in pileups and in line play prior to the rule enacted in 1906 that created a space, or neutral zone, between opposing lines. Elbert Hubbard, a widely-read journalist, in 1903 similarly denounced football as a new form of gladiatorial combat that would make even “the ancient Romans stand aghast.” Echoing Corbett, Hubbard described football as a sport lacking any sense of fair play: “eleven men may fall upon one and so grind him into the mire that he is no longer recognizable as a human being.” Football required that young men develop “the instincts of a brute” (Hubbard 1903, 597). Newspapers complained that collegians behaved like fiends on the gridiron, deliberately trying to disable the opposing team’s best player. The New York Times suggested on 29 November 1905 that some of the nineteen gridiron fatalities suffered during the previous fall’s college season might have been the result of manslaughter rather than accident. There was so much concern during the first few years of the twentieth century that excessive violence would lead colleges to abolish football that in October 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) convened a White House conference of representatives of the Big Three colleges, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton, to discuss reforming the game. It was the first time a president had ever intervened in a sports matter. Roosevelt, and many prominent members of the Eastern elite, believed that male collegians’ participation in rough sports was necessary if America was to develop leaders capable of protecting it militarily. They feared that youth had grown soft in an increasingly bureaucratic society, not having been made to confront significant physical challenges. Football, which was suffused with military imagery, provided the closest parallel to war for turn-of-the-century collegians. Harvard built the first concrete football stadium in the nation in 1903 on land named Soldiers Field, donated by Henry Lee Higginson (1834–1919) to honor Harvard men killed in the Civil War. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935), who had been wounded three times fighting for the Union in the Civil War, declared in 1895 that he rejoiced at young men’s participation in “dangerous sport.” If occasionally one of them broke his neck, it was “not…a waste, but…a price well paid for the breeding of a race fit for headship and command.” Roosevelt denounced Harvard president Charles W. Eliot 61

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(1834–1926) as a “mollycoddle,” a synonym for sissy, when he called for his school to abolish football (Bernstein 2001, 80–81; Frederickson 1965, 222–24). The White House conference resulted only in a promise by the Big Three representatives to discourage excessive violence, but no new rules were proposed. More than sixty other eastern and mid-western colleges fielding football teams were dissatisfied with the Big Three’s reluctance to seriously reform the game, and their representatives met in New York in late December 1905 to discuss changes. The representatives agreed to institute several new rules to both reduce the danger to players and open up the game to make it more appealing to spectators. The organization that came out of the conference was called the Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which in 1910 changed its name to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) (Watterson 2000, 77–79). The new rules, which soon were accepted across the country, included: 1) requiring ten yards for a first down instead of five. The number of tries required was changed from three to four in 1912; 2) requiring at least six men on the line of scrimmage, to eliminate the wedge plays. At least five had to be the center, the guards, and the tackle, to prevent the heaviest men from running with momentum from the backfield; 3) the establishment of a neutral zone between the opposing lines; and 4) the change in the fair catch sign from digging the heel into the ground to raising the arm in the air, to make it much more visible; and 5) the legalization of the forward pass. The rule makers were cautious about the forward pass, and placed strong restrictions on its use, such as limiting it to a maximum of twenty yards and banning passes across the goal line. These restrictions were removed in 1912, and end zones were then added to the field (Keyes 1906, 776–83; Watterson 2000, 131–132). The new rules did encourage more end runs, but it is questionable whether the forward pass made football safer. Pass receivers can sustain savage hits from defenders, and are often blindsided. One of the most severe injuries sustained on the gridiron occurred in 1978 when Oakland Raider safety Jack Tatum (1948–2010) hit New England Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley (1951–2007) as he was leaping to catch a pass, making him a quadriplegic for life. In 1960, Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Chuck Bednarik (1925–2015) legally blindsided New York Giants halfback Frank Gifford (1930–2015) after he caught a pass and was running in the open field, knocking him unconscious and causing him to miss an entire season of play.

The Persistence of Brutality and Pro Football’s Bounty System Despite the 1906 rule changes, football has remained an extremely violent sport in which serious and often disabling injuries are common. Greasy Neale (1891–1973), head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles from 1941 to 1950, and at seven colleges before that, expressed the prevailing view on the gridiron when he said: “All you’ve got to remember is that once you step out on the field, it’s every man for himself” (Braunwart and Carroll 1980, 3). The ability to both mete out physical punishment, and take it without flinching, has remained central to football in the more than a century since the 1906 rule changes. Frank Gifford, star New York Giants halfback of the 1950s and early 1960s, had the highest praise for rival Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas (1933–2002): “although [he] hurt his knees, ribs, and both shoulders, and lost most of his teeth [on the football field], I never saw him 62

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come out of a game” (Gifford 1993, 174). Playing injured in football is expected, and painkilling injections are often administered to keep athletes on the field. The physical punishment a football player endures can be so severe that it led one writer to compare the sport to atomic war: “There are no winners, only survivors” (Herskowitz 1974, 10). As in boxing, football players can get “dinged” in a game, a condition in which they suffer temporary memory loss and have no awareness of their surroundings. Sometimes they continue to play in this condition. During the second half of the 1964 National Football League (NFL) championship game between the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Colts, the Browns quarterback, Frank Ryan (b. 1936) sustained a hit in the first half and was unable to remember the plays. Cleveland’s assistant coach and offensive coordinator, Dub Jones (b. 1924), called the plays in the second half, and Ryan led the Browns to a 27-0 victory, passing very effectively. Jones’s son, Bert (b. 1951), one of the NFL’s premier quarterbacks during the 1970s, noted that players who were dinged would need an MRI and a CAT-scan done before being permitted to return to play. He remarked: “But, back then, as stupid as it sounds, it was kind of like a badge of courage to say, ‘I played the game, and don’t remember any of it’” (Norwood 2004, 51). New York Giants defensive tackle Dick Modzelewski (b. 1931) estimated in a 1957 interview that he was hit between sixty and seventy times a game, sometimes three times on one play. The team trainer would sometimes come out and ask a player who had sustained heavy blows: “Where are you? Who are we playing?” just as a boxing referee or cornerman would do in the ring (New York Times, 25 October 1957, 43). Paris Review editor George Plimpton (1927–2003) stated in his book Paper Lion, about his experience training with the Detroit Lions in 1963, that football was all about hitting, which meant that players had to know how to take it. Lions head coach George Wilson (1914–1978) told Plimpton about his old Chicago Bears teammate “Jumbo Joe” Stydahar (1912–1977) once yelling at a losing team when he was a coach: “No wonder you guys get kicked around. Every one of you’s still got his teeth.” Wilson noted that Stydahar had none (Plimpton 1965, 244). In a 1960 CBS-TV documentary about him, New York Giants middle linebacker Sam Huff (b. 1934) declared that “there is no place for nice guys” in pro football, and added: “I always feel real good when I hit someone” (Huff 1988, 112). As with college football in the 1890s and first years of the twentieth century, there was growing alarm by the mid-1950s that professional football was becoming “mayhem” rather than sport. Mass circulation magazines were publishing articles entitled “Savagery on Sunday” (Life 1955), and “Football is Getting Too Vicious” by Cleveland Browns quarterback Otto Graham (1921–2003) (Sports Illustrated 1954). Graham claimed that players were increasingly aiming fists, forearms, and elbows at opponents’ faces, often causing serious harm. Philadelphia Eagles lineman Bucko Kilroy (1921–2007) stated that forearm blows explained the large number of “broken hands, broken jaws, and broken faces” in the NFL (Barnett and Carroll 1986, 2). As in boxing, football players were sticking their thumbs in their opponent’s eyes. Players also applied “hi-lo” blocks, double teaming an opposing defender, with one man hitting him above the waist and the other below it simultaneously. A victim of a “hi-lo” block could “have his legs and/or his collar bone broken in one fell swoop” (Sport 1955, 89). Crack blocks (or crackbacks) used by pass receivers against linebackers could inflict serious injuries. This was a devastating blindside block. The receiver took a 63

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few steps across the line of scrimmage and then cut back across the middle, targeting the linebacker, who would be watching the play unfold in front of him. If the linebacker saw the receiver, he might not know his intention. It could look like he was running a pass pattern. Running at high speed, the receiver delivered the block to the side of the linebacker’s knee or leg, which might cave in (Plimpton 1965, 196). Linebackers sustained severe knee and ankle injuries from crackback blocks. The linebacker, who had to watch the guard coming off the offensive line, depended on the defensive back behind him to call “Crack!” when he saw a crack block coming. Veteran linebackers, well aware that such a block could send them to the hospital, were reluctant to play in front of rookie defensive backs. Clendon Thomas (b. 1935), star NFL safety in the 1960s, stated that if a veteran had to do so, he would watch for the crackback block himself and never depend on the rookie, “because with one mistake, his career is over” (Norwood 2004, 105). The NFL introduced face masks in the mid-1950s to reduce the number of facial injuries like broken cheekbones, broken noses, eye damage, and loss of teeth. Most players approved of the face mask. Washington Redskins’ halfback Joe Scudero (b. 1930) said he had played seven times without a face mask and broken his nose seven times. Redskins’ tackle Don Boll (1927–2001) stated that he suffered seven broken noses at the University of Nebraska playing without a face mask, costing the university $1,250 for his plastic surgery. The team owner, George Preston Marshall (1896–1969), however, opposed the use of face masks, arguing that players often inflicted serious neck and spinal injuries by pulling them, even though there was a penalty against that (Los Angeles Times, 4 November 1955, C1 and C4). In November 1990, the Washington Redskins suffered so many injuries on the field against the Philadelphia Eagles that the contest became known as the “Body Bag Game.” Pro Football Hall of Famer Bobby Mitchell (b. 1935), a Redskins’ executive who had starred as a Redskins and Browns player in the late 1950s and 1960s, stated that he had never seen a game like it, “not even in the old days.” The Washington Post maintained that the Eagles had committed “football terrorism.” Six Redskins were carried off the field: both quarterbacks, a running back, two kick return men, and the middle linebacker. Punt returner Joe Howard, knocked unconscious, lay motionless for some time on the field, apparently barely breathing, before being taken away on a stretcher and sent to the hospital with a concussion. One of the Eagles remarked delightedly: “Man, he was snoring.” Philadelphia fans, excited by the carnage, chanted: “Losers! Losers!” at the Redskins. At one point, the Eagles taunted the Redskins by asking: “Do you guys need any more body bags?” The Redskins had to finish the game with a rookie running back playing quarterback. Significantly, the post-game interview was with the Redskins’ team doctor. Redskins’ defensive tackle Eric Williams (b. 1962) compared football to war: “You take your wounded to the hospital and keep fighting.” He commented that there was a saying among the players that the initials NFL meant “Not for Long” (Washington Post, 13 and 14 November 1990 and 6 January 1991, A1 and A9; E1A and E5; F1 and F8; D1 and D6). The desire to win has on occasion led to deliberately injuring key opponents to force their removal from the game. Money prizes, or bounties, have apparently been offered for this since the NFL’s early days (New York Daily News, 3 March 2012). Given their disproportionate importance since the modern T-formation was introduced during the 1940s and early 1950s, quarterbacks have been the most frequently 64

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targeted, followed by running backs. Little, however, has ever been said publicly about this practice. In 1940, Jim Thorpe (1888–1953), one of college and pro football’s early superstars, stated that he always knew that opposing teams had three or four players assigned to knock him out of the game (Boston Herald, 24 December 1940, 5). In 1950, New York Yanks’ quarterback George Ratterman (1926–2007) learned on a visit to the Los Angeles Rams’ locker room that before every game the thirty-two Rams players each put a dollar into a pot, to be awarded to the player who hit the opposing quarterback hard enough to force his departure from the game. Because Ratterman that day had stood up to the Rams’ “punishment” and completed the game still “in one piece,” $25 from the pot was given to a lineman who had been fined, possibly for trying to disable Ratterman, and the remaining $7 was added to the next week’s pot (Ratterman 1964, 247.) The biggest scandal involving bounties in pro football occurred with the NFL’s disclosure in March 2012 that the New Orleans Saints’ defensive coordinator Gregg Williams (b. 1958), with help from defensive captain Jonathan Vilma (b. 1982) and other members of the defensive unit, administered a system that paid team members substantial sums of money for forcing opposing players off the field or knocking them completely out of games. Such payments violated NFL regulations. A $1,000 bounty was paid for a “cart-off”—inflicting an injury on an opponent so serious that he had to be helped off the field—and $1,500 for knocking an opponent out of the game. The amount paid doubled or tripled during playoff games. Even higher bounties were placed on the heads of opposing star quarterbacks. The NFL report indicated that Vilma had offered cash bounties of $10,000 each on the quarterbacks of Saints’ playoff opponents on consecutive weeks—first on Kurt Warner (b. 1971) of the Arizona Cardinals, and then on Brett Favre (b. 1969) of the Minnesota Vikings in the National Football Conference championship game. The NFL stated that neither Saints’ head coach Sean Payton (b. 1963) nor general manager Mickey Loomis (b. 1964) did anything to stop the payments when they learned of them, or even after they became aware of the league’s investigation. The Saints at the time were among the NFL’s premier teams, winning the 2010 Super Bowl and having appeared in the playoffs the next two seasons. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell (b. 1959) stated that he was “profoundly troubled” by players’ enthusiasm for the bounty system (New York Times, 3 and 22 March 2012, A1 and D4, A1 and A4; New York Daily News, 3 March 2012; London Financial Times, 24 March 2012, 9; USA Today, 3 May 2012, 2C and 3C). The New York Times reported that at least one person unconnected to the Saints or to pro football, a marketing agent and convicted felon close to Payton, was involved in providing bounty money. He had offered payments toward a bounty on an opposing quarterback at least twice during the 2011 season, once in an email to the head coach (New York Times, 3 and 22 March 2012, A1 and D4, A1 and A4). Some NFL players expressed surprise that the disclosure of the Saints bounty system had created such a furor in the press. Linebacker Shawne Merriman (b. 1984) claimed that bounties had always been put on players in the NFL. He stated that he had suffered a knee injury after the Tennessee Titans had placed a bounty on him in 2007, when he was with the San Diego Chargers (New York Times, 3 March 2012, D4). The timing of the scandal could not have been worse for the NFL, which faced dozens of lawsuits from players who had suffered lasting damage from repeated 65

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concussions on the gridiron. The league imposed what was considered harsh punishment. Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was suspended indefinitely. Head coach Sean Payton was suspended without pay for a year. No NFL head coach had ever been suspended for “any length of time.” This was a significant blow to the Saints, because Payton, who was paid more than $7 million a year, called the offensive plays and was closely involved with personnel matters. General manager Mickey Loomis was suspended for the first eight games of the 2012 season. The NFL fined the Saints $500,000 and took away their second round draft choices for 2012 and 2013. Four current and former Saints’ defensive players were suspended for “actively and enthusiastically” participating in the bounty program from 2009 to 2011. Vilma, the Saints middle linebacker, received the longest suspension, for a season. The others were given suspensions of eight, four, and three games (New York Times, 22 March and 3 and 4 May 2012, A1 and A4, B13 and B14, and B10). The players’ suspensions, which the NFL Players Association challenged, were vacated by a three-person appeals panel. Commissioner Goodell then appointed Paul Tagliabue (b. 1940), who had preceded him in the office, to determine penalties. Tagliabue, while acknowledging the existence of the Saints’ bounty program, assigned the blame almost entirely to the accused Saints’ coaches and general manager, whose punishments remained the same. Vilma’s defamation suit against Goodell, however, was dismissed. When Payton’s one-year suspension ended, the Saints extended his contract as head coach by five years, at an estimated $8 million a year (New York Times, 8 September 2012, D1; 23 January 2013, B16; and 12 December 2012, B11). What came to be called BountyGate raised questions about similar practices on other NFL teams, some of which were known to have compensated players at least for delivering especially hard hits to opponents. Washington Redskins’ all-pro safety Tony Peters (b. 1953) , who played in the NFL from 1975 to 1985, told the author that to boost special teams morale the Redskins paid money bonuses for “a KO,” a “big hit” on an opposing player: “Pancake him, they called it. Send him down on his back.” Local merchants would also donate items for the players like television sets or golf clubs for “pancaking” (Norwood 2004, 307). Matt Bowen (b. 1976), who played safety for the Redskins from 2003 to 2005 when Gregg Williams was their defensive coordinator, wrote in the Chicago Tribune that he and his teammates would place bounties on opposing players: “We targeted big names, our sights set on taking them out of the game,” through “big hits [but] clean hits.” The payoffs came from money taken from fines imposed on players during the season. Money was paid out for hitting a quarterback hard or slamming a running back at the knees: “Chop him down and give a quick smile” upon returning to the huddle. “You just got a bonus.” Williams supported payments as a way to motivate players. Bowen explained that a “win-at-all costs” culture prevailed in the NFL, and that bounties were just part of the game, something that you could find “in plenty of NFL cities” (Chicago Tribune, 2 March 2012). George Starke (b. 1948), who played offensive tackle for the Redskins under head coach Joe Gibbs (b. 1940) said that Gibbs would hand a $100 bill to a player who knocked down an opposing quarterback. Gibbs admitted that he had used monetary rewards to motivate players at a time when the NFL allowed teams to provide such incentives. Starke denied that players deliberately tried to hurt opponents, but just tried “to knock them out.” He explained: “you have to understand… it’s like being a boxer. Your job is to knock the guy out.” The Redskins called this 66

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a “drag-off”—when the opponent had to be carried off the field (Washington Post, 6 March 2012).

Gambling in Pro Football Pro football has not been shaken by gambling scandals on the scale of major league baseball, where key members of a team consorted with gamblers to throw a World Series in 1919, or college basketball, where it was revealed that in 1950 and 1951 thirty-two players from seven colleges, including some of the nation’s top-ranked teams, shaved points at the behest of gamblers. There have been two serious NFL gambling scandals, however, each involving two players, that received national press attention. On 15 December 1946, it was discovered that a gambler named Alvin Paris (b. 1918) had offered bribes to two members of the New York Giants backfield, tailback Frank Filchock (1916–1994), and fullback Merle Hapes, to throw the NFL championship game scheduled that day against the Chicago Bears. Filchock was the Giants star passer. Paris was associated with a New Jersey gambling syndicate and had accomplices. They had entertained the two players at parties at Paris’s home and at nightclubs. Paris had offered each man $2,500 with a side bet of $1,000 in their names to fix the game so that the Bears won by at least ten points. There were also suggestions of lucrative off-season jobs for the two Giants selling novelty items. The police had discovered the bribery attempt on the eve of the title game through wiretaps on Paris’s telephone as part of a gambling investigation. Both Filchock and Hapes had refused the bribe offer, but had not reported it to Giants’ head coach Steve Owen (1898–1964) or to any team official. NFL commissioner Bert Bell (1895–1959) barred Hapes from playing in the game. Filchock was allowed to do so because he had denied to New York mayor William O’Dwyer that he had been approached about fixing the game. He performed very well in a game that the Giants lost 24-14. Shortly afterward, Filchock admitted at Paris’s trial that he had lied about not having received a bribe offer. Paris, who might have received a maximum of ten years in prison and a $20,000 fine, was sentenced only to one year because he agreed to testify against his three accomplices (Peterson 1997, 159–60; Chicago Tribune, 8 and 9 January 1947, 27, 29; Braunwart, Carroll, and Horrigan 1981, 1–2; Washington Post, 8 April 1947, 10). The Washington Post on 4 April 1947 called the attempted championship game fix the biggest sports scandal since the Black Sox affair, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox had been barred from organized baseball for life. Commissioner Bell suspended both Filchock and Hapes indefinitely, just twenty-four hours after a court sentenced three accomplices of Paris to prison terms. The punishment was the most severe an NFL commissioner had ever imposed on a player. Bell lifted Filchock’s suspension in July 1950 and he played one game for the Baltimore Colts later that year, his last in the NFL. He played professional football in Canada from 1947 through 1953 and coached there as well through 1959. Filchock was head coach of the Denver Broncos of the new American Football League during its first two years, 1960 and 1961. Commissioner Bell lifted Hapes’s suspension in 1954, and he too, played for and coached professional football teams in Canada for a few years (Braunwart, Carroll, and Horrigan 1981, 4–8). 67

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In April 1963, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle (1926–1996) indefinitely suspended two of the NFL’s biggest stars, Green Bay Packers running back Paul Hornung (b. 1935) and Detroit Lions defensive tackle Alex Karras (1935–2012), for betting on league games, although not against their own teams. The NFL constitution did not permit any appeal. Hornung, nicknamed the “Golden Boy,” was one of football’s most glamorous players. He had been the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 1961, and a key member of Green Bay’s championship teams that year and in 1962. Karras was arguably the NFL’s best defensive lineman, and considered its top pass rusher. There was no evidence of point shaving or selling information to gamblers. No one disputed that the two men had given their best effort on the field. Betting on games was a clear violation of NFL rules, however, as stated in player contracts. The NFL also posted notices in team locker rooms informing players that it was forbidden. Hornung had been in frequent telephone contact with Barney Shapiro, a Las Vegas gambler with a pinball and slot-machine business he had met in San Francisco in 1956, who asked him for his view of the outcome of various upcoming games. Shapiro was not a bookmaker. In 1959, Hornung began placing his own bets through him, usually from $100 to $200, but on several occasions for $500. Hornung stopped making bets during the 1962 preseason. Karras was charged with making at least six “significant” bets on NFL games, beginning in 1958. These bets were for $50 until 1962, when he made two for $100, one on the Lions and the other on the Packers in the NFL championship game against the Giants. Rozelle also stated that Karras had associated with persons the Detroit police identified as “known hoodlums” who frequented a bar in which Karras had invested. The NFL imposed lesser punishments on several others as well. It fined five other Detroit Lions players $2,000 each for putting down $50 bets, through a friend of Karras, on the previous year’s NFL Packers-Giants championship game. The fine was light because the betting had occurred only once. In addition, the Detroit Lions’ management was fined a mere $4,000 because head coach George Wilson (1914–1978) had failed to report information concerning gambling and had permitted “unauthorized persons,” including organized crime figures, access to the Lions’ bench and locker room (Carroll 1993, 106–8; Maraniss 1999, 336–39; New York Times, 18 April 1963, 1 and 41; Los Angeles Times, 18 and 19 April 1963, B1, B3). Joe Foss (1915–2003), the commissioner of the American Football League (AFL), which had been established in 1960 as a rival to the NFL, announced that “under no circumstance” would Hornung or Karras be allowed to play in the AFL while they were under suspension by the NFL. The AFL, eager to acquire respectability, considered the two men suspended from pro football and not just from the NFL. The Canadian Football League took the same position (Washington Post, 18 April 1963, F1; Los Angeles Times, 18 April 1963, B1). Hornung and Karras reacted very differently to the punishment Rozelle imposed. Hornung immediately consulted with advisors to influence media and public reaction to his involvement in the scandal, and was very contrite. As a result, he received as much income from product endorsements and public appearances during the year he was suspended as he would have ordinarily. He also was hired as a broadcaster on a twenty-two station network. Karras was angry and bitter, and denounced the punishment as unfair. He felt he had made a “stupid mistake,” but a small one, for which an indefinite suspension was too severe a penalty. Even a 68

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one-year suspension would cost Karras $25,000 in salary money. He claimed that a $2,000 fine would have been more appropriate. Karras noted that major league baseball had suspended Detroit Tigers’ pitcher Denny McLain (b. 1944), who had admitted involvement with bookmakers, for only half a year. Karras argued that Rozelle should have taken into consideration his having grown up in working-class Gary, Indiana, a grimy steel town, where “everyone bet,” and no one considered it wrong. During his “year in exile,” Karras tended bar and signed a pro wrestling contract (Cope 1966, 68–69; Greene 1964, 18, 20; Prato 1970, 26–27, 29). Hornung and Karas had defenders, who pointed out that some pro football club owners invested in racetracks, and many placed bets at them. Tim Mara (1887– 1959), who had founded the New York Giants franchise in 1925, one of the NFL’s most successful, had been a bookmaker. After one year, Hornung and Karras were reinstated for 1964, and had some excellent years before retiring after the 1966 and 1970 seasons respectively. Hornung scored five touchdowns in a game in 1965, and was an important member of the Packers team that won the NFL championship that year. In May 1966, to keep Karras from jumping to the AFL’s Miami Dolphins, the Lions offered him an unprecedented seven-year contract for $250,000, which he signed (Cope 1966, 68; Los Angeles Times, 21 May 1966, A3).

The West Point Cheating Scandal of 1951 In his muckraking book King Football, Reed Harris (1909–1982), editor of Columbia University’s student newspaper, the Spectator, characterized college football programs as “an obvious deformity on the face of American education” (Harris 1932, 102). Academics stigmatized these programs for admitting poorly prepared students, whose football eligibility was maintained by registering them in courses requiring minimal work and attendance. Before entering the NFL in 1981, Dexter Manley (b. 1959) played football for four years at Oklahoma State University without knowing how to read. He had received thirty-seven college football scholarship offers (New York Times, 28 May 1989, S8; Baltimore Sun, 8 October 1992). USA Today recently reported that 60 percent of the juniors and seniors on the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) football team majored in “university studies,” a field about which employers were entirely unfamiliar. Many football players who graduated from UNLV were hesitant to list their major on job applications. One UNLV football player who had majored in university studies told USA Today that he had found employment as a bouncer at a Las Vegas bar, but had quit soon afterward because he “didn’t go to college for four years to be a security guard.” He was, however, unable to find other work. Looking back, the player said: “it’s a meaningless degree…it’s lower than an associate’s degree” (USA Today 20 November 2008, 8C). Students admitted to college without the proper academic background are often tempted to cheat. During August 1951, the US Military Academy (West Point) was rocked by a major cheating scandal that resulted in the Academy’s dismissal of about ninety cadets, including forty-three of the forty-five members of the football team. It was the “largest mass expulsion in the Military Academy’s history” (Washington Post 4 August 1951, 1). 69

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According to West Point’s superintendent, the cheating ring was formed during the late 1940s for football players who found it difficult to keep up with their academic work. It quickly mushroomed as more players, their roommates and friends, and some other cadets joined it. Many players who themselves had not participated in the cheating knew about it and failed to report it to campus authorities, a violation of the academy honor code punishable by expulsion. Among them was the son of West Point’s head football coach, Red Blaik (1897–1989), the team’s starting quarterback. Coach Blaik himself had not been aware of the cheating (New York Times 12 August and 6 and 7 September 1951, 127, 1, and 27). The cheating ring obtained questions and answers to daily oral and written quizzes and circulated them, often at the football team’s dining tables. West Point used the same questions for tests given to several different classes held the same day and the next day, facilitating cheating. To protect itself, the ring had managed to place some members on the academy’s honor committee (Maraniss 1999, 122, 127). The scandal decimated West Point’s football team, a powerhouse from 1944 to 1950, with a 57-3-4 won-lost-tied record and two national championships. In 1951, after the expulsions, West Point’s football record sank to two wins and seven losses. Other colleges recruited many of the expelled players. Vince Lombardi (1913– 1970), one of Blaik’s assistant coaches, used his contacts with New York’s Catholic hierarchy and colleges to place some of the expelled players at other schools. Joseph Kennedy Sr. (1888–1969), father of future US president John F. Kennedy (1917– 1963), arranged for some of them to play at Notre Dame (Maraniss 1999, 131, 135). The West Point cheating scandal attracted extensive national press coverage. A poll released by George Gallup’s American Institute of Public Opinion in September 1951 showed that more Americans had heard or read about the West Point cheating scandal than the hearings on General Douglas MacArthur’s (1880–1964) conflict with President Harry Truman (1884–1972) or the US Senate’s Kefauver organized crime hearings (Washington Post, 17 September 1951, 5). The British press also covered the scandal (Manchester Guardian, 4, 6, 7, and 9 August 1951, 5, 5, 8, 8; London Times, 6, 7, and 8 August 1951, 4, 3, 3). The West Point cheating scandal caused a backlash against college football in high places. US Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins (1896 –1987) criticized West Point for placing too much emphasis on the sport. Senator William Fulbright (1905–1995) of Arkansas went further, calling on both West Point and the US Naval Academy to withdraw from intercollegiate football, at least temporarily (Manchester Guardian, 6 and 7 August 1951, 5 and 8).

Southern Methodist University Receives the Death Penalty, 1987 During the 1980s, Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) repeated use of financial inducements to recruit and reward football players caused the NCAA to impose its most severe punishment—the death penalty—for the first and only time ever on a major sports program. The death penalty prohibited participation in an intercollegiate sport for one or two years. It was mandatory for any college sports program that violated NCAA rules “twice in the same sport within a five-year period” (Sullivan and Neff 1987, 18). 70

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Determined to make their football team one of the nation’s best, SMU boosters, including members of the school’s board of governors, during the 1980s placed increasing emphasis on luring prospects with money and gifts. Many college football programs recruited players by providing funds, including support for their families, jobs, automobiles, airplane flights, and rent-free apartments. Boosters often provided these amenities. In 1973, SMU head coach Dave Smith (1933–2009) set up a bonus system, awarding small cash payments for blocking punts. He also encouraged players to sell complementary tickets to him and his staff. It was common for college football players to sell their complementary tickets to coaches, boosters, or members of the public (Whitford 1989, 46–47, 78; Watterson 2000, 360; Norwood 2004, 290–91). By the early 1980s, boosters were paying SMU stars monthly stipends; other players were paid “on an as-needed basis.” Stipends often increased as a player became more valuable to the team. David Stanley, a team member, informed the media that SMU had recruiters pay him $25,000 “up-front” and $750 a month to play there. Other SMU players told NCAA investigators that athletic department personnel funneled boosters’ money to them. This approach helped SMU land prize recruits and assemble the best winning percentage of any major college football program in the nation from 1981 through 1984 (Whitford 1989, xii, 109, 112, 117). In February 1987, SMU received the death penalty, having continued to pay players from a booster-supplied slush fund in collaboration with members of the athletic department, despite the NCAA’s repeated warnings and penalties, including the loss of football scholarships. Since 1958, the NCAA had placed SMU on probation a record seven times, largely for paying players, prospects, and their relatives. The program had lost credibility with the mass media and many people around the nation. At games, opposing fans ridiculed the SMU team by flashing their car keys (Whitford 1989, 155) representative of the gifts provided to athletes. Many SMU faculty members, distressed that the administration’s excessive emphasis on football had significantly harmed the university’s academic reputation, were pleased with the death penalty. They resented that the university’s board of governors, which promoted football, favored SMU’s business and law schools, and treated the underpaid arts and sciences faculty like “hired hands.” A biology professor remarked: “Ten years ago, a lynch mob [of boosters] would have hauled the faculty out into the parking lot and had a mass hanging for not supporting the football program…and had a tailgate party while they were doing it” (Washington Post, 10 December 1986, D1). Sports Illustrated declared shortly after the death penalty announcement that “in a surprisingly bold stroke, the NCAA had effectively demolished one of the nation’s most glorious—and historically corrupt—football teams.” It claimed that the NCAA in addition had “sent a stern message to all who cheat in college athletics” (Sullivan and Neff 1987, 18). Only the first statement was true. SMU was unable to maintain a competitive major football program after the penalty. A much smaller draw after resuming play in 1989, SMU shifted its games from sleek, partially domed, 65,024-seat Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, to its antiquated 24,000-seat campus stadium, Ownby Field, which it had vacated in 1948 (Washington Post, 1 September 1989, G2; Los Angeles Times, 3 September 1989, C3). During the two decades after 1989, SMU won only 26.1 percent of its football games (SMU Daily Campus, 3 May 2009). 71

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The SMU death penalty did little to reshape the culture of college football. No sooner had it been reported than more than a hundred recruiters from other major college programs swooped down “like vultures” on SMU to sign the fifty-six remaining players who held football scholarships (Sullivan and Neff 1987, 18). Given the intense competition in college football at the higher levels, many major programs continued to violate NCAA recruiting and payment regulations, and other forms of outrageous conduct precipitated new scandals.

The University of Oklahoma Football Scandal of 1988–89: Gang Rape, Gunplay, Drug Abuse, and Winning at all Cost When Alex Karras was a student-athlete at the University of Iowa in the 1950s, he was expelled from the dormitory after he and another football player retaliated against their proctor for being angry with them because they delighted in knocking on each other’s door and hurling a bucket of water in the other’s face when it was opened. One night Karras climbed on the shoulders of his teammate, a 280-pound lineman, placed an overcoat around them borrowed from a nearly seven-foot-tall basketball player, and knocked on the proctor’s door. In the pitch blackness, the proctor confronted what appeared to be an enormous monster towering directly before him. Terrified, the proctor rushed down the hallway in the dark and crashed into a wall lighting fixture, causing a small fire (Cope 1966, 70). By the 1980s, college athletes’ offenses had escalated far beyond even the more serious college pranks. In January 1989, three members of the University of Oklahoma Sooners football team were arrested, charged with gang raping a young woman in the athletic dormitory, Bud Wilkinson House. Two of them were convicted for first-degree rape and sentenced to ten years in prison. Sports Illustrated quoted a statement by a former Bud Wilkinson House resident that no woman was safe there. The attitude in the dormitory, he said, was: “We’re Sooners. This is the way we party” (Telander and Sullivan 1989, 24). Eight days before the gang rape, another Oklahoma football player was charged with shooting a teammate in the chest with a revolver in Bud Wilkinson House in an argument over a music tape. The bullet penetrated within three inches of the victim’s heart. Three days after the three Sooner players were arraigned for the gang rape, Oklahoma quarterback Charles Thompson (b. 1968) was arrested for selling cocaine to an undercover FBI agent. Earlier that week, Thompson had lectured to pupils at a primary school that using drugs was harmful and wrong. After the arrest, the university administration disclosed that Thompson had spent part of the previous summer at a drug rehabilitation center. Thompson had pleaded guilty in Tulsa in 1986 to petty larceny for stealing a pair of gloves, and no contest to assault and battery for shoving a store clerk. He was sentenced to community service and required to attend a counseling session for shoplifters. After his cocaine arrest, Sports Illustrated placed Thompson on the cover, handcuffed and wearing an orange prison jump suit (Telander and Sullivan 1989, 21, 25). A former University of Oklahoma linebacker, Brian Bosworth (b. 1965), who played briefly in the NFL, published a book a few months later in 1988 that claimed that teammates had freebased “a lot of cocaine” and commonly used steroids. Bosworth stated that one of the players, Buster Rhymes (b. 1962), terminated a 72

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snowball fight outside Bud Wilkinson House by firing about 150 rounds from an Uzi machine gun out the dormitory window. Sooners head coach Barry Switzer (b. 1937), in his autobiography, denied that Rhymes had used an Uzi, claiming it was a pistol and that he had fired it out the window into the air. Switzer stated that he later kicked Rhymes off the team, but not for firing a pistol out the window, and continued: “If I had a dollar for every round of ammunition that has been shot out the windows of athletic dorms at universities all over the country ever since there has been such a thing as an athletic dorm, I would be rich enough to buy myself a kingdom in the Alps” (Switzer 1990, 221). Several years later, when he was head coach of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, Switzer was arrested at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport when a loaded gun was found in his carry-on luggage. Many major college football programs overlooked or minimized not just highly irresponsible behavior but outright criminality in the interest of fielding the strongest possible teams. One of Oklahoma’s major rivals, for example, the University of Nebraska, recruited Johnny Rodgers (b. 1951), who had fathered two children by the time he was sixteen. He fathered two more by the time he left Nebraska in 1972, having won the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s best college football player. In 1970, at the end of his freshman year at Nebraska, Rodgers participated with two other men in an armed robbery of a gas station in Lincoln, Nebraska. The case was solved when one of Rodgers’ accomplices confessed. A Nebraska assistant coach posted bond for Rodgers. Rodgers pleaded guilty to felony larceny and was convicted, receiving two years’ probation (Corcoran 2004, 76–80). Like Oklahoma, Nebraska was a relatively poor state that used college football to compensate for its lack of notable cultural or intellectual facilities or glamorous night life. Neither state attracted significant tourist traffic. College football provided residents of both states with what most believed was the only thing that excited envy from outsiders. The University of Nebraska allowed Rodgers to stay in school, and Nebraska head football coach Bob Devaney (1915–1997), not surprisingly, kept him on the team. Sports Illustrated and CBS News jointly conducted the first comprehensive study of criminality among college football players in 2010, which revealed that about 7 percent of those on the rosters of the magazine’s preseason top twenty-five teams as of 1 September of that year had criminal records. The University of Pittsburgh had the most, with nearly a quarter of the team (Benedict and Keteyian 2013, 314). The NCAA imposed a three-year probation on the University of Oklahoma football program for “numerous and major” rule violations, accompanied by numerous penalties. It criticized the university administration for its lack of proper control over the football program, and Switzer for having failed at times to “exercise supervisory control” over his athletes. Oklahoma was prohibited from participating in post-season bowl games for two years, and its games could not be televised for one year. The NCAA reduced the number of scholarships the football program was allowed to offer from twenty-five to eighteen for each of the next two years. It ordered the university to discipline certain assistant coaches and athletic department staff members for recruiting violations and improper use of funds (Washington Post, 20 December 1988, E1). Switzer resigned his position in June 1989. His 157-29-4 won-loss record gave him the fourth highest winning percentage of all time among football coaches at major universities, 0.844. The football scandal was serious enough to prompt Oklahoma governor Henry Bellmon (1921–2009) after Thompson’s arrest to declare that he was “thoroughly 73

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disgusted” with the Sooners’ football program. Sports Illustrated, however, commented that Bellmon had appointed university regents who tolerated the scandalous practices, and therefore shared some of the blame (Telander and Sullivan 1989, 22). Oklahoma had long had a reputation for recruiting violations. The NCAA had placed it on a two-year probation in 1973 for that offense, barring it from bowl games and television appearances for two years. The violations occurred when Switzer’s predecessor, Chuck Fairbanks (1933–2013), was head coach. They largely involved the alteration of the high school transcripts of two freshman players recruited from Galveston, Texas. Oklahoma, as a result, had to forfeit eight of the games it had won during the 1972 season, including its victory over Penn State in the Sugar Bowl. Financial violations may have occurred as well. Switzer stated in his autobiography that the path from the football stadium to the athletic dormitory was known during the late 1940s and 1950s as the “Million-Dollar Walk” because Oklahoma football boosters, obsessed with winning, allegedly lined up along it to hand money to the players when they walked past (Switzer 1990, 230). Bert Jones, one of the NFL’s premier quarterbacks of the 1970s, told the author that “Oklahoma always had the best team that money could buy. It was said that they’d go to the pros and take a pay cut” (Norwood 2004, 59). Many of the problems that beset Oklahoma were shared by the other universities with big-time athletics, and were caused by pressure from wealthy donors, regents, fans, some university administrators, and influential elements in the student body to prioritize having a winning football team above anything else. When Oklahoma was upset at home in a game against Kansas, fans sent a moving van to Switzer’s house (Norwood 2004, 169). University of Oklahoma interim president David Swank was unable to answer Sports Illustrated reporter Rick Telander when he asked him on ABC’s Nightline program what won-loss record the university would find unacceptable for Switzer, even when moderator Ted Koppel (b. 1940) gave him time to formulate an answer by taking a commercial break. Telander later commented that it was obvious that Swank “was afraid that if he publicly lowered the expectations placed on Sooner football teams, the board of regents would string him up like a bad coyote” (Telander 1989, 107–9). The university administration and the athletic department complained that the NCAA penalties imposed on Oklahoma in 1989 were too severe. Much of the state reacted similarly, with many talk show callers denouncing Sports Illustrated as “Communist” for criticizing the football program. At the suggestion of a university regent’s wife, fraternities and sororities responded to the scandal by placing signs around the campus proclaiming “We love OU” (the abbreviation for the University of Oklahoma). The Chicago Tribune reported on 28 March 1989, that “for the first time in memory,” a candidate for University of Oklahoma student government president “dared utter criticisms that in the past would have been instantly deemed heresy.” He declared that the university’s emphasis should be “more on the textbooks than the playbooks.” He lost by a wide margin.

Hostesses as Recruiting Bait There have been several scandals during the last few decades involving the use of hostesses, who are highly important in the college football recruiting process. Two 74

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of the most publicized occurred at the University of Tennessee in 2009 and at Oklahoma State University in 2015. Hostesses are female students assigned to escort football prospects on their weekend campus visits, selected for their physical attractiveness and outgoing nature. The names of college hostess groups are often sexually suggestive, especially at the Southern schools, in the manner of post-1970 pro football cheerleading squads. They include the University of Miami’s Hurricane Honeys, Clemson’s Tiger PAWS, the University of Alabama’s Bama Belles, the University of Mississippi’s Rebel Recruiters, Auburn’s Tigerettes, and the University of North Carolina’s Sweet Carolines (Benedict and Keteyian 2013, 21; Washington Post, 3 February 1999, D2; Los Angeles Times, 6 May 1974, C1). Hostesses are particularly visible at Southern universities, where, as the historian Anne Firor Scott noted, women have traditionally been stereotyped as dependent on men’s protection, but endowed with the ability to use their beauty and charm to cast a “magic spell” over them (Scott 1970, 4). At the same time, inexperienced seventeen-year-old high school prospects are enticed by a weekend date with a female collegian several years older. Top prospects are usually matched with women with senior or junior class standing (Benedict and Keteyian 2013, 21–22). The hostess is the first person the recruit sees on campus, and the one with whom he spends the most time, more even than anyone on the coaching staff, so universities are very selective about the women chosen for the role. At North Carolina in 1974, the Sweet Carolines’ captain chose the hostesses. There were only eleven at the time. The head football coach and the university’s sports information director had established the program five years earlier. The Sweet Carolines hoped, however, that a formal membership application system would replace that method. Most of the Sweet Carolines had been high school cheerleaders, but did not continue as cheerleaders in college because at North Carolina it involved gymnastics. The Los Angeles Times described all the hostesses as attractive. The university athletic department supplied each Sweet Caroline with her blue-and-white hot pants uniform, and displayed her picture in the recruiting catalogue (Los Angeles Times, 6 May 1974, C1). A generation later, the selection process was more elaborate. At the University of Tennessee in 2009, for example, 200 women applied for the twenty available positions as Orange Pride hostesses. The Orange Pride applicants were required to answer questions in a group interview about university history and the athletic program’s personnel. Those who passed had to survive a more difficult interview by the athletic director and two senior Orange Pride members. Hostesses were advised about dress, makeup, and how to speak to prospects (Benedict and Keteyian 2013, 27). Athletic departments usually directed hostess programs until 2005, when the NCAA required that supervision be transferred to admissions departments. Many Tennesseans considered Orange Pride hostesses folk heroes, crediting them as major factors in landing top prospects. One prospect stated: “You don’t want to go to a college where they ain’t pretty” (New York Times, 9 and 10 December 2009, B15, B14). Tennessee hostesses, with the athletic department’s approval, in 2009 drove 200 miles to a high school game in South Carolina, where they posed standing beside two players Tennessee wanted to recruit there, holding a sign stating that the two high schoolers “have our hearts.” New York Times columnist George Vecsey called the hostesses’ trip to the high school “tacky” and said it sent a clear message: “These are the kind of honeys we have in Knoxville.” A high school basketball coach stated that on a visit to Tennessee with his son, a football prospect, “he had to ask a hostess 75

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to stop brushing her breasts against both him and his son” (New York Times, 10, 12, and 15 December 2009, B14, D2, B11). The NCAA in 2015 shut down Oklahoma State’s hostess program, also called Orange Pride. It prohibited Oklahoma State from setting up “any other student group to assist in recruiting prospective student athletes for four years.” The university had violated the current NCAA requirement that hostess programs be directed by the school admissions office, not the athletic department, and that campus tours be given by student-athletes or members of student groups that provided tours for any prospective student. Groups providing recruits with campus tours had to be composed of members of both sexes, unlike the all-female Orange Pride (NCAA 2015; Tulsa World, 14 January 2016; Oklahoma State University Daily O’Collegian, 3 May 2015).

Future Prospects: More of the Same Serious scandals will persist in football because 1) the sport is intrinsically extremely violent and 2) the heavy emphasis on winning encourages professional teams and college programs to bend or circumvent the rules to gain an advantage over competitors. Football involves bruising collisions on every play, made especially dangerous when a participant is hit by an opponent with a long running start, as often happens. For over a century, newspapers have compiled casualty lists recording the injuries inflicted on football players in recent games and their impact on their ability to perform. The desire to intimidate an opponent, and skill in delivering hits that may injure him, are necessary elements in successful play. Alex Karras, one of the premier defensive players of his era, went so far as to say that a lineman “ha[s] to be a sadist on the field.” He remarked, referring to the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, a major rival to Karras’s Detroit Lions: “If I said to you I don’t enjoy ripping Bart Starr’s head off, I’d be lying to you” (Cope 1966, 68). Tony Peters recalled the Redskins’ defensive backs having “pretty much decapitated a couple of [Minnesota Vikings] receivers” in a playoff game, legally using forearm blows. He continued: “If you worry about what’s going to happen when you hit somebody and have that remorse that people are looking for, then you may as well give it up” (Norwood 2004, 311–312). Rule changes designed to improve player safety, like the forward pass or free substitution, have not had much appreciable effect. Some of the most serious injuries have occurred on pass plays. Wedge plays were abolished, but kickoff returns involve similar long running starts by a very large number of players all aiming at one opponent. Joe Washington (b. 1953), one of the best kickoff returners of his time, compared that assignment to being a kamikaze pilot (Norwood 2004, 192). The free substitution rule, introduced in the NFL in 1950, allowed players to leave the field and return to it at any time, and thus made it easier for trainers on the sideline to immediately inspect injuries. Before the rule was introduced, an injured man might exacerbate a wound because he was not pulled out of the game soon enough. But trainers have more recently used painkilling drugs to keep injured players on the field, placing them at serious risk. Moreover, free substitution made it easier for bigger and heavier men, who previously would have lacked the endurance, to play in the NFL, resulting in even harder hits. 76

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Because the quarterback, after the rise of the modern T formation in the 1940s, became far and away the most important player on the field, bounty systems developed. If a quarterback is injured too severely to continue play, the opposing team gains a tremendous advantage. The possibility of a gambling scandal in both pro and college football play persists, as newspapers publish betting odds and point spreads on football games every week. In 1996, thirteen Boston College football players were suspended for betting on sports events, in the largest college football gambling scandal ever. Two were accused of betting against their own football team. One of those dismissed stated that the players bet on both college and pro football games and on baseball. He claimed that the Boston College coaches, including the head coach, knew about the gambling, although the head coach denied it (Washington Post, 9 November 1996, D1; New York Times, 9 August 1997, 30). The overriding pressure on major college football programs to win at all costs continues, resulting in regular eruptions of scandals similar to Oklahoma’s. These involve recruiting violations, rapes, and violent abuse of women. Such offenses result at least in part from recruiting socially maladjusted, highly immature, and academically unqualified individuals in order to put a winning team on the field. In its feature on the 1989 University of Oklahoma football scandal, Sport Illustrated concluded: “For all his failings, Switzer is only doing what those who control his destiny—the university president, the regents, the governor, and ultimately, the people of Oklahoma—have asked him to do: Win football games” (Telander and Sullivan 1989, 31). Switzer correctly stated that Oklahoma regents and administrators considered anything less than a 9-3 record a losing season (Switzer 1990, 4). In 2012, sex crimes charges were brought against football players on five teams that played in major bowl games, and the NCAA placed twelve programs on probation (Benedict and Keteyian 2013, 1, 64). Exploiting women by using them to sexually entice prospects will probably also survive NCAA attempts to discourage it. Among the most horrifying of the numerous sex crimes cases was the pedophilia scandal at Pennsylvania State University, where in 2012 longtime defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky (b. 1944) was “convicted of forty-five counts of serial sexual abuse of ten young boys dating back to the late 1990s.” He was sentenced to a prison term of no less than thirty years. Penn State’s president, athletic director, and a senior vice-president appeared to have deliberately concealed Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children. The Sandusky affair destroyed the reputation of Penn State head coach Joe Paterno (1926–2012), often counterposed to Barry Switzer as running a top-flight but scandal-free football program. Paterno had been considered a moral paragon of college sports. Former FBI director Louis Freeh’s eight-monthlong investigation of Sandusky’s crimes found that the head coach shared in the “callous and shocking disregard” for child victims (Benedict and Keteyian 312–13). In the foreword to Barry Switzer’s autobiography, Paterno had called it “an important book, because it shows a side of big-time college football that…I naively didn’t really believe existed” (Switzer 1990, viii).

Further Reading Barnett, B., and Carroll, B. (1986). Kilroy was there. Coffin Corner 8(7): 1–3. Retrieved December 31, 2016, from http://www.profootballresearchers.org/archives/Website_Files/CoffinCorner/08-07-274.pdf.

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Touchdown: An American Obsession Benedict, J., and Keteyian, A. (2013). The system: The glory and scandal of big-time college football. New York: Doubleday. Bernstein, M. F. (2001). Football: The Ivy League origins of an American obsession. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Braunwart, B., and Carroll, B. (1980). The mugging of Bobby Layne. Coffin Corner, 2(12), 3. Retrieved December 31, 2016, from http://www.profootballresearchers.org/coffin-corner80s/02-12-048.pdf. Braunwart, B., Carroll, B., & Horrigan, J. (1981). The peregrinations of Frankie Filchock. Coffin Corner, 3(Annual), 1–8. Retrieved December 31, 2016, from http://www.profootballresearchers.org /archives/Website.Files/CoffinCorner/03-An-080.pdf Carroll, B. (1993). When the grass was real. New York: Simon and Schuster. Confessions of a dirty football player. (1955). Sport. 10–11, 88–89. Cope, M. (1966). Alex Karras: “Right or wrong, I say what I think.” Sport, 67–72. Corcoran, M. (2004). The game of the century: Nebraska vs. Oklahoma in college football’s ultimate battle. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Davis, P. H. (1925). Walter Camp, father of American football. In A. Danzig (Ed.), Oh, how they played the game: The early years of pro football and the heroes who made it great, 13–26. New York: Macmillan. Football vs. boxing. (1894). National Police Gazette, 2. Frederickson, G. (1965). The inner Civil War: Northern intellectuals and the crisis of the Union. New York: Harper & Row. Gifford, F. (1993). The whole ten yards. New York: Random House. Graham, O. (1954, October 11). Football is getting too vicious. Sports Illustrated, 26, 50–52. Greene, D. (1964). Alex Karras: His year in exile. Sport, 18–21. Harris, R. (1932). King football: The vulgarization of the American college. New York: Vanguard Press. Herskowitz, M. (1974). The golden age of pro football: A remembrance of pro football in the 1950s. New York: Macmillan. Hubbard, E. (1903). A gladiatorial renaissance. Cosmopolitan, 34, 597. Huff, S. (1988). Tough stuff: The man in the middle. New York: St. Martin’s. Izenberg, J. (2014). Rozelle: A biography. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. J.C. (1894). The crusade against football. Outing 23, 65–66. Keyes, H. E. (1906). The new football: Origin and meaning of the revised rules. The Outlook, 775–783. Kirshenbaum, J. (1989). An American disgrace. Sports Illustrated, 16–19. Lomax, M. (2002). Detrimental to the league: Gambling and the governance of professional football, 1946– 1963. Journal of Sport History, 29, 289–311. Luther, J. (2013). We felt like we were above the law: How the NCAA endangers women. Atlantic. Retrieved December 31, 2016, from http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/09/we-felt-like -we-were-above-the-law Maraniss, D. (1999). When pride still mattered: A life of Vince Lombardi. New York: Simon and Schuster. Martin, J. S. (1961). Walter Camp and his gridiron game. American Heritage, 12(6), 50–55, 77–81. McQuilkin, S. A., & Smith, R. A. (1993, Spring). The rise and fall of the flying wedge: Football’s most controversial play. Journal of Sport History, 20(1), 57–64. Newcombe, J. (Ed.). (1964). The fireside book of football. New York: Simon and Schuster. NCAA. (2015, April 24). Oklahoma State University public infraction decision, 4–5, 9–10, 14. Norwood, S. H. (2002). Strikebreaking and intimidation: Mercenaries and masculinity in twentieth-century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Norwood, S. H. (2004). Real football: Conversations on America’s game. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Norwood, S. H. (2016). The Philadelphia Eagles, the crisis of post-World War II masculinity, and the rise of pro football, 1946–60. In R. A. Swanson, and D. K. Wiggins (Eds), Philly sports: Teams, games, and athletes from Rocky’s town. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 71–90, 263–68. Oriard, M. (1993). Reading football: How the popular press created an American spectacle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Plimpton, G. (1965). Paper lion. New York: Harper & Row. Peterson, R. W. (1997). Pigskin: The early years of pro football. New York: Oxford University Press. Prato, L. (1970). Alex Karras sounds off: No man in this world can tell me what to do. Sport, 26–29, 84–85. Ratterman, G. (1964). Care and feeding of quarterbacks. In J. Newcome (Ed.), The fireside book of football. New York: Simon and Schuster, 247–48. Savagery on Sunday. (1955, October 24). Life, 133–38. Scott, A. F. (1970). The Southern lady: From pedestal to politics, 1830–1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Smith, R. A. (1988). Sports & freedom: The rise of big-time college athletics. New York: New York University Press. Sperber, M. (1993). Shake down the thunder: The creation of Notre Dame football. New York: Henry Holt.

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Chapter Six: Concussions: Medical and Legal Controversies in Football Sarah K. FIELDS University of Colorado Denver R. Dawn COMSTOCK Colorado School of Public Health

Since it began, football has been a combat sport with numerous injuries. Although scientific research has clearly established a link between football head injuries and long-term neurological impacts, the organizers of football, particularly at the professional level, were reluctant to acknowledge this evidence. As a result, football players and their families have filed countless lawsuits arguing that the leagues as well as helmet manufacturers were negligent in protecting players. Some of these lawsuits have been settled or have reached their conclusion, but many still continue to work their way through the courts. Keywords: concussion, lawsuit, head injury, traumatic brain injury, helmet, negligence, product liability, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, personal injury,

F

ootball has, since its inception, been a hard-hitting, combat sport, which prides itself on its violence, but with those hard hits comes an inherent risk of injury, and often that injury has been to the head. After multiple game-related deaths in the early 1900s, including some from blows to the head, the rules of the game were revised and the game continued. The eventual invention in 1939 of plastic helmets limited the risk of skull fractures, and when colleges and the National Football League (NFL) began to require all players to wear helmets by the 1940s, many thought the risk to the head was no longer a major issue. Football helmets, however, were invented to prevent lacerations and skull fractures; they were never intended to prevent concussions and they do not effectively do so. Over time, scientists and doctors acknowledged the long-term risks of concussions to the players’ health, and players and their families who suffered the long-term negative health effects of concussions began a long legal battle to recover compensation for their injuries, a battle which continues at the youth, college, and professional levels through the present. 81

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Scientific Overview of Concussions Concussions are injuries to the brain that are caused by a chemical cascade and energy depletion as a result of forces transferred during rapid acceleration and deceleration of the brain in the skull. The result of this movement of the brain can be a change in the shape of the brain, tearing or compression of tissue, and chemical changes in the brain. In football, a blow to the head either from a person or the ground as well as the whiplash effect of the head snapping back and forth while a player is being tackled or blocked can cause concussions. Sub-concussive blows are hits to the head that are not necessarily forceful enough to cause immediate symptoms but may, over time, have a cumulative effect, which could result in concussion or concussion-type symptoms. Post-concussion syndrome involves the continuation of concussion-type symptoms after the typical recovery period: for most injured football players, concussion symptoms resolve themselves within roughly a week. Currently concussions cannot be diagnosed by a definitive objective test, rather they are diagnosed via communication or observation of one or more signs or symptoms occurring immediately or sometimes hours or even days after a blow to the head or a whiplash movement of the head. These symptoms include, but are not limited to, headache, a feeling of pressure in the head, loss of consciousness, confusion, amnesia, dizziness, seeing stars, ringing in the ears, nausea or vomiting, slurred speech, and fatigue. Some delayed onset symptoms include concentration and memory problems, irritability and other changes in personality, sensitivity to light and noise, sleep disturbances, depression, and disorders of taste and smell. Without a definitive, objective test, concussion diagnosis largely depends on coaches’ or sports medicine personnel’s observation of players and self-reporting of these signs or symptoms, a challenge in a sport in which players pride themselves on toughness and in which coaches need players on the field to win. The macho culture of the sport is thus counterproductive to the healing process. Scientists have long recognized that long-term brain damage can result from repeated blows to the head. In 1928, a leading medical journal warned that boxers who became “punch drunk” from punches to the head could suffer dementia and other neurological problems such as shaking and slurred speech later in life. Sports organizations themselves acknowledged that head injuries to athletes were problematic: in 1933 the NCAA Medical Handbook warned of the dangers of concussions and skull fractures, and it recognized that football players as well as boxers could be rendered punch drunk. The handbook recommended that athletes with concussion-like symptoms be hospitalized until they were free of symptoms for forty-eight hours and added that if symptoms lasted beyond that, athletes should be barred from competition for at least twenty-one days. Any athlete rendered unconscious repeatedly was to be “forbidden to play body-contact sport [sic].” (Addington v. NCAA 2013, 9). In 1937, the NCAA suggested that a single concussion should be enough to bar an athlete from full-contact sports. In 1966, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) was identified as a progressive, degenerative disease in which parts of the brain lost mass while other parts became enlarged as a result of repeated blows to the head. An accumulation of the tau protein affected the neurons in the brain, and CTE manifested itself as a constellation of symptoms, which are similar to other neurological disorders, including 82

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Alzheimer’s Disease. Over time, scientists linked CTE to boxing and, in 2005, to football (Tartaglia et al. 2014). A significant challenge to diagnosing concussions and anticipating long-term damage to the brain from concussions or multiple sub-concussive blows is that individuals react differently to a blow to the head. A slight blow to the head might not cause any damage to one person, but in another person that same blow might cause a concussion: there is no minimum threshold of force which triggers a concussion in everyone. Not every football player suffers a concussion even though all football players receive at least some blows to the head at some point in practice or competition. Further, no clear number of concussions or sub-concussive blows cause CTE or other long-term damage, and not every boxer or every football player develops CTE.

Early Head Injuries and the Evolution of Helmets Since its origins, head injuries have been part of the game of football. One early game in 1894 between Yale and Harvard was marked with rough play and injuries, including multiple injuries to the head. In an era in which players wore no helmets and certainly no facemasks, multiple players suffered injuries to their noses and eyes. In that particular Yale-Harvard game, several concussions seem to have occurred as newspapers reported that some players had become disoriented and needed to be told which direction play was headed and several lost consciousness; one player remained unconscious for several hours. Punching other players in the face and head seems to have been a regular part of early football games, and the right punch could cause a head injury (Watterson 2000). Early rules allowed striking the opponent with closed fist three times before being expelled from the game, assuming that the referee noticed the altercation. A second umpire was added in 1888, but such violence continued to be an inherent part of the game (Gems 2000). In the early years of college football, multiple deaths were attributed to the game, some because of blows to the head. In the 1930s, enough teams were playing and enough players were being seriously injured that the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) commissioned a study to track injuries at all levels of the sport in an effort to prevent future injuries. Between 1931 and 1940, there were 234 fatalities reported, with 97 of those deaths related to head injuries. The highest incidence of fatality (which factors in the total number of players participating) was in college football. The AFCA recommended preseason training and warm-ups, better techniques for blocking and tackling, complete medical exams of all players, and the presence of a doctor at all games and practices. In 1935, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) recommended that all players wear football helmets and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) followed suit four years later. Perhaps as a result of these changes, the fatalities in football decreased by 1940, particularly in the college ranks (Mueller and Cantu 2011). Partly in response to the number and severity of injuries, the rules of football were changed, more officials were added to the field, and more and more players began wearing protective equipment, including leather helmets. Although the first documented use of a helmet was in an Army-Navy game in 1893, the early helmets were not required equipment in the college game until 1939, the same year plastic helmets were invented. In 1940, plastic helmets became prevalent and the 83

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professional game required helmets be worn. Facemasks were added in the 1950s. Industry standards establishing the safety of helmets were not implemented until 1973, and even then the standards were intended to ensure that the helmet would remain effective at protecting the skull from fracture and laceration after repeated blows in variable weather conditions (Levy et al. 2004). The standards did not address concussions because it was understood helmets simply could not prevent all concussions or cumulative damage from sub-concussive blows. The helmet manufacturers themselves faced challenges. At one point twenty-seven companies made helmets, but because of litigation and the cost of insurance, all but two eliminated their helmet manufacturing division or went out of business in the twentieth century. One early legal case involved Rawlings Sporting Goods Company in 1974. A high school quarterback had a head-to-head collision with a teammate during practice and the helmet dented inwards by almost two inches. The quarterback suffered a brain bleed, leaving him permanently impaired. The court held the helmet manufacturer negligent for failing to warn the player that the helmet would not protect against brain injuries (Mills 2001). Helmet manufacturers expanded their efforts to reduce concussions after the 2005 link between football players and CTE. Riddell, a manufacturing company, announced the next year that a scientific study proved that their Revolution helmet reduced the likelihood of sustaining a concussion by 31 percent and touted that study in their advertising (“Research Shows” 2006). The validity of that study was later challenged (Mamula 2016). Today more companies make helmets and in the most recent evolution of football helmets, companies have attempted to improve engineering of helmets to address rotational forces (glancing blows to the head) instead of just straight-line forces. Current helmet standards are based on a vertical drop test (in which a helmet is dropped from a height to measure its impact on a force plate), a straight-line force that rarely occurs by itself in a football game. Testing rotational forces is more challenging due to the lack of a biologically accurate neck form able to accurately simulate the whiplash effect common in football tackles, and to date, no football helmet has been proven to eliminate concussions.

Concussion Trends Participation in football has increased at all levels since its inception. A variety of different organizing bodies, including local city and counties, manage youth football leagues and thus obtaining quality data about participation rates is challenging. That said, youth football seems to have consistently expanded over time until recently. Pop Warner, one managing organization, was founded in 1929: its participation rates generally grew until 2011 when participation rates dropped by about 4 percent (Fainaru and Fainaru-Wada 2013). That slow decline continued until 2015 when reports suggested a modest gain in youth tackle football participants (Farrey 2016). At the high school level, eleven-man football (small schools have played with smaller squads but most Americans know the game with eleven players on the field) grew fairly steadily from roughly 878,000 participants in 1970 to roughly 1.1 million participants in 2013. In 2014, however, the number remained about the same and in 2015, the number of participants in high school football decreased by about ten-thousand players (NFHS 2016). At the college level, most 84

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football players compete under the regulations of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), but other governing bodies, including the National Junior College Athletic Association, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, and the National Christian College Athletic Association also supervise college football leagues. The participation numbers in this chapter reflect only the NCAA, which grew consistently from just under forty-one-thousand football players in 1981 to over seventy-three-thousand players in 2015 (NCAA 2016). Tracking the number of professional players is even more challenging, but the NFL has increased the number of teams in the league over time, although non-NFL professional leagues have risen and collapsed in that same time period. Overall, however, participation at all levels seems to have increased over the last century with only recent minor downturns, largely at the youth level. Thus, although deaths at any level are tragic, the rates of death directly and immediately attributed to football have decreased over time. The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research (NCCSIR) has been tracking fatal and non-fatal catastrophic events in all sports since 1982, but the center built upon prior work by other researchers, particularly the work commissioned by the AFCA. The center tracks data from sandlot, high school, college, and professional leagues. The organization has data about football fatalities since 1931 and non-fatal catastrophic football injuries since 1977. Between 1990 and 2000, blows to the head were identified as the cause of death in thirty-five football players and another fifty players sustained permanent brain injury. From 2000–2010, thirty-two football players died from head injuries and forty-three sustained permanent brain injury between 2000–2008. Between 2010 and 2015, nineteen players died after a blow to the head during practice or a game (Mueller and Cantu 2011, NCCSIR 2016). All of these deaths and what the study originally described as permanent brain injuries were directly linked to a recent head injury. What the NCCSIR cannot and does not do is to track the long-term effects of non-catastrophic concussions or sub-concussive blows. No single sports injury surveillance system captures non-catastrophic concussion data across the youth, high school, collegiate, and professional levels. An estimated 1.1 to 1.9 million sports-related concussions occur annually in children in the United States, however (Bryan 2016). Consistent across numerous studies, football players sustain the highest number of concussions and have among the highest, if not the highest, rate of concussion when compared to other popular team sports. The number of youth football players admitted to emergency departments with concussions has increased significantly over time (Buzas 2014). Similarly, several researchers have noted significant increases over time in concussion rates in players participating in organized football at the youth, high school football (e.g., Lincoln 2012, Rosenthal 2014), collegiate football (e.g., Zuckerman 2015), and professional level (e.g., Casson 2011). Consistent across studies at all levels of play, concussion rates are significantly higher in football games compared to practices, and tackling— being tackled—is the most common activity during which concussions occur.

Minimization of Concussions After World War II and in the 1950s, football had been made safer and the structure of the game was perfect for television; thus, Americans flocked to the game 85

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and football began to overtake baseball as America’s national pastime. The NFL particularly branded itself as tough, masculine, and just savage enough to make it a spectacle (Crepeau 2014). Football had always been tied to manliness and masculinity (Oriard 1993), but as the game became safer with fewer immediate deaths and catastrophic injuries, fans and the press seemed free to revel in the risk. The popular media reflected the general lack of concern about head injuries in football. Part of that lack of concern can be seen in the absence of references to head injuries in football and sport in general. A survey of articles from Sports Illustrated magazine suggested that the number of times the word concussion was used increased from about 24 from 1954 (the inaugural issue) to 1959, to about 76 in the 1960s, to roughly 123 in the 1970s. The survey reflects the use of the word concussion in conjunction with any incident, not just those connected to football. Although Sports Illustrated generally reported head injuries in football as factually and seriously as other injuries, sometimes the rhetoric around the report minimized the injury as humorous, an example of toughness, and something to be ignored. For example a 1969 article reporting on the exploits of a college quarterback concluded that the player’s reckless play was to be lauded: “Such derring-do has netted [the quarterback] a few minor concussions, which he has always managed to hide from the coaches” (“Wave Goodby to Defense”). Similarly in popular sports films, concussions in football were often represented as humorous with a common theme of a player running the wrong direction or a coach or trainer asking the injured player how many fingers were being held up and another person making a joke. As the overt concerns about fatalities faded and people seemed to have forgotten the medical concerns about repeated blows to the head, the NFL and the media glorified the hits the players took. Jack Tatum (1948–2010), known as “the Assassin,” played for the Oakland Raiders, a team whose fans reveled in their brutality. In a 1978 exhibition game Tatum hit an opponent, Darryl Stingley (1951–2007), so hard that he broke Stingley’s neck, rendering him a quadriplegic. NFL Films sometimes portrayed such hits in slow motion, with dramatic music, and bone-crunching sounds (Vogan 2014), and as late as 2006, ESPN had a segment called “Jacked Up” in which after showing a clip of an NFL player sustaining a brutal hit (sometimes rendering the player unconscious), the hosts would gleefully scream in unison that the player “got jacked up.” In at least one jacked up segment, cross-hairs were placed on the player about to be hit to highlight the damage that the player was about to absorb and to note that the player had lost his helmet, making him even more vulnerable (Gordon 2013). Announcers sometimes referred to a concussive blow as having one’s bell rung or getting dinged. For a period of time, the public and the media generally did not view concussions in football as a huge problem, despite the fact that between 1984 and 1990, twenty-eight football players suffered permanent brain injuries and between 1981 and 1990, forty-nine players died from head injuries (Mueller and Cantu 2011).

Increased Concerns about Concussions The risk of sports-related head injuries, as identified in the 1928 medical journal article, never went away. The helmets could not protect football players from concussions and glorifying the hits did not minimize their long-term effects. In the 86

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1990s, a number of NFL players retired because of the effects of those blows to the head, and Sports Illustrated reported on those retirements with a tone of concern and trepidation for both the individuals and the sport. In 1992, popular wide receiver Al Toon (b. 1963) of the New York Jets retired at the age of twenty-nine after incurring nine diagnosed concussions over eight seasons. The magazine article reported his long-term symptoms and worried about whether the damage to Toon’s brain might be permanent (Kim 1992). In 1994, Sports Illustrated repeated its concerns, noting that Toon still suffered from post-concussion symptoms and that fullback Merril Hoge (b. 1965) had retired because of two concussions sustained within six weeks of each other. The magazine worried about the players who returned to play too quickly after sustaining a concussion (Farber). In that same issue, columnist Peter King (b. 1957) wrote an open letter to the NFL commissioner asking him to “halt the head-hunting” in order to protect the players. Around that time, the New York Times reported on a seminar about the dangers of concussions and noted the repeated concussions that popular players such as Troy Aikman (b. 1966) had sustained might result in long-term damage (Friend 1995). Scientific research on concussions had never stopped, and, in fact, publications on the topic generally and with regard to football specifically increased over time. In 1997, the American Academy of Neurology warned again that repetitive concussions could cause brain damage over time and that players should be removed from the game either if they lost consciousness or showed continuing symptoms fifteen minutes after the injury (Ezell 2013). In 2003, a paper concluded that players who had one concussion were more likely to get a second concussion and multiple concussions could affect neurological recovery (Guskiewicz), and in 2005, Dr. Bennet Omalu (b. 1968) published a paper reporting his findings of CTE in the brain of Hall of Fame NFL player Mike Webster (1952–2002). Webster had a history of mental illness and neurological degeneration; in fact, in 1999 the NFL Retirement Board concluded that his head injuries from football had left him “totally and permanently disabled” (Ezell 2013). In 2008, Boston University opened the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy to examine the brains of deceased athletes and discovered CTE and brain damage in many of the football players’ brains examined (Cerra 2012). Mike Webster’s death in 2002 made the public aware of the tragic deaths for some former football players who suffered from mental illness or dementia, which suggested some form of CTE. The list in the twenty-first century grows regularly as more players’ brains are examined for CTE: wide receiver Chris Henry (1983–2009) died after jumping from the back of a moving vehicle in 2009; defensive back Dave Duerson (1960–2011) committed suicide in 2011; linebacker Jovan Belcher (1987– 2012) killed himself and his girlfriend in 2012; Hall of Fame linebacker Junior Seau (1969–2012) killed himself in 2012; and quarterback Kenny Stabler (1945–2015) died of cancer in 2015 but suffered memory and cognitive losses in his final years. These are just a few of the famous and less-famous football players who have been posthumously diagnosed with CTE. The organizers of football, particularly the NFL, were reluctant to acknowledge any link between repeated blows to the head (concussive or sub-concussive) and long-term damage to players’ brains. Although the Pittsburgh Steelers, an NFL franchise, introduced baseline neuropsychological testing on its players in an attempt to measure damage to the brain after a blow, the NFL as an organization 87

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was less proactive. The NFL formed a Committee on Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries (MTBI) to evaluate the research on the topic. From the beginning, the committee was criticized in part because of the chairman, Dr. Elliot Pellman, who was also the team doctor for the New York Jets of the NFL as well as a professional hockey franchise. Pellman was not a neurologist and had no expertise in the area; he was a rheumatologist. Pellman was an aggressive defender of the NFL and an ardent critic of scientific research that suggested a link between football and long-term brain injuries and was even critical of research that warned of the danger of concussions. In 1994, Pellman told media outlets that “concussions are part of the profession, an occupational risk,” and this attitude was pervasive throughout his time as chairman (he stepped down as chair in 2007 but did not leave the committee until 2016). In 1999, Pellman reportedly said that brain injuries in football were both rare and minor, and other members of his committee generally supported this position. In 2000, members of the MTBI committee suggested that the returnto-play guidelines from 1997 were not well researched. A year after the 2003 article warning of increased risk of concussion after one concussion and the potentially increased risk of longer term damage on college players, the committee published a counterargument that the study of NFL players did not replicate what had been found in collegiate players. Further, the paper noted that although CTE had been found in boxers, it had not been found in football players. In fact, in a series of papers, the MTBI committee argued that NFL players were less prone to concussions because of a kind of survival of the fittest argument (i.e., that individuals more prone to concussions quit playing football early and thus never made it to the NFL) and maintained that returning to play right after a concussion would not necessarily increase the risk of additional concussions or the severity of the injury to the player, even youth players. After the paper indicating that football players could develop CTE was published, the members of the MTBI committee as well as other NFL representatives scorned the author and called for a retraction. Only at the end of 2009 would an NFL spokesperson acknowledge that concussions could have long-term effects (Ezell 2013). In 2016, during a congressional hearing, an NFL representative publicly admitted for the first time that a link between footballrelated head injuries and CTE existed. After the turn of the millennium, Americans and the American media began to take note of concussions in sport and the potential long-term effects of repeated blows to the head more seriously than they had in the past. The battles in the scientific press between the researchers and the MTBI committee were not widely followed until the popular media more prominently discussed them. Articles began appearing more regularly in the New York Times and in Sports Illustrated noting the risks of concussion in football and asking about the dangers to players’ health over longer periods of time. In 2007, HBO Real Sports, a television documentary, ran a segment on concussions and the new chair of the MTBI committee denied any link between concussions and long-term health problems in football players; his adamant denials resulted in the nickname Dr. No. (Ezell 2013). As a result of the publicity and more public conversations, Congress took note and began a series of hearings regarding the dangers of concussions in football and sport generally. In 2009, the House Judiciary Committee grilled NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the NFL’s policies and its research. Although he would not acknowledge a link between the sport and long-term neurological damage at 88

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that hearing, he described the efforts of the league to make the game safer for its players. Retired players and wives of former players also testified about their injuries and their medical treatment while in the league. Several members of the Judiciary Committee did argue that Congress had no business legislating football, with Representative Lamar Smith (b. 1947) from Texas stating, “We cannot legislate the elimination of injuries from the games without eliminating the games themselves” (Schwartz 2009). In just over a year, Congress held eight hearings about brain injuries among athletes of all ages, often asking parents of children who had been severely injured or killed after a concussion to testify. Similar congressional sub-committee hearings have continued to the present. In 2013, the PBS Frontline television series released League of Denial, a damning indictment of the NFL’s attempts to minimize concussions in the face of scientific research. Although ESPN, a major sports television network, had originally been collaborating on the film, ESPN pulled out amid rumors that the NFL pressured them to do so—the scandal only added to the notice the film received. America was very much paying attention to the dangers of sports-related concussions and the medical research supported the concerns being articulated. Largely because of the increased media attention on head injuries, Americans took note of the dangers of concussions which were inherent in the sport of football, and the sport moved to present itself as being safer than it had been. Leagues at all levels took action, changing rules and implementing new coaching and training techniques, which were intended to improve players’ safety. Helmet and protective equipment companies scrambled to invent something to reduce the rate of concussions. Scientific research continued, searching for things such as an objective, definitive tool to diagnose concussions, a way to determine the threshold of impact for long-term damage, a way to better capture the incidence of concussion across age groups and levels of play, ways to identify individual factors which increased some players’ risk of concussion, and better management of concussions and treatments for subsequent long-term health problems. As society focused on concussions, not surprisingly the legal world was also becoming more involved.

Lawsuits and Litigation Football players have long sued their leagues, their organizations, and their medical providers for failing to warn them about the dangers of the sport as well as failing to properly diagnose and treat their injuries. They have also sued the helmet manufacturers for faulty products. These lawsuits are usually based on negligence claims which require that the plaintiff (the person or group filing the lawsuit) prove that the defendant of the lawsuit had a duty to the plaintiff, that duty was breeched (unfulfilled), and the breech of the duty was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury. Sometimes these cases are referred to as personal injury cases, but their legal basis is negligence of some sort. One defense, particularly in sport, is the assumption of the risk, meaning the plaintiff knew, understood, and appreciated the risks of participating and chose to do so anyway. This is a kind of consent to the physical contact inherent in the game and the dangers associated with it. Concussions have been no exception to this history of lawsuits. For example, in 2001, Merril Hoge successfully sued the Chicago Bears of the NFL for failing to 89

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warn him about the dangers of returning to play too quickly after he sustained a concussion. He suffered a second one within seven weeks and retired from football. Although the Bears had argued that Hoge should have assumed the risk of playing football generally, the court concluded that Hoge lacked awareness of the specific risks of concussions and thus could not assume them. Various other individual high schools and colleges have settled concussion liability lawsuits without admitting responsibility (Cerra 2012).

Lawsuits Against the Helmet Manufacturers In 2011, about seventy-five former NFL players and NFL spouses filed a lawsuit against helmet manufacturer Riddell and the NFL in a California state court claiming that, among other things, the defendants had been negligent and that Riddell was liable under strict product liability. Riddell had been the official helmet of the NFL from 1989 through 2014 and had advertised that a newer helmet in the early part of the twenty-first century was safer with regards to concussions. The complaint argued that the league and the manufacturer had duties to the players to make the game as safe as possible and to educate the players about the risks of blows to the head and that the league particularly had concealed the dangers of concussions to the players. In product liability, the plaintiff need not prove that the manufacturer was negligent but simply that the product was defective. The plaintiffs argued in this case that the Riddell helmets were improperly tested and inherently dangerous and defective in that they did not protect against concussions (Cerra 2012). This case was consolidated with other lawsuits against the NFL, and the NFL ultimately settled with the players, as discussed below. The lawsuits against Riddell, however, have continued. In 2016, more NFL retired players filed additional lawsuits which are still pending. Riddell did succeed in winning a lawsuit filed by a high school player who sustained a severe brain injury in a helmet-to-helmet collision during a game (“Former NFL Players” 2016).

Lawsuits Against the NFL In 2011, the first of many lawsuits were filed against the NFL by former players and their families alleging that the NFL had been negligent and breeched the duty of care to the players by not adequately warning them about the long-term risks of head injuries. The players argued that the league knew about the risks at least by 1994 as indicated by the creation of the MTBI committee and the committee’s own attempts to refute other scientific articles. Eventually thousands of players filed their own or joined existing lawsuits which were ultimately consolidated into one class action lawsuit in the federal district court representing 99 percent of the roughly 20,000 players eligible. The remaining 1 percent opted out of the class action lawsuit and retained their rights to sue the NFL separately. US District Court Judge Anita Brody (b. 1935) ordered both sides of the class action lawsuit to mediate a settlement, and after multiple attempts and several re-hearings, Judge Brody eventually approved an agreement that would be worth an estimated US$1 billion over sixty-five years. As part of the settlement, the NFL admitted no liability and 90

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was able to keep its own medical documents and internal memos out of the public record (James 2016). NFL athletes and their families received different settlements depending on their health status, provided that they had retired or last played in the league prior to 7 July 2014 (the date of the settlement approval). The cash awards depended on with which qualifying disease the athlete was ultimately diagnosed. Players not diagnosed with a qualifying disease would not be eligible for any money from the league under this settlement fund. Players diagnosed with early dementia would be eligible for up to US$1 million, moderate dementia up to US$3 million, Alzheimer’s Disease up to US$3.5 million, Parkinson’s Disease up to US$3.5 million, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) up to US$5 million, and death with CTE up to US$4 Million. If an athlete had multiple diagnoses, he would be eligible for the cumulative payout available for each diagnosis (James 2016). The NFL concussion settlement also provided money for testing, education, and research. About US$75 million was established for baseline assessment programs in the NFL to establish where a player stood from a neurocognitive perspective at the beginning of his NFL career (or when first assessed for those already in the league) as a point of comparison for future assessments. Another US$10 million was earmarked for education targeted at football players across multiple age groups and levels of play to educate the athletes, parents, and coaches about the risks of concussions (James 2016). In 2016, the US Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of the settlement, clearing the way for payouts to begin to those eligible. Judge Brody was still weighing whether the US$112 million the NFL had agreed to pay the plaintiffs’ attorneys was appropriate as well as considering the lawsuits of those players who opted out of the class action (Belson 2016). The settlement did not come without criticism. Although US$1 billion is a great deal of money, it is a fraction of the value of the teams and the league. The average franchise (and there are thirty-two of them) value in 2016 was US$2.34 billion with a high of US$4.2 billion and a low of US$1.5 billion (“Sports Money” 2016). In 2016, the league was projected to exceed US$13 billion in revenue for the year, an increase of 50 percent since 2010 (Belzer 2016). Further, although the settlement meant that players would not have to prove that the damage to their brains was the result of hits in the NFL rather than hits sustained at the youth or college level where they also likely played, the settlement pays nothing to players who are likely living with CTE. CTE is, at this point, only definitively diagnosed through an autopsy after death; thus a player’s family can get financial assistance after the player’s death but the player may not receive the assistance which might be critical to his quality of life while still living. Players who qualify will on average likely receive about US$190,000 each because scholars anticipate that most players will receive much less than the maximum available funds (McCann 2016).

Lawsuits Against the NCAA The NCAA has been subject to multiple lawsuits from athletes of all sports, including football, about concussions and the organization’s potential liability for damages to those athletes. These lawsuits have been filed both by individual plaintiffs and as class action lawsuits attempting to represent all past and present NCAA 91

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athletes. The basis of many of these lawsuits was that the NCAA was negligent in not informing and educating the athletes and in not standardizing concussion protocols across its member institutions. One example of an individual football player’s injury and the family’s lawsuit involved a small Division III school where no scholarships are offered and the football program loses money. In 2011, Frostburg State University (FSU) football player Derek Sheely (1989–2011) died after reportedly receiving multiple blows to the head in a short period of time at a practice. Evidence indicated that Sheely had complained to coaches about a headache and shown signs of disorientation after contact drills in practice, but he was ordered to continue participating in practice until he collapsed. He later died. The school failed to inform his parents of his complaints, and Sheely was cremated before his brain could be examined. Several months after his death, a teammate contacted the family to describe the circumstances of Sheely’s collapse. His parents filed suit against the NCAA, FSU coaches and athletic trainers, and Schutt, the helmet manufacturer (Solomon 2015). In 2016, the parties agreed to a settlement in which the defendants paid US$1.2 million to the Derek Sheely Foundation to focus on concussion education and research (Shumaker 2016). In 2016, the NCAA settled one class action lawsuit for roughly US$75 million. The NCAA agreed to set up a fifty-year program monitoring the medical needs of its former athletes for about US$70 million with the remaining US$5 million to be spent on concussion research. The NCAA also agreed to standardize some protocols such as having medical personnel on site for all contact sports and standardizing return to play protocols across sports and institutions. The settlement does not end the lawsuits against the NCAA because personal injury suits were specifically exempted from this settlement and are expected to continue and perhaps to be consolidated into a different, larger class action lawsuit (Berkowitz 2016). Additional lawsuits have been filed against the NCAA, and specific athletic conferences (leagues), as well as some universities. One challenge plaintiffs have with suing universities is that many of them are state institutions and are thus immune under state law to lawsuits. By October 2016, roughly forty-three class action lawsuits had been filed against the NCAA, conferences, and many universities; to date no settlements have been reached on these.

Lawsuits at the Pre-Collegiate Level Youth level players, those at or below high school age (less than fourteen years of age), have periodically sued their schools, coaches, and other defendants after suffering concussions, but these lawsuits face challenges. One is convincing the courts that the coaches and the school districts were negligent and another is the fact that many public schools and their employees can argue they are shielded from lawsuits under the state’s laws that grant immunity to state employees and organizations from liability. For example in 2004, the Nebraska Supreme Court addressed the case of a high school player who had suffered repeated concussions in a short period of time and had sued his high school for negligence. In 1995, Brent Cerny hit his head while making a tackle and felt dizzy and disoriented, removed himself briefly from the game, and returned to finish the game. He told the coaches during the game that something had happened and the coaches acknowledged this but were 92

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uncertain that it was a concussion. Both coaches said that when Cerny returned to the game, he appeared in good condition and did not complain of any symptoms. The parties disagreed as to whether Cerny reported his lingering symptoms to the coaches prior to the next practice in which he participated on the following Tuesday. He struck his head again during that practice and the lingering symptoms sent him to a doctor who diagnosed and treated concussion syndrome. Cerny sued, and the trial court concluded that the coaches had not breached the standard of care owed to the player at that time, and the state supreme court agreed. In 2014, a federal district court in Pennsylvania found the opposite, although it was overruled on appeal. In the prior season, Sheldon Mann took a hit in high school football practice severe enough that the coaching staff came on the field to evaluate him. After the hit, Mann continued to behave erratically and complained of disorientation to the coaches, but the coaches returned him to practice without additional evaluation by the school’s athletic trainer. In that same practice, Mann was hit in the head again, and this time his symptoms were even more severe and the athletic trainer evaluated him; however the athletic trainer was not informed that Mann had suffered two serious blows to the head during practice. At the time of the lawsuit, Mann continued to suffer severe effects of post-concussion syndrome, including slowed motor functioning, headaches, delusions, and memory problems. The district court rejected the school’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, concluding that Mann’s attorneys had presented enough evidence to go to trial. Unfortunately for Mann, two years later the case was dismissed on the grounds that the school and the coaches as municipal employees were immune. Youth leagues are not necessarily immune to similar lawsuits. In 2016, two potential class action lawsuits thus far have been filed against Pop Warner Football using a slightly different legal approach. Two mothers of sons who played youth football and then later died at young ages (both were found to have CTE) used a survival lawsuit tactic. A survival lawsuit is different from wrongful death; wrongful death says that the plaintiff’s family member died because of the negligence of the defendant. A survival lawsuit raises claims which the deceased family member (in this case the sons) could have raised while living. The mothers have argued that Pop Warner failed to properly train its coaches and staff on the dangers of concussions and the proper treatment of the injury and that the organization failed to warn the players and the parents of those same things. That failure to train and to warn essentially created an environment which, the mothers argue, led to their sons developing CTE. The mothers also argue that Pop Warner engaged in false advertising when maintaining that children could learn football in a safe environment. If the courts certify these cases as a class action lawsuit representing all parents of the children who played Pop Warner football from 1997 to the present and then developed evidence of brain injuries, a ruling against the organization would be incredibly expensive. Prior history suggests the organization might try to settle. In 2015, Pop Warner settled with another family whose son had committed suicide in his mid-twenties; the son had played high school and Pop Warner football and was found to have CTE. The family sued for US$5 million, and although the terms of the settlement were not disclosed, it appears to have been in the US$2 million range (McCann and Murphy 2016). One class action lawsuit against the NCAA, the governing body of most collegiate sport, and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), 93

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the organization which makes non-binding recommendations to its state association members regarding high school sports rules and safety protocols, was prescient in that it asked for and demanded changes to concussion protocols. At the end of 2013, a Mississippi father of a concussed high school football player filed a class action lawsuit against the NCAA and NHFS asking that the organizations create concussion management plans for the players and that an insurance program be enacted. The NHFS had recommended a concussion protocol since 2008, but the organization could not mandate that all state athletic associations adopt it (Solomon 2013). The next year the state of Mississippi passed legislation establishing a youth return to play policy which required medical clearance for concussion victims for all high school athletes. The NFHS asked to be dismissed from the lawsuit on the grounds that their organizational structure could not mandate safety protocols to state athletic associations and that the lawsuit was irrelevant given the new state law (Solomon 2014).

Return-to-Play Laws Mississippi was actually the last of the fifty states along with the District of Columbia (Washington, DC) to adopt a law mandating how to manage athletes, usually at the youth and/or high school levels, who might have sustained a concussion. These laws are commonly called return-to-play laws because they often regulate the protocols a young player must undergo before being allowed to return to practice or competition. The return-to-play laws began in 2009 and took only five years before every state had a version. The speed of passage by states across the country and mere fact that all states have a version of this type of public health law is remarkable; not every state requires seatbelt usage in vehicles or that children wear bicycle helmets while cycling. One reason the state concussion return-to-play laws moved so quickly was because those who supported them often used a child’s tragedy to put a face to the problem. In 2006, Zackery Lystedt (b. 1993) was a thirteen-year-old middle school football player in the state of Washington who played both offense and defense. While making a routine tackle, Lystedt hit his head on the ground, then remained prone, gripping his helmet with his hands. The officials called a time out, and the boy left the game for the remaining three plays before halftime. During the third quarter, he returned to the game and played hard. He likely suffered at least one additional blow to the head, and immediately after the game, he collapsed and had to be airlifted to a local hospital. He needed emergency surgery to relieve the pressure in his head from his swelling brain and he suffered multiple strokes before he went into a coma. When he awoke three months later, he faced years of rehabilitation and permanent disability (CDC, n.d.). The public attention surrounding Lystedt’s devastating injury and his struggle to recover galvanized lawmakers to pass the first state level return-to-play law. The Lystedt law, as it was named, became something of a gold standard for state-level return to play laws for youth athletes. It required annual education for athletes and parents about the symptoms and risks of concussions, mandatory and immediate removal from play of youth athletes with a suspected concussion, and it only allowed an athlete to return to play after being cleared by a designated health professional. The law 94

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also limited legal liability for schools and health care providers who complied with the law (Harvey 2013). Although the Lystedt law was a model for other state legislatures as each passed their own law, the laws themselves vary. The vast majority of states call for the immediate removal from play of a child who may have sustained a concussion, but states often disagree as to who can authorize the return of a child to play. Some require that the health care provider be trained in concussions, others that the provider be a medical doctor, and others that the provider have some other medical training. The states also have not clearly articulated what should be included in educational materials for those that require it for athletes, parents, or coaches. Many defer to their state athletic associations to create or utilize other materials, such as those from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (CDC NCIPS). The laws also differ a bit in terms of who must comply with the law; most limit it to youth in school-sponsored events but others include private club teams. Additionally, the laws offer differing degrees of immunity for those who comply with the law which might impact compliance (Harvey 2013). Little is known to date about how effective these laws have been in protecting young athletes from the potential long-term effects of concussion. One thing is certain however; none of these laws reflect primary prevention as they are pertinent only for those young athletes who sustain a concussion.

The Future of Football Football has always been and remains a collision sport with a high rate of injuries. Over time, those involved with the game as players, family members of players, and fans have become less tolerant of head injuries and their long-term impacts on players’ health. Although organizers have sometimes been slower to join the prevention campaign, in the present day, concussion awareness is high. Between the lawsuits, the media, congressional hearings, and the return-to-play laws with their educational components, public understanding of the risks of repeated blows to the head, even in a sport, has probably never been higher. Given that the diagnosis of concussion depends on the willingness of the person with the suspected injury to communicate the symptoms and the willingness of those who observe a blow to the head to observe concussion signs and to speak out, having everyone involved in the game know, understand, and appreciate the dangers of concussions is critical to diagnosing the injury. Not surprisingly, the rates of concussions in football have been going up (Rosenthal 2014). This is most likely because all these factors have made people more aware of the risks of not diagnosing a concussion so more injured athletes are now being diagnosed; it is less likely that there is a true increase in the number of athletes sustaining a concussion. If one errs on the side of caution, the most that is lost with a misdiagnosis of a concussion is a game, but if a concussion diagnosis is missed, a life can be lost. The twentieth century began with questions about whether or not football was too dangerous to play. The game adapted and survived to achieve soaring heights of popularity. The twenty-first century begins with questions about whether or not football is too dangerous to play. The question of whether the game can again adapt and survive to maintain its popularity has yet to be answered. 95

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Further Reading Addington v. NCAA. Case No. 11-cv-06356, filed July 19, 2013, at sports.cbsimg.net/images/blogs/ncaa -concussions-2013-1.pdf (accessed December 20, 2016). Belson, K. (2016). NFL concussion settlement payments can begin after Supreme Court defers. New York Times. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/sports/football /nfl-concussion-settlement-payments-supreme-court.html Belzer, J. (2016). Thanks to Roger Goodell, NFL revenues projected to surpass US$13 billion in 2016. Forbes. com. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbelzer/2016/02/29 /thanks-to-roger-goodell-nfl-revenues-projected-to-surpass-13-billion-in-2016/#55d7d78a3278 Berkowitz, S. (2016). Judge oks US$75 million class action concussion settlement against the NCAA. USAToday.com. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf /2016/07/14/college-football-concussions-lawsuit-ncaa/87097982/ Bryan, M. A., et al. (2016). Sports- and recreation-related concussions in US youth. Pediatrics, 138: e20154635. Buzas, D., et al. (2014). Concussions from 9 youth organized sports: Results from NEISS hospitals over an 11-year time frame, 2002–2012. Orthopedic Journal Sports Medicine, 2: 2325967114528460. Casson, I., et al. (2011). Concussions involving 7 or more days out in the national football league. Sports Health, 3: 130-44. CDC (n.d.). The Lystedt law. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from www.cdc.gov/media/subtopic/matte /pdf/031210-Zack-story.pdf Cerra, D. S. (2012). Student Note: Unringing the bell: Former players sue NFL and helmet manufacturers over concussion risks in Maxwell v. NFL. Michigan State Journal of Medicine and Law, 16, 265–294. Crepeau, R. C. (2014). NFL football: A history of America’s new national pastime. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Ezell, L. (2013). Timeline: The NFL’s concussion crisis. PBS Frontline. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sports/league-of-denial/timeline-the-nfls-concussion -crisis/ Farber, M. (1994). The worst case. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved from http://www.si.com/vault/1994 /12/19/132920/the-worst-case-doctors-warn-that-repeated-concussions-can-lead-to-permanent-brain -dysfunction Farrey, T. (2016). Youth football participation increases in 2015. ESPN. Retrieved from http://www.espn.com /espn/otl/story/_/id/15210245/slight-one-year-increase-number-youth-playing-football-data-shows Fainaru, S., & Fainaru-Wada, M. (2013). Youth football participation drops. ESPN. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/page/popwarner/pop-warner-youth-football -participation-drops-nfl-concussion-crisis-seen-causal-factor Former NFL players sue helmet manufacturer Riddell. (2016). ESPN. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17081577/former-nfl-players-file-lawsuit-helmet-manufac turer-riddell-inc Friend, T. (1995). Pro football: Looking at concussions and the repercussions. New York Times. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/18/sports/pro-football-looking-at -concussions-and-the-repercussions.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FHead%20Injuries%20 in%20Football&action=click&contentCollection=sports®ion=stream&module=stream_unit &version=search&contentPlacement=19&pgtype=collection Gems, G. R. (2000). For pride, profit, and patriarchy: Football and the incorporation of American cultural values. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Gordon, A. (2013). Keep your helmet on: ESPN’s jacked up in retrospect. The Classical. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://theclassical.org/articles/keep-your-helmet-on-espns-jacked-up-in-retrospect Guskiewicz, K. M., et al. (2003). Cumulative effects associated with recurrent concussion in collegiate football players: The NCAA concussion study. JAMA, 290, 2549–2555. Harvey, H. (2013). Reducing traumatic brain injuries in youth sports: Youth sports traumatic brain injury state laws, January 2009–December 2012. American Journal of Public Health, 103, 1249–1254. James, S. (2016). Note: Ringing the bell for the last time: How the NFL’s settlement agreement overwhelmingly disfavors NFL players living with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Journal of Health and Biomedical Law, 11, 391–438. Kim, A. (1992). Toon out. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.si.com​ /vault/1992/12/07/127718/toon-out King, P. (1994). Halt the head-hunting. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www .si.com/vault/1994/12/19/132921/halt-the-head-hunting-before-a-tragedy-occurs-the-nfl-must-rein -in-the-kind-of-hitting-that-has-caused-a-rash-of-concussions

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Chapter Six: Concussions: Medical and Legal Controversies in Football Lincoln, A. E., et al. (2012). Trends in concussion incidence in high school sports: a prospective 11-year study. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 40: 611–4. Levy, M. L., et al. (2004). Birth and evolution of the football helmet. Neurosurgery, 55, 656–662. Mann v. Palmerton Area School District, 33 F. Supp. 3rd 530. (M.D. Penn, 2014), reversed 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71781 (M.D. Penn, 2016). McCann, M. (2016). As expected Supreme Court denies review of NFL concussion settlement. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.si.com/nfl/2016/12/12/supreme-court-nfl-concus sion-settlement-retired-players McCann, M., & Murphy, A. (2016). New lawsuits point finger at Pop Warner for mismanagement of head injuries. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.si.com/nfl/2016/09/01​ /pop-warner-youth-football-lawsuit-concussions-cte Mamula, K. (2016). Lawsuit challenges study used in helmet maker’s claims. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.post-gazette.com/business/healthcare-business/2016/04/11​ /Lawsuit-challenges-study-used-in-helmet-maker-s-claims/stories/201604100075 Martland, H. S. (1928). Punch drunk. JAMA, 91, 1103–1107. Mills, B. J. (2001). Football helmets and product liability. Sports Law Journal, 8, 153–180. Mueller, F. O., & Cantu, R. C. (2011). Football fatalities and catastrophic injuries, 1931–2008. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. National Collegiate Athletic Association. (2016). 2015–16 NCAA Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates Report. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.ncaapublications.com/searchadv.aspx ?IsSubmit=true&SearchTerm=participation%20rates. National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. (2016). Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://nccsir.unc.edu/reports/ National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). (2016). High school athletics participation survey results. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.nfhs.org/ParticipationStatistics /ParticipationStatistics Oriard, M. (1993). Reading football: How the popular press created an American spectacle. Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press. Research shows Riddell Revolution helmet provides better protection against concussions. (2006). Riddell Newsroom. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://news.riddell.com/info/releases /research-shows-riddell-revolution-football-helmet-provides-better-protection-against-concussions Rosenthal, J. A., et al. (2014). National high school athlete concussion rates from 2005–2006 to 2011–2012. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 42: 1710–5. Shumaker, J. (2016). US$1.2 million settlement reached in NCAA lawsuit. Missouri Medical Law Report. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://molawyersmedia.com/momedlaw/2016/09/20/1-2 -million-settlement-reached-in-ncaa-lawsuit/ Schwartz, A. (2009). NFL scolded over injuries to its players. New York Times. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/sports/football/29hearing.html?_r=0 Solomon, J. (2013). Football concussion lawsuits reach high school. AL.com. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/12/football_concussion_lawsuits_r.html Solomon, J. (2014). NCAA and NFHS. Al.com. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.al.com /sports/index.ssf/2014/04/ncaa_and_nfhs_1st_major_high_s.html Solomon, J. (2015). Life after football death. CBSsports.com. Retrieved December 19, 2016 from http://www .cbssports.com/collegefootball/feature/25281366/life-after-football-death SportsMoney: 2016 NFL Valuations. (2016). Forbes.com. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www .forbes.com/nfl-valuations/list/#tab:overall Tartaglia, M. C., et al. (2014). Chronic traumatic encephalopathy and other neurodegenerative proteinopathies. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 1–6. Vogan, T. (2014). Keepers of the flame. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Wave Goodby to Defense. (1969). Sports Illustrated. Retrieved December 19, 2016, from http://www.si.com /vault/1969/09/15/612740/wave-goodby-to-defense Watterson, J. S. (2000). College football: History, Spectacle, Controversy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Zuckerman, S. L., et al. (2015). Epidemiology of sports-related concussion in NCAA athletes from 2009–2010 to 2013–2014: Incidence, recurrence, and mechanisms. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 43: 2654–62.

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The author as young football player. The “A” squad of Sacred Heart Grade School, Spokane, Washington, 1961.

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Chapter Seven: Playing Football Michael ORIARD Oregon State University (emeritus)

I played football for eighteen of my first twenty-six years and have written about it for much of the past forty. At every level, I was a beneficiary of a sport that has claimed too many victims. Football has changed enormously since I played, most obviously through money and media exposure, but most recently by discovery of the long-term consequences of head trauma. I’ve wondered how these developments have changed the experience of playing football. Keywords: youth football, high school football, college football, professional football; Notre Dame, National Collegiate Athletic Association, National Football League; football culture, television, violence, toughness, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)

I

played organized football for eighteen of the first twenty-six years of my life, in an era when to reach a high level did not have to be all-consuming. I got the benefits without the now all-too-familiar costs, and experienced a very different game than the one that is played now.

My Life in Football I began playing tackle football at the age of nine in the fourth grade, in 1957, at Sacred Heart Grade School in Spokane, Washington. We had an “A” team for seventh and eighth-graders, a “B” team for fourth, fifth, and sixth. My first coach was Father Sands, the assistant pastor of the parish, who I remember as mild and unathletic— coaching us as a pastoral duty rather than for some deep love for the game. Diocesan grade schools in Spokane played football under the auspices of the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), which had been founded in Chicago in 1930 to keep potentially wayward boys off the streets. Maybe in 1957 the CYO in Spokane was still combating juvenile delinquency, but I’m guessing it was more concerned about saving us from the laziness of postwar abundance. In any case, we had to supply our own equipment, from helmets to shoes, with the exception of our pants and game jerseys. In the absence of any safety standards for sporting goods, our parents

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bought our pads and helmets at the local department store or passed them down from an older brother. Pretty flimsy stuff. But we played tackle football while the public elementary and junior-high schools in Spokane played flag football (no tackling, just pulling a strip of cloth from the ball carrier’s waistband), and there was no Pop Warner Youth Football League or other non-school alternative. I’ve wondered why the public schools played flag, not tackle: cost? safety concerns? While the relative risks and benefits of football for children were always controversial, particularly in the 1950s, I don’t remember injuries as a significant part of our experience. The most serious one I recall was my own in the seventh grade, when I tackled a kid with a rubber cleat missing from his shoe, and the exposed screw punctured the skin next to my kneecap. The nickel-sized hole required a few stitches and left me with a crescent-moon scar, my own badge of courage, proudly worn. In other words, the tackle football we played was not very dangerous—more on why later—but, as I say, the fact that it was tackle, not flag, added a dimension to our experience: “toughness,” the essence of my boy’s view of masculine identity. Tackling doesn’t come naturally to nine-year-olds. The first time out, you have to screw up your courage just a bit to hurl yourself at the legs of another boy running at you. When you do it, and bring him down, and survive the collision unhurt, you are a slightly different boy afterward. You feel “tough,” or at least tough enough (without having to risk your teeth, say, in a fist-fight with a bully). What we called “slaughter practice” was just a one-on-one tackling drill, but the grandiose term reveals the mystique we attached to it. Other tests followed, as the boys to be tackled got bigger and bigger; proving your toughness became a process rather than a one-time initiation. But the rite of passage began with that first tackle. I grew up as quintessentially a younger brother. My formative influence came less from my father than from my nineteen-month-older brother Flip, with whom I constantly competed (and too often fought), always losing but believing that this time I would beat him, or the next time, or the next. Through Flip I learned tenacity, which has served me well in life. For football specifically, I also benefited from the fact that it was mine, not Flip’s. As we got older he had different after-school and weekend interests, like trying to solve insoluble math problems or mastering bridge and chess. (In high school Flip won a state debate championship, then went on to graduate number-one in his class in math at the University of California-Berkeley. At the age of thirty he contracted a tenacious but slow-growing form of cancer and died just short of his forty-fifth birthday.) I played three years on the “B” team at Sacred Heart, then two years on the “A” team, coached now by a teammate’s brothers who had played at our local Jesuit high school. They were more serious than Father Sands and taught us the football system used at the high school, but having only fourteen players on our team, including one large sixth-grader, kept us from believing that our playing football mattered very much to anyone besides ourselves. I went on to that high school, Gonzaga Prep—this was in 1962—where I played a year on the freshman team, a year on the “B” squad, and two years on the varsity (the A squad), coached by a crusty old coach who ran a simple but highly effective, old-fashioned offense from the early days of the T-formation, and who expressed his basic football philosophy every time someone got up grimacing or limping from a pile of players. “Rub a little dirt on it,” he’d growl. He always growled. 100

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The violence in American football, controversial in the United States since the 1880s, was sometimes incomprehensible or appalling to European observers.

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I became a pretty good player—first-team All City (in a city with just six high schools)—as a 6’5’’, 190-pound (1.96 m, 86 kg) defensive end and offensive tight end. A few college coaches contacted me but none of them beat down my parents’ door to offer a scholarship, and as a top student from a middle-class family that could afford the tuition, I could choose what college to attend. I chose the University of Notre Dame—Catholic (though not Jesuit, as one of my teachers disparagingly reminded me) and recently returned to football prominence with the arrival of Ara Parseghian as coach. I showed up as an “invited” walk-on—no scholarship but known to the coaches—and had some success as a defensive end on the freshman team. This was 1966 now, seven years before freshmen became eligible for the varsity team representing the school; we scrimmaged with the varsity and had our own three-game season with freshmen squads from Pittsburgh, Navy, and Michigan State. But after my mildly promising start I disappeared onto what we called the “prep team,” or preparation team (“scout team” at most schools), over the next spring and fall, and did not suit up for a single game as a sophomore. I spent my football weeks practicing with the varsity, preparing them for their games on Saturdays. My season happened on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons when the prep team had a “live” scrimmage with the varsity—full-speed, with tackling—and we had a chance to prove (to ourselves anyway) that we belonged with them. On Saturdays, I sat in the stands with the rest of the student body. The following spring, at the point at which I would have to decide whether it was time to surrender, the player in my class who was recruited as a center had to give up football due to a damaged shoulder, and the coaches needed another body for that position. They chose mine—a tall, skinny center?!—a reward for my hard work on the prep team that until that moment I had had no way of knowing was even possible. Thus began my fairytale experience at Notre Dame: varsity player as a junior, starting center midway through the season, offensive captain and 2nd team “All-American” in a major sporting publication as a senior. And all of this on the most storied football team in the country. In the meantime, I had switched my major from physics to English under the influence of an inspiring professor, and as a senior I was applying to grad schools while being drafted in the fifth round by the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League. My four years with the Chiefs (1970–1973) as a mere backup center and special–teams player could inspire no fairy tale but they gave me a personal experience of football at the highest level. At times it felt enormously frustrating to be “owned”: bound to one team until it chose to discard me due to the absence of free agency—not won by the players in collective bargaining until 1993. But it also was satisfying to compete on (more or less) equal footing with the best football players in the country and to be a minor (very minor) celebrity in the city where my mother grew up. I lived an intensely physical life in Kansas City for six months each year, then drove to Stanford University in California for the intensely intellectual life of a graduate student for the other six. My football career ended badly, when I was among the “fringe players” released at the end of a players’ strike (over free agency, among other issues) in August 1974, but an invitation from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League allowed me to play out that season and walk away from football, after eighteen years, on my own terms. I returned to Stanford, where I had only a dissertation to finish. I received my PhD in June 1976 and was hired by Oregon State University, where I spent the next thirty-seven years as an English professor. 102

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That was my life in football. Once I had sons of my own, and they reached an age at which playing sports beyond high school became conceivable, I shared with them the philosophy of athletic success that I had learned from my own experience. Success in sports—or in any endeavor, I came to realize—was dependent on three things: talent, luck, and hard work (the ancient philosophers called them Fate, Chance, and Will). Talent is whatever you’re born with, including most basically whether you’re tall or short, big or small; work is what you do with it, luck is the circumstances that determine whether your innate gifts and hard work pay off. The point of my fatherly advice should be obvious: how hard my sons worked was the only thing they could control. Luck is the factor that seems hardest for successful people to acknowledge. Some athletes (and professionals in any field) are indeed so talented and hard -working that they require no luck—though even the best athletes need the good luck of remaining free from serious injury. I was certainly not one of these, as most of us aren’t. Perhaps more precisely than most I can identify specific lucky breaks that were crucial for my success. My talent, my athletic ability, was adequate. I worked very hard. But a single event utterly beyond my control determined the possibilities for my football career. Had Larry Vuillemin not had a chronically separating shoulder that forced him to give up football as a sophomore, I never would have played on the Notre Dame varsity. Making it as a defensive end was not possible; I was simply too gangly. As a center—and to my surprise, because I visualized centers as fire plugs—my tall, rangy body was just fine (although I would have been much better off without a long neck). My luck also came from having a champion on the prep team, a young assistant coach named Brian Boulac who advocated for me with the varsity coaches; and from having a varsity line coach, Jerry Wampfler, who took me on as a personal project through whom he could demonstrate his coaching ability; and ultimately from having a head coach, Ara Parseghian, who was willing to build his squad with help from non-scholarship players if necessary, rather than sticking only with those he had been wise enough to recruit. And so on. But it all goes back to Larry Vuillemin’s horribly bad luck which became my extraordinarily good luck. Other teammates worked as hard but never caught a lucky break. When I think about my football experience in relation to all I know and have learned about football, from its beginnings at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in the 1870s to the NFL’s reign as “America’s Game” today, I can sum it up succinctly in a variety of ways. Through football I worked through some of the basic challenges and self-explorations of my boyhood and adolescence. As a college football player I received the best education my university offered while playing at the highest level. And as a pro, I experienced the game at the highest level of all, at a time when the NFL was beginning to matter, but as a side trip along the road to my real professional career. Overall, I was a beneficiary of a sport that has too many victims. I was lucky.

Changing Football Worlds My experiences were neither unique nor universal for my own generation, but they were very much generational. In childhood, football was my own private world, separate from my parents’ world of long hours at work or at home raising seven kids 103

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spread over twenty years (I was the second-oldest). In my free-range childhood, I rode my bike home from school (about two miles away), changed into my football gear and rode back to the grass-covered city reservoir near my school where we practiced, then rode home afterwards, sometimes in the dark. My parents rarely attended my games until I was on the varsity in high school, playing on Friday nights, unless the bridge club happened to be meeting. Football was my thing, not the family’s. And football was a game, of lesser importance to my parents than school or even piano lessons. I benefited hugely from my parents’ benign neglect of my football life. My parents eventually took great pride and pleasure in my successes, but they were always my successes, not theirs, and I never had to factor their needs or desires into my decisions. How typical or atypical that experience was for my generation, I frankly do not know. The stereotype of the demanding jock father was certainly part of the football world of the 1950s and 1960s, just not part of my world. And I know that in the football hotbeds of the time—in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas—high school football mattered a whole lot more than in Spokane, Washington. But high school football everywhere in the 1950s and 1960s was local, not national. For me, grade school football was the path to Gonzaga Prep. Notre Dame and the National Football League belonged to a world of fantasy, not career destinations. My successes and failures were also more private than public. I played for my school, not for the pride of an entire community, but mostly I played for myself. I continued playing football for a long time, from age nine to twenty-six, but it was never the most important part of my life. School always came first, whether at Gonzaga, where the Jesuits fostered the philosophy of strong-mind-in-strong-body; at Notre Dame, where afternoon physics labs preempted football practice; or at Kansas City and Stanford, where, if a conflict had arisen, I would have opted for grad school with some regret but no reservation. Through football I worked through my adolescence and achieved a positive sense of self; after that, it became more like a happy accident that kept happening. As a boy I aspired to play at Gonzaga Prep. By the time I was a senior at Prep, playing in college seemed a possibility. At Notre Dame, I just hoped to make the team, and in my wildest fantasies become a starter. By the time I was a senior I knew that I would likely be drafted by the NFL, but I also applied for a highly competitive Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University and flew to Seattle for the interview. Had I won a Rhodes, there would have been no NFL for me. Instead, I arrived in Kansas City with a short-term plan: if I made the team, I would play up to six seasons, at which point I would have finished my PhD and could look for a teaching position. If I was unsuccessful in the tough academic job market, I would keep playing until that changed. Being dumped by the Chiefs after four seasons took away that flexibility, but I was ready for what we all recognized as “the real world.” With salaries not too far above what plumbers or unionized truck drivers made, my teammates in Kansas City had no illusion that they would retire on their football earnings. They all knew that they needed to build second careers in the off-seasons, and many were anxious about their options. My advantage came from football always coming second, school first, and I was preparing for my real career with my classes at Stanford following the end of each football season. Except for the blow of being cut from the team— assuaged by my brief time in Canada—leaving football was relatively painless for me. The story of the former athlete, haunted by the glories of his youth, are nearly 104

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as old as Western civilization; for American football, at least as old as Irwin Shaw’s short story, “The Eighty-Yard Run,” in 1941. Here my ironic immunity came from my undistinguished NFL career: I left football with no memories of game-winning touchdowns or post-season honors. My professional challenges awaited me. I was not alone in these circumstances, and I was not typical either, but the times dictated the possibilities. For how many players thrived or suffered (or both) after football ended there are abundant anecdotes but no data. Football in the United States has changed enormously since I played. A quick search of the internet can document the staggering economic growth of the National Football League. In 1974, total NFL revenues were around $170 million, total profits not quite $8 million, and a department store owner paid $16 million for a new franchise in Seattle for the 1976 season. In 2015, total revenues exceeded $12 billion, with more than $2.4 billion in profits, and the average NFL franchise was worth about $2 billion. For the players, successive collective bargaining agreements since 1993 have guaranteed them roughly half of league revenues (very roughly, with disputes over a percentage point or two nearly causing lockouts or strikes). Today, players’ average salary is about $2 million, with a minimum of $450,000 and the top stars making over $20 million. In 1974, the minimum for rookies was $12,000. Had I not been cut, I would have made $30,000, about the league average. My AllPro fellow linemen, ten and twelve-year veterans, earned barely twice that much; our highest-paid teammate, quarterback Len Dawson, was rumored to make around $125,000. My rookie year, 1970, I earned $300 a week on the taxi squad (practice team) for our first thirteen games before I was activated for our last one and received a full game check (about $1,100). Today, a practice-team player makes a minimum of $6,000 a week over a sixteen-game season. In return for this munificence, of course, my part-time job has become year-round and full-time for today’s NFL players. The economics of college football today are also staggering—these are nonprofit educational institutions after all—though on a lesser scale than the NFL’s and with two crucial qualifications: instead of profits rising from a few millions to billions, overall expenses have kept pace with revenues; and the distribution of revenues across athletic programs has been radically uneven. “College football” comprises a sprawling range of institutions, with revenues ranging from $3 million to $151 million for the latest reported fiscal year, 2014. The highest-paid coach today makes $7 million, sixteen make at least $4 million, fifty-five at least $2 million. The players, on the other hand, receive the same tuition, board, and room that they have since the 1960s, though beginning in 2016 the high-revenue programs were allowed to increase that to the “full cost of attendance,” a much-belated response to growing outrage over the widening gulf between what the athletes make from football and what their coaches and institutions make. Of course, the fact that American college football players earn anything at all makes them anomalies in the larger world of school sports, but so are their exorbitantly paid coaches and administrators of a multi-billion-dollar entertainment business. The “amateurism” of big-time American college football has been a convenient myth for well over a century, but that myth has been stretched to absurdity in recent years. Economic growth in the college game is not as easy to pin down as in the NFL, because public reporting has been mandated only since 2008 (to prove compliance with the federal law requiring gender equity in school sports). Before then, 105

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reporting was voluntary and inconsistent. But the magnitude of the growth is suggested by an NCAA report from 1981 that found an average of $1.9 million in total football revenues for each of the 192 “Class A” institutions (Raiborn 1990). Even allowing for several times that amount for the top programs among those 192, that’s a long way from $151 million. Coaches’ salarieswere also not routinely reported until fairly recently, but it appears that top coaches in the early 1970s earned in the $50,000 range. Salary data compiled by USA Today in 1986 suggested the norm at big football schools to be around $150,000, with Jackie Sherrill pulling in a bit over twice that much at Texas A&M (“Money and College Football” 1986). Florida State’s Bobby Bowden became the first college coach to “earn” a million dollars in 1995—not even entry-level for head coaches in the major football conferences today. Much of college football’s revenue and close to half of the NFL’s comes from television. Again, the NFL’s growth is easy to measure. In 1974, the league signed contracts with three TV networks totaling $200 million. CBS and NBC each televised a game on Sunday, and ABC was in the fifth year of broadcasting “Monday Night Football” (a cultural phenomenon—football in prime time! who could have imagined?). For 2016, contracts with four networks totaled more than $5 billion, while the league’s own NFL Network added advertising revenues but not rights fees. The NCAA has had a more tortured relationship with television, initially trying to limit TV exposure to protect game attendance in the 1950s, then losing a milestone Supreme Court decision over its TV monopoly in 1984. The number of televised games increased dramatically beginning in that 1984 season, but with no one holding exclusive rights, overall TV revenues declined until the 1990s when the major football conferences began negotiating their own deals with the networks. At that point, the college football world we now live in began to emerge: soaring rights fees but only for the major teams and their conferences, which also claimed nearly all of the postseason TV revenue. Total television revenue for NCAA football in 1990 was around $45 million, plus maybe another $30 million from the four major post-season games—the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Cotton Bowl (Martzke 1986). By 2015, the sixty-five schools in the so-called Power Five conferences were sharing $1.75 billion from television, while the hundreds of schools outside those conferences received a relative pittance. That’s the raw accounting. What matters here is the amped-up celebrity sports culture that TV has created and within which boys and young men play football today. I grew up with “The Game of the Week,” a single college game televised on Saturdays, a pro game on Sundays. Boys today grow up with college football on TV all day Saturday, plus Thursday and Friday evenings; with NFL games all day Sunday, plus Sunday night, Monday night, and Thursday nights; along with football highlights on ESPN and other cable channels throughout the week. Oh, and the NFL Network all day every day. How can football not seem hugely important to them? To me as a kid, Jim Brown and Y. A. Tittle were football gods, seen on TV only when they played on the West Coast. NFL stars today are not gods but celebrities, their every game televised, constantly interviewed, captured up-close-and-personal in private as well as public moments, packaged as brands themselves and peddling other brands. I grew up with a football season starting in late September and continuing into December, climaxing with college bowl games on 1 January, eventually with a Super 106

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Bowl a couple of weeks later. Today, the televised games start in mid-July for the NFL preseason, in late August for college football, and run into mid-January for the last of the forty-odd college bowl games (many of them very odd with their sometimes bizarre corporate sponsors), followed by the playoffs and, finally, the Super Bowl in early February. The four “major” bowl games of my youth were important events that produced four regional champions and endless arguments among their partisans. New Year’s Day was semi-sacred, the year’s one full day of championship football. Today, mere bowl games pale before that final Big One, the collegiate National Championship, which is itself dwarfed by the truly BIG ONE, the Super Bowl. For hard-core fans the NFL season has become year-round, with what used to be the league’s behind-the-scenes business—testing the top college players at the scouting combine and then selecting them through the college draft—now established as two more multi-day media events every spring. Football used to be seasonal and occasional; now it is constant and ubiquitous. It was also, like team sports generally, local, even tribal: “us” against “them.” Televised football is national: “us” can be the New England Patriots or the Alabama Crimson Tide (god forbid!), whether I live in Virginia or Wyoming or Oregon. The bond is less intimate and likely less permanent. It makes each fan part of a vast but tenuous community of strangers rather than, more intensely, a small community of family, friends, and a relatively few neighbors or fellow alumni. The three-network TV era in which I grew up—and took to be a norm as fixed as the nine planets in the solar system (oops!)—turns out to have been a three-decade blip in the development of the medium. From the perspective of the game itself, the most profound change wrought by television has been to transform football increasingly from sport to entertainment. Since the 1990s, the NFL has frankly acknowledged that it is in the entertainment business, competing for audiences not just with Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association, but also with Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and Disney World. (Without acknowledging it, NCAA football has followed suit.) As entertainment, the NFL makes billions instead of millions, but it also subjects itself to markets that demand novelty and ever-increasing dazzle. Sport’s power lies in its unscripted reality and intimate bonds; entertainment operates on wholly different principles.

Today’s Lives in Football All of this brings us to the central question of this essay: how have these changes affected the experience of playing football? Or have they? As I stated earlier, I know that my own experience was neither unique nor typical for my own generation, but I believe that it was generational in the sense that the opportunities available to me were determined by the times in which I lived, as well as the places and conditions in which I was placed. Here, all is luck. Whatever choices others made in determining where and how I lived, I experienced them as the luck of my circumstances. Not every kid playing football in the 1950s and early 1960s was as fortunate as I was in my parents, my schools, my community, my middle-class comforts—my white skin. Not every young man playing college football in the late 1960s had the good fortune of arriving at the university as a high-achieving student who hoped that football worked out; or of playing pro football in the early 1970s as a part-time job away 107

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The dominance of coaching in American football, a settled fact today, was controversial for much of the game’s history.

from grad school. But all the boys and young men of my generation experienced the game of their times, and those times have changed. Kids like me—that is, who played football in season as one interest among many, with the bodies they were born with (eventually enhanced only by a few months of self-directed weight-lifting each year)—don’t make it to the NFL today. I played center in the NFL at 242 pounds (110 kg), the size of a lean quarterback today. You don’t become 320 pounds (145 kg) with quick feet today just by eating. Today’s NFL players have gone through eight or ten or twelve years of what amounts to pre-professional preparation: summer camps, serious year-round weight training, dedication to doing everything necessary to achieve the ultimate prize. And full racial integration has dramatically increased the pool of talent and the competition for positions. The game played by today’s bigger-stronger-faster players is more violent. Dangerous and frankly brutal techniques allowed in my day—head-slaps, clothesline tackles with a forearm to the neck, most forms of blocking from behind and below the knees—have been banned, but the impacts of routine collisions that are central to football are governed by Newtonian physics, not by rules-makers. I’ll come back to the consequences of that violence later. 108

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Pro football has also become far more professionalized—more organized, computerized, and specialized—since I played. In my era, there were essentially just two kinds of defense: the 4-3, with a middle linebacker lined up across from the center; and the 4-4, with two inside and two outside linebackers. Pass defense was either man-to-man or zone. On the offensive side, my coach Hank Stram was celebrated as an innovator simply for stacking the tight end behind the quarterback before shifting to one side or the other just before the snap, to confuse the defense by not revealing the strong side of the formation until the last moment. Middle linebackers called the defenses. Quarterbacks who didn’t call their own plays lost a little stature among their peers. The most casual NFL fan can recognize how different the game is today, with its multiple defensive alignments and coverage schemes, pass routes and offensive formations—all dictated by software that analyzes opponents’ tendencies and strategic advantages. And with every defensive and offensive play signaled in by coaches on the sidelines or in the press box. Compared to other forms of football, and to other sports generally, coaches have had an outsized role in American football since shortly after its beginnings as a student-run game in the 1870s. But not without a long history of resistance that lasted into the 1960s. I now see that football in my era, what I considered the norm, was actually beginning its final transition to today’s wholly coach-dominated game. My prejudices about today’s game are generational. I hate hearing commentators praise the play call from the sidelines rather than its execution on the field. I hate seeing coaches instead of quarterbacks or captains calling timeouts to manage the clock in the final two minutes of the half. I really hate seeing the eleven offensive players on some college teams looking toward the sidelines for the play to be called, instead of looking at each other in the huddle, reading their teammates’ faces in a moment of silent bonding before the next play. For me, football is primarily about players, not coaches. For most of football’s history, the use of substitutes was severely limited, to prevent excessive coaching control and preserve a game that fostered self-reliance. When it was finally adopted in the 1950, “two-platoon” football—completely separate teams on offense and defense—was hugely controversial for eliminating allaround players. Unlimited substitution in college football was not permitted until 1965. How quaint that all now seems. In the NFL today, with the exception of the quarterback and the five interior offensive linemen, most players have specialized, situational roles. Long-snappers and nickel backs and 3rd down edge rushers still seem slightly alien to me. In my day, “special teams,” the kicking and receiving units, were manned by backups like myself, supplemented by starters to fill out the elevens. Today, special teams have specialists, too, and the best of them are honored on all-pro teams at the end of the season. Because the game they play is the game they know, today’s players cannot feel a loss of control to their coaches. And by many measures today’s game is “better” than the one I played. Due to their longer and more intensive training players’ overall skill level is undoubtedly higher today, and nearly everyone plays. The forty-man rosters in my day included twenty-two starters, a punter and a placekicker, along with sixteen backups like me who might see action only on special teams. With today’s fifty-three-man squads, many more players play fewer downs in more specialized roles. Some defensive linemen in my era were known for coasting for a play or two in each series; today’s players go full speed every down that they play. More 109

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players have significant roles today, but coaches more thoroughly dictate and scrutinize what they do. How all of this feels to the players, I can only wonder. The more significant changes in players’ experiences are not on the field, but off. All of today’s players, by virtue of 24/7 sports media, are celebrities, to widely varying degrees, in ways that few in my generation were. At Notre Dame, we played on television once or twice a season (the NCAA limit); today every major conference game is televised at least regionally (and every Notre Dame game is televised nationally). Just to make it to the NFL is a much bigger deal in 2016 than it was in 1970. Players today—wide receivers most obviously and excluding offensive linemen—view themselves as performers in ways unimaginable when I played. (The objections of football old-timers to on-field celebrations are generational, not racial.) We played football with TV cameras present; players today consciously and self-consciously play televised football. We were oblivious of the cameras (and attaching a microphone to a player was unthinkable); today’s players punctuate each good play with a small or large exclamation point for the TV audience. Players who are self-branded or media-branded to the level of rock stars have an inside track on endorsements and the proliferating jobs for retired players in sports media. But I’ve wondered how today’s minor-celebrity NFL players view their major-celebrity teammates. The NFL weirdly mirrors the income inequality in the country as a whole—stars making much more than journeymen, left tackles (who protect the right-handed quarterback’s “blind side”) making much more than left guards, quarterbacks in general making much more than everyone else—though with considerably more meritocracy and mobility between the classes. A late-round draft choice or free agent rookie making the minimum salary, who then becomes a star, will at least have a chance after four years to sign a free-agent contract that pays him his worth. If he lasts for four seasons, that is, when the average NFL “career” is about three years and an injury can end it at any time. I’ve wondered what it feels like to be a left guard making five or six hundred thousand dollars, playing next to a left tackle making five million. Do they have the same bond as the offensive linemen I played with in Kansas City, including even the backups like myself? And I’ve wondered about the impact of free agency, the partial freedom from indentured servitude that the Players’ Association finally won in 1993. Free agency is the hard-won key to the lock on the NFL treasury, but I wonder how it tangentially affects the sense of “team,” that nearly mystical concept in football mythology, when players know they can leave for more money next season, or the next or the next, rather than be here, barring injuries and the whims of management, with the guys in this locker room for the duration of their careers. Despite all of the earnest proclamations about “playing for the team,” how individual players performed always mattered more for their own futures. That hard fact hasn’t changed, but it has been amplified by the higher stakes in today’s NFL. The higher stakes can also make retiring harder. Celebrities today are forgotten tomorrow. Huge linemen must manage their no-longer-useful bulk and their heightened susceptibility to cardiovascular disease. Of course, many more players leave the NFL financially independent than was conceivable in my day, but how many? The published statistics on players’ bankruptcies within two years of leaving the game are shocking, but are they credible? I would love to see a comprehensive and reliable study of post-football lives. I would expect to find fewer doctors, lawyers, and other professionals requiring post-graduate degrees than in my era. I’d 110

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like to know not just what percentage of players are set up for life through football but also how race correlates with that percentage. For black players, the NFL is an immensely fairer place today, though not quite the post-racial meritocracy we would like to believe it; but systemic inequality likely reasserts itself after football ends. In my era, white players disproportionately had not only the endorsements but also the business opportunities and local TV gigs in retirement; I suspect that this disparity has shrunk but not disappeared. Broadcast booths and TV studios are conspicuously integrated these days, but for a league that’s two-thirds black the balance is still off. Having the NFL as an ultimate goal may be dangerous not just for the great majority of college players who don’t make it but even for many of those who do. For myself, I have never resented the soaring salaries that I missed out on, but then I have had the luxury of a post-football professional life. I’m grateful for having played when money was less overwhelming and celebrity was rare and usually modest. While the best college players have become celebrities, too, without the protective shield of agents and business managers (forbidden by the NCAA) they have all of the vulnerabilities of celebrity without the financial compensation: intense media scrutiny, the danger of campus parties where someone with a smart phone might catch them in a compromising moment. With their lavish facilities and celebrity treatment, but also their abysmal graduation rates and compromised educational opportunities, big-time college football players today are simultaneously entitled and exploited in ways inconceivable in my smaller-scale world of college football in the 1960s. I was a student who played football. My academic background and walk-on status obviously contributed to my mindset, but football’s part-time, partial-year demands created an environment where those priorities worked. Today’s so-called student athletes have no choice but to be football players first. They must schedule their classes around their football commitments, and too often they “cluster” in easy majors without clear employment prospects. For a football program to be fully certified by the NCAA only 60 percent of its “student athletes” need to graduate. Sixty percent! College football’s implicit contract, in place at least since the 1920s—a college education and the middle-class life it made possible, in exchange for athletic services—benefitted generations of working-class immigrants and other outsiders from the elite world of higher education. That contract has broken down for those who leave college without a degree, or a meaningful education, to face a job market more demanding of skills than ever before. I can only wonder about the subtler aspects of how it feels to be a college football player today, but I don’t see how anyone can be fully immune to the conditions that trickle down from the NFL. Lavish facilities and celebrity status create a fantasy world that disappears instantly with the end of college. The NFL has always been an all-or-nothing prospect, but with “all” worth so much more, “nothing” has to feel that much worse. Being a member of the school team has to mean less than it meant in my day, most obviously for the backup quarterbacks who routinely transfer to another school for their shot at the NFL. Certainly there were divisions in my day between starters and backups, regulars and scout teams, stars and everyone else. But those inevitable divisions must feel wider in today’s supercharged sports culture, when college stars are national or at least local celebrities, and the NFL showers millions on the top college players but nothing on the rest. The celebrity football culture incubated in the NFL and on TV (and now the internet) trickles down to high school and even youth football, too. Football at 111

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these levels has not become as professionalized as basketball and soccer with their elite travel teams and year-round schedules, but football has moved in that direction too. If a boy’s high school team is really good, he can check its weekly rise or fall in national polls and maybe even play a game or two on television. If he’s really good, he may be contacted by college coaches when he’s fourteen or fifteen years old. As he moves through high school he can monitor his star-ranking on several scouting websites, play in all-star games, maybe graduate early to join his college team. The youngest boys in Pop Warner, USA Football, and other youth leagues master the inyour-face gestures and end-zone choreography of All-Americans and All-Pros long before they grasp the intricacies of the spread offense or cover 2 defense. USA Football promotes, and is promoted (and funded) by the NFL. When a boy starts playing football today, Alabama and Ohio State, Green Bay and New England, don’t exist in a distant universe, more fantasized than real, but as the farthest reaches of his own world. With grander but seemingly more realistic dreams must come sharper disappointments. The most momentous change in football since I played is the growing realiz­ ation that the game may simply be too dangerous. Football has always been violent because Americans have wanted it that way, just not too violent. Violence is what made football a test and a challenge as well as a sport. It was tied to ideas about character-building and masculine identity—the personal “toughness” that I somehow understood at the age of nine I would prove through playing football. Injuries, sometimes serious, and even deaths were always part of the game. But deaths were rare, and they were always accidents, seemingly reducible with new rules and better equipment. Injuries on the other hand, even crippling ones, were inevitable, but here the view always prevailed that the benefits of playing football outweighed the potential costs. That ended when Hall of Fame center Mike Webster died in September 2002 at the age of fifty, after years of grotesque physical ailments and erratic behavior, and the autopsy revealed signs of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in his brain. When I played in the NFL, we understood that knee injuries were common and might end our careers, perhaps even leave us unable to run on the beach with our grandkids. The worst injury we could imagine was a spinal cord fracture—that’s why we worked to develop thick necks. Helmets were designed to prevent skull fractures and other catastrophic injuries—which they did most of the time. Minor concussions were the equivalent of bruises that healed in time with no long-term consequences. That’s what we all thought. Now we know that players’ very selves, not just their bodies, are at risk. The revelations about CTE left every former player wondering if he had it. Seeing no evidence in my own mental functioning or behavior, I took inventory of my head’s experience in football. As I noted earlier, I was coached in grade school and high school to block and tackle with my shoulder (unlike those who played for more up-to-date coaches). I didn’t learn to use my head as a weapon—stick the front of your helmet in the other player’s chest and move him whichever way he goes— until I got to college. In a scrimmage during spring practice before my senior year, an eager freshman lined up ten yards deep on an extra point and timed his charge to hit me at the moment I released the ball, my head still down. The excruciating pain that shot down my spine and arm, and left my arm dangling limply, became my nemesis for the next six seasons. A pinched nerve doesn’t heal. Mine forced me 112

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to change the way I played: I couldn’t use my head recklessly as a weapon without repeatedly pinching the nerve and having to deal with the pain and numbness. This was obviously frustrating, as was playing only on special teams in the NFL instead of starting on offense, and being cut after four years instead of playing the six I had planned. But guess what. My head missed out on hundreds of hits. My greatest frustrations may have been my greatest blessings. Playing in the NFL in the Age of CTE must feel a little like being a young gay man at the onset of the Age of AIDS, though with less certainty about the risks. I can only wonder how it feels. While medical scientists scramble to understand CTE, many older players must be weighing the uncertain risks against their prospects for financial security and something meaningful to do after football. Many young players must be confronting a devil’s bargain: risk playing long enough to sign a big free-agent contract but get out before too much damage is done. Saddest of all are the players, young or old, without college degree or meaningful education, who don’t feel they have options. Playing football today can be rewarding to degrees that I could not even fantasize as a boy. Or not. And at what cost? I always knew that I was among the beneficiaries of a sport that claimed too many victims. Over the years since I played I have increasingly discovered just how lucky I was.

Further Reading Martzke, R. (1986). CBS, CGA team up for $60 m. USA Today. Money and College Football. (1986 September 19-24). USA Today. Oriard, M. (1982). The end of autumn: Reflections on my life in football. New York: Doubleday. Oriard, M. (1993). Reading football: How the popular press created an American spectacle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Oriard, M. (2001). King Football: Sport and spectacle in the golden age of radio and newsreels, movies and magazines, the weekly and the daily press. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Oriard, M. (2007). Brand NFL: Making and selling America’s favorite sport. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Oriard, M. (2009). Bowled over: Big-time college football from the Sixties to the BCS era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Oriard, M. (2013). The head in football: The history of concussions and the future of the sport. Now and Then. Available at http://www.nowandthenreader.com/the-head-in-football-the-history-of -concussions-and-the-future-of-the-sport/preview/ Raiborn, M. H. (1990). Revenue and expenses of intercollegiate athletic programs: Analysis of financial trends and relationships 1981–1985. Shawnee Mission, KS, National Collegiate Athletic Association.

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Chapter Eight: Football and Social Change Gerald R. GEMS North Central College

As the preeminent sport in American culture, football has had considerable influence on both the maintenance of social norms and transitions in social values and practices over the course of its history. The changing racial and social class composition of participants has drastically altered the ways in which the game is played, administered, and viewed. Yet, it remains a bastion of class privilege and masculinity, with ownership and power reserved for the wealthy, and largely limiting women to subordinate and supporting roles. Keywords: social class, race, gender, masculinity, sexuality, hegemony, Social Darwinism, social capital, economic capital, habitus, African Americans, Native Americans, Samoans, segregation, professionalism, coaches, leadership

S

ocial class, race, and gender have always been, and continue to be, factors in the evolution of the American game of football. Each factor has carried a greater measure of importance during particular historical eras relative to the values, norms, and standards of the mainstream society. The game was established by college students from the upper classes, integrated by working-class black and ethnic immigrant groups as it was adopted by interscholastic and club teams, and became a bastion of masculinity in American culture.

Social Class Social class served a primary function in the establishment and acceptance of the game during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) identified the distinctions between and within classes as upper-class groups contested for dominance. In nineteenth-century America, upper-class white males tried to solidify their place and power within the social order (Weininger 2004, 119–171). Higher education provided one means of establishing social, cultural, and economic capital among competing groups. Older colonial families who had acquired wealth sent their sons to Harvard College, while the nouveau-rich favored Harvard’s competitor, Yale. Southern 115

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gentry preferred Princeton College with its large enrollment of Southern students and their support for the Confederacy during the Civil War (Maynard 2011; Bourdieu 1984). In the wake of the Civil War, the so-called Gilded Age featured greater industrialization and income inequality as the United States surpassed Great Britain in economic production. Entrepreneurs amassed great wealth in a fiercely competitive environment that subscribed to the doctrine of the “survival of the fittest.” Such conditions and attitudes were reflected on the football fields as schools competed for supremacy. Such wealthy families competed with each other in commerce and social status for both economic and social capital. Football allowed for a visible representation of that struggle on the surrogate field of battle. Parents and siblings arrived at the stadiums in liveried coaches adorned in fine apparel to distinguish their rank, an endeavor characterized by the contemporary sociologist Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) as “conspicuous consumption” (Veblen 1899).

College Life While boys in the United States had kicked balls in a manner similar to European folk football for centuries, often to the chagrin of civic officials, the game was not played according to standardized rules until adopted by college students during the nineteenth century. Initial ventures differed little from the melees of European clashes between rival communities. British schoolboys regularly played soccer-style games in their leisure time. By 1827, Harvard students started the school year with an intramural contest between older students and their younger counterparts in a raucous event known as “bloody Monday.” Yale students adopted a similar ritual in 1840 and practiced it until school officials banned the practice in 1860. By the 1840s, British students at Eton and Rugby began to codify the diverse sets of rules by which the kicking games were played. William S. Gunmere (1852–1933), a student at Princeton College in the United States, organized games according to the London Football Association Rules in 1868, thereby providing a greater sense of legitimacy and order to the students’ contests. The next year, Princeton students traveled to Rutgers College to participate in the first intercollegiate football match played according to soccer rules. Games between colleges continued that year and only grew thereafter as interscholastic rivalries developed for athletic supremacy (Gems 2000, 11–12; Gems and Pfister 2009, 124–125.) At boarding schools, unlike most European universities, sports, and football in particular, became a principal means of entertainment and socialization during students’ leisure hours. The elitist nature of the colleges might be discerned by the limited number of students attending the schools, less than 2 percent of the population, for whom higher education served mostly as a finishing school to obtain a measure of cultural capital before assuming their roles in the corporate world. The number of colleges exploded during the Gilded Age (1870–1890), as millionaires increased tenfold and wealthy entrepreneurs established eponymous institutions, and while individual states founded their own schools. With the need for technical skills, research capabilities, and the professionalization of many occupations, colleges adopted the German model to achieve university status (Garaty 1983, 496–99). The proliferation of higher education institutions in the United States fostered rivalries among the schools and their students, 116

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and increased competition for status. The success of the student-organized teams in athletics became a substitute for or an addition to the academic status of the institution.

American Divergence from British Sport In 1872, Harvard adopted the rugby rules, which allowed the use of the hands, as the American version of football began to diverge from the British game of soccer. A Yale player stated that “we want our game to be distinctive….We far prefer the game now played in America… (rather than the English version) it admits of more real science” (Yale Record, 17 December 1873, 184). The American upstarts began challenging their presumed superiors in international contests as Yale hosted and beat a group of Eton alumni from England in 1873, and Harvard played two games against McGill University of Canada the following year. Both male and female spectators who could afford to do so paid fifty cents in order to watch the latter competition, signaling the advent of commercialized collegiate football in the United States. By 1877, the New York Polo Club offered a trophy symbolic of national supremacy, and thousands of spectators began flocking to urban sites for the athletic spectacles. Such encounters bred fierce rivalries among the colleges. Yale, considered to be the school of the nouveau-riche, was criticized for its ungentlemanly behavior in its quest for victory. “The gentlemen who compose the Yale team have cultivated a habit of losing their tempers, and mauling their opponents with their fists; and though this imparted an increased interest in the game, and seemed to offer gratification to the cultured spectators, it is not without its drawbacks…. students, who showed their magnanimity by facetiously pelting our men with pebbles and second-hand tobacco quids” (Harvard Advocate, 16 November 1877, 49). Those critical comments did not inhibit the excitement of the fans and the diffusion of college football. By the 1880s, the game had spread from the elite schools of the Northeast to the Midwest and the South. Walter Camp (1859–1925), the Yale team captain and later coach and head of the rules committee, introduced a new rule in 1880 known as the scrimmage line. Rather than the continuous play of soccer or the rugby scrum, the scrimmage line marked the end of one play where a ball carrier was downed (as determined by the referee), and the start of the next play. This change required both the offensive and the defensive team to align on opposite sides of the scrimmage line and develop tactics similar to actual warfare. An observer of a Yale-Princeton game in1884 claimed that the opponents “hurl themselves together…in kicking and writhing heaps…throttling (choking), wrestling, and the pitching of individuals headlong to the earth…savage blows that drew blood, and falls that…crack the bones” before the game was declared a draw. The mayhem only increased the popularity of the game, which spread across the country and reached California by 1886 (Presbrey and Moffatt 1901, 317). By 1888, Walter Camp declared that “our players have strayed away from the original Rugby [sic] rules, but in so doing they have built up a game and rules of their own more suited to American needs” (Camp 1888, 858–59). Americans felt an increasing need to distinguish themselves from English culture as they began to challenge the British for global supremacy by the late nineteenth century. 117

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Even before he became a nationalistic proponent of American military might as president, Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) espoused the value of athletic training in 1893, when he stated that sport created “the virtues which go to make up a race of statesmen and soldiers, of pioneers and explorers…of bridge-builders and road-makers, of commonwealth builders;… and of all these sports there is no better sport than football” (Roosevelt 1893, 1236).

Football and the Assertion of Social Class Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) proposed a concept of hegemony, which stated that in any society a dominant group will set the norms, values, and standards of a society, to which subordinate groups may choose to accept, reject, adopt, or adapt in a continual class struggle (Hoare and Smith 1971). Although the United States is a country of immigrants, hierarchies developed in the American society as white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) men like Roosevelt gained power and reserved leadership roles for patricians like themselves. These men considered themselves as the elite of the country, an attitude which they adopted and enacted in colleges and universities, not only in the lecture halls, but in particular on the football fields, where the players did not only demonstrate sporting excellence but also social status. Accordingly, players of elite colleges of the East refused to play against students of the upstart schools of other American regions. Journalist Caspar Whitney (1864–1929) and Walter Camp began selecting the best players for the honorary All-American team in 1889. Throughout the following decade they chose only players from the elite eastern schools, and athletes from the upper-class institutions dominated the list of the best players next for thirty years. The eastern media continually extolled the eastern teams as superior to the teams of all other schools, thereby maintaining the perception of WASP dominance of American culture. The presumptions of WASP supremacy were increasingly challenged, however, as teams of the southern and western schools began to defeat the athletes of the elite schools of the East (Gems 2000, 162–69, Des Jardins 2015, 73–6). The interscholastic athletic contests of the latter nineteenth century were organized and conducted by students who had formed extracurricular sport clubs to pursue their leisure activities. The administrators of the institutions of higher education, however, realized the value of the free publicity provided by game accounts in the media. College administrators and faculty, however, endeavored to reduce the violence associated with the game. As college faculty gained greater control over students’ athletic endeavors, particularly after the establishment of the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 1906, they determined eligibility standards for participation based on the British class-based concept of amateurism, which forbid payment for athletic skills (Gems and Pfister 2009, 129–134). In Great Britain, amateurs were members of the upper classes who competed in the pursuit of self-improvement without infringement upon the status of others of their rank. “They wished to create a new sporting elite where an upper-class code of honor could be combined with the middle-class virtues of exertion and competitiveness. Amateurs advocated participation over spectating and adopted an ethical code of sportsmanship, stressing respect for opponents and referees” (Holt and Russell 2002, 18). 118

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In the maintenance of their class privileges, college athletes did not compete with members of the working class, who by their station in life were presumed to be amenable to bribes or money prizes. “In the English tradition, how one played mattered more than the outcome and said more about the man than the win itself. In America, there was no tradition to speak of, so the outcome mattered more” (Des Jardins 2015, 100). American school rivalries would continually challenge such a standard as student-organized teams began offering subsidies in quest of the best players regardless of their social status. Fielding Yost (1871–1946), coach of the University of Michigan team at the turn of the twentieth century, declared that “the Spirit [sic] of Michigan is based on deathless loyalty to Michigan and all her ways, an enthusiasm that makes it second nature for Michigan Men to spread the gospel of their University [sic] to the world’s distant outposts, and a conviction that nowhere is there a better university, in any way, than this Michigan of ours” (Bacon 2015, 424). Consequently, graduates of the schools (known as alumni) supported the athletic teams, especially football, with monetary donations and even illegal means to induce the best athletes to attend and play for their cherished colleges. Just as their older siblings established football clubs to represent their colleges or universities, their younger brethren organized athletic teams at the public and private high schools. Football served a similar purpose for them, a means to test their masculinity against their rivals and establish a measure of social status within their communities. The physicality and violence endemic in the game was believed to substitute for the lack of actual warfare between the American Civil War (1861–1865) and the Spanish-American War of 1898, enabling football players to demonstrate their vitality, courage, and prowess as local heroes in sport. Walter Camp “told boys that superior physicality defined their manhood and that it could be achieved on a football field better than anywhere else” (Des Jardins 2015, 5). He further stated that “it is perhaps that likeness of football to war that so stirs men’s hearts. The same physiological alterations occur in a great athletic contest such as the Harvard-Yale foot ball [sic] game as come in anticipation of mortal combat” (Des Jardins 2015, 130). Theodore Roosevelt concurred by asserting “I am the father of three boys. I do not know whether they are going to make athletes in college or not; but I will say right here that if I thought any one of them would weight a possible broken hand against the glory of being chosen to play on Harvard’s football eleven I would disinherit him” (Des Jardins 2015, 126).

Football and Social Integration The game, however, could not be reserved for boys and men of the upper classes. By the early twentieth century, the American states increasingly adopted mandatory education laws, which required ethnic, immigrant, and working-class children to attend schools. In physical education classes they learned the American games and many boys became members of one of the numerous sport teams, where they won acceptance because the quest for victory required the inclusion of the best athletes regardless of birth or social background (Pruter 2013). In this way, sport contributed to the Americanization of ethnic minorities. 119

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French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) explained the concept of habitus as a predisposition toward a world view based upon one’s social class (Bourdieu 1972). The physicality of football lent itself to the habitus of the working classes who had no social status or economic capital, but might gain a greater measure of acceptance through their physical prowess. Social reformers introduced mandatory education laws at the turn of the twentieth century that required children to attend schools, where they were introduced not only to the English language and the democratic political system but also to American sports and games. Education and athletic participation enabled the inclusion of the multitudes of ethnic immigrant youth in the mainstream society.

The Death Knell of Amateurism and the Rise of the Working Class The competitive nature of American society enhanced by school and civic pride led to widespread gambling on football games. In 1892, William Walter “Pudge” Heffelfinger (1867–1954), formerly a star player on the Yale team, accepted $500 to play for an urban athletic association team in Pittsburgh against their rivals, signaling the professionalization of football. Teams increasingly hired top players thereafter. As early as 1902, there were enough salaried teams to pursue the organization of a professional league, which eventually reached fruition in 1920. By that time numerous industrial teams often sponsored by their employers and composed of working class players brought publicity to their companies and added income to the athletes and their fans who bet on the team as the social class distinctions of the game’s founders gave way to civic pride (Gems 2000, 91; McClellan 1998). Professional leagues sprouted in the Midwest and by 1920 a national league had been formed, offering greater opportunities to working-class players and their fans. Football remained an inclusive sport for most spectators over the next half century as members of different social classes mixed in a common interest in the stadium. That atmosphere changed in the latter half of the twentieth century as new stadiums included luxury suites, known as skyboxes, where wealthy observers could segregate themselves from the masses. With the concurrent rise in ticket prices, many working class fans opted to watch games on television rather than pay for the expensive seats in the stadium.

Race The concept of race has affected the United Sates more so than other countries. It has been a recurring issue in American society even before the introduction of African slaves in 1619. Both Spanish and English colonists deemed the Native American Indians to be an inferior race and they became subject to enslavement and decimation. The subjugation of the Indians continued throughout the nineteenth century until all native tribes were either assimilated or confined on territorial reservations. African American slaves gained their freedom with the victory of the Union forces in the American Civil War; but that did not guarantee them acceptance within the mainstream white society. 120

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White scientists justified the superiority of white Anglo-Americans through the doctrine of social Darwinism, in particular with the dogma of the survival of the fittest that rationalized the privileges of the white population. In the Southern states, civic officials enforced a system of segregation that separated blacks from whites not only in residential areas but also in social relationships. In the wake of the American Civil War, previously enslaved blacks were granted their freedom and citizenship, and even though separate schools and universities were created for black students, the segregated schools adopted football as a means of entertainment. In the first football contest between black institutions of higher learning, the team of Biddle University (now Johnson C. Smith University) defeated Livingstone College in 1892. Sport, and football in particular, became a means for people of color and members of other subordinate groups to challenge the social hierarchy and the dominant ideology of white superiority. In the more liberal environment of the northern states, black athletes could attend colleges of predominately white students and participate in football on some college teams. George Jewett (1870–1908) starred as a member of the University of Michigan team in 1890, but was still refused admittance to a hotel until his fellow team members came to his rescue. William Henry Lewis (1868–1949), the son of former slaves, earned recognition on the All-American team for his play at Harvard in 1892 and 1893. Yet, he too, suffered indignities, for example, when a local white barber refused to cut his hair. In spite of such prejudices against blacks, Lewis earned a law degree and become assistant attorney general of the United States (Gems 2000, 113–14). African American athletes increasingly won fame on the football field thereafter. In 1916, Fritz Pollard (1894–1986) won recognition on the tmerican team for his standout play on the Brown University team. He was followed in that distinction over the next two years by Paul Robeson (1898–1976) of Rutgers College as black athletes earned a measure of acknowledgement by the white selectors as the best football players in the nation. Black players increasingly appeared on teams of the northern states thereafter, but did not play in any games that occurred in the segregated Southern states until 1947 when the Harvard team insisted on bringing a black player, Chester Pierce (1927–2016), to play against the team of the University of Virginia. Southern teams did not recruit black football players until coaches realized that they could not compete successfully against regional rivals without the best players regardless of their race. When the University of Alabama, the premier team in the South, lost badly to the University of Southern California and its black stars in 1970, coaches in Southern states began to jettison their exclusionary racial policies, which signaled a wholesale change in the race relations in the country (Whittingham 2001, 199).

African-American Football Players on the National Stage Fritz Pollard was the first black athlete to gain stardom in the professional ranks, serving as a player-coach and the first black quarterback of the newly formed NFL in 1920. He was soon followed by Paul Robeson, the valedictorian of his Rutgers class, who later earned a law degree and became a world renowned singer, actor, and social activist (Carroll 1992; Duberman 1988). 121

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After the 1933 season, however, blacks were banned from the NFL, largely by the instigation of George Marshall (1896–1969), the Southern owner of the Washington, DC team; and they did not gain re-entry until after World War II. When the Cleveland Rams relocated to Los Angeles in 1946, they were pressured by the media and civic officials to hire black players in order to be allowed to use the Coliseum, a city stadium, for their games. The Cleveland Browns team of the All-American Football Conference, an upstart professional league and a rival of the NFL, also began hiring black players with great success. The two leagues merged in 1950, and black players increasingly began to dominate the professional football ranks in succeeding decades.

Native Americans Blacks were not the only Americans to suffer from racial discrimination. Native American Indians had experienced violence since the earliest colonization efforts of the European pioneers in the sixteenth century. The US Army conquered the Native American Indian tribes and the government began secluding them on reservations throughout the nineteenth century. In 1879, the government established the first of its residential schools for Indian children in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where sports played a prominent role in the attempt to assimilate them into white society. Students were forced to speak English, wear the clothing of the whites, learn skills for the industrial workforce, and play sports that reinforced WASP value systems. The students of Carlisle began playing football in 1890 and by the end of the decade the institution featured All-American players and challenged the dominant white teams of the East. In 1903, the Carlisle team defeated Harvard, but it took particular glee in defeating the US Army team from the military academy at West Point in New York, in symbolic retribution for the slaughter of the Indians’ ancestors. A Carlisle historian claimed that when the team faced the Army they “play football as if they were possessed” (Gems 2000, 121). The 1912 Carlisle team featured Jim Thorpe, Olympic champion in both the pentathlon and decathlon that summer, who led the nation in scoring during the football season. Thorpe would later serve as the star player and first president of the professional football league (NFL). Indians gained further retribution as members of the Oorang team, a professional contingent during the 1922 and 1923 seasons, which was organized by Jim Thorpe and sponsored by a white kennel owner, Walter Lingo (1890–1966), in Ohio. Lingo purchased a franchise in the nascent National Football League (NFL) as a means to advertise his dogs at halftime during the team’s games. The Indians fared poorly, with losing records during the 1922 and 1923 seasons, but gladly spent Lingo’s money in saloons around the league (Gems 1998). In this way, the Indians won small battles with the dominant white society, but did not gain full citizenship rights until 1924, despite the fact that they were the only true Native Americans. The diminishing number of Native Americans greatly affected their representation in the ranks of football players; but Jim Plunkett, of Indian ancestry on his mother’s side, resurrected racial pride. In 1970, he won the Heisman Trophy, symbolic of the nation’s best football player, as a quarterback at Stanford University

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before embarking on a professional career in the NFL that included two Super Bowl victories. The controversy relative to Native Americans continues today as the appellation of the Washington Redskins is considered to be a demeaning ethnic slur by most Indian tribes. Daniel Snyder (b. 1964), owner of the team, refuses to change the name despite the urgings of the NFL commissioner and other owners of professional teams. In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the governing body for intercollegiate athletics in the United States, pressured schools to discontinue using Native American nicknames or mascots and threatened those who did not comply with sanctions.

Football and Leadership For much of the twentieth century, both collegiate and professional teams were accused of the practice of “stacking,” i.e., the placing of players in the different positions of a team based on stereotypes. This practice denied minority athletes positions of power or leadership, particularly the position of the quarterback, who is considered to be the leader and strategist of the team. Black players were often confined to defensive roles, and as roles as runners, or pass receivers, i.e., tasks which referred to their presumed physical gifts of speed and agility. Pressures to win and secure their jobs, however, forced coaches to place the best athletes at every position regardless of race. The focus on stacking then switched to the coaching ranks where few African Americans were chosen as head coaches. In 2003, the NFL adopted the Rooney Rule, named after Dan Rooney (b. 1932–2017), owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ franchise, which had been more liberal in its hiring of black players and coaches than other owners. The regulation stipulates that when a head coaching vacancy ensues, the owners are required to interview at least one minority candidate for the position. In Super Bowl XLI, played in 2007, two black head coaches, Tony Dungy (b. 1955) of the Indianapolis Colts, and Lovie Smith (b. 1958) of the Chicago Bears, led their respective teams to the national championship game, thus clearly refuting (potential) negative stereotypes about blacks in coaching positions. Dungy had been mentored by Dennis Green (1949–2016), an early African-American coach of the Minnesota Vikings team, and Dungy then mentored Mike Tomlin (b. 1972), the current black coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers team (Bell 2016). Social interactionist theory asserts that such learning allows participants to make sense of their culture, in this case the hegemonic culture of football (Sage and Eitzen 2016, 16). In that sense it is helpful for black coaches to educate other black coaches about the intricacies of negotiating the white power structure. Despite the intent and initial success of the Rooney Rule, more recent hires in the NFL show a diminishing number of head coaches of color. Only one of the twenty-two NFL head coaches hired between 2011 and 2016 has been an African American (Bell 2016, 66). Head coaches are generally chosen from the ranks of offensive and defensive coordinators who are the team strategists. Eighty of the eighty-five offensive coordinators and twenty-three of the thirty-two defensive coordinators on NFL teams in 2016 were white, greatly limiting the pool of black candidates (McMillen 2016).

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The nature of hiring at the college level has shown similarly dismal results, where 112 of the top 128 schools have white head-football coaches. Only six coaches are African American, a decrease from 2014; four are Asian, and three are Latinos. There are no Native American head football coaches at that level. Richard Lapchick (b. 1945), director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, issues an annual report on race and gender, and recently stated that “Compared to the major pro leagues in terms of racial hiring, college sports are way behind in their hiring practices.” He suggests that they adopt an Eddie Robinson (1919–2007) rule, named after a famous and highly successful African American coach at Grambling State University. Similar to the NFL’s Rooney Rule, such a directive would require all university athletic departments as well as the NCAA (the collegiate athletics governing body) to include members of minorities and women in the interview processes during hiring. The majority of football players at both the top divisional level in colleges and in the professional ranks are African Americans, yet that racial composition is not reflected in the coaching ranks. The issue of stacking still retains currency among ownership ranks in the NFL. Shahid Khan (b. 1950), born in Pakistan and owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars franchise since 2011, is the only non-white owner of an NFL team. There are no African American or Latino owners, and only two female owners, who inherited their teams from male relatives.

The Multicultural Labor Force The changing nature of the racial composition of football players is also evident in the continuous increase of Polynesian players in the game at both the collegiate and professional levels. American Samoa, a group of five small islands in the southwestern Pacific was colonized by the Americans in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War of 1898. British and American missionaries had already been seeking converts in Hawaii, Samoa, and Tonga throughout the nineteenth century. Rugby had been a traditional sport in Samoa until American football began to supersede the British game in the 1960s. Samoans in particular took readily to the game, and their girth and demeanor attracted coaches from the mainland soon after. Their communal culture, respect and deference to authority, family loyalty, and humility provide characteristics compatible to team sports. In a population of less than sixty-five-thousand, where workers generally make less than $10,000 per year, and poverty is widespread, football offers talented players a means to a college scholarship and dreams of NFL glory. More than 200 American Samoans appeared on the rosters of Division I college teams in 2015. Polynesian players have long been a mainstay on teams such as the University of Hawaii, where they have accounted for more than half the players, and West Coast teams in the Pac-12 conference. Marcus Mariota (b. 1993), winner of the Heisman Trophy as the best collegiate player as a quarterback for the University of Oregon in 2014, is a Hawaiian of Samoan ancestry. Samoans formed the brunt of the University of Utah’s rise to prominence in the Pacific Coast Conference. In the 2016 football season, seven Samoans played for tiny North Park University, a Division III school located in Chicago. Almost all NFL teams feature Polynesians as well. In addition to the Samoans, fifteen NFL teams employed Tongan players in 2014. A 60 Minutes documentary on the CBS television network in 2010 claimed that 124

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Samoans had the highest per capita employment in the NFL and were fifty-six times more likely to reach the professional ranks than a boy born in America (Sager 2015; Miller 2015; Pelley 2010; Fonua 2014). Such practices suggest that racial matters will continue to influence and gain importance as the globalization of the game and the emphasis on winning produces an international workforce.

Gender Walter Camp, considered to be the “father of American football” proclaimed that “a feminine mind will never make a foot ball [sic] player; it is an intensely masculine game” (Des Jardins, 2015, 150). Although the NFL claims 44 percent of its fans are women, gender remains central to the game of football as the most visible and popular expression of hegemonic masculinity which crosses race, ethnic, social class, and age boundaries within American culture (Dosh 2012; Connell 2005). The public display of masculinity has been an essential component of male identity and acceptance among peers throughout American history. Private displays of masculinity remain invisible and therefore worthless without validation. It is no coincidence that football emerged and blossomed, spreading rapidly across the American continent between 1869 and 1898 in the interim between the Civil War (1861–1865) and the Spanish-American War (1898). That period also witnessed a feminine challenge to the dominant male hierarchy within American society as women entered colleges, campaigned for suffrage rights, and engaged in their own sporting practices as liberating experiences. Before 1860, 90 percent of men enjoyed self-employment and a sense of independence as farmers and craftsmen. Less than 33 percent did so by 1910 as industrialization and urbanization forced many into wage labor. Men also faced increasing competition from women entering the workforce and the necessity of female labor for family sustenance emphasized women’s encroachment on the traditional male sphere and further diminished men’s masculinity as a provider. Furthermore, during the latter nineteenth century, young, vivacious, and independent middle-class women challenged Victorian gender norms by entering college, gaining professional positions, and engaging in active leisure pursuits, such as sports that required greater speed and power, characteristics previously deemed to be the sole province of men (Gems 2000, 5). Football coaches, in conjunction with male political leaders, male physicians, and male psychologists reacted to the perceived feminization of culture by creating a new definition of masculinity as tough, aggressive, competitive, virile, and violent. G. Stanley Hall (1846–1924), first president of the American Psychological Association, asserted that ‘too much association with girls diverts the youth from developing his full manhood.’ (Gems 2000, 63) Theodore Roosevelt often linked football with moral strength and citizenship. He stated that I emphatically disbelieve in seeing Harvard or any other college turn out molly coddles instead of vigorous men….I do not in the least object 125

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to sport because it is rough….We cannot afford to turn out college men who shrink from physical effort or from a little physical pain. In any republic, courage is a prime necessity for the average citizen if he is to be a good citizen; and he needs physical courage no less than moral courage, the courage that endures, the courage that will fight valiantly alike against the foe of the soul and the foes of the body. Athletics are good, especially in their rougher forms, because they tend to develop such courage. They are good also because they encourage a true democratic spirit, for in the athletic field, the man must be judged not with reference to outside and accidental attributes but by that combination of bodily vigor and moral quality which go to make up prowess. (Gems 2000, 77) Football proponents also extolled the virtues of the Muscular Christianity movement championed by the YMCA and other evangelical Christians. “Pudge” Heffelfinger, the Yale All-American, claimed that “Football training removes temptations…which every young man is subjected to.” A report by Harvard University concurred “that the man who trains is left stronger in mind and body, as also in that moral strength which enables him to resist temptation to vice.” Football as surrogate warfare assumed even greater proportions in 1892 when Harvard coach Lorin Deland (1855–1917), a chess master and Napoleonic scholar, adopted military battle tactics to the contests by forming a human wedge of players that got a running start aimed at a lone defender. Although soon banned for its destructive capabilities, the concept is still employed on kick returns today. Even as the violence and resultant death tolls associated with the game resulted in a movement to ban football at the turn of the twentieth century, Edwin Alderman (1861–1931), president of the University of Virginia, rationalized that “football encouraged courage, self-denial, self-restraint, and unselfish loyalty to a cause. It required skill, daring, and pluck, and it established ‘ideals of bodily cleanliness”’ (Gems 2000, 85). As early as 1890, even the liberal Nation magazine noted the values of sport as training for the corporate life. “The spirit of the American youth, as of the man, is to win, to ‘get there,’ by fair means or foul; and the lack of moral scruple which pervades the struggle of the business world meets with temptations equally irresistible in the miniature contests of the football field” (The Nation 1895). College teams permitted only male cheerleaders until the World War I era because it was assumed that no man would follow the directions of a female. Team colors were chosen judiciously, as those deemed to be effeminate diminished perceptions of masculinity. Team nicknames and mascots assumed the characteristics of violent, aggressive, or hostile beasts. By mid-century the terminology of the game emphasized its warlike nature, as linemen battled “in the trenches,” quarterbacks threw the “long bomb,” and linebackers “blitzed” the thrower. Sociologist Erving Goffman (1922–1982) categorized the dominant form of masculinity throughout the era. “In an important sense there is only one complete unblushing male in America: a young, married, white, urban, northern heterosexual, Protestant father, of college education, fully employed, of good complexion, weight, and height, and a recent record in sports….Any male who fails to qualify in any one of these ways is likely to view himself—during moments at least—as unworthy, incomplete, and inferior” (Goffman 1963, 128). Such prescribed gender norms were tested in the succeeding decades as a youthful counterculture spread its influence across the nation. While many coaches 126

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tried to maintain conservative values and appearances on both collegiate and professional teams, some players wore their hair long and became symbols of the promiscuous sexual liberation. Joe Namath (b. 1943), famed quarterback of the New York Jets, even posed in women’s panty hose for a television advertisement, as both men and women began to cross the socially constructed gender lines. By the early twentieth century, women were relegated to the sidelines as cheerleaders, a supportive role that honored the real heroes on the field. Such positions became even more feminized and glamorized with the introduction of professional squads, such as the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders in 1960 that accentuated subservient gender roles and appearances. The feminist movement of the latter twentieth century resulted in the formation of a number of female football teams and a nascent league by the 1970s. Title IX, a federal law enacted in 1972 provided equal opportunity for all in government-funded activities, which allowed girls and women to participate on male teams in schools. Most who did so at the high school and college levels were relegated to secondary roles, often as kickers. Some at the collegiate level were subjected to sexual harassment and at least one resulted in a highly publicized rape case. More recently women have formed their own football leagues with twenty-six teams in the Independent Women’s Football League in 2016, while the Women’s Football Alliance numbered thirty teams, and the United States Women’s Football League counted seven members, with other contingents existing in Canada, Europe, and Australia. The Lingerie League, renamed the Legends League in 2013, an indoor version played on a smaller field with the players wearing bikinis, continues to sexualize women and promote prurient interest, and has expanded to Europe and Australia (www.iwflsports.com; www.wfafootball.net). The NFL however has noticed the appeal of the game to women as well, claiming that 52.6 million women watched the 2016 Super Bowl on television. Women represent one of the largest growth markets for the league and it has consequently taken action to address gender inequality among its employment ranks. Whereas one woman has become an NFL referee and another reached the ranks of an assistant coach, only 30 percent of the league’s front office employees are women. In 2016, it invoked a female version of the Rooney Rule to hire more women in executive roles and hired a former female football player to identify and train other women for such positions (McManus 2016). Despite the female usurpation of the traditionally male game, the male locker room remained sacrosanct until female sportswriters sued to gain access to the male bastion in order to gain the same right to timely interviews as their male counterparts. The early female pioneers faced hostility, harassment, and insults. Players on the New England Patriots team of 1990 purposely exposed themselves to discomfort a female journalist who ventured into their midst. While such intrepid women have since become the new norm, homosexuality has offered a new challenge to the football establishment. While there have been some homosexual players, none had ever admitted their sexuality publically while playing for a professional team. That changed in 2014 when Michael Sam (b. 1990), a star defensive player for the University of Missouri, and openly gay, entered the professional NFL draft. Despite stellar credentials, including being named the Defensive Player of the Year in the Southeast Conference, he was the last player drafted by the St. Louis Rams. Both the Rams and the Dallas Cowboys later cut him from their squad. Sam then pursued his football career in 127

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Canada with the Montreal Alouettes, but quit after only one game, suggesting that the football culture remains anchored in the past.

Football’s Cultural Significance As the author and former professional player Michael Oriard (b. 1948) suggests, football can be read as a cultural text (Oriard 1998). “The process of negotiating both the nature of the game and the nature of society produced a homogenization of culture which defined its intrinsic characteristics” (Gems 2000, 195). The evolution of the game fostered regional rivalries; but the regulation of the game, agreement upon the rules, and scheduling of contests required the cooperation of almost all teams in a unified bureaucracy at the professional, collegiate, and interscholastic levels. “Political, socioeconomic, religious, regional,” and even gender differences “became a part of the game, eventually integrating pluralistic values within a common framework of commercialized competition” (Gems 2000, 173). More than mere athletic contests, football continues to wage cultural battles played out in the symbols, rituals, and meanings inherent in the game as Americans continue to forge their national identity.

Further Reading Bacon, J. U. (2015). Endzone: The rise, fall, and return of Michigan football. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Bourdieu, P. (1972). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Camp, W. C. (1888). The American game of football. Harper’s Weekly, 858–59. Carroll, J. M. (1992). Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in racial advancement. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Connell, R.W. (2005). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press. Des Jardins, J. (2015). Walter Camp: Football and the modern man. New York: Oxford. Dosh, K. (2012, February 3). NFL may be hitting stride with female fans. ESPN. Retrieved May 7, 2016, from http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/7536295/nfl-finding-success-targeting -women-fans-merchandise-fashion Duberman, M. B. (1988). Paul Robeson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Fonua, F. (2014, November 27) 21 Tongans in the NFL. Matangi Tonga. Retrieved May 6, 2016, from http:// matangitonga.to/2014/11/27/21-tongans-nfl Garaty, J. A. (1983). The American nation: A history of the United States. New York: Harper & Row. Gems, G. R. (1998). The Construction, Negotiation, and Transformation of Racial Identity in American Football. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 22(2), 131–150. Gems, Gerald R. (2000). For pride, profit & patriarchy: Football and the incorporation of American cultural values. Lanham. MD: Scarecrow Press. Gems, G. R., & Pfister, G. (2009). Understanding American Sports. New York: Routledge. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Harvard Advocate. (1877). Hoare, Q., & Smith, G. N. (Eds.). (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. New York: International Publishers. Holt, R., & Russell, D. (2002). Amateurism. In R. Cox, D. Russell, & W. Vamplew (Eds.), Encyclopedia of British Football. London: Frank Cass. Maynard, W. B. (2011, March 23). Princeton in the Confederacy’s service. Princeton Alumni Weekly. Retrieved June 6, 2016, from https://paw.princeton.edu/article/princeton-confederacys-service McClellan, K. (1998). The Sunday game: At the dawn of professional football. Akron OH: University of Akron Press.

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Chapter Eight: Football and Social Change McManus, J. (2016, September 13). NFL tabs Sam Rapoport to help open job “pipeline” for women at team level. Retrieved September 13, 2016, from http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17537422/nfl-tabs -sam-rapoport-help-open-job-pipeline-women McMillen, G. (2016, July 19) Despite Rooney Rule, minority NFL coaches still aren’t hired often enough. Retrieved August 1, 2016, from http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/news/minority-nfl-coaches-hired -rooney-rule-black-white-ratio/6ibid5a55w831huauw5nwkmxk Miller, T. (2015). Polynesian players provide backbone of Utah’s Pac-12 surge. ESPN. Retrieved May 6, 2016, from college-football/story/_id/13825106/Polynesian-players-provide-backbone-utah-utes-pac-12-surge Oriard, M. (1998). Reading football: How the popular press created an American spectacle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Pelley, S. (2010). 60 Minutes: Football Island. CBS. Presbrey, F., & Moffatt, J. H. (Eds.). (1901). Athletics at Princeton: A history. New York: Frank Presbrey Co. Pruter, R. (2013). The rise of American high school sports and the search for control, 1880–1930. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Roosevelt, T. (1893). The Value of Athletic Training. Harper’s Weekly. 1236. Sager, M. (2015). The Samoan Pipeline. The California Sunday Magazine. The Nation. (1890). 895. Veblen, T.(1899). The theory of the leisure class. New York: MacMillan Weininger, E. B. (2004). Pierre Bourdieu on social class and symbolic violence. In E. Olin Write, Alternative foundations of class analysis (pp. 119–171). Whittingham, R. (2001). Rites of Autumn: The story of college football. New York: Free Press. www.iwflsports.com (accessed May 7, 2016). www.wfafootball.net (accessed May 7, 2016).

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Chapter Nine: Imagining Football Fandom in the United States: Home of the Free or the Branded Pursuit of Belonging? Sarah EIKLEBERRY St. Ambrose University

The relationship between fan expression and the corporatizing backdrop of American football is often fraught. Though fans, players, or other sport producers still use the game of football to develop or express their collective identities, corporate stakeholders’ sanitizing efforts contribute to creative and consumptive tensions. Irrespective of region, division, or conference, fans continue to engage in unique and dynamic cultural assemblages that comprise a team’s fan culture, and as such, undergird the individual ethos of a variety of college and professional teams. Keywords: Fandom, imagined community, regionalism, expression, agency, constraint, corporatization, trademark National Football League, National Collegiate Athletic Association , race, social class, Baltimore, Oakland, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, Alabama.

I

n its star-spangled, American form, football fandom remains a slippery phenomena. Fan bases and the acts which construct their fandom serve as cultural signifiers, embodying, and at times rejecting or suspending community or regional norms. At home or far-flung throughout the spectator diaspora, fan traditions, expressions, and reactions range from informal and traditional to dark and pathological. At the personal level, corporate analogs abound; fans attend game-day competitions, emblazon themselves, their homes, and their vehicles with their respective teams’ corresponding colors and logos and mascots, snap photos and take videos of their sons’ and increasingly daughters’ sideline and infield endeavors. In more elite levels of sport, increased commercialization has resulted in the corporatized, marketed, and repackaged, contextually flexible, and optimally profitable way that defines and enforces how a fan can become and remain a constituent of the apple pie imaginary associated with rooting for their home team (Wenner 2008, 15–16). This chapter examines the relationship between individual and collective fan expression within the ever (hyper)-modernizing and corporatizing backdrop of American football. In a moment defined by ziggurat-like sports venues, 131

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the unbridled acceptance and embrace of new, increasingly digitized forms of mass media, and a bevy of sport-related consumer goods, fandom in the twenty-first century simply looks and feels different. Though fans, players, or other sport producers still use football as a means to develop or express their collective identities, as brands become more corporatized, fans experience more constraints in the face of institutional stakeholders’ sanitizing efforts. Even within the most unique or notable fan bases, fans must negotiate their desire to support their teams through what they choose to purchase, even as they hold the potential to disrupt the branded status quo through their own productions and assemblages as fans. Fan bases and spaces consist of individuals, micro-communities, regions, and broader fan sub-cultures that comprise flexible units of belonging. Such units are in concert with one another, but also preserve some metaphorical flex for both self-definition and cross-affiliation. Such expressions are not only limited to the franchise or team, but are also tethered to the economic identity of the region. Critical regional studies scholar Cheryl Herr argues that the means of production impact the unique emotional economies of a region, but are united by the potential and oftentimes exploitative “market possibilities” (Herr 1996, 3). Local booms and busts of the agriculture market, the concessionary bargaining and state-sponsored destabilization of urban manufacturing centers, decaying suburban enclaves that have harbored and then been abandoned by middle-class tax bases within the past half century, each contribute to the psyches of regional, local, and diasporic fan imaginaries. American spectator sport, governed by commercial interests, has slowly witnessed the conversion of “the physical embodiments of local traditions and histories” into brands with a proclivity towards the corporate good (Coakley 2015, 358).

Professional Football: For the (Right Kind) of People Football fan culture is an area in which disappearing traditions carry over into ritualistic fandom and phenomenological understandings of team identity. American Studies scholar Dan Nathan’s (2013) work on sport, community, and identity begins with the assumption that the act of following and supporting local athletes, coaches, and teams “often symbolizes a community’s preferred understanding of itself” (2). Consider the row houses with white marble steps and painted window screens of Baltimore, Maryland, where Nathan’s convincing work on the importance of the Baltimore Colts to the collective pride and identity of this Mid-Atlantic seaport demonstrates the effect a team can have on a town that has “long been in decline, plagued by unemployment, poverty, crime, violence (much of it drug related), a crumbling infrastructure, and troubled public schools” (2013, 108). After arriving from their previous franchise location in Dallas in 1953, the “hapless” players were symbiotically embraced by their hard-luck fans. After a massive upset against the well-established New York Giants for the NFL championship in 1958, the fan base heralded their accessible team. Several Colts’ team members worked second jobs at local docks, garages, and stores; lived in ordinary neighborhoods; and were encouraged by owners to take part in community affairs. John Unitas (1933–2002), who worked at Bethel Steel during his rookie season, served as a local folk hero, signifying the values and narratives that many Baltimoreans valued about themselves: toughness, dignity, loyalty, clean-cut professionalism, and a white-ethnic 132

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heritage with blue-collar experience. Unfortunately, all gilded-eras come to an end. By the 1970s, the post-war economic boom subsided, white flight to suburbia escalated, and racial tensions and cultural fragmentation increased. In 1972, Robert Irsay (1923–1997), a “disagreeable” and “quixotic” owner surreptitiously acquired Charm City’s (Baltimore) Colts after purchasing the Los Angeles Rams and trading franchises with Carroll Rosenbloom (1907–1979), in order to avoid a large tax sum. Growing concerns related to dipping attendance and increasing tensions between the city and state government prompted Irsay to pack up the team’s equipment, furniture, and records onto moving trucks bound for Indianapolis. Fearing an impending state seizure of the team through eminent domain, Irsay and his Colts galloped to the Hoosier State (Indiana) in 1984 (Nathan 2013, 108, 114–119). Another geographically fickle franchise, the Raiders (originally and currently based in Oakland, though slated to relocate to Las Vegas in 2020), serves as an “alternative to California’s sunshine-and-granola image,” embodying a rebellious regional, national, and arguably global diaspora of fans “smitten with their outlaw mystique” (Miller and Mayhew 2005, 5). The Raiders, due to their move from Oakland to Los Angles in 1982, and their return home to Oakland in 1995, partially explains the ability of Raider Nation (as the fan base is known) to serve as an imaginary community to both Oakland’s flatlands and Southeast Los Angeles. These blighted communities embraced the Raider Nation’s “Al Davis affirmation of blue-collar toughness, rebellion, and solidarity in a cultural moment that valorizes the lifestyles of the rich and famous” (Miller and Mayhew 2005, 5). Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew argue that Raider Nation offers a multiracial panoply of behaviors that signify “the bad part of town”—such as those who occupy the fan section known as The Black Hole tending to “menace fans accustomed to watered-down, Disnified corporate sports experiences” (5). The Raiders have brokered a move from the Oakland Alameda Coliseum to the nation’s sin-filled betting capital, Las Vegas, a community that until recently, “the NFL viewed with a jaundiced eye” (Futterman 2016, Dec. 29). Though it seems the odds are favoring the formerly feckless owner, after “a series of surprisingly canny moves,” Mark Davis (b. 1954), son of renegade Al Davis (1929–2011), may have positioned the “storied franchise” to benefit from one of the most lucrative hands in NFL history (Futterman 2016, Dec. 29). For another town and franchise frequently portrayed as “down and out,” a viewer may turn their barstool to a ventricular segment of the industrial Midwest’s heartland. As a franchise, the Cleveland Browns have experienced their own series of heart-wrenching losses. Further compounding their athletic chest pains, this Great Lakes-based transportation hub became a sort of sports fly-over area until 2016 when their NBA team, the Cavaliers, led by LeBron James (b. 1984) and Kyrie Irving (b. 1992), ushered in the town’s first championship in half a century. In the mid-eighties, new trade deals, the departure of many manufacturers, and inflation contributed to economic discord and levels of employment that far outpaced national figures. Strapped by the recession, loyal, rabid, yet ever-hopeful Cleveland Browns’ teammates and fans channeled their creative energies to inspire and promote the infamous “Dawg Pound,” a collection of large, masked and costumed men, rabid fans often featured on televised games. In 1985, an inside joke between cornerbacks Hanford Dixon (b. 1958) and Frank Minnifield (b. 1960) at preseason training camp provided the “first inspirational bark” (Smith 1999, 182). Additionally, a local fundraising poster from Fazio’s grocery, titled “The Dogs of Defense” 133

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translated to the transformation of the east-bleacher fan base, and what Minnifield recalls as an advantage that other teams would be expected to overcome. Minnifield maintains that “In Seattle, it was the deafening roar of the crowd. In Denver, it was the altitude. But if you came to Cleveland in good weather, there was nothing you had to overcome. There really wasn’t an advantage” (Smith 1999, 184). Beginning with a simple sign, eccentric members of the Dawg Pound soon donned dog noses, bone-shaped hats, and other canine-inspired masks. Rowdy behavior dominated as “Denizens of the Dawg Pound” purchased Milk Bone dog treats to project at opposing fans. Dawg Pounders took their commitment to razzing opposing teams and fans to unprecedented heights. Emotional advantage, Browns. According to sportswriter Christopher Maher (2010, Dec. 8), “No one in the group would walk into Gate E of Cleveland Municipal Stadium without a full belly and a buzz on” (bleacherreport. com) with bootlegged dark beer in plastic Coke 2-liters, a keg hidden inside of a makeshift dog house, and “Brown’s anti-freeze” also known as Eskimo cider, a 1:2 mix of 100-proof Yukon Jack whiskey and apple cider (Maher 2010, Dec. 8). Similar to the revelry of the “consumer creativity” that is often associated with tailgates, the Dawg Pound provides an example of what Tanya Williams Bradford and John Sherry Jr. (2016) frame as “the tension between the individual autonomy of fandom” and the institutionalized brand (3). The Dawg Pound, is an example of how football fans and corporate stakeholders graft rhetoric, folklore, and myth to create a “shared sense of purpose, or a sense of community,” and in turn, allow teams to serve as a “as a form of public therapy” (Martin and Breitenfelt 2008, 34, 44). Cleveland is only one of many teams with a distinct disregard for their rivals. Despite their penchant for throwing dog biscuits and the occasional Duracell battery, some fan bases’ willingness to debase visitors have earned them infamy from sportswriters. For example, Philadelphia Eagles’ fans have often thrown food or beverages on rival spectators, and in some cases, snowballs. After a terribly disappointing conclusion to the 1968 season, fans reserved no “brotherly love” for even Santa Claus himself, gaining further notoriety as devotees of a particularly callous and aggressive ilk (Dalakas and Melancon 2012, 52). Local papers made little mention of the depressing turn of events and “the St. Nick affair.” National Enquirer and Bulletin each buried the “snowball incident” deep into their post-game coverage. Unfortunately for Philadelphia fans, the incident was noted by the sportscaster for “ABC Weekend Report,” Howard Cosell (1918–1995), whose coverage featured “the pelting of Santa, along with his polysyllabic criticism of ‘the Philadelphia faithful’” (Macnow and Gargano 2003, 37). Many fan bases distinctly possess a unique flavor, however, twenty-first century corporate logic has begun to bear greater influence. James R. Walker notes that despite professional football’s disreputable rough-and tumble beginnings, “capitalist cities of the 21st century build publicly-funded stadiums as monuments to their privately owned sports teams to be occupied by the rich, those who can afford seat licenses, and those who can afford luxury boxes” (Walker 2012, ix). For Philadelphia Eagles fans, their franchise’s 2003 game-day move to the $500 million Lincoln Financial Field, or “Linc,” represents a trend towards leaving out fans any less than upper middle class. Such folks are left to catch games “on television, like the poor seeking alms outside the temple gate” (Walker 2012, ix). The Linc’s luxury club level charges $800 per ticket featuring “gourmet dining and mahogany bars serving top-shelf liquor” (Yost 2016, Nov. 12). The Eagles have led the way for the in terms 134

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of their tripartite security procedures for fan admittance. Sportswriter Mark Yost (2016) reports that, If the ticket-taker suspects the fan is intoxicated or has other concerns, he raises his hand and a second usher makes an assessment. If there’s still a question, a “black shirt,” usually an off-duty police officer, pulls the fan aside and questions him. If the black shirt thinks the fan is unfit to enter, he walks him over to the ticket booth, gives him a full refund, and says, “Have a nice day.” (Nov. 12) Perhaps the best example of the transition to the “corporate America nanny state” involves the use of personal digital technology to control fan expression (Maher 2010, Dec. 8). Other measures implemented by Eagles’ administration include a text-messaging system that allows fans to anonymously report trouble in a given section. Additionally, ushers use specialized pagers to communicate with support staff and to communicate with the camera-equipped control room that can easily “zoom in on the trouble spot and dispatch more help” (Yost 2016, Nov. 12). Neoliberal measures of self-policing are encouraged by other teams through measures such as the Cincinnati Bengals’ “Jerk Hotline.” Implemented in 2006 as a preventative measure, stadium-goers could text the word “JERK” to 69050, with the guarantee that a member of the security team would immediately respond to the text message to assist with the problem. In 2008, Buffalo Bills’ franchise owners attempted to tap into fan psyches through “old-fashioned shame” by revealing arrests from the stadium in local newspapers (Yost 2016, Nov. 12). That same year, the NFL created its first-ever league-wide fan behavior policy as a part of what league Commissioner Roger Goodell characterized as a commitment to “improving the fan experience in any way we can” (NFL teams 2008, Aug. 5). For many, Goodell’s improvements, smack of classism and exclusion. Though rising ticket costs and additional security measures do not prevent fans from forging, sharing, and maintaining some institutional rituals, it limits the number and type of fan who has the means to benefit from a specific type of social solidarity (Nathan 2013, 2).

Curiosities of College Football: Beyond the Cheers American football at either the professional or collegiate level has no shortage of institutionalized rituals: cultic preparations for at-home tailgate parties, scripted fan behaviors during assigned moments of play, standing for the national anthem, and refusing to sit during nail-biting moments of any competition. The University of Nebraska serves as an example to consider each of these. Based in Lincoln, the large public land-grant university illustrates a brand of collegiate football whose fans remain uniquely and loyally devoted. The Cornhuskers (team nickname) lay claim to the longest consecutive sell-out streak in college history, which began in 1962. Notre Dame University takes an admirable second place, yet still trails by ninety games. Roger C. Aden and Scott Titsworth (2012) argue that fans conceptualize their Husker fandom “as an embrace of a place and its culture,” and enact their football fandom to stay connected to their homes, “even when they physically reside elsewhere” (11–12). For fans who aren’t able to procure one of the 81,000 plus seats in Memorial Stadium, they can seek out one of over 100 commercial spaces hosting 135

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watch parties, an autumnal ritual standing in for their pride and support of their rural heritage. When fans enter a large stadium or arena, they are subject to a standard and ritualistic set of procedures. Though rule bending may be met with higher levels of diplomacy in tailgate areas, upon entering the hallowed Husker grounds of Memorial Stadium, fans are shuttled into specific gates, exits, and undergo routine bag and contraband checks. After their tickets are scanned by staff, fans enter bedecked in their team colors with game-day approved food and beverages. Patrons typically adhere to the rules and return prohibited items (including selfie sticks) to their cars. Similar to NFL fans, once inside, spectators are able to text and communicate violations and transgressions with the university’s police department. Different sections of the stadium are subject to a series of traditions, some codified, others not. In the student section, one is expected to “throw the bones,” more simply, cross one’s arms in the X symbol when welcoming the Blackshirts (defensive starters) onto the field and after defensive stops occur. During kickoff, the entire student section inexplicably removes a shoe or boot to raise into the air (Memorial Stadium Policies Announced 2016, Aug. 28; Welcome to the Boneyard, 2016). Without question, dedicated Husker fans enact their identities as supporters and Nebraskans in Memorial Stadium and from afar with seasonally mechanistic ardor. Such unified and seemingly impenetrable expressions of fandom are not without their weak spots. Nebraska fans have a long history of racist and nativist sentiments. Notre Dame discontinued games with Nebraska in the 1930s after suffering a decade of abuse from its anti-Catholic fans (Sperber 1993). Nebraskans’ nativist sentiments resonated more recently after a summer increasingly fraught with widely circulated evidence of police brutality directed at compliant African American men. Professional athletes, most notably, Colin Kaepernick (b. 1987), a back-up quarterback for the professional San Francisco 49ers, incited much reaction from the public after kneeling during the national anthem in a pre-season game in protest to alleged police brutality. Though other professional football players and even some soccer players imitated Kaepernicks’ kneeling example, few college athletes had followed suit. On 26 Sept. 2016, University of Nebraska senior linebacker Michael Rose-Ivey (b. 1993), alongside freshmen Mohamed Barry (b. 1996) and DaiShon Neal (b. 1997) repeated the protest by taking to one knee during the national anthem at an away competition at Northwestern University, and again at Ohio State University and University of Iowa. In solidarity with Kaepernick and “a chorus of athletes in the NFL, WNBA, college and high school using their platform to highlight these issues,” Rose-Ivey stated, that he was neither anti-America, anti-police, nor anti-military, but said “I cannot turn a blind eye to injustice” (Rose-Ivey in Des Belier 2016, Sept. 26; Planos 2016, Nov. 25). Notable figures such as Governor Pete Ricketts (b. 1964) and University of Nebraska regents Hal Daub (b. 1941) and Jim Pillen (b. 1955), also a former defensive back for Nebraska, publicly expressed their disappointment. Though Gov. Ricketts argued that “the way they chose to protest was disgraceful and disrespectful,” he agreed to meet with the players in the post season (Griswold 2016). According to Neal, “Some [of] Husker football nation showed their true colors, like I thought they would, coming out with the racial slurs, the N-words, hatred words, hatred letters, all type of different stuff. Saying, ‘I hope you break a leg and don’t play again’ type of stuff. I’m used to all that. That doesn’t bother me at 136

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all” (McKewon 2016). Rose-Ivey noted that many believed that the three players ought to “be kicked off the team or suspended, while some said we deserved to be lynched or shot just like the other black people that have died recently…Another believed that since we didn’t want to stand for the anthem, we should be hung before the anthem for the next game” (McKewon 2016). Despite the vitriol, Barry noted that there were nearly “15 positives to the negative…Our fans, they agree with it. They see the injustice, and, for the most part, they support us” (McKewon 2016). During home games at Memorial Stadium, it is the custom for athletes to remain in the locker room while the anthem is played. Upon their initial return to their home field’s “Sea of Red,” (the color of the home team) Rose-Ivey, Barry, and Neal were met by standing ovations upon their return to Memorial Stadium the following home game (Planos 2016, Oct. 1). The student government voted unanimously to support their protesting Huskers in a 31-0 vote. Additional support of the students and the protection of speech covered by the First Amendment was condoned by UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green, UNL President Hank Bounds, and Regents Chairman Kent Schroeder, who assured that students would not be penalized for exercising what Danielle Conrad, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska termed “a bedrock for American values” (Ruggles 2016). Despite drawing national attention, the purposeful pre-game protest, the impenetrable support of the student base and campus administration protected the inflatable sails of the Husker mascot Lil’ Red, and barely caused a ripple, let alone a parting of the Husker “Sea of Red.” Large public educational institutions remain in the business of strategically incorporating, mobilizing, and neutralizing issues of race, particularly in the face of the decades of dwindling state appropriations. Despite aggressive efforts to manage their brands, the image of public or philanthropic educational trusts has given way to those of glossy, privatized corporate institutions. Colleges and universities of all sizes have become overt training grounds for the commercial sphere which provide infrastructure for private businesses and financial buoyancy in increasingly austere waters. High-power athletic programs have not escaped large-scale commoditization. In market-driven spectator sport, slick sport spectacles further disconnect and displace uncomfortable narratives for more pleasurable, sanitized ones (Giroux 2007; King and Springwood 2001). One need scan no farther to see such cultural machinery in action than the University of Oklahoma (OU). Though Oklahoma is a state with over forty federally recognized Native American tribes, OU, the Sooner Schooner (a replica of a pioneer covered wagon) and pre-game spirit performances glorify a time of land-grubbing and affirms the citizenry of white pioneers. At OU, Sooner chants are accompanied by wagons and horses, harkening back to the Boomer movement, the recipients of land formerly occupied by various Indian Nations. Deputy marshals, land surveyors, railroad employees, and others of a certain social class were allowed to enter the premier territory “sooner” than the masses of the Boomer Movement. In OU’s Memorial Stadium, each touchdown is followed by a land-run reenactment as members of the all-male spirit squad, “The Ruf Neks,” sprint across the gridiron in a covered wagon, the Sooner Schooner, powered by two white ponies (Boomer and Sooner). Each successful descent into the enemies’ end zone reinforces and celebrates the reading of Sooners as progressive figures whose entrepreneurial spirits embody what it means to be Oklahoman. (Hayes 2008; McNutt 2007; What is a Sooner? 2009). 137

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After the conclusion of the 2005–2006 season, OU Head Coach Bob Stoops’ (b. 1960) winning record had again been marred by another student-athlete scandal. Though Stoops lifted OU from the dregs of previous NCAA sanctions for the misdeeds of its athletes and coaches, athlete involvement with a local car dealership, Big Red Sports and Imports, gnawed away at Stoops’ no-nonsense reputation. After confirming that a pair of players had each accepted $18,000 in unearned income, OU released both quarterback Rhett Bomar (b. 1985) and offensive lineman J.D. Quinn (b. 1986) in the fall of 2006. OU was temporarily directed to vacate all wins during the 2005–2006 season, including their 17-14 win over the University of Oregon in the Holiday Bowl. With no obvious replacement for the two starters, Stoops’ spent the 2006 season cajoling athletes to transfer from other schools and testing existing players’ abilities to fill the offensive line position (2006, Aug. 3; Davis, 2006, August 8). After a summer of decrying student-athlete greed, on 21 August 2007, Stoops released the name of his new lieutenant, Oklahoma City native, Sam Bradford (b. 1987). Bradford, a 6’4’’, 214-pound top quarterback recruit was signed by Stoops’ staff in 2005. Less than six weeks into the season, and on the dawn of the Oklahoma’s state centennial, OU’s sports information office, soonersports.com, published Bradford’s status as a “certified Cherokee Indian” through his paternal great-greatgrandmother, Susie Walkingstick (Game Notes 2007, Oct. 12; Wieberg 2007, Oct. 10). Despite being raised on the golf course and the manicured athletic fields of a middle-class Oklahoma City enclave, by his sophomore season, Bradford was already viewed by analysts as a legitimate Heisman Award (best collegiate player in the nation) contender, and American Indian leaders and spokespeople claimed him as a “role model” (Buchanan 2008) and “native son,” (Wieberg 2007, Oct. 10), while sportswriters like Matt Hayes (2008) coined the term “accidental hero.” Quickly lionized as a Red (Heisman Trophy) Hope, fans (Native and otherwise) invoked narratives of a racial heritage that Bradford neither publicly nor solely identified with. Despite Bradford’s lack of connection to his Cherokee roots, leaders of the tribe pointed to Bradford as an example of the ideal Sooner in the classroom and on the gridiron. Tribal spokesperson Mike Miller told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “The way he holds himself...the way he’s calm under pressure, the way he deals with adversity…those are all things we take pride in ourselves” (Gregorian 2007). Many Native Americans embraced Bradford, such as Talequah Cherokee, Lou Bark, who beaded cream and crimson (team colors) Sam Bradford bracelets for sale on the reservation. When asked about licensing and permissions, she dismissed the possibility of violating an NCAA policy by exclaiming, “What are they going to do? We’re family” (Hayes 2008). Bradford, “who might as well be a zillionth Cherokee,” provided a cultural rallying point for the tribe (Hayes 2008). Bradford’s celebrity and accolades invited fans to forge new meanings, traditions, and expressions, even in the form of an illicit accessory. During the 2008 National Championship Game between OU and Florida, the Cherokee Nation circulated t-shirts with Bradford’s name, number, and the slogan, “Lead By Example” (Associated Press 2009). Principal Chief Smith’s “Lead by Example” campaign complemented the aims of the youth agencies while also promoting his own tribal platform as a white Cherokee atoning for his lack of cultural competency. Additionally, Smith’s campaign to disenfranchise the descendants of black Cherokee freedmen (former African American slaves who had intermarried within the Cherokee tribe) was temporarily eclipsed by 138

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rallying behind OU’s “native son,” the white, prospering star, who sought nothing in return. Similarly guilty of tokenistic acknowledgement or neutralization of racial issues are sports governing bodies that profit from big-time college sport. The National Collegiate Athletic Association is one of the largest agents of memory shaping in college sports whose commemorative efforts sanitize, edit, and manipulate individuals, events, and epochs by excluding uncomfortable and particularly racialized events (King and Springwood 2001). After publicizing Bradford’s ethnic ties, both OU and the NCAA compliance officers were reluctant to connect their brand to the Cherokee Nation. In early 2008, an OU compliance officer denied Bradford permission to attend a pow wow. The pow wow, an event where Native and non-Native Americans gather to sing, dance, and celebrate various American Indian cultures, was intended to be dedicated in the rising quarterback’s honor. OU upheld NCAA interests by arguing that the groups hosting the pow wow in the player’s honor stood to profit from his name in the form of gate receipts. After Bradford secured the 2008 Heisman Trophy, OU’s compliance officers permitted Bradford to attend a ceremony in the spring of 2009 at the campus of Sequoya Schools in Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation. In order to maintain NCAA compliance, no admissions were allowed and personal photography and autographs were restricted (Hayes 2008; Cherokee Nation to Honor OU Quarterback 2009, April 4). Control and concern over trademarks, non-licensed distribution, and branding is certainly not reserved for intercollegiate athletics. Even the rebellious Raider Nation’s name and imagery was trademarked and renewed by the NFL in 2000 and 2013. The trademark and licensing of a brand’s symbols, phrases, and logos places restrictions on fan expression. Conversely, the introduction of new iconography presents presumptive opportunities for reimagining and enacting fandom. One example, occurring in the heart of the American hinterland takes us to the state of Iowa. Artists and writers have long shaped and continue to impact insiders’ and outsiders’ imaginaries. Even the national celebrities reaped from the Hawkeye state reproduce the narrative of the Iowa farm-boy—and in some cases girl—who makes good. In many ways an emblem of rural life, the state of Iowa, etched out a “distinctive place for itself with its particular prairie environment, its reformist social nature, and its agrarian stability” (Schwieder 1996, 9–10). In the spring of 1980, University of Iowa Head Coach Hayden Fry (b. 1929) created the Hawkeye Marketing Group as a means of reinvigorating fan interest in the football program. Fry recognized that a new set of beliefs focused on ability and victory were sorely needed to “change the image of Hawkeye football and increase pride…” Fry said, “Where I come from, it’s called selling the sizzle before the steak” (Fry and Wine 2001, 101). Regional values that predated their Tiger Hawk team symbol by over a century were rebranded as modern, stylish, and trendy. Fry utilized the media to situate the home team in opposition to other athletic titans fueled by the dollars of presumptuous patrons and folks that just weren’t as practical. Such strategies sat well with Iowa Hawkeye fans who were still a relatively homogenous group demographically and culturally. In fact, in 1980, three out of four Iowans were natives to the state (Schwieder 1996, 9–10). Though new to Iowa, Fry, the Texas native, fit into the state’s democratic imaginary. While coaching at Southern Methodist University, Fry recruited Jerry LeVias (b. 1946), the first African American player in the Southwestern Conference (Fry 139

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and Wine 2001, 69–70). The slick Southerner with a penchant for beguiling quips promised that the Hawkeyes would soon fly again. During televised games, Fry was accompanied by an eccentric bodyguard known as “The High Sheriff of Texas.” Other stadium-centric traditions included painting the visitor’s locker room at Kinnick Stadium pink in an attempt to psychologically mute aggressive tendencies, and introducing the entry from the tunnel as “the swarm.” Before the start of the first season, Fry made an average of four appearances per week at I-Club events and was criticized by the press for being too serious and working too hard (Finn and Leistikow 1998, 15; Kielkoph 1984, 20, 180). Fry wanted the program, including the uniforms, to resemble something that symbolized achievement and success. Artist Jim Colbert, and salesman Jim Quinn looked to the dominant NFL franchise, the Pittsburgh Steelers, as a model from which a new look could be fashioned. Rather than using “cartoonish-type characters,” Colbert focused on the head, eye, and beak of the hawk to create an “impactful and contemporary design” (Hlas 2009). Fry approved, calling the new design, “a little splash of sunshine” (Hlas 2009). Soon, Tiger Hawks were printed on ball caps, shirts, playing cards, and a number of items for sale at JC Penney’s sixty Iowa stores (Fry and Wine 2001, 106). Fry transformed the program into a bowl-contending team, garnering an invitation to the Rose Bowl in January, 1982. Out-of-state reporters framed the school and state as consummate underdogs, but brought great attention to the rural state of Iowa. Iowa expatriate Linda Williams admitted that “winter in Iowa must be lived to be believed” and that “there are beautiful things in Iowa, [but] “most of them are hidden away by the rich people who built them.” Williams too admitted that though she had once harbored the stereotypes of pitchfork carrying, overall-wearing Iowa farmers, she discovered some of the most thoughtful, cosmopolitan, and literate people she had ever encountered. She wrote “far from being provincial…[Iowans] are exceptionally well-educated, very articulate, sometimes outrageous, occasionally inspiring, often creative. Sometimes even rotten to the core. But boring they are not” (Grady 1981). Such creative spirit was evident in the frequent appropriation through homemade signs and spirit accessories that comprised the early cult of the Tigerhawk. According to Danielle Christensen Lindquist (2006), participatory game-day practices show where official symbols are embraced and reconstituted as fans inject their own performances and egos into the day’s events (444). One devoted Iowa fan and dental student, Bob McNurlen, put his money and inspiration where his mouth was by designing Tigerhawk and Hayden Fry tooth caps. When interviewed by a local reporter he estimated that producing the temporary caps would cost $200–$400 per set. If the project was realized, McNurlen suggested that profits would go to the UI Dental College. Another zealous fan, Bob Duer commissioned pearly white dentures that read “IA Hawks.” Duer claimed that when he lost his real teeth, he planned to replace them with the “gold ones with ‘Hawks’ inscribed on them” (Raffensberger 1981). After experiencing a 28-0 loss to the University of Washington, Nick Thimmosh (1982) of the LA Syndicate described Iowa as “a gentle stable land whose productive people are generally unpretentious,” and had demonstrated grace in their defeat. Even more impressive to West Coast writers was that despite the recession, more Iowans came to California for the Rose Bowl in 1982 than the entirety of the Great Depression. Thimmosh (1982) argued that football was “good for Iowa’s citizenry,” 140

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during a time of need. What was good for Iowa’s citizenry was no doubt good for the development of the athletics department and the cult of the Tigerhawk. After the 1982 Rose Bowl, both men’s and women’s athletics departments at Iowa proceeded to move forward: both increased their budgets, made new hires, and embarked on a variety of facilities projects, including the completion of Carver Hawkeye Arena, the expansion of Kinnick football Stadium, and plans for new field hockey and softball facilities. Shortly after the 1982 Rose Bowl, the Hawkeye Marketing Group donated the Tiger Hawk logo to the university, who established the Hawk Shops as outlets while beginning a licensing program (Hlas 2009). The following fall semester a swell of Tiger Hawk products emerged for purchase through the University of Iowa Alumni Review. Though Fry received no royalties after turning the logo over, by 1989 the college and professional sport logos had become a $3 billion market, representative of the ways in which corporate entities, including universities, capitalize on the zeal of their fans (Eskenazi 1989). One of the first post-licensing-conflicts occurred during the 1982 Rose Bowl. Prestigious photographer and exemplary donor, Joan Liffring-Zug Bourret captured a shot of a sign produced by Emil’s Deli and the YMCA in Cedar Rapids that read “…and on the 8th day God created IOWA.” Bourret returned home from the Rose Bowl, developed the negative in her studio, and published it as a postcard. According to Bourett, the athletics department later contacted her to ask how to properly cite the copyrighted image in their own promotional materials. The artist’s instructions were ignored. Her irritation was amplified when a merchandising manager for UI athletics, Dickie Cooper-Van Meter, threatened to sue Bourret’s Penfield Books. Threats of suit and countersuit were launched, though neither party pursued action. Since 1983, Penfield Press has sold over 100,000 copies of “8th Day Iowa” (Personal Communication 2010, May 19). The evolution of women’s basketball, wrestling, and now football prompted Thomas E. Brown, the executive director of The Alumni Review to proclaim that the Hawkeyes’ return from the Rose Bowl “and the promised success from other sports, men’s and women’s, [were] only part of the unmistakable signs that Iowa [was] indeed embarking on a new era” (Brown 1982, 3). Despite an increase in athletic giving, officials eliminated over 400 seats on the north end zone after fans flooded the field destroying five separate goal posts, which were often torn down in frenzied exuberance after a football victory. The newly constructed award-winning pole and column-free Carver Hawkeye Arena soon replaced the provincial yet intimate Field House, but many locals were infuriated over the sizeable donations required to secure a seat. Though similar policies existed at the performing arts center, local journalists and spectators cried foul over the shoddy treatment of loyal fans (Kielkoph 1984). Though the Hawkeyes garnered more bowl invites, rural Iowans experienced dire economic strife as average net farm incomes in 1981 had declined from less than $18,000 to $1,800 in 1983. Between 1984–85 big banks foreclosed on a way of life, with bankruptcy rates increasing 46 percent. Still, athletics’ ticket sales remained steady in men’s and some women’s programs. Despite the financial quicksand many Iowans had yet to escape, men’s athletics had escaped the previous decade’s athletic drought (Davidson 1996; Finn and Leistikow 1998). Further financial support would soon be secured for the athletic department after the NCAA voted to restructure football, allocating further television exposure and revenue to 141

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programs that could draw and accommodate large crowds (Kent 1981). Despite the rural traditions that Fry strived to capitalize on, the modern gloss of the Tigerhawk soon turned a hawk’s eye to a more sanitized and corporate presence that privileged prosperous patrons over fans. Similar to the University of Iowa’s Rose Bowl appearances of the early 1980s, the University of Alabama provided a similar boost of “chimerical reassurance” to the distinctive identities of white Southerners (Doyle 1994, 231). During the 1920s, the deep American South was able to reconcile regional mores rooted in rural folk culture in the face of an increasingly modernized and mechanized nation (Doyle 1994). Southerners continued to contest their “lost cause” in the American Civil War long after hostilities ceased by challenging northern teams on the football field (Gems 2000, 166–169). Ninety years after The Crimson Tide’s (nickname of the university athletic teams) first ascent to the 1926 Rose Bowl, teams within the Southeastern Conference formed what Joe Morgan and Ted Klimasewski (2015) term the “pigskin power region” (214). This competitive power is solidly located within the Heart of Dixie, concentrated between the universities of Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana State. Despite being the poorest region in the United States, Southern fans particularly relish their one claim to social capital through the consistent production of national collegiate football championships. Reference to sport producers is illustrated best by the University of Alabama, a perennial contender for the national collegiate championship. Alabama pays its coach, Nick Saban (b. 1951), 7 million dollars per year plus bonuses; despite the fact that it ranks among the lowest of all state economies. The fervor of Alabama fans, and Southerners in general, can be assessed by the zeal of its fan base, some of whom travel hundreds of miles over several days to arrive for pre-game tailgating parties. One ardent fan traveled across state lines for home games, despite the fact that he is on a waiting list for a heart transplant, which can only be completed upon short notice in his location of residence. Failure to be available results in forfeiture of the life-saving opportunity. Familial feuds fueled by the liturgical calendar followed by Crimson Tide fans have been known to occur. One married couple missed their own daughter’s wedding in order to attend the football game after warning her, “just don’t get married on a game day and we’ll be there, one hundred percent” (St. John 2004, 10). Fortunately that couple was able to make the reception. Perhaps this is why Google Insights for Search report that the city of Birmingham, Alabama, despite its size, outpaces New York City 5:1 relative to its overall search traffic for “college football” (Silver 2011). The American South is in many ways characterized by inconsistencies: religious affiliation, demographic segregation, musical traditions, and partisan affiliations. Despite such geographical variety, no one cultural phenomenon transcends such difference with the same deftness as college football. Fan groups are comprised of “complex representative assemblages” often with self-sewn roots in the provincial, eventually taking on broader and more collective social and historical meanings (Herr 1996, 26). As athletic and institutional identities become co-opted through branding, bureaucratic and institutional forces are more likely to police and enforce common-sense understandings of their individual athletes, teams, and fan bases. On the surface, the NFL’s Raiders fans in the Black Hole may seem more far flung than the trolls who harass college athletes or the students who support them, but each group contributes cultural practices and shape meanings which define their imagined 142

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belonging. Though NFL and NCAA teams have become heavily corporatized in their cartel-like operation, such agency can never be fully stripped from the fans who unite and identify as their constituents. Though certain types of fandom may be further removed from their original working-class or rural ethos, fans such as esteemed comedian George Carlin (1937–2008) and Raiders fans still hold out hope that their teams “will be strong again” (Miller and Mayhew 2005, 16). Regardless of ticket prices and franchise location, many generations of fans, but particularly Raiders’ fans will root for their team’s players to “dip the ball in shit and shove it down the throats of the wholesome, shitty, Heartland teams that pray together, and don’t deliver late hits” (Miller and Mayhew 2005).

Further Reading Aden, R.C., & Titsworth S. Remaining rooted in a sea of red: Agrarianism, place attachment, and Nebraska Cornhusker football fans. In A.C. Earnheardt, P.M. Haridakis & B.S. Hugenberg (Eds.) Sports, fans, identity, and socialization: Exploring the fandemonium. Lanham: Lexington Books, 9–24. Associated Press. (2009, January 6). Cherokee Nation honoring Bradford with t-shirts. Indian Country. Retrieved from http://IndianCountrynews.com Bieler, D. (2016). “Some said we deserved to be lynched”: Nebraska football player shares reactions to anthem protest. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com Bradford, T.W., & Sherry Jr., T.F. (2016). Grooving in the ludic foodscape: Bridled revelry in collegiate tailgating. Journal of Consumer Culture, 0(0), 1–20. Brown, T.E. (1982). It’s great to be a Hawkeye. The University of Iowa Alumni Review 35 (March), 3. Buchanan, O. (2008). Oklahoma’s Bradford serving as role model. Rivals. Retrieved from http:// collegefootball.rivals.com. Cherokee Nation to honor OU quarterback Bradford. (2009). Targeted News Service. Retrieved from LexisNexus database. Coakley, J. (2015). Sports in society: Issues and controversies, 11th ed. New York: McGraw Hill-Education. Dalakas, V., & Melancon, J. P. Fan identification, schadenfreude towards hated rivals, and the mediating effects of importance of winning index (IWIN). Journal of Services Marketing, 26(1), 51–59. Davidson, O.G. (1996). Broken heartland: The rise of America’s rural ghetto, an expanded edition. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Davis, B. (2006). Report details OU probe e-mail tip triggered investigations that led to players’ dismissals. The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved from LexisNexis Database. Davis, B. (2006). What did you do last summer? Keeping track of athletes a full-time job for school officials. Dallas Morning News. Retrieved from LexisNexis Database. Doyle, A. (1994). Causes won not lost: College football and the modernization of the American South. The International Journal for the History of Sport, 11(2), 231–251. Eskenazi, G. (1989, June 19). Sports logos become symbols of big profits. The New York Times. Finn, M., & Leistikow, C. (1998). Hawkeye legends, list, and lore. Champaign: Sports Publishing, Inc. Fry, H., & Wine, G. (2001). Hayden Fry: A high porch picnic. United States: Sports Publishing LLC. Futterman, M. (2016). Upset of the year: Mark Davis rescues the Oakland Raiders. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com Game notes: Sooners tangle with Tigers Saturday. (2007). Sooner Sports. Retrieved from, http://www .soonersports.com Gems, G. R. (2000). For Pride, Profit & Patriarchy: Football and the incorporation of American cultural values. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Giroux, H. H. (2007). The university in chains: Confronting the military-industrial-academic complex. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Grady, A. (1981). Rose Bowl fever make mail bags heavier. Iowa City Press Citizen. Gregorian, V. (2007). To the Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma QB Sam Bradford isn’t just a great player, he’s a source of pride. St. Louis Post- Dispatch. Retrieved from LexisNexis database. Griswold, J. (2016). Governor Ricketts agrees to meet with Michael Rose-Ivey. Omaha Sports Insider. Retrieved from http://kmtv.com Hayes, M. (2008, September,1). Accidental hero. Sporting News. 232 (34), 52–53.

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Touchdown: An American Obsession Herr, C.T. (1996). Critical regionalism: From Ireland to the American Midwest. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Hlas, M. (2009, August 30). Cedar Rapids art director man behind the logo. Cedar Rapids Gazette. Retrieved from http://gazetteonline.com Kent, M. (1981, December 7). NCAA reorganization fails to solve TV problem. Iowa City Press Citizen. Kielkoph, M. (1984). How ’bout them Hawkeye fans! Davenport: Hawkland Press. King, C.R., & Springwood, C.F. (2001). Beyond the cheers: Race as spectacle in college sport. Albany: State University of New York Press. Linquist, D.C. (2006). Locating the nation: Football game day and American dreams in central Ohio. Journal of American Folklore 119(474), 444–488. Macnow, G., & Gargano, A.L. (2003). The great Philadelphia fan book. Moorestown: Middle Atlantic Press. Maher, C. (2010). Six Points: Before the Dog Pound was neutered. Bleacher Report. Retrieved from http:// www.bleacherreport.com Martin, S.E., & Breitenfeldt, A. (2008). Patriots and saints: How the NFL helped America cope with terrorists and natural disasters. Sports mania: Essays on fandom and the media in the 21st Century. Hugenberg, L. W., Haridakis, P. M., & Earnhardt, P. M. Jefferson: McFarland and Company, 33–44. McKewon, S. (Ed.). (2016). Husker Michael Rose-Ivey says he can’t stay silent, ignore issues of racial injustice. Big Red Today. Retrieved from http://www.omaha.com McNutt, M. (2007). We want to remember…where we came from? Native Americans demonstrate: some don’t want revelry. The Oklahoman. Retrieved from http://www.NewsOk.com Memorial Stadium policies announced for 2016. (2016). Nebraska Today. Retrieved from news.unl.edu Miller, M. and Mayhew, K. (2005). Better to reign in Hell: Inside the Raiders fan empire. New York: The New Press. Morgan, L.J., & Klimasewski, T. (2015). Pigskin power region: Dominance of Southern collegiate football. Southeastern Geographer, 55(2), 214–224. Nathan, D. (2013). Rooting for the home team; Sport, community and identity. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. NFL teams implement fan code of conduct. (2008, August 5). NFL. Retrieved from http://www.nfl.com/ news/story/09000d5d809c28f9/article/nfl-teams-implement-fan-code-of-conduct Planos, J. (2016). Warm ovation for Michael Rose-Ivey brings senior’s mother to tears. KETV. Retrieved from http://www.ketv.com Planos, J. (2016). Michael Rose-Ivey kneels during national anthem prior to Iowa game. KETV. Retrieved from http://www.ketv.com Raffensberger, G. (1981). A hawk fan story to sink your teeth into. Des Moines Register. Ruggles, R. (2016). UNL student government votes to support Huskers’ Rose-Ivey, teammates in kneeling protest. Big Red Sports. Retrieved from https://www.omaha.com Schwieder, D. (1996). Iowa: The middle land. In M. Bergman (Ed.). Iowa History Reader. Ames: State Historical Society of Iowa & Iowa State University Press, 1–18. Silver, N. (2011). The geography of college football fans (and realignment chaos). The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.thequad.blogs.nytimes.com Smith, R. (1999). Cleveland Browns: The official illustrated history. St. Louis: The Sporting Press. Sperber, M. (1993). Shake down the thunder: The creation of Notre Dame football. New York: Henry Holt. St. John, W. (2004). Rammer jammer yellow hammer: A journey into the heart of fan mania. NY: Crown. Thimmosh, N. (1982). Understanding how Iowans felt about the Rose Bowl. LA Syndicate. Walker, J.R. (2012). Forward. In A.C. Earnheardt; P.M. Haridakis; & B.S. Hugenberg (Eds.). Sports, fans, identity, and socialization: Exploring the fandemonium i–x. Lanham: Lexington Books. Welcome to the boneyard. (2016). The Iron N. Retrieved from theironn.unl.edu Wenner, L.A. (2008). Playing dirty: On reading media texts and studying sports fans in commercial settings. In L.W. Hugenberg; P.M. Haridakis; P.M. Earnhardt (Eds.). Sports mania: Essays on fandom and the media in the 21st century 13–32. Jefferson: McFarland and Company. What is a Sooner? OU Athletics. (2009). Retrieved from https://www.Soonsports.com Wieberg, S. (2007). Sooner’s Bradford turns into an emerging force. USA Today. Retrieved from http:// www.usatoday.com Yost, M. (2008). NFL’s Eagles tackle rowdy fans. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com

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Chapter Ten: American Football and the Media Adam RUGG Fairfield University

Since television became the primary method of consuming sports in the United States, American football, and the National Football League in particular, has dramatically increased in popularity and profitability. Now, despite Major League Baseball’s historical claim of being “America’s Pastime,” professional football stands alone as the United States’ favorite sport. Television’s role in this turn of events cannot be understated. The NFL’s relationship with television is a major reason the sport grew from a second tier, regionally based game into the richest sports league in the world. Keywords: Football, NFL, Television, Sport, Video Games, Fantasy Football, Global Media, Violence

T

oday American football is the most popular sport in the United States and the National Football League (NFL) is the most profitable sporting league in the world. The sport’s current intractable grasp on the eyes and ears of sports fans was not always ordained, however. Much of the sport’s current prominence is owed in large part to the emergence of television in the 1950s as the center of the sporting world. Before television, the NFL was not the most popular professional league in the country, lagging far behind Major League Baseball (MLB). The NFL was not even the most popular football organization in the country before television, as it was eclipsed in both national popularity and local fan devotion by the college football leagues where the game of American football originated. As television took hold in American households, the NFL came with it, and now stands alone atop the American sporting landscape. Yet as television continues to slowly lose its cultural prominence as the internet and other new media technologies gain a foothold in American culture, the NFL and football must adapt to a post-television world.

American Football in Print and Radio Before television, it was radio and newspapers that played the most significant role covering football. In the 1920s and 1930s, this coverage was decidedly skewed in 147

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favor of college football, especially in cities and regions with popular college teams. Nascent professional football teams and leagues struggled to receive coverage and legitimation from these outlets. Even as the NFL emerged in the 1930s as the single dominant professional football league in the country, coverage was inconsistent and sparse outside NFL cities. Even local coverage would often exist mostly due to the participation of a famous former college athlete than for interest in the team itself. The NFL championship game, established in 1933, would not even be covered on network radio until 1940 (Oriard 2005, 202–208). While professional football struggled to gain relevancy in radio and print coverage in the 1920s and 1930s, college football received widespread coverage across both mediums. Its dominance over professional football was not merely due to the historical significance of college football as the originator of the sport. As football historian Michael Oriard (2005) has shown, many fans and media outlets lauded the amateur roots of the game and saw it as a noble pursuit. Print coverage in particular did much to romanticize college football and mythologize its players. These narratives were harder to impress onto the professional football players who played for money. Thus, professional football players were often characterized in early media coverage as “sellouts” or “mercenaries.” College football also carried with it a sense of community and place, which was well suited to the local orientation of radio and newspapers. While professional football teams were also connected to the cities in which they played, they lacked the affiliation with specific community institutions. The relocation or dissolving of professional teams, a common occurrence in the early days of professional football, did not help matters (Oriard 2005, 103–108).

The Early Days of Professional Football on TV The arrival of television brought with it a new chance for professional football to increase its popularity. Television was well suited to the professional game as it was more national in scope than radio and newspapers, and focused initially on the big cities in which NFL teams were primarily located. Further, college football, already a successful product and able to fill big college stadiums, would be hesitant to embrace television for fear of cannibalizing stadium attendance. For the NFL and its less well-attended games, the risk was not as high. As television sets quickly spread across American homes in post-World War II prosperity, the NFL sought to spread with it. Despite the fit of the NFL for television and the general eagerness of NFL teams to appear on television, however, the national TV networks in the early 1950s were initially hesitant to invest in the league. While some teams negotiated deals with local television stations, not all teams had enough support or popularity to do so. Some teams, such as the Chicago Bears, even paid networks to air games in the hopes of drawing new fans to the team. In 1951, the Dumont network’s airing of the NFL championship game was the first national broadcast of a professional football game. The network would continue to air a number of regular season games and the championship game until 1955, when the network folded. These early, uneven forays in television brought in only limited revenues for teams and were dwarfed by ticket sales. For many of the teams, however, the additional revenue was just enough to finally earn a profit. Thus, while the early television contracts for NFL teams 148

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would pale in comparison to what would come later, they helped stabilize the league and its teams financially and represented a turning point in the long-term viability of the league (Cressman and Swenson 2007, 480–481). By the mid 1950s, it was clear to television executives that the NFL was a valuable television property. While professional football’s difficulty in establishing the local associations of college football may have hindered the print and radio coverage of the game, it proved to be a valuable trait for television. The NFL emerged as an enticing television product for many Americans living outside college towns or with no college affiliations and its ratings grew accordingly. With the cessation of the Dumont network in 1955, many NFL teams were in position to negotiate new television deals, and they initially did so with local television stations. By this time, the two biggest national networks, NBC and CBS, had begun to take interest in the league. In 1956, CBS signed deals with eleven of the twelve NFL teams (totaling $1 million) and became the first television network to air an entire season of NFL games. Rather than just show one game to the entire country, however, the network would show different games in different regions of the country based on local fan bases and their allegiances. The complicated technical logistics required do this were difficult to pull off in the early days of television and was considered a major technical achievement. This practice of dividing games by region is still in effect today (Cressman and Swenson 2007, 493).

More Partners, More Money While the increased presence of the NFL on television helped drive the growth of the league and bring in new fans, the fact that individual teams negotiated their own television deals meant that more popular and successful teams prospered from television much more so than struggling teams with small fan bases. The 1959 creation of the American Football League (AFL), a rival professional football league, demonstrated the difficulty of this approach. Unlike the NFL, the AFL teams banded together to negotiate television contracts as an entire league. The AFL’s first contract, a $8.5 million dollar, five-year deal, immediately earned each team in the league, yet to play a single game, more television money than five NFL teams (Mac Cambridge 2005,132). Seeing the financial benefits of joining together, the NFL’s teams set out in 1961 to follow the AFL’s lead and negotiate its television contracts as a single, league-wide entity. The benefits of this approach were immediately realized. Just the previous year, CBS had negotiated contracts with all but four NFL teams for $1.5 million. Now, negotiating as a single-unit, the NFL secured a $4.5 million contract from the network. The eye-raising increase for the contract caught the attention of the US Department of Justice, which sued the league for violating anti-trust laws. When a judge ruled against the NFL for engaging in unfair trade practices, the US Congress quickly passed the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which gave the league an anti-trust exemption and allowed the NFL to continue to negotiate television contracts as a single entity (Rader 1984, 90–91) The NFL’s television contracts quickly escalated as its increased bargaining power combined with an intense competition by the three major broadcast networks to secure the league amidst surging ratings. The two-year $9.3 million 149

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contract the NFL signed with CBS in 1962 would immediately be dwarfed by the subsequent two-year, $28.2 million contract signed in 1964. Having missed out on the NFL broadcasts, NBC signed a five-year, $42 million contract with the AFL the same year (Rader 1984, 92). While the NFL’s television contract with CBS increased to $18.5 million per year in 1966, the AFL’s sizeable contract from NBC gave both league’s enough money to engage in bidding wars for potential players. This competition for players between the two leagues dramatically increased players’ salaries and helped turn professional football into the extremely lucrative career it is today. At the time, however, both leagues were wary of their long-term financial prospects if the salary escalation continued. As a result, the leagues merged operations in 1966 and established a draft system to acquire college players. The Super Bowl, a new championship game to be played between the two leagues each year, was also established. With the merger, both the NFL and the AFL kept their existing contracts with CBS and NBC, respectively, and the two networks alternated broadcasting the Super Bowl (with the exception of the first Super Bowl, which was broadcast by both networks) (Oriard 2007, 19–21). Following the conclusion of these contracts, the NFL continued the practice of selling differing packages to different broadcasters. This practice would not only expand the presence of the NFL across many different channels, but also dramatically increase television revenues as the league continually pitted the different channels against each other. The revenues that would come from the subsequent contracts would turn the NFL into the most profitable sports league in the world. The first contract signed under this new strategy was a three-year, $24 million deal with ABC in 1969 for the league’s first-ever primetime package of games. The ensuing program, “Monday Night” Football, would go on to dominate television ratings for decades and cement the NFL’s status as the most popular sport in the country (Chandler 1991). The next year, the league signed contracts with CBS to televise NFC games (formerly the NFL) and NBC to air AFC games (formerly the AFL), while continuing to alternate the Super Bowl between the two. These contracts totaled $156 million over four years. (Fang 2015). The television contracts would only escalate from there. By 1977, the spreading of the league’s games across three different networks was paying significant dividends for the league. That year, CBS, NBC, and ABC renewed their contracts for a total of $656 million over four years and for the first time, yearly television revenue exceeded revenue from stadium ticket sales. Just five years later, the three TV networks would agree to a five-year, $2.1 billion contract (Rader 1984, 119–122). The 1982 contract would represent the transition from television being a lucrative revenue stream to television becoming the dominant economic force that drives and shapes the league (Oriard 2007, 169). In the following years, the league continued to expand its television presence and partner with more broadcasters. By 1990, the league had increased its television partner tally to five with the addition of cable broadcasters ESPN and TNT. In 1993, the NFL dropped CBS in favor of new network upstart FOX, whose $395 million annual contract pushed the total television contract over $1 billion per year for the first time in league history. In 1998, the satellite service DirecTV signed on for the exclusive rights to the NFL’s premium satellite service, NFL Sunday Ticket. In 2006, the NFL settled on its current suite of television partners with CBS, NBC, FOX, 150

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ESPN, and DirecTV. As of 2017, these five entities pay over $6 billion per year to the league (Fang 2015; Smith and Shaw 2016). College football has seen a similar surge in its television contracts among its major conferences (athletic leagues). The Big Ten conference currently earns $250 million a year from ESPN, CBS, and Fox, while the Southeastern Conference (SEC) earns over $200 million a year from CBS and ESPN. While these contracts encompass other sports in the conference beyond football, the football rights constitute the bulk of the value of the packages. The surging value of college football on television is best seen in the television rights for the recently instituted college football playoff, which began in 2014. ESPN pays the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) about $470 million annually for the rights to the two semifinal games and the national championship game (Hinnen 2012).

Formatting for Television The NFL’s embrace of television has led the league to make significant modifications to its game schedules and rules to maximize its appeal to and integration with television broadcasts. The league has changed its time management rules to standardize the length of games to three hours. Late afternoon game kickoffs were moved to 4:15 p.m. so as not to overlap with long-running 1 p.m. games. Even more notable is the rule allowing networks to actively participate in the game by empowering them with the ability to turn a conventional forty-second timeout into a one minute, fifty-second “television timeout.” The Super Bowl is the only game of the year to take place at 6 p.m. in order to place the end of the game in primetime and capture the highest possible television audience. This is in stark contrast to the notoriously late starts of Major League Baseball’s World Series games that routinely end well past midnight. Finally, the NFL draft, the yearly event where teams pick players from college to join their teams, changed formats in 2010 from an event held over two afternoons into a quicker paced, three night, primetime affair to maximize the television audience (Carucci 2010) Even the NFL game schedule, previously a rigid artifact that reflected the permanence of the game in a specific, physical place, has given way to the demands of television. Start times for games are shuffled between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. weeks in advance in order to highlight the most attractive matchups in the lucrative 4 p.m. television timeslot. Further, since 2006, the “Sunday Night Football” schedule has allowed the NFL to “flex,” or move, more attractive games into the 8 p.m. timeslot, even from a 1 p.m. timeslot. Fans who hold tickets to certain games now operate in limbo, unsure of when the game will be played until it is confirmed in the television schedule (NFL, n.d.)

NFL Films and the NFL Network It was not just the interests of television broadcasters that turned the NFL from a middling, regional professional football league into the dominant and iconic league it is today. As sports media scholar Travis Vogan (2014) has detailed, the 1962 creation of NFL Films, a league-owned company tasked with filming every game and 151

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producing highlight reels using that footage, possibly did more than any television broadcaster, sportswriter, or other league booster to sell the game to the American public and enshrine the mythology and meanings of the NFL into the American cultural psyche. The company’s style of documentary filmmaking, which mythologized players by utilizing slow motion, close-up shots, and intense symphonic soundtracks, reshaped the violent battles in the game into beautiful and heroic struggles. This presentational style would come to imbue the NFL’s and its television partners’ presentation and promotion of the sport and promote the idea of football as a noble reflection of masculine character into broader cultural understandings. While NFL Films was originally tasked with archiving each game and splicing together highlight reels, it has since turned into a major content creator, producing nearly four thousand hours of programming a year for the NFL’s various media properties as well as the NFL’s television broadcast partners. In 2003, the NFL would further venture out into league-owned media properties with the establishment of its own cable channel. Following the lead of the National Basketball Association (NBA), which launched its own league-owned cable channel, NBA TV, in 1999, the NFL Network would be a 24-hour channel dedicated to all things relative to the NFL. Similar to the formatting of popular sport channel ESPN, the NFL network would air live studio shows and news programs along with documentaries, highlight packages, and narrative features supplied by the NFL Films. While the NBA was the first US sports league to launch its own channel, the NFL Network has surpassed NBA TV (as well as the subsequently launched leagueowned networks MLB Network and NHL Network) in household penetration and is the most watched league-owned network on television (Sports TV Ratings 2016). This is due in part to the league’s creation of “Thursday Night Football” in 2012, which originally consisted of a five-week package of games that exclusively aired on the NFL Network. The relative unavailability of the NFL Network and its “Thursday Night Football” games to cable subscribers (as the channel was either relegated to expensive, premium sports packages or not offered at all) caused significant discontent among NFL fans. The league leveraged the discontent to entice cable providers to make the channel more accessible to their customers. Today the network is available to over 70 million households in the United States and is an integral part of the league’s television and promotional strategy (Wooley 2010). The success of league-owned networks has now extended to college football as well, where major football conferences such as the Big Ten, the SEC, and the Pac-12 have launched their own regional networks to showcase football and other sporting events from their respective leagues. An individual team, the University of Texas Longhorns, even launched its own channel (the Longhorn Network) in conjunction with ESPN in 2011 (Staple 2016).

The Super Bowl Today, the Super Bowl, the NFL’s annual championship game, is not merely the culmination of the entire season, but transcends sport into perhaps the largest media and popular cultural event of the year in the United States. In an increasingly fragmented cultural environment where the internet, social media, and other new media technologies have split audiences and eroded shared experiences, the Super 152

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Bowl has only gained in relevance and viewership and now stands as a singular communal event in United States popular culture and is celebrated as an unofficial national holiday. Sports and non-sports fans alike watch it and a wide variety of sports, news, and entertainment media outlets cover it (Real 1975). Part of the Super Bowl’s resonance in the television and cultural landscape comes from the game’s historical significance in promoting professional football and demonstrating the NFL’s viability on television. In 1958, the NFL championship game (the predecessor to the Super Bowl) between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants went to “sudden death” overtime in a thrilling game that is commonly called “the greatest game ever played.” The game and its thirty million viewers legitimated the NFL as a major national sport on par with Major League Baseball and worthy of increased television coverage. After the establishment of the Super Bowl in 1966, the championship game took on even more cultural significance and media attention. While the NFL continued to find steady growth in its regular season ratings, the Super Bowl emerged as a transcendent television property in itself. Within only a few years of its inauguration, the game had surpassed the long-established World Series and other sporting events as the most widely watched sporting event on television. By the 1980s, the annual game had emerged as the most widely watched program in all of television (Oriard 2007, 96–97). At the present moment, television ratings for each Super Bowl are consistently the highest-rated television program of the entire year and routinely set all-time viewership records. The 2016 Super Bowl, for example, saw close to half of all televisions in the United States turned to the game for a total of 167 million viewers. It was the third most-watched television program of all time in the United States, only behind the 2014 and 2015 Super Bowls. In fact, of the twenty most-watched television programs of all time in the United States, nineteen of them are Super Bowls. Only the series finale of the sitcom M*A*S*H in 1983 interrupts the event’s television dominance (Battaglio and James 2017). While the Super Bowl is clearly the most prominent television event in the United States, its popularity outside the country is often exaggerated by US broadcasters who claim it is the most watched television program in the world or that it is watched worldwide by a billion people. While the Super Bowl is broadcast to over 200 countries, the international audiences are still small and major soccer matches like the UEFA Champions League final and the World Cup final easily surpass it in worldwide viewership (Reekie and Grez 2016). The television power of the Super Bowl in the United States is not just restricted to the actual game, however. The television broadcaster of the Super Bowl (which currently rotates between CBS, NBC, and Fox) typically leverages the popularity of the game well in advance of the game day. Promotions for the game start airing on the hosting network months in advance. On the day of the game, the Super Bowl “pregame” show will often start up to seven hours before kickoff. These pregame shows often mix analysis of the upcoming game with broader entertainment segments that utilize and promote talent and properties of the broadcasting network. The network will typically use the immediate time-slot after the game to launch a new program with the hope that enough viewers will stick around after the game to give the new show an initial audience much greater than it would receive elsewhere on the schedule. These programming strategies, then, reflect an attempt by broadcasters to not only leverage the viewing power of the Super Bowl to increase 153

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viewers across the entire day’s schedule, but also to introduce viewers to the channel’s other, non-sport offerings. The commercials that air during the game can also receive as much attention as what happens on the field. While the cost of a thirty-second advertisement in Super Bowl I was $40,000, the cost had ballooned to $400,000 by 1983. As of 2017, the cost stands at $5 million per 30-second ad, or $166,666 per second. With the unique chance to reach over 150 million people at once combined with the extravagant cost of running a thirty-second commercial during the game, the commercials that air during the Super Bowl are often ambitious, expensive productions that air with significant anticipatory hype and lofty expectations. The commercials may even act as the main event for many non-football fans obliged to watch the game. After the game, the success or failure of certain commercials in meeting the lofty expectations of viewers is a common talking point among media outlets and viewers alike (Johnson 2016).

Media and the Stadium Despite the NFL’s willingness to move into television and the obvious financial benefits that came with it, the relationship between football and television has not always been as harmonious as it is often made out to be. Historically, many sporting leagues have long been wary of the detrimental effects that media and television exposure would have on the traditional method of sports consumption and revenue generation: the in-stadium experience. In 1932, MLB owners almost banned radio broadcasts of games entirely, and two years later, the Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers baseball teams located in New York actually did so. As this process has often played out in the history of sports and media, the teams eventually relented in the face of large sums of money. With the arrival of television, these fears of half-empty stadiums only increased, with Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley (1903–1979) once lamenting, “radio whets the appetite. Television satiates it” (Johnson 1969). In 1951, amidst fears of declining stadium attendance, the NCAA asserted its control over television rights (previously handled by individual teams) and banned live television broadcasts of college football games. The decision did not go over well with fans, politicians, or teams with national fan bases such as Penn State University and Notre Dame, a Catholic institution with a nationwide following. Facing this pressure, the NCAA gradually relented. Even the NFL, which has historically embraced television and been one of its biggest beneficiaries, has historically sought to keep television at arm’s length in order to protect stadium attendance. Originally, these fears were justified. Most famously, stadium attendance for the Los Angeles Rams decreased by almost 50 percent in 1950, when all of the team’s games were aired on television. In response to the complaints of the Rams and other teams, the NFL instituted a blackout policy in 1951 that prohibited home games from being televised in the local market (even if they sold out). That season, the Rams’ attendance increased roughly to its 1949 levels. Despite soaring television revenues and intense pressure from fans and politicians (including President Richard Nixon), the league did not waiver on its blackout policy. Eventually, Congress stepped in and passed Public Law 93-107, which stipulated that any home game that sold out at least seventy-two hours before kickoff 154

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was allowed to be shown on television (Gross 2014, 1204–1206). In response, then NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle (1926–1996) lamented in a Sports Illustrated feature on the blackout policy, “We mustn’t let ourselves become just a TV-studio show. We need the electricity of the crowd. It isn’t enough to sit in the stadium and hear just the chirp of pigeons and the crunch of peanuts” (Kirshenbaum 1973). In recent years, the NFL has softened its stance on blackouts as television contracts have become the main source of revenue for the league. In 2012, the league lowered the threshold for the lifting of blackouts by only requiring 85 percent of game tickets to be sold. In both 2015 and 2016, the league went even further by suspending the entire blackout policy for the season (Sports Illustrated 2016). While the most paranoid fears of television’s effect on stadium attendance have been left in earlier decades, the continued evolution of television technology and the packaging of televised sport have still led to a heightened renewal of apprehension among American sporting leagues about fans’ willingness to go to actual games. Combined with the escalating costs of attending a major sporting event, caused by escalating stadium costs and increasing revenue demands, this apprehension may be justified. The sophistication of television sports broadcasts, the increasing size and quality of home televisions, and the ability to buy packages that give access to almost every league game has made television watching of sports a preferred avenue for many fans. Even for those without the money to engage in these indulgences, they can still experience these benefits at a local bar or tavern, long the historical site for communal sports watching. In response, NFL teams have sought to increase the appeal of viewing a game in person not by further differentiating the stadium experience from the home media experience, but by reproducing it on a bigger scale. At the center of these efforts is the expansion of the video screens inside each football stadium. While NFL teams had been increasing the size and quality of their in-stadium video screens since the 1990s, it was the 2009 opening of the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium that heralded the beginning of a new era of video screens in NFL stadiums. While the architecture of the entire stadium drew widespread acclaim, the dual 72-feet high by 160-feet wide high-definition video displays received most of the media and fan interests. When the stadium opened, the $40 million boards were recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest high-definition video display in the world (Casselman 2009). Since then, other NFL teams have followed the Dallas Cowboys’ lead in significantly upgrading their in-stadium video displays, with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans constructing even larger displays than the one found in the Cowboys’ stadium. College and even high school football teams have also begun vastly expanding the size of their stadium screens. The three largest screens in college football stadiums, belonging to Texas A&M University, the University of Oklahoma, and Auburn University in Alabama, were all built between 2014 and 2016 (Fox Sports 2016). In 2016, Seguin High School in Seguin, Texas, announced plans to build a $1.35 million, 1,403 square-foot screen that would be the country’s largest high school stadium screen (Brnger 2016) In addition to recreating the comfort of TV within their stadiums, NFL teams have also begun significantly upgrading their wireless internet networks to allow easier access to the internet by stadium guests on their smartphones. Taking the lead in this has been the San Francisco 49ers, who installed 400 miles of data cable and over 1,300 Wi-Fi access points in their new stadium, billing it as the most 155

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advanced Wi-Fi capable venue in the world (Soper 2016). Other teams have sought to recreate other home comforts, such as the installation of special premium seating with couches and personal televisions or, in the case of the Jacksonville Jaguars, in-stadium swimming pools. All these efforts reflect the ways in which television and the internet have reshaped the ways in which fans consume the sport.

Media and Violence The advent of TV reshaped not just the ways in which sports were consumed, but also the popularity of sports themselves. Baseball, with its intermittent action and meandering pace, was well suited for radio, but not for television. The primitive technology of early television, which saw grainy black-and-white pictures transmitted to small television screens, made watching a small white ball fly around an entire field difficult. Sports that could be filmed up close, such as boxing and football, could actually be enhanced through television. Now, the violence of each sport, which was central to the action but kept at a distance from stadium spectators, could be displayed in great detail. Both boxing and football would surge in popularity with the introduction of television. The violence of football, now demonstrated in the close-up camera angles and the advent of instant replay in the 1960s, became one of the NFL’s strongest selling points. Hard-hitting defensive players such as Dick Butkus (b. 1942) and Jack “The Assassin” Tatum (1948–2010) were celebrated for their aggressive and punishing style of tackling and hitting. The NFL routinely created video compilations of violent hits that it sold to customers on VHS tapes or to TV stations to air. These compilations, such as “Hershey’s King Size Hits,” “Moment of Impact,” and “Thunder and Destruction,” glorified the violence of the game and prized the very hits to the head. Over the past decade, however, medical researchers have started uncovering the significant long-term health dangers of sustaining the types of hits to the head that are so prevalent in football. In particular, researchers have established a link between concussions many players sustain playing football and the onset of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a condition similar to Alzheimer’s disease. While there is still a long way to go in determining the exact relationship between hits to the head and CTE, the increased awareness of the dangers of the game have led to significant changes in the marketing and televised presentation of the game. The violence of football that was the league’s strongest selling point and its differentiation from other sports has now become a controversial topic that engenders fear and concern. With increased concern over the safety of the players, the hits that defined the league are no longer celebrated with such vigor. Promotions, commercials, instant replays, and highlight packages now treat the most violent moments of the game with increasing sobriety. The change in coverage has extended into virtual representation as well. ESPN’s “Monday Night Football’s” iconic computer graphic of two helmets colliding into each other before exploding into the Monday Night Football logo, a mainstay of the program’s opening music sequence since 1986, was discontinued in 2010 at the NFL’s behest over how it may have glorified hits to the head (Thomas 2010). In 2012, Electronic Arts introduced concussion injuries into its NFL licensed Madden video game series. Whenever a player received a concussion in the game, they would 156

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be removed from play while the announcers explained the seriousness of head injuries (Good 2011). Despite a significant shift in the promotion, marketing, and display of football in the past five years to downplay the violence of the game, football is an inherently violent game and significant head injuries and hits to the head still occur. With the increased investment by television partners in using high-definition cameras (and more of them) in broadcasting games, along with advancements in slow-motion technology and the increasing size and quality of consumer television sets, the violence of football is now on display in detail never seen before. As the NFL and NCAA continue to grapple with making the game safer for their players, television still stands as the central site for display and consumption of the most violent aspects of the game.

Video Games While television is where the NFL found it largest audiences and most lucrative paydays, video games also played a crucial role in increasing the popularity of the league and shaping the presentational conventions of the televised game. While there had been videogames with NFL elements before, the 1991 release of Tecmo Super Bowl for the Nintendo Entertainment System marked the first football video game that contained both NFL teams and NFL players. The success of the game resulted in an influx of video games which held NFL licenses, most notably Electronic Arts’ (EA) 1993 game, Madden NFL ‘94, which was named after a popular NFL coach. The breakout success of the game continued with each annual release of the Madden franchise, marking the franchise as the preeminent NFL video game and eventually allowing EA to obtain exclusive rights to NFL teams and players in 2004 (Hruby 2010). EA applied the same model to its NCAA Football franchise, which started in 1993 and gained exclusive rights to NCAA teams and players in 2005. Though the NCAA Football franchise was as popular as the Madden franchise, EA discontinued the franchise in 2013 after the NCAA ended its licensing agreement with the company due to lawsuits by former players demanding compensation for appearing in the game (Rovell 2016). With the distinction of being the “official” (and only) NFL video game on the market, the Madden series has not only drawn new fans to the league, but has come to take on significant importance and relevance in the depiction and understanding of the sport. In particular, the game has shaped and been shaped by the presentation of football on television. Many integral presentational devices used by television broadcasters, such as the overhead camera, player introduction and statistical graphics, and on-screen first-down markers were taken from or inspired by the Madden franchise. In turn, Madden mimics many aspects of television broadcasts, including the use of instant replay, advertising sponsorships, post-game highlight packages, and television commentators. The result is a unified representation of the sport across both the televised and the video game playing field that allows fans to easily traverse between the two, ultimately benefitting the television broadcasters, Electronic Arts, and the league itself. The yearly build up to the release of the game also operates as a promotional vehicle for the league. Most notably, a few months before the game is released each 157

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year, EA Sports releases the in-game “player ratings” for every player in the league. These ratings, which EA Sports claims are the product of countless hours of work and research, are vigorously debated, attacked, and defended by fans, sports media outlets, and even the players themselves. The annual revelation of the NFL player who will appear on the cover of the game also operates as an extended promotional campaign for the league that is promoted across all the league’s television partners. The widespread knowledge of the “Madden curse,” which stipulates that the player who appears on the cover of the game will have a disappointing season, by both fans and media outlets reflects the influence of the Madden video game franchise in the culture of the sport and its popularity among the league’s fans.

Fantasy Football While fantasy football has existed since 1962, the virtual points-based game in which players simulate team ownership using the real statistics of athletes remained a niche hobby among local networks of sports enthusiasts until the arrival of the internet propelled fantasy sports into mainstream popularity. Today, the game operates as a dominant force within the consumption and promotion of NFL football. Players can sign up for leagues on NFL.com as well as the websites of major sports media outlets such as ESPN, Yahoo Sports, and CBS Sports. With an estimated player base of over 50 million people, the $19 billion fantasy football industry has increased the popularity of the sport among existing football fans as well as brought new fans to the game (Lomax 2006; Mehta 2016). The best reflection of fantasy football’s widespread appeal and broad cultural relevance may be found in the fact that not only was there a cable television show, The League, created around the premise of a fantasy football league and its members, but that show found sustained success and ran for seven seasons on the cable television channels FX and FXX. Despite the current importance of fantasy football within the mediation and consumption of the NFL, it is only in the last decade that the league began seriously embracing it and using it as a promotional tool. In 2010, the league launched its own fantasy football platform on its website. In 2011, the league began requiring all NFL teams to display real-time fantasy statistics in their stadiums during home games and in the next year, began requiring all on-air NFL Network broadcast personnel to participate in fantasy football leagues. The reasoning for this requirement was to ensure that analysts are always able to understand and relay to the audience the fantasy impact of the game they are analyzing (McCarthy 2011; Fabiano 2014). The prioritizing of football analysis and news with fantasy football implications has also impacted NFL journalists, who now receive greater attention and scrutiny of their reporting of injuries, weather conditions, last-minute lineup changes, and the shifting roles of less popular players, all of which can significantly impact fantasy football playing strategies (Maese 2014). While critics argue that fantasy football decreases team-loyalty among fans and causes fans to treat players as disposable commodities, proponents have credited it with broadening the appeal of the league as a whole and stirring interest in historically less-desirable televised games (Oates 2009; Rhoden 2015). Capitalizing on the newfound diversity in such interest, the NFL created the Redzone channel in 2009. Rather than show a single game, the Redzone channel switches between games to 158

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wherever the action is, sometimes showing two, three, or four games on a screen at a time. In addition to guaranteeing to show every single scoring play in every game, as well as other big moments, the channel constantly focuses on plays and games with significant implications for fantasy football. The presentational style of the channel then downplays the traditional narrative techniques of televised football while emphasizing statistics, big plays, and above all else, the touchdown. In doing so, the channel appeals to the fantasy football fan and reflects a modern orientation of football fandom toward a variety of teams and players.

A Global Sport? The large television contracts procured by the NFL and college football conferences reinforce the increasing influence of mediation over the present and future of American football and other popular sporting leagues. While the NFL has long embraced television, the escalating figures of recent television deals have further reshaped the revenue streams of sporting leagues and pushed mediation strategies to the top of leagues’ priorities. These strategies have led many major professional sporting leagues to look to the global television market. In a global television environment obsessed with sports, many leagues have found that investment in increasing foreign television deals can bring greater revenue potential than merely continuing investment in saturated domestic markets. Now, the NFL along with other major sporting leagues worldwide such as the National Basketball Association, MLB, the Indian Premier League, and the major European soccer leagues spend much time and effort courting international markets through the staging of exhibition tours and creating country specific marketing operations, all in an effort to build an international fan base and secure larger international television agreements. Thus, despite its dominance of the American sporting and television landscape, the NFL continues to hold greater, global ambitions. With stated aspirations of achieving $25 billion a year in revenue by 2027, the league has ratcheted up its efforts in recent years to break into European, Asian, and Central American markets and establish itself as a globally popular sporting league. So far, however, the league has failed to capture anything resembling its domestic success and has found itself lagging behind other domestic sporting leagues in building a globally consumed television product. In particular, European soccer leagues continue to dramatically increase their foreign television deals, including in the United States, a country historically seen as indifferent to soccer. The most vivid example of this is the English Premier League (EPL), which will receive a combined £5.1 billion from its international TV contracts for the 2016–2019 seasons, which is just under the £5.3 billion coming from its domestic TV deals. It will not be a surprise if with the next round of contracts that the EPL will become the first major sporting league in the world to earn more television money from international broadcasters than from domestic broadcasters. Already, it has already negotiated a three year, £560 million deal for the sale of its Chinese TV rights starting with the 2020 season. The deal represents over a tenfold increase on its existing Chinese rights deal (BBC 2016; Chaudhary 2016). More recent efforts by the NFL to court international markets, in particular the annual staging of regular season NFL games in the United Kingdom and now 159

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Mexico, have fared better than previous experiments such as the NFL’s attempt to start an NFL-branded football league in Europe. However, their success has generally been limited to the cities in which the games are staged and has not manifested into significantly larger television contracts. As the television and sporting industries continue to globalize, the NFL will have to find ways broaden its appeal to international audiences in order to retain its position as the world’s most profitable sports league.

An Uncertain Future Despite the NFL’s current dominance in the American sporting landscape in both popularity and profits, the declining prominence of live television in American popular culture has brought forth questions about the future growth of a sport that has been critically dependent on television for its success. In 2016, after years of steady growth, the NFL saw widespread viewership declines for its most prominent, nationally televised games on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” and ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.” As NFL games have long garnered the largest audiences across all of television, these declines have spurred debate over whether they are anomalies or indicators of future trouble for the sport. Optimists have argued that the declining ratings stem from viewer fatigue from the 2016 Summer Olympics and an engrossing 2016 US presidential election campaign, while pessimists have argued the NFL television viewership may have reached a saturation point in television viewers as audiences across the entire industry continue to slowly decline (MMQB 2016; Finn 2017). The NFL’s approach to combating potential declining television ratings (and the potential declining television deals that they would produce) has been two-fold. Instead of relying on a few, high-profile national platforms such as “Sunday Night Football” and “Monday Night Football,” the league has added a number of other nationally televised games to its schedule, most notably its “Thursday Night Football” series, which was expanded to a season-long schedule in 2016. Additionally, the league continues to add Saturday games to its end-of-season schedule once college football ends as well as added games to its “International Series” schedule, which typically air on early Sunday mornings before the regular schedule begins. Critics of the league have argued that the league’s strategy of spreading out its games and increasing its national television presence has resulted in a deterioration in the quality of games being shown on national television and in the quality of play across the league as a whole (Dickey 2016; Breech 2017). In addition to increasing its television presence, the league has also begun experimenting more fully with internet streaming of its games. While internet users outside of the United States can sign up for NFL Gamepass, a live-streaming package offered by the league, US streaming rights are held by television broadcasters and reserved for their television customers. In 2015, however, Yahoo signed a deal with the NFL that allowed the website to offer the first ever internet-only, global live-stream of an NFL game. The free stream saw over 15 million unique viewers and was considered a success. Following the Yahoo experiment, the NFL continued its exploration of live-streaming by signing a deal with Twitter, allowing the social

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media service to live-stream its “Thursday Night Football” package for free to its users. While the agreement marked a notable intensification of the NFL’s efforts to expand to the online space, both the size of the contract (around $10 million) and the audiences for the live streams paled in comparison to its television counterparts (Barrabi 2016). Ultimately, as the media landscape continues to evolve, the NFL will face new challenges to its growth as a sporting league and its preeminent position in US popular culture. While the league rose to record profits and visibility through its relationship with the television, it will be its relationship and embrace of online platforms that may dictate its continued expansion and success.

Further Reading Barrabi, T. (2016, October 27). Twitter-NFL: How’s it going so far? Fox Business. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/27/twitter-nfl-hows-it-going-so-far.html Battaglio, S., & James, M. (2017, February 6). Super Bowl’s TV ratings slip for the second straight year. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct -super-bowl-ratings-20170206-story.html BBC. (2016, November 18). Premier League agrees major deal for Chinese TV rights. BBC. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38020900 Breech, J. (2017, January 6). Goodell vouches for Thursday night games, says quality of play is better than other days. CBS Sports. Retrieved March 24, 2017 from http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/goodell -vouches-for-thursday-games-says-quality-of-play-is-better-than-other-days/ Brnger, G. (2016, November 3). Seguin High School’s football jumbotron comes with million dollar price tag. KSAT. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.ksat.com/education/seguin-high-schools -football-jumbotron-comes-with-million-dollar-price-tag Burroughs, B., & Rugg, A. (2014). Extending the broadcast: streaming culture and the problems of digital geographies. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 58(3), 365–380. Butterworth, M. (2008). Fox Sports, Super Bowl XLII, and the affirmation of American civil religion. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 32(3): 318–323. Carucci, V. (2010, April 16). Expect new draft schedule to result in more moves, excitement. NFL.com. Retrieved March 24, 2017 from http://www.nfl.com/draft/story/09000d5d817928ed/printable /expect-new-draft-schedule-to-result-in-more-moves-excitement Chandler, J. M. (1991). Sport as TV product: A case study of “Monday Night Football.” The Business of Professional Sports. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Chaudhary, V. (2016, July 25). How the Premier League’s record TV deal will impact football in England. ESPN FC. Retrieved from http://www.espnfc.us/english-premier-league/23/blog/post/2917119 /how-premier-league-record-tv-deal-will-affect-english-football Crepeau, R. C. (2014). NFL Football: A history of America’s new national pastime. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Casselman, B. (2009, September 21). Cowboys try big-screen play. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB125349462236226655 Cressman, D. L., & Swenson, L. (2007). The pigskin and the picture tube: the National Football League’s first full season on the CBS Television Network. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 51(3), 479–497. Dickey, J. (2016, November 29). The case for: abolishing Thursday night football. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.si.com/nfl/2016/11/29/nfl-thursday-night-football-future -schedule-ratings Fainaru-Wada, M., & Fainaru, S. (2013). League of denial: The NFL, concussions, and the battle for truth. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press. Fabiano, M. (2014, January 9). Roger Goodell touts growing impact of fantasy football. NFL.com. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.nfl.com/fantasyfootball/story/0ap2000000311267/article/roger -goodell-touts-growing-impact-of-fantasy-football Fang, K. (2015, January 25). The NFL on TV has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. Awful Announcing. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://awfulannouncing.com/2015/nfl-tv-changed-dramati cally-over-the-last-50-years.html

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Touchdown: An American Obsession Finn, C. (2017, January 12). Yes, the NFL really does have a ratings problem. Boston Globe. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/patriots/2017/01/12/yes-nfl-really-does-have -ratings-problem/n21LcLrlkomPL2zKTTkZEI/story.html FoxSports. (2016, October 20). College football’s biggest video boards. Fox Sports. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.foxsports.com/southwest/gallery/college-football-s-biggest-video-boards-081215 Freeman, M. (2015). Two-minute warning: How concussions, crime, and controversy could kill the NFL (and what the league can do to survive). Chicago, IL: Triumph Books. Good, O. (2011, March 31). Madden concussions a teachable moment, says EA sports. Kotaku.com. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from, http://kotaku.com/5787833/madden-concussions-a-teachable-moment-says -ea-sports Gross, J. (2014). A delayed blitz on the NFL’s blackout policy: A new approach to eliminating blackouts in publicly funded NFL stadiums. George Washington. Law Review 82, 1194–1128. Hinnen, J. (2012, November 21). ESPN reaches 12-year deal to air college football games. CBS Sports. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/espn-reaches-12 -year-deal-to-air-college-football-playoffs/ Hruby, P. (2010). The franchise: The inside story of how “Madden NFL” became a video game dynasty. ESPN.com. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.espn.com/espn/eticket/story?page=100805 /madden Johnson, W. (1969, December 22). TV made it all a new game. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved January 6, 2017, from https://www.si.com/vault/1969/12/22/618805/tv-made-it-all-a-new-game Johnson, B. (2016, January 26). Super Bowl, supersized: $4.5 billion in ad spending over 50 years. Ad Age. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://adage.com/article/news/super-bowl-supersized-4-5-b-ad -spending-50-years/302180/ Jozsa Jr, F. P. (2010). Football Fortunes: The business, organization and strategy of the NFL. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Kirshenbaum, J. (1973, October 1). Chirp-chirp, crunch-crunch. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved January 6, 2017, from https://www.si.com/vault/1973/10/01/618358/chirpchirp-crunchcrunch Lomax, R. G. (2006). Fantasy sports: History, game types, and research. Handbook of Sports and Media. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. MacCambridge, M. (2005). America’s game: The epic story of how pro football captured a nation. New York, NY: Anchor Books. Maese, R. (2014, September 2). Adam Shefter is NFL reporting machine. Washington Post. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/adam-schefter-is-nfl-reporting -machine/2014/09/02/93e009f2-32cc-11e4-9f4d-24103cb8b742_story.html?utm_term=.d19ffd943860 Marill, A. H. (2009). Sports on television. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. McCarthy, M. (2011). NFL orders clubs: Show fantasy stats at stadiums this year. USA Today. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/09/nfl-fantasy-football -stadiums-green-bay-packers-new-orleans-saints/1#.WQCtoWe1uM8 McChesney, R. W. (1989). Media made sport: A history of sports coverage in the United States. Media, Sports, and Society, 49–69. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publishing. Mehta, M. (2016, October 14). Whole new game: How fantasy football’s explosion during Roger Goodell’s 10 years as commissioner has changed way we cover, follow and consume NFL. New York Daily News. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/fantasy-boom -roger-goodell-reign-jolted-nfl-landscape-article-1.2830529 Messner, M. A. (1990). When bodies are weapons: Masculinity and violence in sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 25(3), 203–22 MMQB. (2016, October 27). Fans explain the NFL’s ratings decline. MMQB. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/10/27/nfl-ratings-decline-football-fans-explain-viewership NFL. (n.d.). Flexible scheduling. NFL.com. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.nfl.com/flexible -schedules Oates, T. P. (2009). New media and the repackaging of NFL fandom. Sociology of Sport Journal, 26(1), 31–4. Oriard, M. (1998). Reading football: How the popular press created an American spectacle. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Oriard, M. (2005). King football: Sport and spectacle in the golden age of radio and newsreels, movies and magazines, the weekly and the daily press. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Oriard, M. (2007). Brand NFL: Making and selling America’s favorite sport. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Oriard, M. (2014). Chronicle of a (football) death foretold: The imminent demise of a national pastime? The International Journal of the History of Sport, 31(1–2), 120–133.

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Chapter Ten: American Football and the Media Raney, A. A., & Bryant, J. (Eds.). (2006). Handbook of sports and media. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Rader, B. G. (1984). In its own image: How television has transformed sports. New York, NY: The Free Press. Real, M. R. (1975). Super Bowl: mythic spectacle. Journal of Communication, 25(1), 31–43. Reekie, H., & Grez, M. (2016, May 26). Champions League final vs. the Super Bowl. CNN. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/26/football/champions-league-vs-the-super-bowl -real-madrid-atletico-madrid/index.html Rhoden, W. C. (2015, November 25). Fantasy sport’s real crime: Dehumanizing the athletes. New York Times. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/sports/football/fantasy -sports-real-crime-dehumanizing-the-athletes.html Rovell, D. (2016, August 30). Will there ever be another NCAA football game? ESPN.com. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/17421334/will-there-ever-another -ncaa-football-video-game Rowe, D. (1996). The global love-match: Sport and television. Media, Culture & Society, 18(4), 565–582. Rugg, A. (2016). America’s game: The NFL’s “Salute to Service” campaign, the diffused military presence, and corporate social responsibility. Popular Communication, (14), 21–29. Siegel, G. (2002). Double vision: Large-screen video display and live sports spectacle. Television & New Media, 3(1), 49–73. Smith, G., & Shaw, L. (2016, October 6). Fewer NFL viewers force TV networks to give away ads. Bloomberg. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-06/tv -networks-forced-to-give-away-ads-as-nfl-viewership-declines Soper, T. (2016, February 9). Super Bowl fans use a record 10TB of data on Levi’s Stadium WiFi network, up 63% from 2015. Geekwire. Retrieved from https://www.geekwire.com/2016/super-bowl-data-usage/ SI Wire. (2016, March 28). NFL continues suspension of local TV blackout policy for 2016. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from, https://www.si.com/nfl/2016/03/28/nfl-continues -suspension-tv-blackout-rule Sports TV Ratings. (2016, August 30). How much more does ESPN make in affiliate revenue than the other sports networks? Sports TV Ratings. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https:// sportstvratings.com/how-much-more-does-espn-make-in-affiliate-revenue-than-the-other -sports-networks/5737/ Staple, A. (2016). The future of college sports media rights: How will deals evolve with the landscape? Sports Illustrated. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from https://www.si.com/college-football/video/2016/11/29 /future-college-sports-media-rights-how-will-deals-evolve-landscape-punt-pass-pork Thomas, K. (2010, October 21). N.F.L.’s policy on helmet-to-helmet hits makes highlights distasteful. New York Times. Retrieved March 24, 2017 from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/sports/foot ball/22hits.html Trumpbour, R. C. (2007). The new cathedrals: Politics and media in the history of stadium construction. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Trumpbour, R. C. (2014). Stadiums, arenas, and audiences. In Steven A. Reiss (Ed.), A companion to American sport history. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 577–597 . Vogan, T. (2014). Keepers of the flame: NFL films and the rise of sports media. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Wooley, S. (2010, November 11). Why the NFL is using the wrong playbook? Fortune. Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2010/11/11/why-the-nfl-network-is-using-the-wrong-playbook/ Yost, M. (2006). Tailgating, sacks, and salary caps: How the NFL became the most successful sports league in history. Chicago: Kaplan Publishing.

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Chapter Eleven: The Economics of American College and Professional Football Robert A. BAADE Lake Forest College Victor A. MATHESON College of the Holy Cross

College and professional football has grown from a sport which drew perhaps a hundred spectators to the playing field to one that entertains millions of fans and generates billions of dollars in revenues. Television has played an essential role in the growth in revenues, and over time courts have enforced a more equitable distribution of league revenues between owners and players. In order for the sport to continue to flourish financially, a number of obstacles will still have to be overcome. Keywords: American football, economics of sport, NFL, NCAA, cartels, television, ESPN, revenue sharing, labor struggles, litigation, court cases, stadiums, brain trauma

A

game played between Rutgers College and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1869 inaugurated American football. Players were amateurs, wore street clothes, and the hundred or so spectators stood on the sidelines or sat on a wooden fence surrounding the field. Today, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the dominant governing body of American intercollegiate athletics, establishes strict rules on player clothing; present-day spectators sit in climate controlled loges often subsidized by those who do not follow football; and professional football players routinely earn millions of dollars per season. What are the factors responsible for the economic transformation of American football? How did football evolve from a combination of rugby and soccer to a new game which became a secular religion, complete with myths, symbols, and rituals such as military flyovers prior to the start of a game? Today, football entertains the masses in cavernous stadiums and attracts millions of followers on radio and television. Football endangers the participants, especially in their nascent stage as young players. Football enriches the owners of professional teams and a select number of college coaches, but relatively few

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players even at the professional level. The quest for entertainment, the endangerment and financial exploitation of players, and the enrichment of relatively few from the sport are interwoven in accounting for past developments in American football. These same factors will likely interact to further transform, and perhaps undermine, football’s exalted cultural status in the United States. We leave to the sports sociologists and psychologists explanations for why American football has captivated the American public. The focus in this chapter is on the economic transformation of football from an activity involving a few participants and a small number of spectators sitting on a fence—on a fall day almost 150 years ago—to the multi-billion dollar enterprise of today, followed by hundreds of millions of fans over the course of a season. The first part of this article will provide a brief history of football’s development from a game without generally accepted rules to a sport that is micro-managed by monopolies or cartels. at the amateur and professional levels. These cartels have evolved and adapted their game to satisfy the American quest for excitement. While such a quest seems to be a product of the yearnings of any affluent society, football is a uniquely American response. The chapter’s second section is devoted to a discussion of how and why the fledgling football industry organized itself as a monopoly. Was the development of a monopolistic market structure the consequence of strategic maneuvering of a few entrepreneurs who anticipated how the yearnings of a growing middle class could be parlayed into enormous personal wealth? Or did monopolies develop due to economic factors unique to the football industry that precluded alternative market structures (natural monopolies, in the parlance of economists)? The third part of this chapter identifies the financial interactions among owners, coaches, players, fans, non-fans, and government in producing football and allocating revenue from its production. Players and owners have contested the appropriation of revenues from football games above those that would be generated if league monopolies did not exist (monopoly rents, in the parlance of economists). The market determines a price for football tickets, and some fans would be willing to pay more than the market-determined price to view a game. Economists use the term consumer surplus to identify the amount of money fans collectively would pay above the market-determined price to view games. Owners have sought to capture that consumer surplus and fans have resisted such owner initiatives, claiming that they are the exercise of owner greed enabled by the monopolistic market structure of the football industry. Other financial competition exists in the world of American football. Owners and cities and their citizens have contested the right of politicians, through league and team machinations to impose “taxes” on the public to provide for stadiums and training facilities. Therefore, some of the most significant and meaningful competition in contemporary football has been waged not on the field but in courtrooms. Each of these economic/legal contests among the various groups either vying for a bigger portion of the revenues created by football or the assumption of lower costs in conjunction with spectating will be considered at both the collegiate and professional levels. If history does repeat, then future developments in the football industry can be anticipated. The next portion of this chapter will attempt to forecast future developments based on the past. Finally, policy implications will be discussed in the last section.

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History of the Development of American Football Cartels Critical to understanding the economics of American football is the development of two major sports’ cartels: The NCAA and the NFL. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is often referred as an “incidental cartel” (Leeds and von Allmen 2011, 132), a cartel developed as a consequence of a need to address other issues relating to intercollegiate sport, e.g., the significant incidence of serious injuries from playing the sport. The evolution of the National Football League (NFL), on the other hand, can be viewed as a more deliberate development designed to ensure the survival of the league initially, and to maximize the profit of the team owners subsequently. An analysis of the development of football and these governing bodies follows. While the first “football” game generally was thought to have been played in 1869, a contest between McGill University (in Montreal) and Harvard University on 13 and 14 May 1874 had great influence on the development of the game. The twoday affair featured the first game that was played using a Harvard variation of soccer, known as the “Boston Game.” This game permitted the player to pick up the ball and run with it if he was chased, until the chaser stopped. At that point the player either had to kick or throw the ball. The Canadian game permitted the players to run with the ball, and it featured the idea of downs and tackling (Montgomery 2014). Downs refer to the number of plays allowed the team in possession of the ball to advance the ball a designated distance. Failure to advance the ball the requisite distance resulted in the other team gaining possession of the ball. Apparently the Harvard team liked the Canadian game so much that they used the Canadian rules for a game against Yale in 1875. In 1876, a rulebook of sorts was created for the sport, and those rules distinguished football from rugby and soccer. The fact that a fifty-cent admission was charged for the McGill-Harvard game was a harbinger of things to come. Football had become extraordinarily popular by 1905, attracting tens of thousands of fans to games. Major League Baseball, considered the American national pastime in the late-nineteenth century, by contrast, often attracted only three-thousand spectators per game (Morrison 2010). Part of the appeal of football surely was its violent, macho, up-tempo nature. It was a collision sport rather than simply a game involving contact. In fact, there were 18 football-related deaths and 159 serious injuries in 1905 alone. Three of the deaths involved college players and the remaining fatalities were high school students (Morrison 2010). The dangers posed by football, especially for players in the early stages of their football careers, encouraged politicians in response to concerns expressed by their constituents to consider abolishing the game. President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), a symbol of masculinity, for example, strongly condemned the violence inherent in the sport during his Harvard University graduation address in the spring of 1905. In December of that year, representatives of sixty-two schools met to discuss rule changes that would make the game safer. Prior to the turn of the century, nearly every college and university had formed a faculty committee to oversee intercollegiate athletic competition, but faculty were hesitant to be involved in the administration of intercollegiate sport in addition to their other responsibilities (Barr 1999). The dangers posed by football and

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concerns about the growing student involvement in athletics convinced colleges and universities that faculty and school administrations needed to regulate athletics on campuses throughout the United States. On 28 December 1905, sixty-two schools met, and they formed the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS) to serve as the regulatory body for intercollegiate athletics. In a move that was more cosmetic than substantive, the NCAA replaced the IAAUS in 1910 as the governing body for intercollegiate athletics. The NCAA as a cartel composed of colleges and universities across the United States was created for the specific purpose of reducing football injuries and regulating intercollegiate athletics to avoid interference with the academic mission of colleges and universities; the NCAA’s formation was incidental in that sense. Its governance and promotion of intercollegiate athletics, however, has substantially expanded over the years to the point where its function has been questioned. Critics argue that the NCAA as it currently functions has become increasingly incompatible with academic pursuits. It is paradoxical that intercollegiate football survived its violent beginnings arguably as a consequence of the willingness of a group of schools to create rules to reduce football violence and to better integrate intercollegiate athletics into the academic mission of colleges and universities. The IAAUS and the NCAA offered at least the pretense that football in particular and intercollegiate athletics, more generally speaking, were under control, and augmented rather than detracted from academics. The pursuit of athletic success has undermined the NCAA to a substantial extent.

Early Days of the NFL The NFL beginnings were the antithesis in terms of spectacle to the entertainment that the NFL provides at the halfway point during the Super Bowl. On 17 September 1920, fourteen men, representing a variety of teams, including legendary team owner George Halas (1895–1983) of the Chicago Bears and legendary NFL player Jim Thorpe (1888–1953), convened inside an automobile showroom in downtown Canton, Ohio, for lack of an alternative venue, to create a professional football league (Klein 2014). The meeting was necessitated by the fact that the individual professional football teams in existence at the time were hemorrhaging cash at a rate that threatened their very existence (Klein 2014). A league was needed to tackle excesses in bidding for players and raiding one another’s rosters and to raise professional football’s profile as an alternative to the collegiate game. A confederation called the American Professional Football Association (APFA) was formed, and Jim Thorpe was selected as its first president and the public face of the organization. At the time, pro football was a distinctly second-rate attraction compared to college football. Some college games attracted more than 100,000 fans, while the average attendance for APFA games was 4,241. Furthermore, the pro game was largely ignored by the press. The lack of financial success prompted the owners to replace Thorpe with Joe Carr (1879–1939), the owner of the Columbus Panhandles team of the APFA and a person with a business background (Klein 2014). In 1922, the league owners felt it necessary to rebrand itself to include changing its name to the National Football League. 168

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The NFL gained traction with the 1925 signing of Red Grange (1903–1991), a legendary college running back, who had just graduated from the University of Illinois, by the Chicago Bears. Grange signed less than a week after he had completed four years of play which represented the maximum amount of time the NCAA permitted for college players. Grange then embarked on an extraordinary sixty-seven day, nineteen-game tour with the Bears that filled stadiums and newspaper columns across the country (Schwartz n.d.). The Bears played ten games in eighteen days in the East and Midwest, took a two-week break, and then played nine games in the South and on the West Coast. While the last Bears game without Grange drew seventy-five-hundred fans, a standing-room crowd of thirty-six thousand jammed what is now Wrigley Field to see him play in one of these games. Legend has it that Bears owner George Halas wept while counting the substantial receipts from that game (Schwartz n.d.). Grange had signed for $3,000 per game ($41,015.90 in 2016 dollars—totaling $779,302 in 2016 dollars for nineteen games) plus a percentage of the gate, an amount of money that further legitimized and mythologized professional football (Schwartz n.d.). For both NFL owners and players, the financial future of professional football appeared bright.

Why Team Sports Require a League Structure ­ The production of a sports contest requires two teams or players. Economists refer to this as joint production. If those who produce the event are motivated to maximize profits from the contest, certain things have to be considered. For example, the contestants must play according to a certain set of rules; they must agree on a time and place for the contest; the event must be publicized; and the spectating experience must be optimized to include heightened drama which occurs, if the contest’s outcome is uncertain. Leagues have been organized to facilitate profit maximization and to perform all those functions that serve that end. The NFL was developed throughout the 1920s to ensure financial survival and stability for the member clubs. Meaningful rivalries and championship play depend on a stable roster of teams. No league appears to understand that better than the NFL, and its early financial struggles compelled the development of the most comprehensive revenue sharing in the history of professional sports in the United States, where the clubs are individually owned and operated. From the NFL’s creation in 1920 until 1936, the same roster of clubs did not compete against one another for two consecutive years (Leeds and von Allmen 2011). Instability threatened the very existence of professional football. Of the fifty teams playing at least one season in the NFL between those years, forty-three had folded or relocated by the end of that era. At the time that the APFA was created, the first order of business focused on the withdrawal of the Massillon, Ohio franchise due to financial issues rather than on the quintessential league mission which was “to raise the standard of professional football in every way possible, to eliminate bidding for players between rival clubs and to secure cooperation in the formation of schedules” (Klein 2014). This quote identified the business taken up after the consideration of the Massillon withdrawal by the team owners. Professional and intercollegiate football grew out of a need for survival but for quite different reasons. The collegiate game had to address the safety issue. 169

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The professional game had to structure itself in a way that ensured its financial survival.

Television’s Role in the Economic Growth of the NCAA and the NFL The NCAA and NFL football proved to be a product that suited the American temperament. The game reflected American culture, and the NCAA and NFL profited enormously by providing a distinctly American entertainment. From its inception, the NCAA served those functions that all leagues must. Specifically, the NCAA established a uniform set of rules for the game; coordinated schedules; and promulgated standards regarding conditions that students had to meet to be eligible to participate in intercollegiate athletics. Through time, the NCAA has been forced to confront myriad issues, some of which have had to do with its own financial success. Nothing has been more vital to the economic growth of the NCAA than its alliance with the broadcast media in bringing its football games to regional and national audiences. The introduction of televised football in 1939 started the process through which broadcast replaced print media in bringing intercollegiate sport to the American public. The NCAA and its football arm have evolved from nothing in the way of broadcast revenues to billion-dollar contracts with television networks today. The NCAA’s early relationship with electronic media reflected the concern that airing football games might discourage game attendance. In fact, electronic media were unwelcome in both college and professional football because both the NCAA and the NFL believed that “indirect spectating” conflicted with and discouraged “direct attendance” and gate revenue (Michigan State University n.d.). The process through which football games were transformed into mass commercial entertainment through national broadcast occurred slowly, in part because the print media resisted the new technology. The print media dominated football and other sporting events coverage from 1870 through 1920. The print media pressured legislatures at all levels of government to limit electronic media competition. For example, the Radio Broadcasting Act of 1912 imposed time-limits for broadcasting and wavelength distribution. The electronic media fought back and in 1921 radio station KDKA of Pittsburgh broadcast the University of Pittsburgh versus West Virginia University football game; this was the first broadcast of a college football game (West Virginia Encyclopedia 2015). In 1922, the University of Chicago-Princeton University game was broadcast to New York City using phone lines. That same year, football games involving the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), Cornell University, the University of Notre Dame, Harvard University, and Yale University were broadcast. WGN Chicago, a local station with a national following, broadcast Big Ten conference football games in 1925, and the original football bowl game (end-of-season games matching the best college teams), the Rose Bowl (generally thought to be the bowl game played between the best two collegiate teams at the time), was aired in New York City that same year. College athletic administrations feared that the broadcast media represented a technology that would diminish direct spectating at football games. The NCAA, assessing the impact of radio broadcasts did not side with either college athletic 170

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administrations or those football fans who wanted to listen to games. The NCAA supported the broadcast of games to the local market only, what came to be called “Home Rule,” while at the same time supporting the idea that radio broadcasts hurt college football attendance. Television would force the NCAA to abandon this compromise position. The May 1939 television broadcast of a baseball game between Princeton and Columbia Universities represented the first confrontation between those who believed that television represented a truly destructive technology that could only diminish game attendance and revenue from the sport and those who stood to gain from the broadcast of college football. The latter group argued that television would not undermine attendance at college sporting events, but would enhance interest in collegiate sport and the revenue generated from it. Both sides agreed on one thing: colleges and universities had entered the world of televised collegiate sport for the foreseeable future. The main question remained: How much would live attendance at games decline as a consequence of televised games? Few if any could have foreseen the financial impact television would have, and how television money could become so overwhelmingly important and compromise the academic mission of colleges and universities. How institutions of higher learning, awash in money from televised intercollegiate sport, could maintain academic integrity would eventually have to be addressed, and the NCAA would be called upon to do so. Before exploring the NCAA’s response to TV’s threat to academic integrity, the chronology of television’s entry and expansion into the world of college football needs to be detailed.

The Beginnings of Televised College Football The first televised college football game involved Fordham University and Waynesburg College on 30 September 1939; NBC broadcast the contest using a single camera situated behind the Fordham bench on the 40-yard line (Vander Voort 2015). The television audience had been estimated at 500 to 5,000, while 9,000 attended the game (Vander Voort 2015). The first nationwide broadcast of a college football game did not occur until 29 September 1951. The game was aired by NBC, and Duke University and the University of Pittsburgh participated in that inaugural event. The NCAA was quick to respond to the telecast, and it commissioned a study by the National Opinion Research Center beginning in 1952 about how television affected live attendance at football games. Research at the center revealed that televised games diminished attendance for those teams that were not being televised. As a result of these findings, in 1953, the NCAA began to institute controls over television broadcasts. Through its Football Television Committee, it initially limited television broadcasts to one game on Saturday, and no team would participate in those games more than once a year. This action clearly violated antitrust laws in the United States, and the NCAA decided this despite the fact it had no statutory antitrust exemption. The NCAA broadcast initiative, however, was supported by all NCAA member schools except for the University of Pennsylvania, which decided to continue to televise home games just as they had throughout the 1950s. The NCAA declared Penn a member in bad standing, and the four schools with whom Penn had scheduled their home games refused to play. Penn relented and supported the NCAA limits on television broadcast (Gaul 2016, 19). 171

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The NCAA’s aggressive tactics. as exemplified by its actions regarding the University of Pennsylvania, enabled it to retain control of college football game telecasts until 1977. Many of the most prominent “football schools” had grown increasingly frustrated by what they viewed as a heavy-handed and misguided NCAA policy regarding TV broadcasts. Colleges increasingly perceived that they could increase their revenues from expanding the number of games telecast. The NCAA either did not share that belief or, as is true with most bureaucracies, they were too slow to adapt to changed circumstances. As a consequence, in 1977, sixty-two of the nation’s premier football schools formed the College Football Association (CFA). The purpose of the CFA was to negotiate television contracts on behalf of the member schools in the hopes of increasing the demand for college football and to increase the revenues of the most prominent programs (Siegfried and Burba 2003, 7). Part of the discord between the NCAA and the premier football schools had to do with the wide variety of schools the NCAA represented and the distribution of revenues. “Small school obstructionism” has been a recurrent irritant for the major athletic powers. In the drama that has played out over time between the NCAA and its most prominent members, developments would indicate that the negotiating strength increasingly rests with the most powerful conferences and schools. Predictably, the CFA’s rein was short-lived as the most successful football conferences and schools pursued their own financial agendas in forging contracts with the TV networks. Perhaps no event was more supportive of that pursuit than the ruling in a United States Supreme Court decision in 1984. On 27 June of that year, the Supreme Court ruled in NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma that the NCAA had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act (the most important legislation in the United States relating to the formation and actions of commercial trust and cartels) in serving as the sole bargaining agent on behalf of 300 colleges and universities in negotiating television contracts with the networks. Pandora’s box had been opened, and conferences and even individual schools, most notably Notre Dame, began to negotiate individual television contracts. The best and most popular college football teams were not the only ones that felt aggrieved by the NCAA limitations; football consumers suffered as well. Scholars assessed the harm done to consumers, and an analysis conducted in the early 1970s identified three ways in which consumers’ well-being was negatively affected in 1972 by the NCAA serving as the sole bargaining agent in negotiating contracts with the networks: (1) fewer than fifty of approximately three-thousand college football games were televised (2) nineteen games or less were available for home viewing in most areas; and (3) NCAA and not the audiences determined which games could be watched (Hochberg and Horowitz 1973). The NCAA feared that television would be flooded with football games, which would reduce revenue and the profitability of college football. The first part of that prediction proved to be true; the second proved wildly pessimistic. Even Sports Illustrated, arguably the most popular American sports magazine, missed the mark by the length of a football field in predicting the financial demise of college football following the Supreme Court decision. The concern was that too many football games would be televised following the 1984 NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma decision. A saturation of the market for televised football game would depress the price that colleges and universities could charge the networks for their games with dire financial consequences for them. 172

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Games could now be viewed on Thursday and Friday nights and from noon on Saturday (East Coast time) until after midnight rather a single game on Saturday afternoon. Predictions regarding the financial demise of college football, and all the non-revenue sports it has subsidized, proved to be exaggerated. After the decision, television revenue immediately fell from $69.7 million for all the college football rights in 1983 to $43.6 million in 1984. This dip of 37 percent was not trivial, but it was short-lived. To corroborate, it has to be considered that the value of all of the 1984 football rights in 2015 dollars equaled only $90.3 million. ESPN paid a reported $80 million for the broadcast rights for the 2015 Rose Bowl game alone (Staples 2012). It is hard to overstate the importance of the 1984 Supreme Court decision— which turned television rights negotiations over to all the ten major football conferences (eighty-nine teams in total) and twenty-one teams that had no conference affiliation in Division 1A (the highest division in college football)—in understanding the gilding of college football. The networks gambled that America could not get enough football, and it would appear that the networks better understood the football market than the NCAA. The television networks’ monetary gamble was substantial when they first began to broadcast more than one college game a week on Saturday afternoon, and over time they have increased the size of their early broadcast bets. The four-game playoff, which began in 2015 to determine the collegiate football champion, illustrates the monetary dimensions of the current network wager and the big business college football has become. ESPN paid $7.3 billion in total over twelve years to telecast four major bowl games and the two semifinals and final game in the championship series (Tracy and Rohan 2014). The eighty-six games that ESPN has agreed to telecast for twelve years translates into approximately $86.9 million dollars per game or roughly twice what college football received for broadcast rights for the entire 1984 season. Clearly, the 1984 Supreme Court decision has transformed the college game; it is now played on gold rather than grass. The substantial increase in the number of college football games that have been telecast has not come at the expense of live attendance at college football games since the 1984 Supreme Court decision. In fact, as the information in Table 1 indicates, attendance at what was called Division 1-A from 2003 through 2005 and again in 2007, and also known as Division 1-Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) for all other years, has remained stable. Several things are worth noting in Table 1. First, the number of teams vying for the college football championship has increased by ten over the period 2003 through 2015, an increase of 7.9 percent. Second, the number of games played over the period 2003 through 2015 has increased by 192, or 28.6 percent. Third, total attendance has increased by 2,872,275 over the 2003 through 2015 period, or 8.2 percent. Fourth, average attendance has decreased by 3.3 percent over the period 2003 through 2015. Combining this information would suggest that the inclusion of additional schools in the bowl mix has not substantially altered attendance at Division 1-FBS games. The evidence with regard to average attendance would appear to be stable, especially if we exclude the high/low average attendance figures in 2003 and 2015, respectively. Indeed, even the years of what has been popularly referred to as the “Great Recession,” which officially began in December of 2007, exhibited average game attendance at or near the high-water mark for average game 173

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Table 1.  Attendance Statistics for Division 1-A/Division 1-FBS for 2003–2015 Year

Number of Teams

Number of Games*

Total Attendance

Average Attendance

2003

117

672

35,085,646

52,211

2004

118

711

32,495,401

45,704

2005

117

709

32,641,526

46,039

2006

119

796

36,814,468

46,249

2007

119

791

37,146,661

46,962

2008

119

798

37,483,158

46,971

2009

120

809

37,441,060

46,281

2010

120

808

37,678,722

46,632

2011

120

812

37,411,795

46,074

2012

120

818

37,170,235

45,440

2013

123

835

38,135,118

45,671

2014

125

850

37,913,238

44,603

2015

127

864

37,957,921

43,933

Source: http://www.ncaa.org/championships/statistics/ncaa-football-attendance * Includes games at neutral sites and bowl games.

attendance of 46,367 in the period 2003 through 2015. It is also important to note that the average number of games played in percentage terms was 8.67 times as large as the decrease in average attendance per game. Overall the data indicate that the decrease in direct spectating as a consequence of indirect spectating for college football has not occurred. Football has been the financial bell cow for college athletics for some time. That position derives from the value that American society places on this game. Football on average accounts for approximately 65 percent of revenue for major athletic programs. The growth in athletic departments’ revenue has been spectacular. In Division I programs, it has grown from a median of $6.5 million in 1970 to $56 million in 2012 (Tracy and Rohan 2014). The introduction of the bowl championship series has strengthened football’s grip on power within athletic departments. The five major college football conferences in the United States include the Southeastern, the Atlantic Coast, the Pacific-12, the Big 12, and the Big Ten. Collectively they are identified as the “Big Five.” This elite group saw their base revenue increase from $28 million in 2013, the year prior to the introduction of the current football championship playoff format, to approximately $50 million with the introduction of the football championship series in 2014. The next five largest conferences fared even better; the base revenue for each of them has almost tripled as a consequence of the bowl championship series (Tracy and Rohan 2014). Given how lucrative the championship series has been, and given how additional football telecasts have contributed to college coffers, the temptation clearly exists to expand the number of teams and games in determining the collegiate football champion. 174

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Colleges and universities have been widely assailed for the professionalization of collegiate athletics. The dilemma is clear. Are colleges and universities going to continue to accept payments for football even if it comes at the expense of academic integrity? This issue will be discussed in greater detail below.

The NFL and Television Professional football has experienced growth and stability and unparalleled financial success in the annals of American sports since its founding and chaotic early years as discussed previously. Numerous reasons account for the NFL’s financial growth and stability. Two things stand out in helping the NFL’s financial success. First, in 1927 the NFL eliminated its financially impaired teams and reduced the number of teams to twelve. Eventually, the league left small Midwestern cities, opting to replace Akron, Ohio, Canton, Ohio, and Muncie, Indiana in favor of franchises in major urban areas such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. By the mid to late 1930s, only the Green Bay Packers remained as a reminder of the NFL’s small, Midwestern town roots. The Packers survived by asking for and receiving public donations; today they are the only community-owned franchise in the NFL. The Packers represent such an important part of their community that they were able to sell shares of stock that had no financial value to help finance one of the very recent Lambeau Field renovations where the Packers play their home games. The Packers’ unique status brings a small-town element to today’s NFL which has a distinctly big-city corporate character. Second, the league promulgated a program whereby revenues were shared among all teams to include gate receipts (home teams retained 60 percent of those revenues), and national television broadcast revenues (revenues shared equally). The extent of revenue sharing distinguishes the NFL from the other three major professional sports leagues that operate in the United States (baseball, basketball, and hockey). NFL revenue sharing was arguably not an option during the early years of the NFL because of the precarious state of league finances. The league experienced substantial team financial failure and turnover during its formative years as previously stated. The long-term financial interests of any professional sports league are better served if the roster of teams remains largely intact. Fan identification and the development of intense rivalries are fundamental to heightening fan interest, which, in turn, is critical to financial success. Then too, the financial health and well-being of a league and individual teams benefit if teams are of comparable quality to ensure that the games have an uncertain outcome. Fan interest and excitement wane if one or a few teams dominate. Revenue sharing levels the financial playing field, and financial parity is thought to be essential in ensuring an uncertain outcome for games. This would be particularly true if players were free to play for whatever team they chose, and if teams were all equally motivated by a desire to win rather than maximizing profits from operating a professional sports team, for example. Despite the importance and the popularity of college football, professional football did not emerge as a widely followed sport until the 1950s and did not begin to assume its dominant position in the world of American commercial sport arguably until the 1960s. This development likely occurred as a consequence of growing American affluence and discretionary income following World War II. 175

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As with college football, television was critical to the NFL’s ascendency. Television and football enjoy a symbiotic relationship; football combines drama and violence in a way that makes for good television. Then too, football games matter largely because relatively few games are played over the course of a season. Each team plays once a week, and the relatively short season elevates the importance of each game.

The NFL and Legislation Regarding Television Broadcast In 1959, following the death of long-time NFL Commissioner Bert Bell (1895–1959), Alvin Ray “Pete” Rozelle (1926–1996) succeeded him. Rozelle has often been recognized as the person most responsible for transforming the NFL into the premier American professional sport. Rozelle understood the importance of television in shaping the NFL’s financial future. Prior to Rozelle and television—the two seem inextricably linked—professional football relied primarily on gate revenue. Rozelle’s first and arguably most important task was to convince traditional, conservative owners that the financial future of the NFL depended on a partnership with television. As if convincing owners was not sufficient challenge, he also had to convince the United States Congress that the NFL should be exempted from antitrust laws, and be allowed to serve as the sole representative of the collection of NFL teams in negotiating contracts with the television networks. Rozelle also had to convince owners that the revenue from that contract had to be distributed equally among all teams (Shmoop Editorial Team 2008). Commissioner Rozelle was successful on all these fronts. He was perhaps the most instrumental person in convincing Congress to pass the “Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961” (SBA), which permitted the NFL League Office to represent all the teams in negotiations with the networks involving the telecast of professional football games. The SBA is one of a few sports-specific statutes enacted by Congress. It specifically exempts the “collective sale” of the NFL’s teams’ television rights from antitrust challenges (Mitten and Hernandez 2014). The league staunchly believed that the equal sharing of television revenues among all teams would induce competitive balance on the field. The SBA represented a financial watershed for the NFL. Prior to its enactment, NFL clubs sold their TV rights individually and retained all the revenue from that sale. Large markets were a distinct financial advantage in the negotiations between broadcasting companies and owners, who could afford the best players as a consequence. Furthermore, if the most financially successful teams dominated play, viewer preferences in theory would shift in favor of the superior teams. The league feared that the competitive imbalance would be further exacerbated if the games of the best teams in the league could be televised in the markets of weaker clubs when they played at home. The NFL adopted Article X specifically to financially support the small-market teams. Article X of the NFL bylaws prohibited a club from broadcasting its games in another team’s home territory defined by a 75-mile radius from the home team’s city. Article X did prevent viewers in the home team’s territory from watching other NFL games telecast in the home team’s market. Clearly Article X intended to enhance the economic well-being of teams at the expense of consumer welfare. In the only antitrust lawsuit ever filed by the federal government 176

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against the sports industry, the overt redistribution of welfare from consumers to teams through restricting the market for televised NFL games was challenged in 1953 in United States v. National Football League (“NFL I”) (Mitten and Hernandez 2014). The federal district court achieved a Solomon compromise of sorts in its ruling. On the one hand, it concluded that restricting telecasts constituted collusion through an allocation of market areas among competitors in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. On the other hand, the court opined that football was a unique business, and the very survival of individual teams depended on gate revenue, which the court stated would be negatively affected by permitting the broadcast of other NFL games in the home team’s territory. The compromise opinion preserved Article X in the sense that when the home team played at home, the 75-mile broadcast rule prevailed. When the home team played away, however, other NFL games could be broadcast in the home team’s territory. The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and the NFL entered into a contract in 1961 that granted CBS the exclusive right to telecast all NFL games for a $4,650,000 annual fee. CBS would determine which games to telecast and where. This contract represented the first time that the NFL represented the entire roster of teams in selling broadcast rights. This development encouraged the federal government to sue the NFL a second time, United States v. National Football League (“NFL II”). On 20 July 1961, the court ruled that the NFL-CBS agreement violated the 1953 injunction, and the court through the NFL II decision prohibited the NFL from collectively selling rights to televise games. The ruling potentially could undermine the financial viability of the small-market clubs according to the NFL, and the United States Congress intervened. Congress overruled the NFL II decision with the promulgation of the SBA in September of 1961. Congress intended the legislation to “enable the member clubs…to pool their rights in the sponsored broadcasting of their games and to permit the league to sell the resulting package of pooled rights to a purchaser, such as a television network, without violating the antitrust laws” (Mitten and Hernandez 2014).

Revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance The SBA granted immunity to the NFL from antitrust challenges, and this also applied to the three other major professional sports leagues in the United States: Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Hockey League (NHL). Two things are worth noting at this juncture: (1) NFL II, like NFL I, preserved the provision against the broadcast of games within a home team’s territory when the home club was playing at home; (2) college football and the NCAA were not immunized. As previously noted, the 1984 Supreme Court decision regarding the NCAA’s television plan concluded that the plan had anticompetitive effects because it limited output and fixed the price of TV broadcasts. The NFL and NCAA evolved in opposite directions as it related to the telecast of games. Since one of the purposes of the SBA was to promote competitive balance, the extent to which revenue sharing promotes competitive balance can be analyzed through comparing the experience of the NFL and college football through the SBA. Did playing parity improve in the NFL relative to college football? 177

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Theoretically, it would be expected that equalizing playing talent would engender parity in play. The number of wins generally depends on the quality of players signed, and it seems reasonable that all clubs would value players similarly, if not the same. That outcome depends on all teams seeking to maximize the number of wins. If some teams are motivated by the desire to maximize profits while others seek to maximize wins, however, competitive balance may not be promoted through revenue sharing. If leagues seek to maximize pooled revenues and if all revenues are equally shared so that the marginal revenue from signing a particular player in a large market (MRL) equals the marginal revenue from signing that same player by a small market club (MRS), the league would still have an incentive to favor the large market club signing the player. Ironically, that would also be true for the small market clubs. The reason follows from the fact that the large market club would generate more revenue through signing the player than would be true for the small market club. Even though the fact that MRL equals MRS in a league where revenues are equally shared, the league’s pooled revenue would be greater with the large market signing, and each club, even though they share revenue equally, would benefit because they receive the same share but from a larger pool. The second reason parity might not be induced through revenue sharing has to do with the fact that all clubs do not pursue talent with the same vigor. Some clubs are willing to sacrifice profit for additional wins. That would certainly appear to apply to a publicly owned franchise such as the Green Bay Packers. Even with that exceptional case aside, there does appear to be a difference in how teams value a player; some teams value winning more than others, i.e., a player’s marginal revenue product differs across clubs, which accounts, at least in part, for the willingness of some teams to pay more for a player than others. Another thing to consider in assessing the extent to which revenue sharing induces on-the-field parity relates to how redistributing revenue alters the demand curve for a particular player. Revenue sharing shifts the demand curve for a player to the left for all teams. Competitive balance would be unaffected if the revenue sharing shifted the demand curve for all the teams equally. Economist Stefan Kesenne (2000) has argued that the downward shift of the labor demand curves will differ across clubs due to revenue sharing with the larger clubs exhibiting the biggest shifts. If the downward shifts for big clubs decrease because of revenue sharing, the demand curves for players may increase for small clubs because revenue sharing increases the revenue for small clubs thereby increasing their labor demand functions (Kesenne 2000). Revenue sharing would therefore induce an increased demand for a particular player among small clubs while reducing demand for that player among big clubs. Both of these developments contribute to parity on the field. The evidence provides some support for the contention that the SBA did improve competitive balance on the playing field through leveling the financial playing field. Painting with broad strokes, of the current roster of NFL clubs, 40 percent of them have won at least one Super Bowl since 1985. Of the current 127 FBS teams, only 17, or 13 percent have won an Associated Press (AP) national championship. The University of Miami, the University of Alabama, and the University of Florida have collectively won eleven AP national championships since 1985 (Mitten and Hernandez 2014). While this statistical analysis is by no means rigorous, it does suggest that some correlation does exist between financial balance and competitive balance on the playing field. 178

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Sports Competition on the Field, Financial Competition off the Field Television appears to have been critical in explaining football’s growth and financial success. In 2015, the NFL generated $7.24 billion in TV revenue. Each team received $226.4 million as their pro-rated share. This revenue would permit each team to play in a studio without a single fan in attendance and still make a profit. The national broadcast revenue in real terms has risen by 120 percent over the last eleven years. Per team revenue has increased from $82.4 million in 2005, or a multiple of 2.75 per team. Sports writer James Brady (2015) has noted that if the NFL were a country, it would rank among the top 145 economies in the world based on its television revenue alone. Television has made the NFL the most prosperous professional sports league in the world. Pete Rozelle clearly was on to something.

Contest for Consumer Surplus All that money apparently has not dampened the NFL’s desire for more. Indeed, the NFL acronym could stand for the National Finance League as it vigorously competes for a larger share of the entertainment dollar. In that quest, the NFL has sought to identify and appropriate all consumer surplus. It is well understood that a monopoly charges higher prices and restricts the supply of a product in comparison to the outcome in a more competitive market structure. The very existence of the NFL monopoly and the geographic monopolies for the individual teams enables a redistribution of income from football consumers to football producers. If it could, the NFL and the NCAA would identify the maximum price each fan would be willing to pay for each game and charge that price. If a person is indifferent about buying the ticket or not, i.e., if each fan for each game is a “marginal consumer,” the NFL would have engaged in a practice known as “perfect price discrimination,” and in the course of that exercise would have appropriated all consumer surplus. Charging different prices for different seats, season ticket sales, ticket packages, variable ticket pricing, dynamic ticket pricing, and the imposition of personal seat licenses are all methods that professional sports teams employ in competing with consumers for their consumer surplus.

Contest for Monopoly Rents Arguably, the most overtly rancorous financial competition occurs not between the fans and the teams, but between the owners and players over the distribution of monopoly rents. How much of the revenue generated should be appropriated by players and how much by the owners? One of the more interesting things to analyze in the economics of sport has to do with the evolution of the distribution of the revenue generated by professional sports teams. Football’s history as it relates to the determination of the share of revenues appropriated by players has been contentious and bitterly so at times for players considered individually and collectively. Players had little power to exact a more equitable share of revenues until the early 1990s when they truly became free agents. The NFL not only enjoyed the financial advantages that derived from their status as an unregulated monopoly, but they derived 179

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enormous financial benefit as a consequence of their status as a monopsony, or as the only “consumer” (employer) of professional football players. As the only producer of professional football in the United States, the NFL could raise their prices above competitive levels and restrict the quantity of professional football through restricting the supply of teams. As the only bidder for players, the NFL could maintain the price of players below that which would prevail if rival professional football leagues existed to bid for players such as occurred in 1960 when the American Football League (AFL) formed. Players could improve their financial situation only if the NFL did not have exclusive rights to them. Not only did the NFL function as a monopsonist (a single buyer for a good or service), but the individual teams enjoyed geographic monopolies in that the league sanctioned home territories for them especially through Article X, the prohibition against other teams encroaching on their home turf through TV broadcasts when they played at home. Three things permit the NFL to function as a monopsony: (1) the absence of a rival league to compete for player talent; (2) a common draft (a distribution of new player talent that gave the team with the worst record the right to draft first or, more generally, a reverse draft order determined by the team’s record the previous year); and (3) the “reserve clause.” The common draft remains a part of NFL practice, and it has become a noteworthy and lucrative television event for the NFL. The “reserve rule“ or “clause” gave the team that “owned” the player exclusive rights to that player for as long as the team wanted him. The “reserve rule” has not existed in the NFL in a formal sense since 1947, but it effectively governed the relationship between the team and the player under contract until 1962. In that year, a wide receiver by the name of R. C. Owens (1934–2012) left the San Francisco 49ers and signed with the Baltimore Colts. In the old boys club that constituted the NFL ownership at that time, Vic Morabito (1919–1964), the 49ers owner, never spoke again to Carroll Rosenbloom (1907–1979), the Colts owner. In response to the R. C. Owens signing, Pete Rozelle instituted the “Rozelle Rule” in 1963. This rule granted the NFL commissioner at his discretion to compensate any team that lost a free agent with money or draft picks (Schottey 2013). The commissioner, in effect, orchestrated trades between clubs, the terms of which would most likely favor the club losing the free agent. Since the NFL commissioner serves at the behest of owners, the Rozelle Rule favored the interest of owners and discouraged player movement. The challenges to the unilateral control of NFL operations by club owners began to seriously erode when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recognized the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) as a labor organization and as the exclusive bargaining representative of all NFL players in 1968. It is important to note that the overarching aim of national labor legislation is to encourage the collective bargaining process while antitrust statutes exist to promote competition. It is not surprising then that much of the legal disputes and wrangling in the world of professional sports to include the NFL has to do with balancing these often incompatible objectives. While the courts have not ignored owner arguments that competitive balance can often be achieved only through restricting player movements, those anti-competitive actions can be justified only if on balance the benefits from such restrictions outweigh the social costs. The Rozelle Rule clearly produced a collision of interests between NFL labor (the players), and owners who argued primarily that restricting player movement in violation of antitrust laws was 180

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necessary to maintain competitive balance. This conflict of interests was not sustainable, and the courts were called upon to resolve the inevitable dispute. From the time the Rozelle Rule was adopted until the conclusion of the Mackey trial (Mackey v. NFL), the commissioner had invoked the rule only four times. The rule served to restrict movement from the players’ point of view and they acted to overturn it. Fifteen plaintiffs, including John Mackey (1941–2011), a tight end for the Baltimore Colts and the San Diego Chargers, sought injunctive relief (six players) and/ or monetary damages (nine players) due to the league’s use of the Rozelle Rule (Mackey v. NFL). The litigation began on 3 February 1975, and after fifty-five days of hearings, Judge Earl R. Larson of the US District Court of Minneapolis filed his findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order of judgment. Judge Larson opined: “Even assuming the quality of play would decrease, that fact does not justify the rule’s anticompetitive nature” (“Free agency” 1990). The NFL appealed Judge Larson’s ruling, but the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals generally upheld Judge Larson’s findings while appearing to sympathize with the NFL owners as it related to competitive balance issues. The appeals court opined that the NFL “has a strong and unique interest in maintaining competitive balance among its teams.” The court elaborated on its disapproval of the Rozelle Rule, in that it “does not mean that every restraint on competition for players’ services would necessarily violate the antitrust laws…It may be that some reasonable restrictions relating to player transfers are necessary for the successful operation of the NFL. The protection of mutual interest of both the players and the clubs may indeed require this” (“Free agency” 1990). The 8th Circuit Court’s opinions indicate that in addressing the NFL’s free agency issue, three factors will be analyzed: (1) player mobility; (2) the impact of player mobility on competitive balance and the professional football product; and (3) the effect on consumer well-being. In legal terms, the 8th Circuit applied “rule of reason” analysis to the free agency issue rather than the per se standard which interprets any restraint of trade as a violation of the antitrust laws. The court rulings at the district and 8th Circuit levels constituted a significant victory for players in their quest for free agency, but the actual practice of NFL free agency needed to be worked out. This took another decade and a half, in large part because the 1977 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the players and owners provided compensation to the teams that lost players to the clubs that signed them to an extent that continued to discourage player movement. The 1977 CBA terminated in 1982, and the players and owners could not agree on a modified free agency plan and revenue sharing, after which the players went on strike. The strike, which began on 20 September 1982, lasted fifty-seven days and was only interrupted by two NFLPA-staged “all-star” games between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC) games. Sportswriter and analyst Lee Pasquarelli (2007) observed that apparently football fans did not view these games as substitutes for the strike-cancelled games, as only 8,760 and 5,331 fans attended the games in Washington DC and Los Angeles. A five-year accord between the NFLPA and the owners was grudgingly approved in 1982 by players who sought but did not receive 55 percent of the NFL’s gross revenue. Unhappiness with the 1982 CBA prompted another strike in 1987. The strike began after the second week of games. The players gambled that the networks would not show the games between the hastily assembled replacement teams. The networks did show those replacement games and only one week of games had been 181

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cancelled before the replacement games began. The NFPLA showed scant solidarity, and after twenty-four days the 1987 strike ended. The players returned to work without a collective bargaining agreement, and in 1989 the NFL replaced the Rozelle Rule with “Plan B” free agency. This plan allowed owners to retain limited rights to thirty-seven of their players. Teams had the first chance to sign their protected players, to exercise “the right of first refusal,” or to be compensated by the suitor club. Plan B established a compensation schedule for teams losing free agents that codified the reparation the commissioner awarded at his discretion under the Rozelle Rule. Since the NFL had rosters of forty-seven players at the time, Plan B allowed teams to protect their squads since NFL rosters typically experience 20 percent turnover each year. Plan B, in effect, continued the indentured servitude of players. The most formidable legal challenge to Plan B occurred in 1992 when eight players claimed that it violated antitrust laws in the United States. Plan B was rescinded, and players experienced free agency beginning in 1993. That plan remains largely intact to this day, and players have experienced significant increases in their earnings as a consequence. Table 2 below provides some statistics to indicate the extent to which players have benefited from the various rounds of litigation that have brought them to the free agency system that the NFL currently employs. The information recorded in Table 2 clearly indicates how significant the player gains have been both in an absolute and relative sense following the litigation milestones and years in which players went on strike. The introduction of the free agent system as we know it today saw a 35 and 54 percent increase, respectively, relative to the top of the second quartile and the lower limit of the top 5 percent of household incomes in the United States. While it could be argued that average salaries can potentially distort the picture as it relates to player gains (e.g., median figures if available for all years would have provided a better representation of player gains), there is little doubt that the increase in player incomes both absolutely and relatively conformed to theoretical expectations. Players’ financial interests advanced when they unionized and aggressively pushed for free agency. Future player gains depend on an increase in the salary cap and maintenance of an “NFL spend rule” as it relates to the use of the salary cap for paying players. The NFL adopted a salary cap in 1994 to limit how much teams could spend in the pursuit of free agents. Maintaining financial balance in the quest for competitive balance motivated the salary cap. The salary cap also provided a brake on excessive bidding for players on the part of certain owners who may not share the desire to maximize wins or profit in bidding for playing talent. The spend rule ensures that owners will not simply pocket the league’s shared revenues. Such behavior would also contribute to a competitive imbalance. Television revenues constitute more than 60 percent of team revenues, and increasing player salaries, to a large extent, will continue to depend on growing broadcast revenues. Promising new revenue sources do exist in the form of things such as streaming and the NFL tapping into gambling revenues. Twitter acquiring streaming rights to NFL games for $10 million per game in 2016 is one example of new revenue sources in the digital age (Popper 2016). With regard to gambling, the NFL has had a history of leading the opposition to sports gambling that does exist among professional sports leagues in the United States, but that may be changing. One can only surmise that the amount of money involved in sports gambling is too substantial for the NFL to resist. The growing popularity of online 182

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Table 2.  Selected NFL Player Salary Statistics Prior to and Following the Labor Strike and Litigation Milestones Statistic/Year or Time Period

1982 in Current $

1987 in Current $

1992 in Current $

1993 in Current $

2015 in Current $ for money values

Average Player Salary

105,000

215,000

483,900

666,400

2,100,000

Salary Cap

Not Applicable (NA)

NA

NA

34.6 million

143.28 million

NFL Spend Rulea

NA

NA

NA

NA

89%

Average NFL Player Salary as a Multiple of the Upper Limit of the Second Quartile of US Householdsb

6.57

10.49

20.05

27.00

48.26

Average NFL Player Salary as a Multiple of the Lower Limit of the Top 5% of US Householdsc

1.75

2.66

4.89

6.37

9.79

Sources: (1) For 1982 average, see http://articles.latimes.com/1985-01-14/sports/sp -9869_1_nfl-salaries; (2) for 1987 average, see http://articles.latimes.com/1987-10-12 /sports/sp-8936_1_nfl-players; (3) for 1992 and 1993 averages, see http://usatoday30 .usatoday.com/sports/nfl/stories/2002-05-01-salaries.htm; (4) for 2015 minimum, median, and average see http://moneynation.com/how-much-money-do-nfl-players-make/; (4) for average income in the United States for 2015, see http://www.census.gov/data /tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html. (5) for salary cap information for 1993, see http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1994-12-15 /sports/1994349086_1_salary-cap-player-payroll-nfl-players; (6) for salary cap information for 2015, see http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000475775/article/nfl-salary-cap-will-be -14328-million-in-2015; (7) for the “NFL spend rule” amount, see http://www.bigcatcountry .com/2015/2/26/8113215/nfl-salary-cap-89-percent-spending-jaguars The “NFL spend rule” is a requirement that teams spend a designated percentage of the salary cap averaged over a four-year period. That percentage has been designated as 89 percent to comply with the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). a

The upper limit of the second quartile in current dollars is equal to $15,976; $20,500; $24,140; $24,679; and $43,511, respectively, for 1982, 1987, 1992, 1993, and 2015. b

The lower limit of the top 5 percent in current dollars is equal to $60,086; $80,928; $99,020; $104,639; and $214,462, respectively, for 1982, 1987, 1992, 1993, and 2015. c

gambling—witness the growing popularity of fantasy football—encouraged the NFL to ink a deal with Sportrader, a Swiss online sports gambling entity. The NFL has apparently come to the realization that money can be made providing very detailed data which provides the edge that gamblers covet. That coupled with the suspicion that every sports fan has an inner geek likely prompted the NFL-Sportrader deal in which the NFL acquired an equity stake in the Swiss online betting firm (Glanz, Armendaris, and Williams 2015). The NFL is apparently gambling that the legal 183

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and political institutions in the United States will catch up with sports gambling practices. The recognition of the amount of money that could potentially be made by government more than likely greases the political and legal skids. None of this is to say that either the owners or the players are happy with the current arrangement and the distribution of NFL revenues between the owners and players. The NFL has adopted both a salary cap and rules regarding those revenue sources that must be included in defining that salary cap. As new sources of revenue are mined, both the revenues that must be included in the gross revenues to be distributed to players and their amounts will continue to undergo debate and revision. The acrimony and distrust between owners and players that characterized the road to free agency is likely to continue in the competition for NFL monopoly rents. NFL revenues are projected to exceed $13.3 billion in 2016, an increase of revenues by more than 50 percent since 2010, and Roger Goodell (b. 1959), the current NFL commissioner, has articulated a goal of $25 billion in NFL revenues by 2027 (Belzer 2016). In 2016, the approximately 1,800 players in the NFL will distribute $6.4 billion, but this constitutes only 48 percent of NFL revenues in total. Players will likely seek a greater percentage of that pie especially in light of the fact that the average salary for National Basketball Association players has eclipsed the $5 million mark, a multiple of 2.38 times that of the $2.1 million average for NFL players in 2015. Several things account for the discrepancy, one being the fact that NBA players receive a larger fraction of league revenues than do their NFL counterparts. The financial progress made by NFL players has not been at the expense of owners. As Forbes sports business writer Kurt Badenhausen (2015) observed, “The average NFL team generated $76 million in operating profit last season, compared to $33 million five years prior. The league’s 32 teams are now worth a combined $63 billion. It is a good time to be an NFL owner.” The Dallas Cowboys have consistently been in contention for the top spot in the financial standings, and today they are the most valuable team with a 2016 valuation of $4.2 billion and revenues of $700 million. The publicly owned Green Bay Packers are thirteenth on the list with a valuation of $2.35 billion with revenue equal to $391 million. The Buffalo Bills are the least valuable of all the NFL franchises with a 2016 valuation of $1.5 billion on revenues of $326 million (Ozanian 2016). It is noteworthy that the Cowboys’ revenues are only 2.15 times that of the least valuable franchise. The New England Patriots generated the second most revenue of all NFL teams, and their revenue of $523 million is 1.6 times that of the Bills. These statistics reflect the extensiveness of the revenue sharing and the size of the national television contracts for the NFL which, once again, is distributed on a pro-rata basis. The financial windfall for both players and ownerss belies the notion that the two groups have contested the monopoly rents that the NFL generates. Owners and players can dispute the apportionment of these rents and both groups can gain only if the revenue stream for which they vie has grown. NFL revenue has grown phenomenally, and that growth has come at the expense of fans and taxpayers. Owners have become more adept at recognizing and expropriating that which fans are willing to pay to view NFL football. Fans pay more to pass through stadium turnstiles, and they pay more through increasingly frequent and expensive commercials. For example, the two-minute warning prior to the end of each half of a game had been incorporated specifically to provide more time for commercials. A thirty-second TV commercial slot during the Super Bowl has risen from $42,000 for the first Super Bowl in 1967 to $5 million in 2016, or $166,666 per second. 184

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Stadium Construction and Tax Concessions Arguably, nothing has been more controversial than the NFL’s use of its market power to wring concessions from ordinary taxpayers, many of whom have little or no interest in NFL football. Through maintaining an excess demand for teams by restricting the supply of them, the NFL has orchestrated financial competition among cities for the available franchises. The threat of a team to move if the host city does not provide what the team demands in the way of stadium and training facility subsidies has been largely responsible for the spate of stadium building that followed the construction of Joe Robbie Stadium in 1987. Robbie (1916–1990), the owner of the Miami Dolphins, was not successful in securing government funds to renovate the old stadium on multiple occasions. Robbie decided to build a new stadium without the passage of a referendum approving a public subsidy. Robbie parlayed the upfront money that he received for the sale and/or lease of luxury seating into the funding that he needed to finance the construction of “Joe Robbie Stadium.” An imperative for new stadium construction arose in large part as a consequence of Robbie’s financial gambit. Host cities, many of them at the midnight hour, acceded to team demands and provided the subsidies that teams demanded for the construction of new stadiums that emphasized luxury seating and other luxury amenities. It has been estimated that public subsidies for stadiums for the four major professional sports leagues in the United States since 2000 have amounted to something between $10 and $12 billion dollars. Of the $27.833 billion dollars in 2014 dollars spent on stadium construction, it has been estimated that $13.008 billion of that amount, or approximately 47 percent, has been funded by tax-exempt bonds (Gayer, Drukker, and Gold 2016). Tax-exempt bonds means that the interest paid to bondholders is exempted from federal taxation. The use of tax-exempt bonds has shifted some of the financing burden away from local taxpayers to federal taxpayers as a consequence. The lost federal income tax revenue has to be replaced; this implies that a taxpayer in Alaska could have funded the construction of the $1.318 billion stadium in which the Dallas Cowboys have played since 2009, since the Cowboys used $337 million in tax-exempt bonds to fund their stadium. The NFL in general has benefitted significantly from the use of tax-exempt financing. Of the sixteen NFL stadiums built since 2000, thirteen of them have used tax-exempt bonds. On average the stadiums cost $777.5 million in 2014 dollars to build, and it has been estimated that tax-exempt financing accounted for $360.2 million in 2014 dollars of that total (Gayer, Drukker, and Gold 2016). The lost federal income tax revenue has been estimated between $3 and $3.7 billion over the life of the bond issue (Gayer, Drukker, and Gold 2016, 2). The NFL has defended its stadium demands and tax-exempt funding by arguing that the franchise serves as a catalyst for economic growth and development. This argument has been debunked by economists with few exceptions, but the stadiums continue to be built at an enormous cost to taxpayers at both the local and federal levels. How does an ordinary Alaskan taxpayer benefit through their funding of the Dallas Cowboys stadium? Perhaps the most intriguing stadium project proposed to date is in Las Vegas, the gambling epicenter of the country. As previously noted, the NFL has led professional league opposition to gambling, but now the NFL must confront the move of the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas. The Nevada legislature approved a plan that would use $750 million in public money to build the stadium. The rationale for the 185

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stadium gamble involves the all-too-familiar one: the stadium will serve as a catalyst for economic activity. “It’s exciting,” said Andy Abboud, chief lobbyist for casino mogul Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands, after the sudden vote. “But this is really about jobs, and I think at the end of the day people saw this as a fantastic economic stimulus package” (Associated Press 2016, 2). The Las Vegas stadium largesse has been panned by the vast majority of economists and political opponents who view the subsidy as a gift to another billionaire owner and a gambling mogul no less. Economists argue that stadium subsidies do not boost the economy since they simply serve to reallocate the time and money fans spend on entertainment. Most fans come from a radius of twenty-five miles from the stadium, and many of the players do not live in the cities in which they play. Resident spending in support of the team migrates to the players’ and in some cases the owners’ primary residences. The stadium, in effect, serves as a conduit through which money changes hands from resident fans to non-resident players and owners. The economic-stimulus gambit for Las Vegas has more risk than the usual stadium proposal in that the Raiders have not yet agreed to move and the NFL must approve the deal. The Raiders are no strangers to challenging the NFL as it relates to moving the team; they moved from Los Angeles back to Oakland in 1995 despite the league’s protestations and lawsuit to keep the Raiders in LA. Mark Davis (b. 1954), current owner and managing general partner of team, is the son of the late Al Davis (1929–2011), who owned the team until his death. Al Davis and the NFL had a contentious if not outright hostile relationship. Al Davis served as the AFL commissioner prior to its merger with the NFL in 1966. That unification effectively ended the ruinous financial competition of the two leagues in bidding for playing talent. In the United States, a country like so many in the world plagued by issues relating to the maldistribution of income and wealth, enhancing the financial privilege of NFL players and owners by those who struggle to make financial ends meet and many of whom have no interest in NFL football understandably engenders public distrust and antipathy of government and the NFL beyond specific stadium subsidies. Current tax laws result in federal subsidies for encouraging stadium construction through the use of tax-exempt financing. Tax laws as currently written also discourage the imposition of taxes on those who benefit directly from the stadium. Several attempts have been made to bar the use of tax-exempt bonds to fund stadiums, including initiatives contained in the budgets proposed by former president Barack Obama (b. 1961) in 2015 and 2016. To date, those initiatives designed to eliminate tax-exempt financing of stadiums have not been successful either because the legislation in toto had unintended consequences that favored the professional sports leagues or because it failed to pass. Up until the 1970s, the economics of professional football, in summary, were that the league and the individual teams benefitted economically from a market structure characterized by multiple bidders for the right to televise their games; unregulated monopoly status existed at the league level coupled with geographic monopolies at the team level; and monopsony status existed in bidding for players. The league and individual teams defended this extraordinary financial arrangement by arguing that they qualified as natural monopolies. That is to say, that individual teams defended their manipulation of their market structure by arguing that allowing more teams to occupy a particular geographical area would result in losses

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for all teams in the area and eliminate professional football in any locale in which a team did not have exclusive rights. Given NFL practices, New York and then Los Angeles could accommodate multiple NFL teams, but Chicago could not. Players through a variety of legal actions challenged the reserve clause, the rule that enabled the league to function as a monopsony absent any competitive league. From time to time, a rival league appeared but the AFL provided the only real threat to NFL hegemony, and through the merger between the NFL and the AFL in 1966, the monopsony status of the league was restored. Arguably, the system of free agency has enhanced competitive balance, and improved the financial condition of both players and owners substantially.

Economics of College Football The economics of college football’s distribution of revenues has a shorter narrative largely because college players have not been able to appropriate the revenue they create beyond the price ceiling defined by the value of an athletic scholarship. The fundamental issue and impediment to paying college players a fair wage relates to their status as employees of the colleges and universities for whom they play. The issue came to a head when Kain Colter (b. 1990), a quarterback at Northwestern University of the Big Ten, spearheaded a movement to qualify athletes as university employees. On 26 March 2014, Peter Sung Ohr, a regional director for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), opined that athletes were employees and as such they could form a union. The regional NLRB was all but overturned by the five-member NLRB when it wrote: “By statute the Board does not have jurisdiction over state-run colleges and universities, which constitute 108 of the roughly 125 FBS teams. In addition, every school in the Big Ten, except Northwestern, is a state-run institution. As the NCAA and conference maintain substantial control over individual teams, the Board held that asserting jurisdiction over a single team would not promote stability in labor relations across the league. This decision is narrowly focused to apply only to the players in this case and does not preclude reconsideration of this issue in the future” (Farrey 2015, 1). The NLRB punted on the issue, but if players do not qualify as employees and if they cannot unionize, the mechanism through which they can pursue wages commensurate with what they contribute to revenues for their schools’ athletic departments is difficult to envision. The NCAA will continue to impose amateur standing on its student-athletes until the athletes develop something in the way of countervailing power that will enable fair negotiations for wages commensurate with the value that athletes in the major sports create for their host institutions. The hypocrisy of big-time college athletics is not even thinly veiled. Civil-rights historian Taylor Branch (2011) provided the following appraisal: “For all the outrage, the real scandal is not that students are getting illegally paid or recruited, it’s that two of the noble principles on which the NCAA justifies its existence—‘amateurism’ and the ‘student-athlete’—are cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes. The tragedy at the heart of college sports is not that some college athletes are getting paid, but that more of them are not.”

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Branch reported on an exchange between members of the Knight Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has examined college athletics and the role that they play in the life of the academy, and Sonny Vaccaro (b. 1939), a shoe sponsorship stalwart. The interview between the eminent members of the foundation and Mr. Vaccaro, who is sometimes referred to as the “sneaker pimp,” had some tense but revealing exchanges, none more so than the following as recounted by Branch. “Why,” asked Bryce Jordan, the president emeritus of Penn State, “should a university be an advertising medium for your industry?” Vaccaro did not blink. “They shouldn’t, sir,” he replied. “You sold your souls, and you’re going to continue selling them. You can be very moral and righteous in asking me that question, sir,” Vaccaro added with irrepressible good cheer, “but there’s not one of you in this room that’s going to turn down any of our money. You’re going to take it. I can only offer it.” (Branch 2011) This exchange represents the state of college athletics in the United States. The money that sports generates, especially through television, has come at the expense of academic integrity at many colleges and universities. Mr. Vaccaro laid bare the deal with the devil. The benefits yielded by the business of collegiate sport provide a rationale that administrators frequently cite in rationalizing the Faustian bargain, such as the proposition that revenue-generating sports such as football enables the funding of other sports at colleges. That, in turn, enables other student-athletes to pursue the education of mind and body. The Latin phase, Mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a sound body) is often invoked by those rationalizing the inclusion of intercollegiate sport as part of the educational mission on college and university campuses. Football (and basketball) revenues provide funding for other collegiate sports to include athletic scholarships for many colleges and universities. In some cases, the profit from the revenue-producing sports enables colleges and universities to turn a substantial profit. Table 3 provides information regarding the athletic programs at Penn State University and the University of California, Berkeley. Football does fund a portion of expenses for other sports at some Division 1 colleges and universities, and that holds for many Division 1 conferences and schools (Dosh 2011). Football, however, typically does not fund all athletic programs, and does require subsidies. For example, the University of Alabama, Birmingham (UAB), a Division 1 program, announced that it could no longer afford football, and terminated the sport after the 2014 season. Under enormous alumni and student pressure, the school reconsidered its decision and reversed it (Ching 2016). Data from journalism scholar David Welch Suggs (2012) show that over the period 2005–2009, only eight colleges or universities broke even or had a net operating profit from their intercollegiate athletic programs. Arguably, no other group has benefitted more from college football’s financial success than a handful of coaches. Jim Harbaugh (b. 1963), the head football coach at the University of Michigan led the group of elite coaches with a reported salary of $9,004,000. Thirty-six coaches reportedly earned in excess of $3 million in 2016 compared to nine in 2011. And these coaches enjoy financial security beyond ordinary workers. Thirty-three coaches in the Power Five conferences, the five most dominant football conferences in the country, have buyouts of at least $8 million 188

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Table 3.  Revenue, Expenses, and Profit from Intercollegiate Sports at Penn State University and the University of California, Berkeley 2010* University

Revenues ($)

Expenses ($)

Profit ($)

70,208,584

19,780,939

50,427,645

8,384.315

4,147,124

4,237,191

Penn State University Football Men’s Basketball

827,499

3,181,099

−2,353,600

Other Sports—Men’s

3,820,427

8,209,238

−4,388,811

Other Sports—Women’s

4,867,444

9,729,303

−4,861,859

Women’s Basketball

Total

43,060,566

University of California—Berkeley Football

24,421,437

18,519,523

5,901,914

Men’s Basketball

6,967,208

5,816,679

1,150,529

Women’s Basketball

2,183,820

2,981,083

−797,263

Other Sports—Men’s

4,770,156

8,459,403

−3,689,247

Other Sports—Women’s

7,907,079

10,592,018

−2,684,939 −119,006

Total

Source: Kristi Dosh, “Does Football Fund Other Sports At College Level?” Forbes, 5 May 2011. http://www.forbes.com/sites/sportsmoney/2011/05/05/does-football-fund-other-sports-at -college-level/#18b3a36c563e *This author has assumed that the data provided was for 2010. There was no indication in the article if this was true. The expense information does not include coaches’ salaries, recruiting expenses, game-day operating expenses, or student aid.

(ESPN.com 2016). The wealthiest athletic departments can afford such extravagance; the Power Five conferences recorded revenues of $6 billion dollars in 2015 or $4 billion more than all other schools combined (Lavigne 2016). A survey published in 2015 even indicated that the highest-paid public employee in thirty-nine states is a college coach (Sauter et al. 2015). Much controversy surrounds CEO pay and compensation as a multiple of the wage of the average worker. In 2015, the average American CEO earned 303 times that of the average worker. The real earnings for American workers have declined over the past four decades and only the most recent monthly statistics for the average worker in 2016 have shown real increases. CEOs in the United States, by contrast, have not experienced depressed real earnings. In fact, the average pay for CEOs at the top 350 firms in this country in terms of revenue-produced exhibited increases equal to 54.3 percent since the recovery from the “Great Recession” began in 2009 (Hodgson 2015). The average professor’s salary in the United States in 2016 equaled $114,134 (Glassdoor 2016). John Bonamego (b. 1963) of Central Michigan University, the 100th highest-paid football coach, by contrast, made $545,640 or 4.78 times that of an average college professor (USA Today 2016). Jim Harbaugh’s salary in 2016 represented a multiple of approximately seventy-nine times that of the average professor. 189

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Football’s Financial Future Football’s financial future will be affected by recent trends such as fans’ viewing preferences and ongoing developments about the physical costs to players’ health.

The Financial Future of the NFL The NFL has several issues to confront. An analysis of the NFL’s future can be organized around the entertainment, enrichment, and endangerment themes identified at the beginning of this chapter. The television ratings have fallen by 15 percent for NFL games overall so far in 2016, and that decline has implications for advertising revenues which represent the NFL’s lifeblood. Ample reasons for the decline include competition with the 2016 presidential debates, another collision sport, and a reaction to a decision by Colin Kaepernick (b. 1987), a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, to sit and then kneel as a form of protest during the playing of the national anthem prior to games, which offended nationalistic viewers. These two oft-cited reasons qualify as temporary; long-term reasons, however, exist which may cause the NFL commissioner and owners sleepless nights. They include younger generations that eschew TV watching in favor of other activities; the generation born after 1992 watches 40 percent less television, and television viewing has experienced an overall drop of 11 percent (Steinberg 2016). The younger generation tends to emphasize and prefer the tiny—everything from homes to viewing programs on mobile devices. Oversaturation of the football television market has also been frequently cited. NFL games are aired Thursday night; Sunday from as early as 9:30 a.m. (for the occasional games played in London, UK) until approximately midnight on the East Coast; and two Monday night games air each week. NFL playoff games occur on Saturday as well. The NFL has not been able to convince owners to extend revenue sharing to include luxury seating and other luxury amenities that adorn the new generation of NFL stadiums. Jerry Jones (b. 1942), the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, replaced seating for sale to the general public with luxury loges at the old Cowboys stadium. That strategy enabled Jones and the Cowboys to avoid the “40 percent gate revenue tax” on the value of that luxury seating in excess of the value of comparable seats available for sale to the general public. Luxury-seating revenues are not pooled except for that amount for which the seats would sell if made available for sale to the public. The NFL needs a more comprehensive revenue-sharing arrangement that would include what is labeled “local revenues” to prevent a widening of the revenue gap in the NFL. Buffalo and Dallas have become less equal in the modern NFL where large-market clubs can enrich themselves more than small-market clubs through the sale and rental of luxury seating. The financial future of the NFL game also appears to increasingly depend on fantasy football, where fans choose a roster of players to compete against other fans through statistics accumulated by their adopted players. The fantasy game heightens fan involvement and increases the likelihood that the “fantasy team owners” will view games. Gambling on fantasy outcomes and the willingness of fantasy players to wager on game outcomes could lead to a growing revenue stream that teams will surely attempt to tap as completely as possible. Game streaming on mobile devices 190

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also has significant potential, which the NFL has recognized and exploited to some extent. The NFL has also attempted to create new markets through playing games in other countries. NFL Europa, a developmental league, attempted to grow interest for the NFL throughout Europe, but the league shut down in 2007 as the NFL concentrated on the global development of its brand using a less expensive strategy of playing games abroad. In recent years the NFL has annually played regular season games in London, a regular season game in Mexico City in 2016, and the league had aimed to play a game in China by 2018 until having recently abandoned that plan.

Brain Trauma and the Game of Football Football endangers players. The collisions that define the game exact a physical toll. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease, in particular, represents a risk that football players incur in significant numbers. The NFL has fought the contention that NFL players have suffered chronic brain damage as a consequence of concussions until very recently. Between 2003 and 2009, the league’s “Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee” asserted that: “No NFL player had ever suffered chronic brain damage as a result of repeat concussions. ‘Professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis,’” according to one 2005 paper (Breslow 2016). Approximately five-thousand players filed a concussion lawsuit in 2013, but the United States’ Third Circuit of Appeals did not approve the settlement until April of 2016. The delay occurred in part due to complaints by about 200 players that the $1 billion fund provided by the settlement failed to provide money for players that will be diagnosed with CTE. The NFL now has conceded a concession between CTE and concussions, but the current settlement that the court wished to implement as quickly as possible for the moment absolves the league from future financial culpability (Bien 2016).

The Financial Future of College Football College football’s financial future has been clouded by some of the same issues that confront the NFL. The number of televised games poses a saturation issue similar to that which may jeopardize advertising revenue. Inequities in the generation of revenues has always been an issue with the college game, but the player gambit to qualify as college and university employees arguably exacerbated the difference between the haves and have-nots of college football. The players’ ploy to unionize forced concessions on the part of big-time programs relating to scholarships and stipends that favor those colleges and universities that enjoy the most financial success. The most lucrative programs have the financial resources to meet the growing expense of running a collegiate football program, and, if anything, the best players will be even more likely to gravitate where they receive the most “compensation” and which provide the largest, state-of-the-art venues. The CTE problem exists at all levels. Younger players arguably face the greatest risk in that their brains have not fully developed, and the movement of brains within young skulls results in more bruising, enhancing the risk of permanent damage. 191

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Parent reaction to the emerging science of CTE and football collisions will very likely affect the supply of players (with parents discouraging participation), in addition to imposing significant insurance costs to cover player risks.

The Road Ahead for Football Football has progressed from a mixture of rugby and soccer that involved relatively few players and spectators to a game involving tens of thousands of players and millions of fans at all levels who view the games live or on television. The game became far more popular at the collegiate level earlier than at the professional level. Television proved decisive in transforming professional football from a pre-World War II tepidly embraced sport to the most successful professional sports league in the world. Football’s financial success has resulted in heated competition among the owners for the revenue generated. Teams have sought to extract more of the consumer surplus created for fans through market-determined ticket prices below the valuation many fans actually place on viewing games as a means for enhancing team revenues. Teams also have used the fact that more cities want teams than there are teams. The excess demand for franchises has permitted teams to demand that host cities provide infrastructure in the form of stadiums and training facilities. Professional football also has cleverly woven financial innovation into their revenue generating strategies. Fantasy football cultivates a more involved and passionate fan base, and streaming games on mobile electronic devices allows fans to take the games with them wherever they travel. These two have increased revenues presently with the promise of significant future growth through these means. Players have competed with owners for a larger share of the revenue pie, and they have succeeded, but only through a series of contentious legal battles. College players have brought suit to be recognized as employees, a first step to unionizing that would enable them to appropriate a greater share of the producer surplus their game creates especially for a few football powerhouses in the country. Football at all levels must confront a significant number of issues to ensure continued prosperity of the sport. Three obstacles threaten the game: (1) the brutality of the sport, particularly as it relates to concussions and CTE; (2) owner greed, which may have begun to saturate the television market both in terms of the number of games broadcast and the commercials that fund them; and (3) team demands for public subsidies to underwrite stadium infrastructure, which has galvanized political opposition and provided negative publicity for the league. The image of owners clad in suits viewing the games from taxpayer-financed, luxury loges does not sit well with fans and non-fans alike. Given all the developments over the past century, however, it would not be wise to bet against the game’s continued financial success.

Further Reading Associated Press. (2016). Las Vegas stadium plan gains approval from Nevada Legislature. NFL. Retrieved October 25, 2016, from http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000720822/article/las-vegas -stadium-plan-gains-approval-from-nevada-legislature.

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Chapter Eleven: The Economics of American College and Professional Football Badenhausen, K. (2015). The NFL’s highest-paid players 2015. Forbes. Retrieved October 17, 2016, from http:// www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2015/09/14/ben-roethlisberger-leads-2015-list-of-the -nfls-highest-paid-players/#302b7024435c Barr, C.; updated by Fulks, D. (1999, updated 2008). History of faculty involvement in collegiate athletics. NCAA. Retrieved September 9, 2016, from http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/History+of +Faculty+Involvement_final.pdf Belzer, J. (2016). Thanks to Roger Goodell, NFL revenues projected to surpass $13 billion in 2016. Forbes. Retrieved October 25, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbelzer/2016/02/29/thanks-to -roger-goodell-nfl-revenues-projected-to-surpass-13-billion-in-2016/#1635f3943278 Bien, L. (2016). Why the NFL can finally admit football causes CTE and not owe players anything. SB Nation. Retrieved November 9, 2016, from http://www.sbnation.com/2016/4/18/11451036/nfl -concussion-settlement-cte Brady, J. (2015). The NFL bought in enough money last year to pay for 10 Pluto missions. SB Nation. Retrieved October 25, 2016 from http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2015/7/20/9006401/nfl-teams -revenue-tv-deal-7-billion Branch, T. (2011). The shame of college sports. The Atlantic. Retrieved October 26, 2016, from http://www .theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/308643/ Breslow, J. M. (2016). NFL acknowledges a link between football, CTE. Frontline. Retrieved November 7, 2016, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/nfl-acknowledges-a-link-between-football-cte/ Ching, D. (2016, March 30). How UAB football came back to life: An oral history. ESPN. Retrieved October 29, 2016, from http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/15051834/the-destruction -resurrection-uab-blazers-football-team Dosh, K. (2011). Does football fund other sports at college level? Forbes. Retrieved October 29, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/sportsmoney/2011/05/05/does-football-fund-other-sports-at-college -level/#18b3a36c563e Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh leads college football coaches in salary. (2016). ESPN. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/17892134/michigan-wolverines-coach-jim -harbaugh-salary-tops-list-college-football-coaches Farrey, T. (2015). Northwestern players denied request to form first union for athletes. ESPN. Retrieved October 26, 2016, from http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/13455477/nlrb-says -northwestern-players-cannot-unionize Free agency: Pro sports’ big challenge. (1990). CQ Researcher. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from http:// library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1990020900 Gaul, G. M. (2016). Billion-Dollar Ball: A Journey Through the Big-Money Culture of College Football. New York: Penguin Books. Gayer, T., Drukker, A. J., & Gold, A. K. (2016). Tax-exempt municipal bonds and the financing of professional sports stadiums. Economic Studies at Brookings. Retrieved October 25, 2016, from https://www .brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/gayerdrukkergold_stadiumsubsidies_090816.pdf Glanz, J., Armendariz, A., & Williams, J. (2015). N.F.L.’s deal over data blurs a line on gambling. New York Times. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://nyti.ms/1T6DMGE Professor salaries. (2016). Glassdoor. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from https://www.glassdoor.com/ Salaries/professor-salary-SRCH_KO0,9.htm Greif, A. (2015). So long, college football ‘crop-tops’: NCAA bans jerseys with too little and facemasks with too much in 2015 rules changes. The Oregonian. Retrieved September 8, 2016, from http://www .oregonlive.com/ducks/index.ssf/2015/03/so_long_college_football_crop-.html Hochberg, P., & Horowitz, I. (1973). Broadcasting and CATV: The beauty and the bane of major college football. Law and Contemporary Problems: Duke Law. Retrieved September 8, 2016, from http://scholar ship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3397&context=lcp Hodgson, P. (2015). Top CEOs make more than 300 times the average worker. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/ceo-vs-worker-pay/ Kesenne, S. (2000). Revenue sharing and competitive balance in professional team sports. Journal of Sports Economics, 1(1), 56–65. Klein, C. (2014). The birth of the National Football League. Retrieved September 17, 2016, from http:// www.history.com/news/the-birth-of-the-national-football-league Lavigne, P. (2016). Rich get richer in college sports as poorer schools struggle to keep up. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/17447429/power-5-conference -schools-made-6-billion-last-year-gap-haves-nots-grows Leeds, M. A., & von Allmen, P. (2011). The economics of sports. Boston: Addison-Wesley.

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Touchdown: An American Obsession Michigan State University. (n.d.). College sports & radio broadcasting, 1912–1939. Retrieved September 20, 2016, from http://history.msu.edu/hst329/files/2010/02/RadioCollegeSports1.pdf Mitten, M. J., & Hernandez, A. (2014). The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961: A comparative analysis of its effects on competitive balance in the NFL and NCAA Division 1 FBS football. Ohio Northern University Law Review. Retrieved September 9, 2016, from https://law.onu.edu/sites/default/files/745%20 -%20Mitten.pdf Montgomery, M. (2014). How Canada created American football, (May 14, 1874). Retrieved September 14, 2016, from http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2014/05/14/how-canada-created-american -football-may-14-1874/ Morrison, J. (2010). The early history of football’s forward pass. Smithsonian.com. Retrieved September 15, 2016, from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-early-history-of-footballs-forward-pass -78015237/?no-ist National Football Foundation. (2016). 2015 report: College football ratings and attendance remain strong. Retrieved September 8, 2016, from http://www.footballfoundation.org/tabid/567/Article /55593/2015-Report-College-Football-Ratings-and-Attendance-Remain-Strong.aspx Ozanian, M. (2016). NFL team values 2016. Retrieved October 17, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com /pictures/mlm45geihk/super-bowl-50-mvp-von-mi/#41f7032e4dd8 Pasquarelli, L. (2007). Lengthy strike has mostly been forgotten. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from http:// www.espn.com/nfl/columns/story?id=3030311&columnist=pasquarelli_len Popper, B. (2016). Twitter’s big bet on NFL streaming is about users, not money. The Verge. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/5/11368844/can-televisions-sacred-cow-save -twitter Princeton University. (n.d.). First intercollegiate football game. Retrieved September 8, 2016, from http:// www.princeton.edu/~oktour/virtualtour/korean/Hist14-Football.htm Sauter et al. (2015). The highest paid public employee in every state. Msn.com. Retrieved May 3, 2017, from http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/the-highest-paid-public-employee-in-every -state/ar-AAehW7S - image=AAebyli|50 Schwartz, L. (n.d.). Galloping ghost scared opponents. Retrieved September 17, 2016, from https://espn .go.com/sportscentury/features/00014213.html Schottey, M. (2013). How free agency changed the NFL forever. Retrieved October 25, 2016, from http:// bleacherreport.com/articles/1561856-how-free-agency-changed-the-nfl-forever Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008). Economy in NFL history. Retrieved September 27, 2016, from http://www .shmoop.com/nfl-history/economy.html Siegfried, J. J., & Burba, M. G. (2003). The College Football Association Television Broadcast Cartel. Vanderbilt University Working Paper No. 03-W20. Staples, A. (2012). How television changed college football—and how it will again. Retrieved September 21, 2016, from http://www.si.com/college-football/2012/08/06/tv-college-football Steinberg, L. (2016). Five reasons why NFL TV ratings have dropped. Forbes. Retrieved November 7, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/leighsteinberg/2016/10/27/5-reasons-why-nfl-tv-ratings-have -dropped/#5b187c734a97 Suggs, D. W. (2012). Myth: College sports are a cash cow. Retrieved October 29, 2016, from http://www .acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/Myth-College-Sports-Are-a-Cash-Cow2.aspx Tracy, M., & Rohan, T. (2014). What made college football more like the pros? $7.3 Billion, for a start. New York Times. Retrieved September 22, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/sports/ncaa football/what-made-college-ball-more-like-the-pros-73-billion-for-a-start.html?_r=0 USA Today. (2016). NCAA salaries. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa /salaries/ Vander Voort, E. (last updated 2015, September 29). First televised football game featured Fordham, Waynesburg in 1939. Retrieved September 21, 2016, from http://www.ncaa.com/news/football /article/2014-09-28/first-televised-football-game-featured-fordham-waynesburg-1939

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During the early 1920s, Gustavus had a Women’s Football team. Pictured above is a photo of some of the women on the team. The photo accompanied an article in a November 1924 edition of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press about the team’s season. Courtesy of the Gustavus Adolphus College Archives, GACA 162, P-01834.

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Chapter Twelve: Challenging the Gender Order: Women on the Gridiron Gertrud PFISTER University of Copenhagen

Football was invented and developed as an aggressive game which served and still serves as a demonstration of masculinity. Women were and are welcome to watch the game from the stands or to entertain the audiences as cheerleaders. This chapter provides insights and understanding of the development of women’s football worldwide. Questions regarding the image of the game and its meaning as well as the opportunities and challenges in different time periods and regions are also discussed. Keywords: women, masculinity, femininity, gender, football

T

he game of football was “invented” in the nineteenth century as a means to educate and entertain male students. In the course of the twentieth century, various professional leagues emerged and football became the most popular sport in the United States, at least in regards to the number of audiences and fans. The “nature” and the “image” of football as a men’s game raises several questions: Why is this sport reserved for boys and men? Have women not been interested in playing this game or have they been purposely excluded? Did some girls and young women attempt to play football but had to give it up because of the resistance of their families, the disinterest of the “sport community” or the prejudices of the society at large? There is also another possibility. Maybe women played football, but their matches were never in the limelight and the players were not covered by the media. Female players did get attention when they competed in the so-called Legends or Lingerie Football League, where scantily clad young women presented their bodies more than their skills. Thus it is not surprising that attempts to organize women’s football leagues in the 1920s and the 1960s were not successful, at least not in the long run. New attempts to establish women’s football emerged at the turn of the millennium when several leagues were founded in different American regions. The conditions of these leagues, teams, and also the players differ decisively from those in men’s football. The women are mostly amateurs; very few female players compete

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even on a semi-professional level. Another large disadvantage is that colleges—despite Title IX—do not host women’s football teams. Drawing on constructivist gender concepts, we interpret playing football as a way of “doing gender.” Based on the notion of gender as a social construction, which is embedded in cultures and adopted by individuals in socialization processes, we can explain how sport-related practices, habits and tastes emerge, and how sports are “embodied” in females and males and embedded in cultures and societies (Lorber 1995; Connell 2008; Bourdieu 1984; 1988; 2001). According to the information in the “Handbook of Socialization” this term refers to the way in which individuals are assisted in becoming members of one or more social groups, e.g. a community of football players (Grusec and Hastings 2015; see also Wann 2001). The German sociologist Heinemann (2007) identified the interactions and correlations between various processes and influences on individuals as determinants of socialization. He developed an intricate scheme which helps to understand the backgrounds and processes of becoming a male or a female football player. Heinemann points, on the one hand, to individuals with their (bodily) abilities, skills and knowledge, their experiences, feelings and motives, their likes and dislikes, as well as their potentials, which are acquired in interactions with significant others and in encounters with the environment. On the other hand, Heinemann emphasizes the significance of opportunities. Their availability and attractiveness decide if, when, and how individuals can and will engage in activities such as playing a sport. Bourdieu (1984; 1988), too, described sport involvement as the result of the relation between the supply of sport opportunities and the habitus of individuals. Habitus is a system of dispositions, i.e. unconscious schemes of perception, thought, and action which are acquired and embodied through exposure to social and cultural conditions (see Wacquant 2006). Transferring this concept to sport-related interests and practices can explain how individuals become engaged in football as players and/or as fans. Football, however, emphasizes real or alleged differences between men and women by the “doing gender” of all individuals and groups involved, in particular by the appearance and actions of the armored and aggressive players, and of the cheerleaders who display exaggerated femininity. Other women were and are welcome to watch the game from the stands. New attempts to establish women’s football emerged at the turn of the millennium when several leagues were founded in different American regions; however many of them soon dissolved. Women’s football also spread to other countries and continents. Although the game has now found its place among the sports played by women, the conditions of the leagues, teams, and also the players differ decisively from the situation in men’s football. Whereas the men’s game has innumerable fans, in particular in the United States, women’s football plays only a marginal role in the game’s home country and abroad.

Historical Developments of Sport, Football, and the Gender Order It goes without saying that strength, power, and aggressiveness have not necessarily been considered positive traits in women, either in sport or in everyday life. There 198

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is only one role on the football field, other than that of cheerleader, which has been entrusted to women: the role of the kicker, the player who tries to kick the ball through the goal posts after a touchdown in order to earn points. Women have played this position at the collegiate levels on a few men’s teams; however, kickers do not have physical contact with the other players. It is no surprise that women´s most important role in football was and, to a certain degree, still is to entertain the audiences and the players as “cheerleaders.” Historically, even this role had been reserved for men because they were considered experts who knew when and how to “support” their team. In addition, it was believed that male spectators would not follow the lead or directions of a woman (Hanson 1995; Sperber 1993, 77). Today more than 90 percent of the cheerleaders at football games are women, all of them young and good looking. Their sexualized appearance and their performances are a stark contrast to the muscular bodies and the aggressiveness of the male players; both groups are “doing gender” to a high degree, mirroring the gender order in the society at large.

Football as a Refuge for Men The American version of football has always been considered a sport relegated to or at least dominated by males. The game was at first played by American male students and served as a public display of masculinity in a largely homosocial environment. By the twentieth century, women increasingly entered previously men’s domains as teachers but also as participants in various sports such as cycling, tennis, golf, and even baseball, and it is no surprise that men may have felt threatened by such encroachment. Football, like combat, proved to be one of the few activities still reserved for the “strong sex,” who used the game as a public demonstration of masculine qualities in a period of social changes and as a reaction to the— seemingly—growing feminization of society. Although women were, at least officially, excluded from participating in this game, they were allowed to attend football matches as spectators where they were expected to admire and worship the players. In this way, the traditional gender relations and in particular the notion of gender differences was maintained, at least in the football stadium. Media accounts described, for example, how beautiful young women nursed the wounds of heroic players (Davis 1893, 1170; Oriard 1993), or how the winners of the 1918 Rose Bowl Game, played between two military teams during World War I, were rewarded with a kiss from the wife of the commanding officer, who expressed her admiration for the male heroes in this feminine way (Hibner 1993, 34–41). The glorification of hypermasculinity on the football field was and still is not without consequences, as aggression and violence off the field were and are also directed towards women (see Welch 1997; Messner and Sabo 1994). Elite athletes, specifically football players, have often been involved in cases of sexual abuse or rape. In a violent game where aggressiveness is rewarded, the exaggerated masculinity also in this time period had negative effects on the players’ relation to and treatment of women or of homosexual persons. A misogynist commented that “no Miss Nancy is ever found on a football field” (Peters, Camp Papers). 199

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When industrialization and modernization processes at the end of the nineteenth century led to a sedentary lifestyle of an increasing number of Americans and threatened traditional notions of masculinity, upper class men praised football as a means to acquire and demonstrate manliness. William Hudson Harper (1857– 1946), editor of Chicago Commerce, wrote in 1891 that “A man is doing a good deal who helps to popularize the manliest sport in Christendom” (Camp Papers, reel 9), and John Poe (1874–1915), one of six brothers to play for Princeton University, claimed that “the game is a thorough education in all the qualities that go to make a manly man. It teaches obedience, self-restraint, unselfishness + (sic) calls for the greatest amount of pluck, self-denial (sic) quickness of thought + action” (Camp Papers). But gender, in this case masculinity, is not only displayed in actions, it has also to be demonstrated through the right clothes and the right behavior. This is in particular true for football players who want and are expected to enact masculinity, also by means of their appearance and their clothes which should emphasize their muscular physique and their masculinity. Despite their victory in an 1889 game, the Syracuse University players were ridiculed for their pink and blue uniforms, which were disparaged as too feminine. They soon replaced the pink color with a more manly orange. Teams of other universities followed the new dress code and appeared in uniforms in “masculine” colors (Gems 2000, 54). These and numerous other sources indicate an overemphasis on masculinity, aggression, and violence in men’s college football, which resulted in serious injuries and even deaths. At least 18 players died and 159 were seriously injured in the 1905 season, and the death toll rose to 33 by 1909 (Gems, Borish, and Pfister 2008, 181). Still, a popular writer justified the carnage by stating that “an able bodied young man who cannot fight physically can hardly have a true sense of honor, and is generally a milksop, a lady-boy or a sneak. He lacks virility his masculinity does not ring true.” These descriptions of gender relations (from men’s perspectives) also provide insights into constructions of femininity which, according to the widespread belief in the principle of gender dichotomy, exaggerate differences between the genders and produce specific “feminine” traits, competences, and behavior patterns as demonstrated e.g. by the cheerleaders (see Lorber 1995; 2012; Connell 2008).

The Beginnings of Women’s Football Despite the myth of the “weaker sex” and the overemphasis on masculinity that had to be demonstrated by the bodies, uniforms, and behavior of the football players, women did, according to a number of newspaper reports, participate in the game in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. These reports offer glimpses into the long and difficult relationship between women and football, and the ways in which the “weaker sex” found opportunities to play. One of the earliest relevant sources is an article in the New York Sun (23 November 1896) about a women’s football game between two teams with five players each, adorned with the colors of Yale and Princeton, possibly a theatrical performance of a social club. The game was played in a New York park and ended quickly after the police captain called a halt due to the crush of male spectators that endangered 200

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A womens’ football team from Dakota State University staged a home coming game in 1945 while the men were serving in the military. Photo courtesy of Barbara Stearns Turner. .

the players. Nine years later, it was reported than an eighteen-year-old female football player died due to “peritonitis, due to injuries received in a game of football” although it was not clear if this was in a women’s or a men’s match (Daily Press of Newport News 1905). Ruth Lydy, an actress, declared in an interview in 1916 that she planned to put together a women’s football team. She defended her daring endeavor with the argument that women have entered a number of occupations that had been previously reserved for men; so why should they not be able to play this game? The reporter inserted that the “girls” would “stop to powder their nose instead of running signals.” It was also suspected that Lydy just wanted to gain attention. A picture shows her in a football uniform pretending to kick a ball. She was “dolled up,” according to a journalist, and obviously wanted to impress the readers (The Atlanta Constitution, 3 November 1916). There is no information available about the realization of her plans. In the 1920s, a time of social change and new opportunities for women as well as a period of increasing popularity of football, new plans for women’s football emerged. This time, two football players, Mable McCord and Gladys Scherer of Upsala College (NY), were the driving forces. Upsala College was a small coed liberal art school attached to the Swedish Lutheran church. The newspaper reports about this endeavor were positive; the journalists even compared both women with Red Grange, the best college player of the time. Scherer and the Upsala football team appear in several photos with their football uniforms and their helmets. One of these pictures is entitled “She sure can hit the line” and “Gladys for sure does not peddle ice during the Summer Vacation” (Arizona Daily Star, 14 November 1925, 5). According to an article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the players were very enthusiastic and “rub their noses in the mud as frequently as they formerly rubbed them in the powder puff” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 19 November 1925, 10). Another article in the Hartford Courant of 1924 informs readers that “hair pulling and eye scratching” are not permitted during women’s games (Carter 2011, 33). 201

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Another small liberal arts college, the Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota fielded a women’s football team in the 1920s. A photo shows six women in football gear jumping in the air with outstretched arms. It was published together with an article about the team’s season in the Saint Paul Pioneer press (Gustavus Adolphus College Archives, GACA 162, P-01834). The New York Times noted an intramural game played between women’s teams from the San Jose State Teachers College in California on 21 November 21 1925 (Collete). In the beginning of the 1930s, two women’s football teams from Toledo, Ohio staged exhibition matches in the Midwest. Although the tour was initially successful, and there were sufficient teams to start even a women’s league, the players gave up due to severe opposition to their transgression of the gender boundaries by playing a sport which seemed to be reserved for men (Carter 2011, 35; Collette 2017; Kantor 2000). These and other reports in American newspapers of the 1920s and the 1930s indicate that girls and young women occasionally played football, and it can be assumed that there were many more female players and women’s matches which were not considered important enough to be covered by the media. There is, however, positive coverage of young women who served as kickers on boys’ or men’s teams, such as Luverne Wise, who was not only good in the sport but also very pretty. Therefore she “attracted more spectators than any two teams the school has ever fielded and the press reported in many articles about the 18 year old blond ‘girl kicker’” (Coshocton Tribune 23 October 1940; San Bernardino County Sun 27 October 1940, 28). Female players also “invaded” football fields when they entertained the audiences of men’s games during the breaks with demonstrations, such as a game of eleven women against two men revealing in particular the superiority of male players. During the 1926 football season, the Frankford Yellow Jackets, a professional team in Philadelphia and part of the National Football League (NFL), employed women to play football as entertainment for the fans during the halftime intermission (Carter 2011, 34). In 1927, students from all-male Notre Dame University, which had the dominant collegiate football team of the era, enacted a parody during the halftime break before 120,000 fans. Two “teams” dressed as women in tutus, petticoats, and lace gowns played tag football and then engaged in a tea party, a satire on the state of the game if female or effeminate male players were to play it (Sperber 1993, 152). Despite the more or less reluctant acceptance of women’s football in the 1920s, spectacles as described above and derogatory undertones in reports or articles make clear that football was not a game which respectable women could play. In addition to concerns about femininity and propriety, in particular the impact of the game on the health of the players were issues of concern. Therefore women’s football had influential opponents among physicians, such as Thomas Wood, the director of physical education at Columbia University, and the “foremost health authority of the country” who was strictly against the participation of the “weaker sex” in men’s sport including football because the players would not take care of their bodies (Wichita Beacon, 14 November 1918, 2). An important, although often not explicitly expressed, argument was that aggressive sports could endanger the ability of women to give birth, often seen as the primary role for women. In a long article in the Morning Call (16 August 1925, 35) Wood made headlines with the statement: “Girl Athletes Risk Their Lives in 202

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Luverne Wise became the first female to score against males as a kicker for the Atmore High School team in Alabama in 1939.

Too-Strenuous Sports.” He “reveals the Danger to American Womanhood That Lies in Adopting the Rougher Games of Men.” He argues that emulating the male varsity stars will not create a strong body for girls, but that the training “is likely to weaken her and may someday interfere with the thing to which every normal girl is looking forward to as the high honor of woman’s existence –motherhood!” Wood names a long list of sports which he considered as dangerous for female participants, among them football, wrestling, basketball, and long distance running. 203

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Little is known about women’s reactions to their marginalization or exclusion in America’s most important sport. The establishment of the National Advisory Board and Rules Committee of Football for Women and the publication of the book American Football for Women (1939) indicate that there was an interest of the “weaker sex” and that some football authorities wanted to support and at the same time control this interest. On the front page of the book, it is announced that there is a new form of football which is “a safe game for all classes of women to play because there is no tackling or blocking or any other feature permitted that would be injurious to them.” The text contains information about gear, e.g. an “official women’s breast protector,” and the rules, which were adapted for women, such as two-handed tag rather than tackling, and other important issues for women who wanted to play this game (Spaulding 1939). There are also some newspaper reports about young women who served as kickers on their high school or college teams, e.g. Agnes Risner, a sixteen-year-old student from New Castle. Although she did not manage to “connect on either of her two attempts to score after touch downs,” she was given another chance as the headlines of a paper announce: “Girl Gridder to Try Again” (Minneapolis Star, 18 September 1943, 5). On another occasion, when many men were away in the military service in 1945, female students donned football equipment to engage in the traditional Thanksgiving Day game in South Dakota (South Dakota Magazine 2011).

Powder Puffs and Flag Football: the Decades after WWII Sports experienced a tremendous boom in the 1950s, when an increasing number of people watched or attended sport events and followed in particular the competitions in the professional leagues live or on TV, which made sport events accessible to large parts of the population. It goes without saying that it was men’s sports, i.e., baseball and football, which were the center of public attention. In the 1950s and 1960s, a number of American colleges and high schools adopted “powder puff” football for their female students (Holtzmann 2011). In these game, the women simply touched or tagged the runner, or in another version pulled a flag attached from his or her waist belt, in order to halt any advance. The phrase “powder puff’ refers to the timeouts allegedly taken by women players to reapply their make-up during the game. The term also implies the assumption that the women wanted to appear “feminine” in compliance with the current beauty ideals and thus to prove their femininity and refute the more or less openly announced stereotypes about female footballers to be masculine or lesbians. Occasional powder puff games were played, but these were not competitions in a league. One of these exhibition games took place at the Texas Tech University in 1952 and was described as follows: “Amazing Amazons of America (Texas Tech to you) collide crushingly for fun Friday when the Sophisticated Stoppers from dorm No. 3 take on the Pink Plungers from Dorm No. 4 in the annual Wast (sic) Bowl Women’s football game” (Lubbock Evening Journal, 22 October 1952, 18). Similar announcements in the media in the following years show that women’s football matches were part of the student’s amusements at this university (Lubbock Morning Avalanche, 27 October 1953, 13). 204

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In the 1950s and the beginnings of the 1960s, women’s situation in football was similar to their situation in the society at large. They were expected to play auxiliary roles and they were considered as incapable of sharing men’s work and leisure, in particular men’s love of and engagement in football. Because women seemed to need guidance, an author penned a book in 1968 aimed at providing them with enough information to enjoy the game without making a fool of themselves by cheering for the wrong team. The author explained that “Attempting to make experts of you would be presumptuous—and foolish! Any female knows that to outsmart men is folly” (Lamb 1968, 15). Therefore, much of the work focused on women’s auxiliary roles in connection with the game, e.g. as cooks for the pre-game brunch and as hostesses of the post-game cocktail party. Further advice is provided on how to look pretty if attending the game and how to serve warm alcoholic beverages to her male escort in the stadium. The female readers are also instructed on how to organize a post-game party with an appropriately decorated house, including two televisions each in a separate room divided by gender, where women may talk to one in order not to disturb the men in the other room watching the game (Lamb 1968).

Women’s Involvement in Tackle Football Images and perceptions (as well as prejudices) about women, their conditions of life, aspirations, and acceptable behavior changed decisively in the 1960s. A driving force for this change was the women’s liberation movement, i.e. the propagation of feminist thinking and initiatives demanding women’s rights in Western countries. The voices of (female and male) feminists led to shifts in the status quo, and an important step towards gender equality was “Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments,” a federal law that demanded equal access for both genders to education, including the sports programs at educational institutions. Football suddenly seemed an option for women who loved the game and for some (mostly male) entrepreneurs who loved the money. Women’s football became not only a “serious sport” but also, and not always successfully, a business. Most of the few publications about women`s football during this time do not focus on historical developments, thus little is known about the emergence of women’s teams and leagues. By 1967, a Texas newspaper reported about girls who are “real” football players, “not the Powder Puff Bowl type, but bonafide salary drawing athletes” (Corpus Christi Caller, 18 May 1967, 29). Although playing football seemed to have become attractive for an increasing number of young women in the 1970s, opportunities to do so were few and far between. Thus it is no surprise that when Sid Friedman, a manager from Cleveland, announced that he planned to establish a women’s football team, he was contacted by a number of future “small, but lethal players” (see Salem News 1 July 1969, 12). Several articles in the Chicago Tribune report about the “Dare Devils,” a team, whose history also began with a “call for players” by Friedman in Chicago (Chicago Tribune 2 July 1969). It was allegedly the first professional women’s football team in the world. The authors of these article present the players as serious athletes who have to fight with numerous problems, beginning with the lack of equipment which fitted to women’s bodies, to the minimal financial resources of the teams and the small salaries of the players. They were 205

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semi-professionals, meaning that football was not their full-time job. The manager, Betty Dose, “earned much of her money as an interior decorator and plays center in her football team” (Chicago Tribune, 16 November 1969, 545). The women who engaged in this “extravagant” enterprise had various backgrounds, and included two sisters who had five kids each. In 1968, the USA All Stars, a team from Pittsburgh, and in 1969 the Canadian Belles from Vancouver and the Detroit Petticoats joined the women’s football ranks. The teams engaged in barnstorming, travelling from place to place, and raising money from gate receipts. Female footballers also played exhibition games that attracted up to seven-thousand spectators (Carter 2011, 40). The relatively positive attitudes towards women’s football encouraged entrepreneurs to set up leagues which guaranteed a fixed number of regular matches. Between 1971 and 2007, at least ten women’s football leagues were founded, but all of them had to be disbanded after few years due to the lack of financial resources (Carter 2011, 42). Since the 1970s, female football players gained a measure of acceptance even when they did not demonstrate conventional femininity. Linda Jefferson, for example, a star player for the Toledo Troopers (founded in 1971 in Ohio) was featured very positively in several media accounts. A movie about the team captured the players’ quest for equality, their struggle with stereotypes, and their empowerment through football in an era before Title IX. From 1971 to 1979, the Troopers dominated the National Women’s Football League, NWFL, winning sixty-eight of seventy-two games (Collette 2017). The league floundered thereafter; but a number of other women’s football leagues emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, although some of them also disappeared, e.g. the Women’s Professional Football League (WPFL) which initiated play with two teams in 1999 and included fifteen teams by 2005, but went out of business in 2007.

Women’s Tackle Football Today Currently, a number of tackle football leagues for women exist: Women’s Football Alliance (WFA), United States Women’s Football League (USWFL), Icon Women’s Football Association-Texas (IWFA-Texas), Women’s Xtreme Football League-Oklahoma (WXFL), and Independent Women’s Football League (IWFL), which is the oldest of these leagues, established in 2000. Today, around 1,800 women play in fifty-one teams in this league across the country (Sports Destination Management 2010). In addition, several regional leagues emerged, such as the National Women’s Football Association, which gained prominence in the southern United States with ten teams in 2001 (it stopped fielding teams in 2009). Throughout the history of women’s football, not only numerous teams, but also various leagues emerged and disappeared, mostly because of financial problems. It was and still is very difficult to generate enough financial resources to run a team or a league in this sport, in particular because there are often large distances to cover for the games. In addition, it is not easy to find sponsors because football players do not represent the usual images of women found in popular advertisements. Therefore most female players cannot be paid to play; on the contrary, they must contribute funds to cover at least part of their expenses.

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One of the many dilemmas which women face who play or want to play football is the image of the game and the perception of the women involved in it. On the one hand, players and managers emphasize that female footballers are “real women,” on the other hand; they may spread images and messages with the names of their teams or their aggressive play, which allude to men’s football and men’s qualities. A good example for these “double messages” is the team Toledo Reign, formerly named the Detroit Dark Angels and South Michigan Jaguars, which moved from Otsego (2001–2005) to Kalamazoo in 2006. Whereas the names of the team allude to power and danger, the players present themselves as “mothers, daughters, military, health care professionals, and teachers…we are hardworking members of the community who happen to be women that love to play tackle football!” The Women’s Football Alliance, too, presents many players as mothers, e.g. on Facebook celebrating mother’s day or proudly presenting their babies. These women seem to balance femininity with playing a game which is still labeled as a men’s domain (“The History of Women’s Football”) There is a stark contrast between these football players and the half-naked glamour girls competing in the Lingerie League (founded in 2009), a blatantly sexist organization, in which women attired in bikinis display their bodies to attract male fans. The league renamed itself the Legends League in 2013, but maintained its marketing strategy, and even expanded its global reach with four teams in Canada and another five teams in Australia (see Legacy vs. Jags Highlights 2017, http://www.iconwfa.org/page/show/2283027-iwfa-teams-iwfa2017).

The Worldwide Expansion of Women’s Football While women’s football suffers from minimal exposure in the United States, it has gained a measure of popularity in other countries not only in Latin America but also in Australia and in Europe. The history of the game in Germany is a good example for the development of women’s football in Europe (see http://www.ladiesbowl.de; and “ladies” on www.touchdown-europe.net). After World War II, football was played in Germany for quite a long time only by Americans. It was not before the end of the 1970s that German men became interested in the game and an American football federation was founded. Women have participated in football since the 1980s. The first match between teams from different cities took place in 1987, when the Berlin Adlergirls (eagle girls) played a team consisting of players from different cities. Since 1989, regular tournaments of women’s football were conducted and women became valued members of the rather small German American Football community in the country. Women’s football lacks continuity, however; even successful teams often dispersed. But there have always been women who were willing to meet the challenges of this sport and to invest a considerable amount of time and money in football (caused in particular by the large distances between the cities of the various teams competing). The list of women’s American football teams in the country includes the Berlin Adler Girls, SG Braunschweig/Wolfsburg Blue Lions, Cologne Crocodiles, Frankfurt Gamblers, Hamburg Maniacs, Hanau Witches, Hannover Ambassadors, Mulheim Shamrocks, Munich Cowboys, and the Nuremberg Hurricanes.

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Since the 1990s, women’s football teams and leagues have been established in China, Chile, and throughout Central America, most notably in Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador (Seifert 2016, see Chapter 15 [Iber]). Women also play football in Austria, Australia, Canada, Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Mexico (see the overview in http://profootballresearchers. com/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/22-01-837.pdf). The first women’s world championship of American football was hosted by Sweden in 2010 with six countries sending teams to the competition. In 2013, a women’s world championship took place in Finland. The United States’ team won both competitions, the Canadian teams gained the second place. Canada is scheduled to host the championship in 2017. Currently football is played in thirty-three of the forty-four European countries. The webpage of the International Federation of American Football shows that the game is played on all continents with many teams not only in Europe, but also in the Americas Australia, and Canada (http://ifaf.org/countries/federation_list). A closer look at the websites of the federation reveals that not all of the federations host female players. But this may change: In 2010, the Western Australia Football League offered competition for women with seven teams.

Gender Issues in Football When the media covers football, they select topics and frame the information by providing their messages with meaning. Therefore, the media has constructed and emphasized the competitive and even warlike character of football by staging the players as “real men,” as fighters, and as heroes in a surrogate war. These images of the players and of the game are emphasized by the behavior of the players but also by ceremonies with military connotations during the games. As men’s football dominated and still dominates sport discourses in the United States, and the coverage in TV and newspapers, people identify the game as a men’s domain with the consequence that women’s football is marginalized and often constructed and perceived as a different game.

Experiences of Female Football Players: Marginalization and Empowerment The history of women’s football is in many ways unique, due to the strong resistance against women playing the country’s “signature men’s sport.” In addition, football is an aggressive, often brutal sport asking for physical and psychological qualities which women do not seem to possess. The contradicting demands of presenting femininity and athletic prowess in a men’s game create challenges for the female players on and off the football field. In addition, women may even have to defend themselves and argue why they chose a sport which has been and still seems to be reserved for boys and men. Research studies, in particular interviews with female football players, show how female athletes continue “to be challenged by the social pressure to conform to the ideals of femininity in particular when they play sports which are considered as male domains” (Campbell 2013, 50; Carter 2011; Carrigan and Migliaccio 208

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2013). In this way, women’s football not only challenges but also reinforces conventional gender norms and ideals in Western societies. In “The Experiences of Female Football Players,” Catherine Campbell draws attention to the “double bind situation” and the dual task of female footballers. “What is interesting about the experiences of these participants in particular is that they are participating in a sport that is defined as ultra-masculine (a deviation from female gender expectations) and at the same time traditional gender roles are still being supported through the feminine apologetic while also working towards attaining legitimacy for women’s sport.” According to the results of several studies, female football players are proud about their engagement in this game and their expertise and their skills in a sport which is still considered as a privilege of boys and men. The interview statements of female players, however, showed that they also continue to be confronted with social expectations to conform to the ideals of femininity while they have to attempt at the same time to attain legitimacy for women playing this sport (Campbell 2013; Carter 2011). Therefore American football provides unique insights into the opportunities and challenges of female athletes and their experiences as women competing in a sport defined as a men’s domain. Empowerment is also based on acceptance of all body shapes, which can find a place in football due to the varying demands of the different positions on the team which require different skills and body sizes. The game also provides women with the opportunity to show emotions and aggressive behavior. “Lack of opportunities to participate in high-contact, physically demanding sports, along with gendered socialization that often fails to emphasize aggressive physicality for girls, forces many women stepping on the football field to hesitate when faced hitting others or being hit” (Carter 2011, 55). The players, however, feel good and are proud when they manage to overcome these restraints, are able to stand their ground and even gain a measure of recognition. Tanasale, one of the Toledo players, remembers a time she was asked by a little girl to autograph a flyer. “She ran up to me…and said, ‘I want to be just like you!’ That felt so good. It’s getting better for the young girls now. They have camps and they’re starting in high school with flag [football]” (McCalla 2015). Other members of the Toledo Reign women’s team also feel empowered by the sport. “This is for fun, but it’s still serious to us,” Marabeth Lewis, team linebacker and captain, said. “There are people out there who believe that women should not play; we’re here to prove them wrong. It’s a sport. It’s not a man’s sport, it’s a sport.” The sociologist Jennifer A. Carter, in an auto-ethnography, provides excellent insight into the experiences of female football players. She used her experiences as athlete and researcher to understand the practices and narratives of her teammates and to gain insights into their gender constructions and presentations. She found that female football players have to deal with contradicting gender norms and ideals if they want to meet the demands of this sport and of their everyday lives. On the field, the players (have to) “construct, reinforce, and embody football masculinity, an aggressive masculinity requiring physical sacrifice, and an overt denigration of femininity” (Carter 2011). Off the field, the women have diverse backgrounds, opportunities, and challenges. Carter highlights the opportunity and necessity of “policing” gender and engaging in femininity and masculinity simultaneously, but she also emphasizes that it does not make sense to compare men’s football with the 209

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Female football players in a women’s professional league in 1939. Click Magazine.

game played by women. Women (and men) have the right to play sports in accordance with their priorities and circumstances of life.

Women in Leadership Roles As in other areas, women had and still have difficulty in gaining leadership roles in sport, in particular in football. While several women have become owners of NFL teams, they have done so through inheritance e.g., as widows of male owners. Among sport journalists, women are a small minority and do not typically cover important events. ESPN, the sports media giant, has noticeably hired an increasing number of women as sports show hosts, commentators, and reporters, but most women working for this channel are relegated to sideline reporting of football games, interviewing coaches and players during halftime intermissions when there is no time for long answers and discussions of complex issues. The coaching profession, too is firmly in men’s hands. Female coaches work predominately with women’s teams. That women work as coaches of men’s football teams is almost unheard of. In 1985, Wanda Oates was named the head football coach at a high school in Washington, DC, but was fired a day later when male coaches protested. In the 2006–2007 seasons Natalie Randolph, a science teacher who had played professional women’s football with the DC Divas team, was named 210

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an assistant coach at Woodson High School in that city. In 2010, she was named the head coach at Coolidge High School (Hanna 2010). The Women’s Sports Foundation, a nonprofit charity with the aim to advance the lives of women and girls through sports, congratulated Natalie Randolph “on her historic mark.” The foundation’s CEO, Karen Durkin, stated in an e-mailed: “Girls and women—along with their fathers, sons and brothers—now have clear evidence that the gridiron ceiling can be broken. Natalie’s hiring will serve as a much-needed catalyst for women in leadership positions across all sports” (Hanna 2010). Randolph resigned from the job after four years in 2013. Among the reasons she cited was the need to spend more time with her family, a common predicament for all women in leadership roles (Stubbs 2013). The lack of female coaches of boy´s and men´s football teams reveals a gender divide which is typical for the world of football where in particular leadership positions are firmly in men’s hands. Until now, women have not managed to break the glass ceiling in the NFL. There seems to be only one female coach, Kathryn Smith, who serves as a “quality control coach” for the Buffalo Bills. Her job entails mostly analyses of films of previous games The “media went nuts” when Jennifer Welter was employed as the first female coach of an NFL team, the Arizona Cardinals, in 2015. Her task as an assistant coach was to work with the inside linebackers during their training camp and the 2015 preseason. After a whirlwind first few days on the job, Jen Welter reflected on what it meant to be the first female coach in the history of the NFL: “I’m here as a Football Coach” (“I’m Here as a Football Coach” 2015). Her position, however, was an internship that ended after some months. Jen Welter is also supposedly the first and only women who played for a men’s football team in a professional league in a full contact position. She was a running back of the Texas Revolution, a team which competed in an indoor league. Welter´s performance in one game was commented on as follows: “The 5’2, 130 pound Welter carried the ball three times during the game, being stopped each time by men who are literally twice her size. However, she handled the hits, and got back up for more every time.” Welter also gained fame playing in women’s teams; she was, for example, a member of the team which won the gold medal in the American Football’s Women’s World Championships in 2010 and in 2013. She comments her performances as follows: “We showed little girls that even in the final frontiers of sports that anything is possible…that was breathtaking for me” (Brownsville Herald 29 August 2015, 30). Welter also gained attention by posting provocative images on the internet: She shows her muscular body in a bikini-like football uniform and stares provocatively at the camera. After around fifteen years of playing football, many years of coaching men and women in this sport and a doctorate in psychology, Welter seems to be prepared for new tasks and roles in women’s football. On 19 November 2015, she was presented with the Women’s Entrepreneurship Day the Sports Pioneer award at the United Nations.

Potential for Women in Football The entry of women into a game like football in any roles other than subordinate ones as spectators or cheerleaders endangered men’s domination and caused 211

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a backlash, i.e. the abolishment of women’s football teams. Women continued to play the game intermittently and managed to form their own teams and leagues by the late twentieth century, not only in the United States, but worldwide. Women’s football seems to have even gained greater traction in countries outside the United States. Although a small measure of acceptance of female football players has been achieved in the United States and in other countries, women in this sport continue to be challenged by social pressures to conform to the ideals of femininity while they attempt to attain legitimacy to play this sport. The continuous rise of women’s football indicates that there is potential in this sport, and it is hoped that the numbers of spectators and fans, and also the numbers of players, will continue to increase.

Further Reading Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1988). Program for a sociology of sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 5, 153–161. Bourdieu, P. (2001). Masculine domination. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bruce, H. A. (1910, November 5). The psychology of football.” Outlook, 541–545. Camp, W. Papers. Yale University Archives. Campbell, C. B. (2013). The experiences of female football players. Master Thesis. California State University, Sacramento. Carter, J. (2011). Let’s bang: Constructing, reinforcing, and embodying orthodox masculinity in women’s full contact, tackle football. PhD Thesis. University of Cincinnati. Carrigan, J., & Migliaccio T. (2013). The experiences of female football players. Phd Thesis. Sacramento State University. Collette, M. (n.d.) History of girls’ football. Retrieved March 23, 2017, from, http://theetoledoreign .blogspot.com/p/history.html Connell, R. W. (2008). Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Daily Press of Newport News. (1905). Retrieved March 23, 2017 from, http://deadspin.com/did-football -cause-20-deaths-in-1905-re-investigating-1506758181 Davis, R. H. (1893, December 9). The Thanksgiving Day game. Harper’s Weekly, 1170. Gems, G. R. 2000. For pride, profit & patriarchy: Football and the incorporation of American cultural values. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Gems, G. R., Borish, L. J., & Pfister, G. (2008). Sports in American history: From colonization to globalization. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Gordon, A. (2014, January 22). Did football cause 20 deaths In 1905? Re-investigating a serial killer. Deadspin.com. Retrieved March 18, 2017 from, http://deadspin.com/did-football-cause-20-deaths-in -1905-re-investigating-1506758181 Grusec, J., & Hastings, P. (2015). Handbook of socialization: theory and research. New York : The Guilford Press. Guttmann, A. (1991). Women’s sports: A history. New York: Columbia University Press. Hanna, J. (2010, March 15). Woman named high school’s head varsity football coach. CNN. Retrieved March 23, 2017 from http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/11/woman.football.coach/index.html Hanson, M. E. (1995). Go! Fight! Win! Cheerleading in American culture. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Press. Heinemann, K. (2007). Einführung in die Soziologie des Sports. Schorndorf: Hofmann. Hibner, J. C. (1993). The Rose Bowl, 1902–1929. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Holtzmann, R. (2011, Nov/Dec). Lady Leatherheads of Madison. South Dakota Magazine. Retrieved March 19, 2017, from https://www.southdakotamagazine.com/lady-leatherheads “I’m here as a football coach.” (2015, August 4). The MMQB. Retrieved March 19, 2017 from, http://mmqb .si.com/mmqb/2015/08/04/jen-welter-first-woman-nfl-coach-arizona-cardinals Kantor, S. (2000). The History of Women’s Professional Football. Coffin Corner, 22(1), 1–2. Kotarba, J., & Held, M. 2006. Professional female football players: Tackling like a girl? In D. Waskul and P. Vannini (Eds.), Body/Embodiment: Symbolic interaction and the sociology of the body (153–164). Burlington, VT: Ashgate,

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Chapter Twelve: Challenging the Gender Order: Women on the Gridiron Lamb, M. B. (1968). “Instant Football” for females. New York: Vantage Press. Liechty, T., Willfong, F., & Sveinson, K. (2016). Embodied Experiences of Empowerment among female tackle football players. Sociology of Sport Journal, 33(4), 305–316. Lorber, J. (1995). The social construction of gender. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Lorber J. (2012). Gender inequality: feminist theories and politics. New York: Oxford University Press. McCalla, E. (2015, April 6). The Toledo Reign are royalty in women’s football. outlookohio.com. Retrieved March 19, 2017 from, https://outlookohio.com/2015/04/the-toledo-reign-are-royalty-in-womens -football Messner, M., & Sabo, D. (1994). Sex, violence & power in sports: rethinking masculinity. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press. Oriard, M. (1993). Reading football: How the popular press created an American spectacle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Seifert, K. (2016, May 11). How American football is becoming a worldwide sport. ESPN. Retrieved March 19, 2017 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/american-football-becoming-a -worldwide-sport Sperber, M. (1993). Shake down the thunder: The creation of Notre Dame football. New York: Henry Holt. Spaulding, J. (1939). American football for women. San Francisco: A.G. Spalding & Bros. Sports Destination Management Team. (2010, August 31). An interview with Laurie Frederick, president & CEO, Independent Women’s Football League. Sports Destination Management. Retrieved March 19, 2017 from, http://www.sportsdestinations.com/sports/football/an-interview-with-laurie-frederick -president-ceo-i-4631 Stagg, A. A.. Papers. University of Chicago. Archives. Stubbs, R. (2013, November 14). Natalie Randolph, female high school football coach, resigns position at Coolidge. Washington Post. Retrieved March 19, 2017 from, https://www.washingtonpost.com /sports/highschools/natalie-randolph-female-high-school-football-coach-resigns-position-at-coolidge -hs/2013/11/14/2488fd1e-4d4b-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html?utm_term=.ed9cb5281294 The history of women’s football. (n.d.) Orlando Anarchy website. Retrieved [insert date], from http://www .cfanarchy.com/history.htm Wacquant, L. (2006). Pierre Bourdieu. In R. Stones (Ed.), Key contemporary thinkers (261–277). London: Macmillan. Wann, D. L. (2001). Sport fans: the psychology and social impact of spectators. New York, Routledge. Welch, M. (1997). Violence against women by professional football players: A gender analysis of hypermasculinity, positional status, narcissism, and entitlement. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 21, 392. Yale Record, Yale University Archives.

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Chapter Thirteen: Football Warriors: The Archeology of Football Movies David CHAPMAN

American football films have a surprisingly long pedigree. The first cinematic record of a game was produced as early as 1899, and many narrative films soon followed. From their primitive beginnings to the advent of the “talkies,” early films set on the gridiron quickly grew in subtlety and sophistication. A careful examination of the first football films reveal that many of the tropes that were used then are still being recycled today, with themes that include the outsider brought into the fold, the player reformed by sport, football as a teacher of important life lessons, and the corruption of sport by money. Keywords: cinema, silent films, early football films, popular culture

M

ovies were in their infancy in 1908 when an extraordinary film was produced by the Edison Company. It was called A Football Warrior, and was directed by the distinguished early filmmaker William S. Porter (1870– 1941). The story concerns “Strongheart,” the son of an American Indian chief whose tribe has sent him to a prestigious Eastern university to learn the ways of the white man. Thanks to Strongheart’s intelligence, honesty, and innate athletic ability he becomes the “idol of the football team” (Moving Picture World, October 1908, 344). During a training run in the country, he rescues Belle, a professor’s daughter, from her runaway horse. She displays obvious gratitude and admiration for her savior, and this inflames the anger and jealousy of her white boyfriend. During a football game against the school’s great rival team, Strongheart is surreptitiously stabbed by Belle’s treacherous paramour and has to be carried from the field, but he is attended to by the beautiful girl who recognizes the Indian’s courage and strength. At the final moment, just as the home team is about to lose, Strongheart, rushes back on the field, and despite his grievous wound, gets the ball and scores the winning touchdown. After he is carried from the field, the noble native athlete refuses to name the one who attacked him but “with Indian stoicism” he waits to confront his attacker; at the appropriate moment Strongheart bests his rival and wins Belle’s heart. But in the end, prejudice and intolerance score higher than touchdowns, and Strongheart must give up his love because of differences in ethnicity. He returns to his people where he must remain. This might have been one of the first films to confront racism on and off the football field, but it would certainly not be the last. 215

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Belle tries to help injured Native American Strongheart in this still from The Football Warrior (1908).

A Football Warrior was so popular that it was remade two other times, in 1913 as Strongheart and again in 1925 as Braveheart. If nothing else, these recurring revivals of an old and familiar story confirm that the American public responded then as it does now: they like to see virtue rewarded and villainy punished. Audiences also like to cheer for an underdog who fights against apparently insurmountable obstacles, and they like to see fair play, sportsmanship, and athletic skill rewarded. They usually found all of these things in football movies, and this accounts for their enduring popularity with audiences from the earliest years of motion pictures down to the present. There have been several examinations of American football in film and literature; one of the best of these is Michael Oriard’s King Football (2001) which examines the game in the popular media (including film) from 1920 to 1970. Unfortunately, even this excellent book misses many titles and places, with most of its emphasis on the movies of the 1930s and beyond. The many films that came before this are given rather short shrift, and while there are many reasons for this omission, the most obvious is that the great majority of films made in the silent era have been lost through fire (nitrate film is highly flammable), decomposition (old film stock often turns into a gelatinous goo over the years), and neglect (most of the films are not listed in any source). Fortunately, a careful examination of fan and movie magazines from the early twentieth century can fill in a few of the gaps in this history, with brief plot synopses and contemporary criticism if little else. A few early films that feature American football have also survived, and these remain the best sources for 216

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examining the subject and distilling common themes that are still being recycled in modern sports movies. Perhaps the first discovery is that football movies have a surprisingly long history, although many of the earliest ones were extremely short and merely recorded events as they occurred. The very first example of a football “movie” came in 1887 when Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) recorded sequential photographs of a nude University of Pennsylvania student athlete drop-kicking a football. Naturally, these were not designed for mass consumption, but they show a very early interest in football at the very beginnings of its archeology in America. The first true football movie did not arrive until 1899 when early cinematographer James H. White (1872–1944) photographed “The Great Foot-ball Game between Annapolis and West Point.” This was a newsreel rather than a story film, and it was subsequently followed by many other cinematic records of various college games, such as the 1903 film showing highlights of the Princeton vs. Yale game. Although newsreels of popular games were shown regularly in most nickelodeons and theaters, narrative movies gradually became the rule as the films got longer and more sophisticated at telling complicated stories. By examining the earliest films, we can see how certain themes were first portrayed—themes that are still being explored in today’s movies. A few of these motifs were particularly strong at specific times in movie history, and they often correlate to events that were happening at the same time in American society. The messages embedded in early football films are ones that continue to resonate today. The first and possibly most prominent of these tropes is that football has the power to bring integration and acceptance of the outsider. It should not be surprising that many newcomers to the United States or to urban, collegiate culture would feel the need to join the fold and participate in typically American sports.

Football as a Means of Social Integration As a nation of immigrants, America was in need of activities that would knit the diverse population together, and sport became one of the most popular. As the author Gerald Gems has pointed out, football “held particular appeal to the children of working class immigrants who measured their self-esteem by toughness and prowess” (Gems 2000, 123). Not coincidentally, film was also very popular with America’s burgeoning immigrant population. Filmmakers were not slow in exploiting the universal appeal of the game, and it is perhaps not surprising that the first narrative film centered on football was released as early as January of 1908—a slapstick comedy called The Football Craze, produced by the Essanay Company. In this film, an “over-energetic” mob of football players start out on a field but then follow the ball wherever it is kicked. This brings the ball to subsequently land on a “Jew peddler,” a “Dago,” a man getting shaved, a woman having her photo taken, a prosperous family at dinner, and several other unfortunates, until it is grabbed by a bulldog who chews the pigskin to pieces. The studio explained: “For a long time we have thought that a good satire picture could be gotten up on this popular game, and we got it” (Moving Picture World, January, 1908, 10). Turn-of-the-century Americans were a good deal less squeamish about depicting and enjoying ethnic humor, and this film shows (in a very real sense) that football touches everyone in a multicultural society—not always positively. 217

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A Football Warrior was made later in the same year as the comedy (1908), and it too emphasizes the power of sport to draw in the outsider. It also demonstrates another value of American football in how the game can even help integrate outsiders from another race. There were others, however, who were excluded from the magic circle of athletic heroism. This was the poor scrub, the miserable fellow who is not good enough to play on the varsity team but can only watch as the real stars of the game score the goals and capture the admiration of the fair sex. In The Scrub (1914) Gordon Elliott is in just such a pitiful predicament; he is sidelined on the Benham College football team, where he will neither play nor earn a coveted letter (a visible symbol of athletic success) to display on his college sweater. Fortunately, he has one invaluable talent: he knows how to throw a great pass. The captain of the team is Dick Blackwood, who has “the beef and the ginger” to make a good player, although he can’t throw the ball well. Elliott decides that the only fair thing to do is to coach Blackwood in the finer points of his techniques for tossing the pigskin in a great snap-back. Thanks to this selfless sacrifice, the Benham team is victorious. At that evening’s celebratory banquet, Dick Blackwood gets his much-coveted “B” but as he accepts it, the quarterback reveals to all that it was only through Elliott’s help that he was able to earn a victory for the school. “And so, I think you will agree with me that Elliott deserves his “B” with the rest of us.” (Reel Life, January 2, 1915, 16) Thus the nerdy scrub is able to share the glory with the rest of the team. Brain is happily joined to brawn, and he thereby attracts the amorous attentions of Marjorie Burgess, pretty daughter of the mathematics professor. Sometimes even girls (who were usually pushed to the sidelines or made the spoils of a successful football career) could profit from the game. Thomas Ince’s The Mating (1915) tells the story of Doris Willard, a simple and sweet country girl who decides to get a college education and leaves her village to make the trip to Hamlin where the institution of higher learning is located. The poor girl has very little fashion sense, and she is soon made the butt of jokes by the other students because of her frumpy gingham frocks and dowdy straw hats. When the other girls at school tire of ridiculing Doris, they simply ignore her. After the other students troop off to the great football game between Yale and Harvard, Doris is left to weep in loneliness, but as she dabs her eyes, she happens to see the newspaper with a picture of the great athletic star of the game, “Bullet Dick” Ames, described as “the greatest halfback the game has ever known.” Desperate for acceptance, Doris pens a love letter to herself but signs it with the name of the football star. Later she drops the letter where it will be discovered by one of the mean girls who torment her. Daisy, one of the cruelest of the “Beauty Squad” doubts the letter’s authenticity and decides to invite Dick and his sister to spend Thanksgiving at the school, but her hopes are foiled when Dick becomes aware of what Doris has done and, smitten by the girl’s humble beauty, decides to play along with the little ruse. Eventually, the two fall in love, and after convincing Doris that his love is genuine, they are married (Motion Picture News, May 24, 1915, 89). Skill in football is therefore used as a marker for sexual prowess and marital readiness—a fact made clear by the film’s title. Originally, Ince was planning on calling the movie “Bullet Dick,” and that would have made the phallic reference even stronger, but apparently wiser and more prudent heads prevailed, and it was entitled The Mating (an almost equally suggestive name). Another powerful manifestation of football’s ability to level society and cause rifts to open between the classes is found in a 1921 Warner Brothers film with a 218

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Lowly scrub Gordon Elliott gets his letter after all, from The Scrub (1914).

title that sums up the action perfectly, Ashamed of Parents. Arthur Wadsworth is the football-star son of a humble shoemaker who has sacrificed to send his son to college. Thanks to Arthur’s prowess on the gridiron, he attracts the attention of Marian, a beautiful young society girl. When they become engaged, the son sends a message to his father about the event, but tells him not to come to meet his bride. When the family arrives anyway, it is painfully clear that Arthur is mortified by his parents’ low social status. When his father is taken ill, Arthur must return to his hometown where he finally sees the value of a loving home. His fiancée joins him there, and all are reconciled (American Film Institute Catalog 1997, 28). Naturally, films like these mirrored the discomfort that many immigrants and second-generation Americans felt, and the fictional athletes often allowed the real ones to understand their dilemmas better. 219

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Football as a Means of Character Reformation Just as important as being enfolded into American society was the ability of football to redeem a lost soul or knock an insensitive lout down a peg or two. All footballers in silent films are better people at the end of the film after their victory over the other team as well as over their own shortcomings. In the course of their redemption, the stars invariably learn deeper lessons about the nature of honor, maturity, teamwork, and humility. These are all skills that the protagonists could use in their business and political careers long after their football heroics have faded into the past. It is always assumed that star players will achieve great things based on their successes on the sports field. There is always a love interest in these movies, but she is invariably less important to the plot than the lessons that are learned on the gridiron. The mid-1920s saw a great flowering of football-related films. The period between 1925 and the beginning of the “talkies” in 1929 were the richest period to date. Some of the finest and most famous films about football come from this half-decade period, and they combine improved movie-making techniques, more sophisticated story lines, and deeper examinations into the nature of sport and its effect on individuals and society. Despite being more introspective, the plots of these films are not particularly original. Typically, an impetuous young high-school football star arrives at college and discovers that there is more to a good education than fun, flappers, and football. One actor in particular made a career out of playing a wisecracking smart-aleck who thinks he is God’s gift to sport: William Haines (1900–1973). The public loved his brash, handsome screen personality, chastened and made more mature by the final credits of all his films. Thanks to his loveable wise-guy screen persona, from 1926 to the early 1930s Haines had been designated in several polls as the most popular male star in Hollywood (Mann 1989, xi). His first great hit was Brown of Harvard (1926), and in it he first establishes his brash but ultimately endearing screen character. Brown of Harvard was originally a very successful play, and it was then made into two films in 1911 and 1918, but in these earlier versions football was never the crucible in which the title character tested his mettle and proved his worth. The plot of the 1926 version is more interesting and more elaborate. Tom Brown (Haines) goes off to Harvard, and although he is rich, popular, and handsome, he is also a spoiled and self-centered womanizer. Once he arrives at school he runs up against Bob McAndrew (Ralph Bushman), a studious and serious “psalm-singer” who is also his chief rival for the affections of Mary Abbott (Mary Brian). Tom ends up rooming with Jim Doolittle (Jack Pickford), a sickly and socially inept young man who worships Tom because he is everything Jim is not. When the others in the dorm try to ostracize Jim, Tom nobly defends him. Things get complicated after Tom forcibly kisses Mary at a party; she reacts angrily despite having feelings for Tom. A chastened Tom earns a position on the college rowing crew, but excessive drinking causes him to let down the team in disgrace. After this, Tom pulls himself together and tries out for football, with considerably more success. When he receives a false report that he has been cut from the team, the disappointed youth decides to go out and drown his sorrow in bootleg liquor. Roommate Jim learns that Tom is actually still on the team, and he rushes out in a freezing downpour to find him. Tom returns in time, but poor, sickly Jim catches pneumonia and is 220

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Poster for Brown of Harvard (1926).

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hospitalized while Tom plays in the big game against Yale. Brown carries the ball ninety yards, but demonstrates his new team spirit by giving his rival McAndrew a chance to score for the team, thus winning the game. After the game, Tom rushes to the hospital, but finds that Jim has died. Despite his grief, Tom is nevertheless acclaimed the school’s football hero and is joined by Mary to presumably live happily ever after. Although the plot seems hackneyed, it apparently struck reviewers of the time as being particularly realistic and exciting. According to the New York Daily News, the film, “made a touchdown” on the hearts of the audience. “The applause that greeted Haines when he threw off his blanket on the sidelines and dashed off to win the football game for Harvard was just as real as though the audience was seated in a stadium instead of a theatre” (Motion Picture News, May 29, 1926, 2587). Ironically, Haines had not used a real football player as his model in the film, but rather Charles Ray, whose Two Minutes to Go (1921) he had studied for whatever verisimilitude he could pick up (Mann 1989, 93). This technique must have worked, because Picture Play Magazine remarked that Brown of Harvard was “the first film of university life which has in it no hazing nor freshmen caps.” Neither did it have college pennants, pillow fights, dormitory shenanigans, or any of the other silliness that made up Hollywood’s idea of college life. Citing an earlier western that was considered the nec plus ultra in realism, the critic said of the film, “It is the pioneer of college pictures, the Covered Wagon of football films” (Benson 1926, 66). By the mid-1920s, football films had finally crystalized into a genre unto themselves, and in order to cash in on the national love of sports, movie producers ramped up their efforts to get more stories on the screens of America. The year after Brown of Harvard, Haines starred in another feature, entitled West Point (1927), that put football front and center. This is virtually the same film as the earlier one except now it takes place at the Army Military Academy and the love interest is played by Joan Crawford. No one seemed to care that the plot of the film was identical (there was even a weak, ineffective roommate), the public was hungry for stories about football, and Hollywood was anxious to supply them. Even Haines’s rival in Brown, Ralph Bushman (1903–1978), made his own football film, Eyes Right! (1926), set at the fictional San Diego Army and Navy Academy. Ralph was in reality the son of the matinee idol Francis X. Bushman (1883–1966) who starred as the evil Messala in the 1925 version of Ben Hur. In order to cash in on his father’s name recognition, he often billed himself as “Francis X. Bushman, Jr.” The young hero is a football star, but he is unable to afford tuition at the school, so he must work in the kitchen until his natural talent allows him to get a scholarship to cover expenses, win the big game and the girl, and trounce the villain. It was a slender story, and its only message seemed to be that a good man cannot be kept down for long. Its traditional happy ending brings delight and closure to a pleasant but unimpressive football fantasy.

Football as a Means of Teaching Life Lessons Most football films end with the exciting “big game” in which the protagonist snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. In a few films, however, the game is at the beginning, and the subsequent action draws on the strategy, experience, and fair 222

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play that the hero has learned on the gridiron. This is the message of the 1912 Edison film Their Hero, a simple story of two young men who adore Jarvis, a great football player who had graduated from their college and whose picture they tack up in their workplace. One evening they happen to see their idol having dinner, and they are invited to sit and sup with him. They soon learn that while Jarvis might have been a hero on the gridiron, he is a failure in life. He is down on his luck, and poverty eventually forces him to apply for a job as porter in the boys’ workplace. They are surprised to see that the great Jarvis is now to work under the two boys, but the former footballer proves himself worthy, and he quickly rises in the company, much to the pleasure of his two admirers (The Kinetogram, May 15, 1912, 6). The message here seems to be that the wheel of fortune is forever revolving, and he who is on the inside one day might find himself on the outs tomorrow. Thanks to the rigors and discipline of a sport like football, a good man and a great athlete will eventually find his rightful place in the world. By 1917, the United States had joined the war in Europe, and football stories paled in comparison to the adventures of the doughboys in the trenches. By far the most interesting film from this time that used football as a major plot element was Smashing Barriers, a fifteen-part series that was released after the armistice in 1919. Movie serials—short, episodic features shown before the main event and telling an extended story over many weeks—were extremely popular during this time. The star of the film was a charismatic actor named William Duncan (1879–1961). The Scottish-born actor had always had an athletic physique, and he became an instructor at a health institute before drifting into filmmaking. By the time he made Smashing Barriers, Duncan was an accepted Hollywood fixture and often promoted as a “strong man of the screen.” The first episode of this “red-blooded, two-fisted tale of a young man’s struggle for fame and fortune” shows Duncan engaged in a roughand-tumble football game. Duncan’s character, named significantly Dick Daring, wins in the last minute by a spectacular end run. After he is borne off the field on his teammates’ shoulders, he begins a series of perilous adventures. Fifteen chapters later, he has vanquished the villains, demonstrated his moral and physical strength, and won the heart of his sweetheart. Despite his later adventures, it is significant that the series begins on the college gridiron since it establishes his heroism, athleticism, and sense of fair play (Vitagraph Studios 1919). The main character uses the lessons learned on the playing field to fight villainy and treachery in real life. Sometimes football heroes were portrayed as ordinary Joes who manage to find the inner fortitude to win in both sport and life. Two Minutes to Go (1921) starring Charles Ray (1891–1943) was one of these sporting films that proliferated in the century’s second decade. The star was best known to the public for playing rubes, hicks, and hayseeds, so the public might have been expecting a very different film to the one that they saw, which may have contributed to the film’s lack of success. Ray played Chester Burnett, a poor boy working his way through college by delivering milk, and although he is a great star on the gridiron, he must give up the team in order to keep his job. Although he tries to keep his lowly job a secret from his classmates as well as Ruth, the girl he loves, he is eventually discovered, and his former teammates tease Chester mercilessly, filling his room with milk bottles, barber poles, gates, and other loose objects that he was likely to find on his morning rounds in the milk wagon. Despite this treatment, Chester decides to play in the big game that usually concludes football pictures. He is “stimulated to victory” by a love note from 223

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Cover of Press Book for the 1919 serial, Smashing Barriers.

Ruth and a telegram from his father telling his son that since a land deal has been concluded successfully, they are now rich and he no longer has to suffer the slings and arrows of his condescending teammates (Exhibitors Herald Nov. 26, 1921, 53). In order to make the football scenes more authentic, actor/director Ray recruited 224

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Poster for the 1921 film Two Minutes to Go.

over twenty real collegiate stars to participate in the film. Players from teams like the University of Southern California, Pittsburgh, Occidental College, and Notre Dame all attempted to add verisimilitude to the action. (Exhibitors Herald Oct. 15, 1921, 78). 225

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In the end, this was all for naught because the public considered the film to be strictly from hunger and most critics agreed. The review in Life Magazine was particularly brutal. It called Ray “a complete dud” in the role, and pointed out that the actor scores a touchdown despite a “team of extras who know that they would be out of their jobs if they made more than a half-hearted attempt to tackle him.” If there were any further doubts in the readers’ minds, the review concludes: “Two Minutes to Go is just about the low-water mark in Charles Ray’s screen career” (Life Magazine, Nov. 17, 1921, 24). As it happened, this was not the lowest point in Ray’s career. That came in 1923 with the failure of his multi-million-dollar stinker The Courtship of Miles Standish. By the middle of the decade, football had attracted many talented filmmakers, and they saw great potential in the game, and some saw the potential for humor as well as nobility. By any standards, the finest of the silent comedians to make a football movie was Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) whose masterpiece, The Freshman was released in 1925. This is a film about the urge to be accepted, liked, and respected and the lengths to which some will go to find those things. The film clearly illustrates the insecurity that afflicted a rapidly modernizing and urbanizing population, and it does so through the medium of the most “manly” of all sports. But it can be many other things too. “Harold Lamb,” Lloyd’s bespectacled character in The Freshman is determined to be the most popular man on campus at Tate College (described in an intertitle as “a big stadium with a college attached”), and the obvious way to do this is to become a star of the gridiron. Harold tries way too hard to be liked, and he soon becomes the laughing stock of the school because of his excessive eagerness to be popular. He does a merry little jig when he meets people for the first time; he is blind to back-stabbing, condescending “friends”; he happily becomes the tackling dummy for the football team; and he generally shows himself to be both socially and (even worse) athletically inept. The only real thing in his sad little world is the affection that he feels for Peggy (Jobyna Ralston), his girlfriend. Eventually, Harold realizes that he has been played for a fool, and he is clearly devastated by this knowledge, but in typical Lloyd fashion, he does not let this get him down for long. During the obligatory “big game” that ends all football films, Harold sits on the sidelines and watches as one by one, the first stringers are injured and carried off the field. Finally, the coach has no other option than to send in his worst player. Through a series of comic gags, Lloyd somehow leads his team to victory, and he finally becomes a sadder but wiser “big man” on campus. Significantly, Lloyd refuses to give up, and his perseverance allows the spectator to reflect on the value of dogged, stubborn tenacity in achieving a goal—in this case it is attained just past the goal posts. More than this, however, The Freshman is really about the fragility of human longing to be accepted and how we can often delude ourselves into believing that we fit in when we really don’t. The humor is based on the bemused recognition of our own insecurities and self-delusion. The film’s great success (it was the third-highest grossing film at the box office in 1925) is based on the mixture of pathos, sympathy, and genuinely funny gags (Koszarski 1994, 33). As one reviewer remarked of Harold Lloyd’s ability as a master comedian, “If football could be made as funny as he makes it, it would be the world’s favorite sport and they would play it on a stage” (Benson 1926, 54). Contemporary historian Seán Crosson posits that although the film pokes fun at the game, The Freshman reaffirms “the importance 226

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Harold Lloyd finds himself at the bottom of the pile in The Freshman (1925).

of sport for the assertion of character and proving one’s masculinity in the film’s climax” in addition to endorsing “the central message of the American Dream that regardless of one’s position in life or disadvantage, the opportunity still exists to be successful through effort and hard work” (Crosson 2013, 46). Issues surrounding the ability of football to retard one’s maturity and participation in “real life” were dealt with comically in The Quarterback (1926) starring Richard Dix (1893–1949). He plays Jack Stone in the film, quarterback of the Colton College football team; his father is still in school because in a rash moment twenty-seven years earlier the elder Stone swore that he would remain a student until Colton beat its rival, State University. He is now his son’s classmate. It is up to the son to win the game so that his father can get a life and perhaps a job. Complications arise when the lad is falsely accused of accepting prize money for an athletic contest, but this merely provides some suspense. It was a slight but amusing film. According to the review in the New York Times, The Quarterback was particularly successful among the children and the less sophisticated viewers in the cheap seats; they called it “a wholesome comedy that carried a strong appeal…to the audience, especially persons in the upper reaches of the theatre” (Hall 1926). Those audience members were fed a constant diet of heroes who valued personal honor, fair play, and decency, but the free-wheeling business ethics of 1920s America were beginning to suggest other tropes.

Money as a Corruptor of the Football Spirit The pursuit of money and its attendant corruption became increasingly common in some of the later films in this period. In many films of the mid-to-late 1920s, individual players and entire teams were subject to the dangers of gambling and accepting pay for playing. One of the reasons that this theme had greater resonance at the time was because many saw the game advancing toward professionalism. Paying team members had occasionally been an issue. As early as 1890 there were reports 227

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Richard Barthelmess ponders life’s complications in The Drop Kick (1926).

of Yale players accepting gold watches for a game played in New York. Other players sometimes received “expense” money in recompense for a successful game (Gems 2000, 91). For those who saw football as the chosen recreation of elite college men and the great teacher of selfless character-enhancing sport, the introduction of money changers into the temple of sport was unacceptable. This uneasiness with the mixing of profit with sport produced some interesting films in the second decade of the century. 228

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Greed and moral questions play a great part in one of the rare football-based dramas, The Drop Kick (1926) starring Richard Barthelmess (1895–1963). The star is most famous for his dramatic rescue on the ice in Way Down East (1920) in which he saves Lillian Gish from certain death just as she is about to float over the edge of a tumbling cataract. Fortunately, his football activities were a bit less perilous. In The Drop Kick, Barthelmess plays wealthy Jack Hamill, star of the football team at his college and an expert at the titular drop kick. Jack’s best friend is the football coach who has married Eunice, a beautiful but heartless gold digger who was under the impression that coaches make lots of money; she is also one of Jack’s former flames. The coach embezzles money from the school to keep his mercenary wife happy. When he is found out, he blows his brains out, but not before writing a letter explaining his reasons. Eunice discovers the note and reworks it to make it look like Jack and Eunice were having an affair, making it appear that this was the reason for her husband’s death. Jack does the honorable thing and asks the recent widow to marry him. Jack’s mother (played by Hedda Hopper, the future gossip columnist) smells a rat, and offers her money to get out of town. Eunice greedily accepts, and Jack is free to play in the big game free of worries and a troublesome personal attachment. Although the story has a happy ending, the film shows some of the seedy underside of the game and its ability to corrupt some and elevate others. Drop Kick shows two typical American reactions to any problems: money can smooth over many of life’s woes, and the game must go on. Richard Barthelmess made a convincing enough football star, and Hollywood knew a good thing when it saw it, but when the football craze hit full speed, the public wanted more realistic heroes. Who could be more authentic than a real football player? Red Grange (1903–1991) was one of several athletes in the 1920s who made a much ballyhooed transition from sports to studios. As a sports hero, Grange was perhaps second only to Babe Ruth. He had made his reputation on the playing fields at the University of Illinois where his spectacular career was known to every sports fan in North America. Thanks to the enormous attention he received on sports pages and a massive publicity campaign, movie audiences were all agog to see the legendary “galloping ghost” of the gridiron up on the screen in One Minute to Play (1926). This was not the first time that an athlete had appeared in films, but it was the first time that such a famous footballer had done so. The story was (as usual) rather slight and thoroughly predictable. Grange appears as the great football hero whose wealthy father does not want him to play. Dad shows up on the evening of the anticipated big game and rails against playing in the game. Red pretends to break training but gets into the action just in time to save the day and win the inevitable sweetheart on the sidelines. Audiences did not come to see a brilliant story; they came to see their great sports hero perform in a movie. Critics were less than enthusiastic about the film as a whole, but they loved the natural grace and easy bonhomie of the star. “He is not handsome or polished or any of those things, but he behaves with an unaffected ease that would put some of our seasoned leading men to shame” (Motion Picture Magazine, August 1926, 63). Another wittier reviewer admitted that many football movies are usually pretty dull because “there’s just a very limited number of things that you can do with a football. Red Grange did pretty nearly all of those in One Minute to Play” (Greer and Howe 1926, 67). The football player did so well that he was promised another two movies—and to make them more appealing to the star, neither of these was 229

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A two-page spread advertising One Minute to Play (1926) from Motion Picture News.

to feature sporting action of any kind. Other writers emphasized the man’s physical magnificence. “His one hundred and seventy-five habitual pounds are so well placed and distributed that the casual observer would never guess that his tweed suit was covering that amount of weight. He looks and of course is as physically fit as a man can be” (Thompson 1926, 1062). Other sports celebrities like Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey had been unconvincing in their films, but because of his genuineness, Grange was unique. As one analyst wrote, “Grange’s debut in One Minute to Play helped pave the way for a new type of Hollywood actor, the football idol” (Carroll 2004, 131–2) Even the great Carl Sandberg watched the film and reviewed it favorably (for the most part). He stated that the former iceman would never fill Valentino’s burnoose, but all the same, “Red Grange is a crackerjack of a football player, a mighty clean specimen of manhood to look at, with a ghostly cunning and sagacity about fooling the fellows who try to block him when he runs with the pigskin” (Bernstein 2000, 318). It must have been apparent to the producers at FBO Pictures (Film Booking Offices) that they had struck box-office gold with the charismatic, young player, and they soon decided to pull out all the stops on the publicity machine that they controlled. Soon, double-page ads touting the film began to appear in many of the trade journals, articles on how to publicize the new Grange picture, and to sell tie-in products like Red Grange footballs from Wilson Athletic Equipment, colorful Red Grange Sweaters, and even Red Grange candy bars with big pictures of Red on each package. This was the first time that all the ballyhoo that 1920s advertising could conjure had been put into action for a football film, and it proved to be very effective. It is a branding and marketing strategy still employed today. In 1924–25 Grange 230

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disassociated himself very publicly from the University of Illinois and pursued a career in professional football player, and although others had accepted pay for play before, this was a very public disavowal of his amateur status. There was clearly money to be made in football, and Grange would have been a fool to disregard this salient fact. Unlike many, he frankly admitted that it was the money that had brought him to Hollywood (Miller 1927, 100). The siren call of easy money was one that others would also heed. The rise of professional football happened at roughly the same time as the conversion to the “talkies,” but it also coincided with another turning point in American sports cinema. Although the most common milieu of football films was still the college gridiron, a few of the films began to examine the role of money and finances in maintaining a winning team. Braveheart (1925), The Drop Kick (1926), That’s My Boy (1932), College Coach (1933) and many others had plot elements that involved gambling, cheating, bribery, or financial malfeasance. There was clearly money to be made on the playing field, but as the silent era ended and the Great Depression began, many fans feared that the noble game might become tainted with greed and other base instincts. The first narrative film that deals extensively with professional football players, The Cowboy Quarterback, was not released until 1939, but the concern for players’ monetary compensation rather than honor and the glory of winning against great odds had begun to creep into films over a decade earlier. Several other earlier films mention or feature professional football, such as The Sport Parade, The All-American (both 1932) and Saturday’s Millions (1933), but the professional leagues are usually at the periphery of the principal story line. Despite the advent of talking pictures, professionalism and the Great Depression, movies about football (especially college football) continued to be popular— and they still are today. Even television, which for the first time gave viewers the opportunity to watch a game in real time rather than its pre-packaged alternative on the silver screen, has not managed to kill the football movie (Conklin 2008, 9–10). Contemporary films that are set on the gridiron still use the same plots and themes as those primitive films that were made over a century ago. Outsiders become insiders in such football films as Remember the Titans (2000), Gridiron Gang (2006), and Blind Side (2009); football reforms various misfits in Rudy (1993), The Water Boy (1998), Invincible (2006), and others; the game teaches life lessons in just about every football film ever made, but especially in Remember the Titans (2000) and Radio (2003); and money influences the game in films like Jerry McGuire (1996), Weapons of Mass Distraction (1997), and Leatherheads (2008). The movies of the silent era thus set the tone, established the vocabulary and marked out the tropes of the football film for all time. These early films might be forgotten today, but their subjects, messages, and morals have entered the DNA of movies featuring American football.

A List of the Earliest Films about American Football 1. 2. 3.

The Great Foot-ball Game Between Annapolis and West Point (1899) [first of many newsreels featuring football games] The Football Craze (1908) [remade in 1910] A Football Warrior (1908) 231

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4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

The Football Fiend (1909) A Football Hero (1911) The Girl and the Halfback (1911) Their Hero (1912) Strongheart (1913) [remake of Football Warrior] Devil Within (1913) The Line-up (1913) Mike and Jake at College (1913) The Scrub (1914) Cupid Kicks a Goal (1915) College Days (1915) The College Widow (1915) The Mating (1915) The Hare and the Tortoise (1916) The Halfback (1917) Pig Skin Hero (1918) Brace Up (1918) Smashing Barriers (1919) Daredevil Jack (1920) Married Life (1920) Ashamed of Parents (1921) Little, But Oh My! (1921) Live Wires (1921) The Snob (1921) Two Minutes to Go (1921) The Great Alone (1922) Live Wires (1922) Hold the Line (1923) The Half-Back of Notre Dame (1924) [Mack Sennett comedy] The Dangerous Blond (1924) Bucking the Line (1924) Making Good (1924) Feet of Mud (1924) The Freshman (1925) Braveheart (1925) [remake of Strongheart/Football Warrior] The Plastic Age (1925) Eyes Right (1926) College Boob (1926) College Days (1926) Let’s Get Married (1926) Collegiate (1926) The Kick-off (1926) The Quarterback (1926) Brown of Harvard (1926) The Drop Kick (1926) One Minute to Play (1926) The College Widow (1927) [remake of 1915 film and 1904 play] Quarantined Rivals (1927) 232

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52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

Red Clay (1927) West Point (1927) College Hero (1927) White Flannels (1927) Brotherly Love (1928) Touchdown Mickey (1928) [Walt Disney cartoon] Harold Teen (1928) The Cheer Leader (1928) Hold ‘Em, Yale (1928) Making the Varsity (1928) Triple Pass (1928) Win That Girl (1928) The Forward Pass (1929)

The films listed above all feature football as a major plot element, and usually contain footage of games. I have omitted the films that only use the game as a minor component or background plot element.

Further Reading American Film Institute Catalog. (1997). Benson, S. (1926). The Screen in Review. Picture Play Magazine, 66–67. Bernstein, A. (Ed). (2000). The movies are: Carl Sandburg’s film reviews and essays, 1920–1928. Chicago: Lake Claremont Press. Carroll, J. M. (2004). Red Grange and the rise of modern football. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Conklin, J. E. (2008). Campus life in the movies: A critical survey from the silent era to the present. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. Crosson, S. (2013). Sport and Film. London: Routledge. Exhibitors Herald. (1921). Gems, G. (2000). For pride, profit, and patriarchy: Football and the incorporation of American cultural values. Latham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Greer, E., & Howe, M. (1926). News of Both Coasts. Motion Picture Magazine, 67. Gridiron Stars in Ray Picture. (1921). Exhibitors Herald, 78. Hall, M. Another football comedy. (1926, October 12). New York Times. Retrieved September 10, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9907E6D81F3AEE3ABC4A52DFB667838D639EDE The Kinetogram: A Semi-Monthly Bulletin of Moving Picture News with the emphasis on Edison Films and Kinetoscopes. (1912). Kleinman, S., & Mcdonald, D. (2000). Silent film and the socialization of American immigrants: Lessons from an old new medium. Journal of American & Comparative Cultures, 23(3). Koszarski, R. (1994). An evening’s entertainment: The age of the silent feature picture 1915–1928. Berkeley: University of California Press. Life Magazine. (1921). Mann, W. J. (1989). Wisecracker: The life and times of William Haines. New York: Viking. Miller, B. (1927). Even the athletes are lured. Motion Picture Magazine, 100. Motion Picture Magazine. (1926). Motion Picture News. (1915). Moving Picture World. (1908). Munden, K. W. (Ed). (1997). American Film Institute catalog of motion pictures produced in the United States: Feature films, 1921–1930. Berkeley: University of California Press. Oriard, M. (2001). King football: Sport and spectacle in the golden age of radio and newsreels, movies and magazines, the weekly and the daily press. Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press. Reel Life. (January 2, 1915). Thompson, P. (1926). Interesting sidelights on “Red” Grange. Motion Picture News, 1081–1082. Vitagraph Studios. (1919). Press book for the 15-part film serial, Smashing barriers.

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PART II

The Globalization of American Football

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Chapter Fourteen: Canadian Football Craig GREENHAM University of Windsor

Canadian football is as old as Canada itself, but it has evolved in the shadows cast by the mighty National Football League to the south, as well as domestically by hockey, which has become Canada’s national obsession. Still, the history of Canadian football is rich and, in many ways, mirrors the struggles the country has faced through its own maturation. This chapter examines the key developments in Canadian football’s past with an eye on the present and future. Keywords: Football, Canada, Canadian Football League, Grey Cup, Canadian University Football, Vanier Cup

H

ockey is the sport most associated with Canada. The national identity of the country is sometimes elusive but Canada’s pioneering and proficiency in that winter sport has it firmly entrenched as a pan-Canadian obsession. Canada is so closely linked with hockey that many in the international community believe athletic-minded Canadians are singular in zeal. A more nuanced examination of Canada’s sporting past and present shows the multiplicity of the country’s athletic calendar; included in this diversity is football. Football, at least in the North American context of the word, does not enjoy the global presence of soccer, hockey, basketball, and baseball. Instead, football remains mainly the preserve of Americans and Canadians. If ever two nations were joined together by a sport, football appears a likely candidate. This amalgamation trend is prevalent in North American professional team sports and three of the “Big Four” leagues (National Hockey League, National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball) have club representation on both sides of the border. Football, however, continues to hold out and is still segregated with a domestic league in each country—the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the National Football League (NFL) in the United States. It is telling that Canadian football and American football have remained separate despite other sports opting for uniformity and shared endeavor. This distinction is allegorical of the Can-Am experience—much like their peoples, the game is the same, yet different (Greenham 2017). This chapter provides a historical look back at football in Canada and, when appropriate, will provide a comparison with the American game. This chapter also provides insight into some of the contemporary issues that shape Canadian football domestically. 237

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Vivre La Différence One of the signatures of Canadian football is a different set of rules from the more well-known American brand. The regulations have evolved over the years, like those in the United States, but they have always been distinct. Characterized by outsiders as everything from charming to quirky to bizarre, Canadian football has clung to these differences, some minor and some more substantial, as a necessary point of distinction from the game to the south. Many of the differences in the Canadian game favor the offensive side of the ball and the production of scoring plays. The American game has not necessarily changed its rules to conform with the Canadian attacking philosophy, but over the years most of the alterations in the United States have been with offense in mind. Beyond the tactical and scoring differences, there are physical variances to the CFL playing surface. The uprights are in the end zone, not behind it like in American football. The Canadian field is 110 yards long and 65 yards wide—10 yards longer and almost 12 yards wider than the American field. The American end zone is 10 yards deep, half the size of the Canadian end zone—again, an advantage for the offensive attack. To compensate for the enlarged surface, Canadians football permits twelve players from each side on the field, one more than in the United States. Of the twenty-four starting players (twelve on offense and twelve on defense) each CFL team fields, at least seven must be Canadian nationals. Accordingly, many American players, and coaches for that matter, are involved in the CFL and are forced to quickly adapt to the different demands of the Canadian game. Perhaps the most fundamental rule difference between Canadian and American football is the number of downs required to advance the ball ten yards. Canadian football permits three attempts, one fewer than the American game. The three-down allowance demands more aggressive plays in order to achieve firstdowns and maintain possession of the ball. The line of scrimmage from which all plays begin in Canadian football requires the defense to line up no closer than one full yard from the ball. Defenses in the United States can line up as close as eleven inches from the ball. This increased distance provides confidence for Canadian offenses to test their luck on short-yardage situations (e.g., third-and-one). The pre-snap movement in Canadian football is prominent and also advantageous for the offense. American football allows one offensive player to go into motion once the offensive line is set, and this solitary player cannot move toward the line of scrimmage until the ball is snapped. In Canadian football, by contrast, the wide receivers, plus all offensive backfield players except the quarterback, can be in motion and can advance forward to the line of scrimmage. This nuance allows the offensive unit to use speed and motion to expose a flat-footed or back-pedaling defense. In addition, Canadian football does not have the “fair catch” rule that allows a returner to safely catch a punt in exchange for not advancing the ball. Instead, Canadian defenders must give the punt returner a five-yard radius from which to begin a return. Failure to do so results in a five-yard penalty. One of the rules that non-Canadian football fans find most curious is the rouge. With the exception of a kick-off, a successful field goal or a ball that strikes the uprights, any ball that is kicked or punted into the end zone is considered live. If the returning/defending team does not advance the ball from the end zone, the punting/kicking team receives a single point called a rouge. 238

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Beyond merely a point of difference, it is strongly held by domestic supporters that the Canadian game is superiorly designed. This chauvinism was heightened during discussions of CFL expansion in the United States (more on that later) for fear the game would become more Americanized. In an open letter to CFL Commissioner, Donald Crump, Jim Taylor of the Vancouver Province wrote: Stop talking about changing CFL rules so the game will look more like the American version. I know you mean well and you’re looking at it dispassionately as a route to survival. I know you’re telling yourself that a little tinkering won’t change Canadian football life as we know it…That ours is the better game with the better rules and the better field…Besides, who made the U.S. rule-makers God?…I think that’s the part that riles me most, Don, this idea that somehow we must tailor our game to fit America’s perception of how the game should be played. The CFL started before the NFL. The Grey Cup is old enough to be the Super Bowl’s greatgrandfather. If there’s so much American interest in joining the Canadian league, let them play our rules. Tell them to widen their field, put in a 55-yard line, extend their end zones and play three-down football. If they say no, tell them to take a hike. Just once, let’s be proud enough of something that’s uniquely Canadian to keep it that way. (Taylor 1991, 71)

Origins and Early Days The early evolution of football in Canada follows a winding route—no different, in some respects, to that of the United States. Lack of standardization of play, shortterm organizations, and the enormity of Canada’s geography that created regional sporting flavors represent some of the issues that complicate the early narrative. While Aboriginal Canadians played games with animal bladders, the most recognizable forebear to Canadian football is rugby with the first rugby club founded in Montreal in 1868—one year after the Canadian Confederation. Rugby in the 1860s and 1870s was plagued by lack of uniformity as the transplanted sport from Britain underwent a North American evolution. Rugby football in Canada, as the ever-developing hybrid was known, was neither traditional rugby nor modern football but somewhere between. At the forefront of its development were Canadian universities and their student-run athletic clubs. Sports that pitted neighboring universities against each other in athletic contests like early forms of football were highly anticipated events. McGill University in Montreal, Queen’s University in Kingston, and the University of Toronto were particularly prominent in the incorporation of football into campus life; but of the three educational institutions, McGill’s contribution to the development of football was most influential (Morrow and Wamsley 2010, 222). In 1874, McGill and Harvard University competed in an athletic challenge—but the expectations of each side were different. McGill expected a rugby-styled game, while the Harvard side anticipated a game more closely aligned to association football (soccer) that had been waged between Princeton University and Rutgers University in 1869. The Harvard game, known as the “Boston game,” had been modified but the soccer resemblance was still apparent. A compromise was reached, with the result being a game with elements from each style (McGill University 2012). The 239

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Harvard athletes were quick converts to the Montreal rules and with playing with its oval ball. They challenged nearby Tufts College in 1875 in the first intercollegiate game of rugby football and before long Yale and Princeton wanted to be schooled in this new game (Smith 2013, 537). From the shared embryotic experience between McGill and Harvard, the game’s popularity grew and took different shapes. In Canada, its administration was overseen by the Canadian Rugby Football Union which went defunct in 1884 and was reborn as the Canadian Rugby Union (CRU) in 1891. The CRU was an umbrella organization and underneath it existed several other rugby unions that were differentiated by geography or, in the case of the intercollegiate union, student status. The early versions of the game put emphasis on ball possession, lateral passes, and a strong kicking and punting game. Fourteen players were on each side and though the game was physical, any player behavior deemed by the referee as rough resulted in expulsion from the game or ejection for the amount of time believed by the referee as appropriate. Despite rule impediments to viciousness, violence certainly was a key ingredient to the Canadian game and something that caught the attention of a New York Times reporter who, along with some prominent American football players, watched a Canadian game in 1909. He went on to write that the American brand, by comparison, was “a mere mollycoddle sport” and “to return to the game from which the American college game was evolved would entail a bigger hospital list, and possibly more fatalities every year than is now the case in five seasons of our brand of football” (New York Times 1909, S3). Subtle rule differences made each union under the CRU distinct. All were in agreement, however, that the practitioners of the sport remain amateur and that a residency requirement was necessary. The only union that was exempt from the latter was the intercollegiate one whose players only needed to be a registered student in good academic standing (Cosentino 1969, 19).

Holy Grail The Grey Cup is the most coveted trophy in Canadian football but its inception is largely unknown and its early important contests (and scandals) are somewhat forgotten. Governor General Earl Grey (1851–1917) created the award in 1909 at the cost of $48 CDN, but his intention for the Grey Cup was an amateur hockey, not football, trophy. Before the Grey Cup could be gifted to amateur hockey, however, Sir H. Montagu Allen (1860–1951) presented the Allen Cup, which was to be awarded to the best amateur hockey club in the Dominion; thus Earl Grey was left with a trophy without an athletic purpose. Football presented an option to Earl Grey, but a problematic one, as its claim to national status was questionable since only clubs in Ontario and Quebec played this brand of football/rugby. On Canada’s peripheries—British Columbia to the west and the Maritimes to the east—there were some exceptional rugby clubs but the sport they played resembled British rugby, not the hybrid that evolved in Central Canada. Beyond the limited geographical scope of the trophy in the early years, there was also the question of who deserved to compete for the award. League formation was loose and rudimentary. How would credentials be assessed? Four trustees (one a member of parliament, one a reverend, one who was knighted, and the last a part of the prominent Molson 240

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family—all from Central Canada) were bound by a charter of their own authorship that decreed they should supervise and control all challenges for the trophy. Only the champions of recognized senior rugby unions were eligible to file a challenge and in doing so, the request had to be filed with the trustees and not the reigning Grey Cup winners. The trustees also said the Grey Cup match could be a single game, a “best of three” playoff, or a two-game final decided on aggregate—the competing clubs selected from the three options. The Grey Cup was also to remain for amateur competition only—a high-minded ideal, perhaps, but one that was compromised from the beginning as the most competitive football league in Canada, the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU), was ripe with shamateurism—the label given to athletes who posed as amateurs but were, in fact, professional and often not very clever at the concealment of that fact (Currie 1968, 39–42).

Western Challengers The Grey Cup was a national trophy but its contestants were regionally based in Ontario and Quebec (Central Canada). The Edmonton Eskimos were the first western club to compete for the crown in 1921—a step toward the realization of Earl Grey’s national dream for his trophy. That year, there were five rugby leagues in Canada: one for university teams from Ontario and Quebec, one for club teams from Ontario and Quebec, as well as mixed membership leagues in each of the three prairie provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta). A playoff system was instituted that guaranteed a challenger from the west for the first time. The Eskimos played a short three-game season in which they were 3-0 and outscored their Albertan foes 148-5. Typical of harsh autumns on the prairies, the Eskimos playoff game against the Winnipeg Victorias was delayed two days due to poor weather and a late-arriving train from Edmonton to Winnipeg. Once there, the Eskimos overmatched the home side. Standing in their path for Grey Cup glory, however, were the 6-0 Toronto Argonauts, the team that represented the football establishment in Central Canada and outscored their opposition 167-35. The Eskimos’ contribution to history stalled at mere participation as the Argonauts captured the Grey Cup 23-0. The Argonauts were so assured of victory that star halfback Lionel Conacher (1900–1954), who scored fifteen of the club’s points, was relieved of his duties for the eventual Grey Cup champions in the third quarter so he could make the opening faceoff of a hockey game he wanted to play that night (Kelly 1999, 12). For more than a decade, clubs from the west that followed the Eskimos to the Grey Cup posed little threat to the traditional balance of power in Canadian football, often defeated by lopsided margins and providing little drama to the game. That changed in 1935 with the Winnipeg Pegs—renamed the Blue Bombers in 1936, the name they use today—and their creative roster. The December weather in southern Ontario was particularly bitter and the prospects for an exciting game were limited as the western representatives to that point were 0-11 in Grey Cup appearances and the Pegs were steep underdogs. Little more than 6,400 fans came to the Hamilton Amateur Athletic Club to see their hometown Tiger-Cats upset 18-12 by the western champions (Duff 2013). The Pegs are remembered not only for a pioneering win over the Tiger-Cats that established the west as a legitimate contender of the Grey Cup, but also for whom they used to claim victory. Winnipeg head coach 241

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Joe Ryan (1902–1979) recruited nine American players from North Dakota and Minnesota to bolster his team’s chances of success at the cost of $7,400. American Fritz Hanson (1914–1996), the diminutive punt returner at 145 pounds, was the difference-maker for the Pegs in their Grey Cup triumph, racing for 334 yards on punt returns alone. The CRU was dismayed by the Pegs tactics. The complaint was that they had bought the championship, which contravened the ethos of amateurism, but seemingly more problematic was whom the money was spent on—Americans. The organization was loath to see Canadians lose roster spots to Americans. To safeguard the interests of domestic players, the CRU instituted a one-year residency rule that mandated that any American player who competed in a Grey Cup game had to be in Canada at least one full year prior to the title match. American players did not ruin the game as feared, but improved the on-field product. When The Sports Network (TSN), the Canadian equivalent to ESPN and sole holder of broadcasting rights of the CFL in Canada, announced their list of the top fifty players in Canadian football since 1945, Americans dominated the rankings. Russ Jackson (b. 1936), the star of the Ottawa Rough Riders during the 1960s, for example, was the only Canadian-born player rated in the top ten. Winnipeg won three Grey Cup titles between 1935–1941, but the west was not done with shaping the Grey Cup. The Calgary Stampeders captured the 1948 Grey Cup in Toronto with a 12-7 win over the Ottawa Rough Riders, but it was the off-field antics that provided a lasting cultural impact. Stampeder fans descended by rail onto the Ontario capital, bringing with them the flair of the Canadian west. Adorned in cowboy hats, boots, accompanied with chuckwagons (a wagon equipped with a kitchen to feed transient cowboys), horses, ceremonially adorned Indian chiefs, and other hallmarks of the frontier, the westerners came to the hub of Central Canada to make a statement. In what the Toronto Globe and Mail described as “mobile vaudeville,” Stampeder supporters paraded through the streets of Toronto, hosted a pancake breakfast on the steps of city hall, and rode their horses through the swanky lobby of Toronto’s poshest hotel, the Royal York (MacFarlane 1948, 1). The high-spirited celebrations of Stampeder fans were perhaps initially intended as isolated but they unwittingly became authors of many of the most time-honored and cherished activities of Grey Cup week and its folksy pageantry. Sport historian Frank Cosentino wrote, “If the Edmonton Eskimos made the Grey Cup game ‘national’ in 1921, the Calgary Stampeders made it a ‘celebration’ in 1948. What had previously been accepted as a meeting between two football teams, was transformed into a week of camaraderie and festivities.” (Cosentino 1969, 133).

The University Game Many of the best football clubs in the formative years of Canadian football were found on university campuses, and the game’s popularity and evolution owe much to its prominence at Canadian institutions of higher learning. Seven of the first twelve Grey Cups were won by universities. With the emergence of club teams, however, the national title extended beyond the reach of the student-athlete and no university played in a Grey Cup game after 1926. The absence of school teams in the Grey Cup, however, did not denote a waning interest in the sport and football, for many universities across Canada, remains the sport with the highest profile. The 242

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Vanier Cup, named after Governor General Georges Vanier (1888–1967), was introduced in 1965 as the national university championship. For the first two years, the Vanier Cup operated similarly to an American collegiate bowl game in that two university clubs, deemed to have superior credentials by a committee, competed for it. In 1967, however, the cup morphed from an invitational format to a playoff system. The Vanier Cup’s game location has also evolved; held exclusively in Toronto from 1965–2003, the university championship has since been unshackled from Canada’s most populous city and held throughout the country in an effort to widen the title game’s appeal. The most successful football team in U Sports, the Canadian equivalent to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, was the University of Western Ontario Mustangs, located in London, Ontario. The Mustangs have competed in twelve Vanier Cups, the most of any university, winning six although none since 1994, despite fielding many excellent teams. Université Laval Rouge et Or, located in Quebec City, has emerged as the interuniversity powerhouse. The Rouge et Or had never competed in a Vanier Cup game until 1999 but they have won a record nine Vanier Cups in ten appearances since that time. Part of the Rouge et Or’s success is an avant-garde budgeting model not common in Canadian university athletics. The funding stems from the community, not the university. The football team, as well as the school’s other athletic clubs, has a president, board of directors, and a head of fundraising. Through private sources, the Rouge et Or amasses an operating budget of several million dollars for its football team, which makes it the financial envy of its peers. Located in a city of 700,000 residents, there is no professional sports entity with which to compete and so the Rouge et Or enjoy a considerable civic profile. When it comes to funding, Canadian universities are not allowed to issue athletic scholarships that exceed tuition and student fees, and many student-athletes do not get these items covered with financial grants. While tuition in most provinces is approximately $7,000 a year, the average Canadian sports scholarship is $1,060—this total is for all student athletes, not just football players. These totals pale in comparison to “full-ride” scholarships at American schools that cover tuition and fees plus living expenses and transportation. The average amount of financial aid for a student athlete in an American public university, according to the NCAA, is $25,000 (MacLean’s 2013). Beyond the financial limitations, Canadian university football programs do not have the resources to provide players with the facilities and coaching available in the United States. Those in the United States might be interested to contrast the zest for Canadian university football with their own collegiate product. The comparison is short. The vast majority of Canadian university football teams play in stadiums with capacities of fewer than 10,000 spectators—often drawing far fewer than a capacity crowd despite many universities offering free admission to their student bodies. NCAA football, conversely, has several stadiums with seating for more than 100,000 spectators and routinely are filled to capacity. The total attendance for the 2015 NCAA football season was more than 49 million (National College Football Attendance 2015). For the 2016 Vanier Cup, held in Hamilton’s Tim Horton’s Field, home to the CFL’s Tiger-Cats, only ten thousand seats were sold and about half this number were filled, leaving U Sports CEO Graham Brown “very disappointed” (Radley 2016). 243

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The Race Factor Jackie Robinson’s success in breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1947 has been well documented but the names of similar trailblazers in North American sport have not been afforded the same renown—particularly north of the border. Canada was perceived as a more tolerant environment for integration than the United States and this was part of the reason why Robinson played one season in the minor leagues with the Montreal Royals before his major league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Despite this widely held view, athletes of color were susceptible to hardships in Canada and the path to a career as a professional athlete was far from guaranteed. Of the Big Four professional sports leagues in North America, for example, the Canadian-controlled NHL was the last to include a black player on its roster when Willie O’Ree (b. 1935) played for the Boston Bruins in 1957—a full decade after Robinson’s MLB debut. Lew Hayman (1908–1984), general manager of the Montreal Alouettes, could be called the Canadian football equivalent to Branch Rickey (1881–1965)— baseball’s progressive general manager who signed Robinson and initiated black desegregation—in that he decided to sign Herb Trawick (1921–1985) from Kentucky State University in 1946 to play on both the offensive and defensive line. Trawick played his entire twelve-year career with the Alouettes, with the team winning the Grey Cup in 1949. While he attained on-field success, Trawick experienced some prejudice in Canada, especially after his playing career ended and he found that he could do no better than a job as a doorman, despite a college education (Milton 2012). What is telling, however, is that Trawick decided not to return to the United States even with the limitations on his post-playing career. Even in the present era, it is common for black players who migrate from the United States to Canada to explore professional football opportunities in the CFL to stay in Canada once they have arrived. Johnny Bright (1930–1983) was one of the American black players who in 1952 followed Trawick’s footsteps north. Bright’s circumstances, however, were considerably different in that he was an elite professional prospect coming out of Drake University, had finished fifth in Heisman Trophy balloting as the top collegiate football player in the United States, and had been named a first-team All-American despite missing meaningful time as a result of a violent, racially motivated attack while playing against Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University). Bright was selected in the first-round of the NFL draft by the Philadelphia Eagles; however Bright, citing racial concerns, shunned the Eagles for a career in Canada. Bright had a great football career in Canada and captured the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player award in 1959 and was enshrined in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. Like Trawick, Bright stayed in Canada after his playing career ended; yet unlike Trawick, who struggled to find a job fitting of his education, Bright became a junior high school principal in Alberta. Bright also became a Canadian citizen in 1962. When American stereotypes were prohibitive, Canadian football proved progressive. Quarterback Warren Moon (b. 1956), despite a superb collegiate career at the University of Washington, went undrafted in the NFL season of 1978. Prevailing American prejudice discriminated against black athletes as quarterback with the antiquated notion that they did not possess the mental acumen for the strategic position. The CFL, however, was not beholden to these biases and Moon won five consecutive Grey Cups with the Edmonton Eskimos before returning to the United 244

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States as a NFL star. Sideline opportunities were also available to people of color in Canada before they were offered in the United States. Willie Wood (b. 1936) became the first black head coach in the CFL when the Toronto Argonauts appointed him in 1979—ten years before Art Shell (b. 1946) was given that opportunity in the NFL with the Los Angeles Raiders. In addition, the CFL currently has a black commissioner, Jeffrey Orridge (b. 1960), an office never extended to a person of color in the NFL.

The Founding of the CFL The creation of the CFL was a strong indication that the Canadian game had shed its amateur illusions entirely and openly become a business. What answer other than money could explain the coupling of Eastern (IRFU) and Western (Western Interprovincial Football Union) executives? For decades, animosity had polarized the game along regional lines. The storyline was familiar to students of Canadian history—the upstart west wanted respect and equality from the older and more established east. Money had the ability to thaw even the frostiest relationships. Indications of eased tensions were apparent at the 1955 Grey Cup meeting in Vancouver, which was also the first time a western city hosted the title game. A realization that a partnership was possible alleviated some concerns about the competing suitors’ business model that allowed player salaries to grow to heights that seemed to please no manager. Executives from each club resolved to create the Canadian Football Council (CFC) to avoid the cannibalization of Canadian football. The CFC’s power and purpose were still undefined, but its formation was an important first step and an indication of an untapped spirit of cooperation between clubs in the east and west. The harmonization began with small but important measures; chief among them were nationally binding negotiation lists that protected players as team assets and prevented east-west bidding wars for talent. In 1958, the motion was put forward to fully integrate professional football in Canada with the creation of a national league, the CFL. The unification, on some levels, was superficial. The two conferences, eastern and western, largely operated independently despite the presence of a CFL commissioner whose office was largely ceremonial. The cooperative spirit sputtered in the CFL’s early years and some of the old animosities quickly resurfaced, with money as a root cause. The Eastern Conference’s broadcast deal with private broadcaster CFTO was far more lucrative than what the public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, paid Western Conference teams to broadcast its games. Western Conference executives pushed for a significantly interlocked schedule in order to share in the Eastern Conference’s profitable broadcasting contract. Eastern executives refused and the newly created CFL teetered on the brink of collapse with no appetite for compromise. League meetings did little to soothe tensions and these gatherings often erupted into stinging words, threats of physical violence, and abrupt departures. Hamilton Tiger-Cats president Jake Gaudaur (1920–2007) issued a plea for calm and reconciliation in 1964, without which the infant league seemed doomed. Gaudaur, who later became the CFL’s fourth commissioner (1968–1984), urged his colleagues to deemphasize the east-west split and focus on the concept of one league. In a rare moment of peace, Gaudaur’s colleagues concurred and a commission was 245

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cast, with equal representation from the Eastern and Western Conferences, to examine the state of Canadian football and anticipate its future direction. Again, economic necessity served as motivation for the partnership. There was a rapid growth in player salaries in the mid-1960s as the NFL and the upstart rival American Football League (AFL) competed fiercely for talent acquisition. Competition between the two leagues intensified and further escalation of player compensation was the result. The record $400,000 (USD) three-year contract rookie Joe Namath (b. 1943) signed with the AFL’s New York Jets was evidence of the rising cost of business. Players in the CFL, emboldened and empowered by the initiative in the United States, were also active in the labor movement and formed the Canadian Football League Players’ Association in 1965. Eastern Conference executives might not have been enthusiastic about revenue-sharing with their Western Conference counterparts but the concession was required for the survival of professional football in Canada (Goodman 1982, 85).

The Clubs The CFL began as a nine-team league in 1958 with four teams located in the Eastern Conference and five teams in the Western Conference. Almost six decades later, those same nine Canadian cities account for the CFL’s total composition. Two of those markets—Montreal and Ottawa—vanished twice each, only to reappear. There was also a failed and short-lived expansion experiment in the United States in the 1990s that is described in greater detail below. The Western Conference had the British Columbia Lions, Calgary Stampeders, Edmonton Eskimos, Saskatchewan Roughriders, and Winnipeg Blue Bombers. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Toronto Argonauts, Montreal Alouettes, and the Ottawa Rough Riders made up the Eastern Conference. Fifty-eight years later, the only difference is that the Ottawa club is named the Redblacks in its third incarnation, an unusual name to be sure, but it did solve the quandary of having two teams in a nine-team circuit called the Rough Riders. The consistency is remarkable, but it is important not to confuse this with stability. The CFL, the reader will discover, has barely clung to survival for prolonged periods. Comparisons with the other professional sports leagues further illuminate how stagnant the CFL brand has been since 1958. Over the same time period, the NHL expanded from six teams to thirty-one; the NBA went from eight teams to thirty; MLB went from sixteen teams in 1958 to the current thirty; and the NFL went from twelve teams in 1958 to the current thirty-two. There may not be many clubs in the CFL, but its clubs have long histories, with none longer than that of the Argonauts. Formed in 1873, this is the oldest professional sports team in North America still addressed by its original name; the runner-up Philadelphia Phillies of MLB was created a full decade later. Initially founded as a rowing club in 1872, the Argonauts branched out into football and hockey as well. The Argonauts have won sixteen Grey Cups, the most of any team, which is in part due to their early history. The Eskimos have been the dominant team in the CFL era with eleven Grey Cups, outdistancing the second-place Blue Bombers by four. Initially the CFL season ran from late August and culminated when the Grey Cup was played in late November. Western Conference teams played sixteen regular 246

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season games and the Eastern Conference played two fewer. The season is now standardized at eighteen games, two more than the NFL, and because of the northern climate of Canada the season begins in late-June with the Grey Cup still awarded in late November. In the modern era, the top team in each conference receives a playoff bye while the second and third place teams in each conference compete in the conference semi-finals. The CFL also permits a cross-over exception in its playoff format wherein a fourth-place team with a superior record to a third-place team in the opposite conference assumes that playoff berth. The scenario occurred as recently as 2016 when the Eskimos finished fourth in the Western Conference but qualified on the Eastern Conference side due to a better record than its third-place finisher, the Alouettes. A premier holiday in the American football calendar is Thanksgiving—the third Thursday in November. Canadians also celebrate Thanksgiving, situated on the second Monday in October, with many of the same customs as Americans, but the holiday with the most football significance is Labour Day, the first Monday of September. Unlike the NFL which has three consecutive games on Thanksgiving Thursday—the first located in Detroit, the second hosted in Dallas, and the third game, a more recent addition to the holiday schedule, in a varying location, the CFL has a more static Labour Day schedule based on traditional and geographic rivalries that extend back to the 1940s. The Sunday before Labour Day features the Blue Bombers at the Roughriders. On Labour Day, the Argonauts play the Tiger-Cats in Hamilton for the “Battle of Ontario,” and the Eskimos play the Stampeders in Calgary for the “Battle of Alberta.” These three games are known as the “Labour Day Classic” and are situated near the midway point of the CFL schedule. To prolong the attraction these match-ups create, these games are repeated the following week with the locations reversed.

Team Ownership The NFL has rigid rules which restrict different ownership types (e.g., large multi-person ownership groups, publicly traded corporations, non-profit entities, individuals that own teams in other professional sports leagues) and league prestige has allowed it to be very selective in the owners that have gained membership. The Green Bay Packers, as a community-owned franchise, fall afoul of the NFL’s ownership edicts but since the club’s long-standing ownership model (1923) predates the league’s narrow allowances, its ownership structure is an allowed exception to league policy. The CFL’s ownership ranks are drastically different, in part, because the financial realities of the league have not allowed it to be as discriminating. At present, for example, one-third of the league—the Eskimos, Roughriders, and Blue Bombers—are community-owned franchises. Technically the Blue Bombers are a non-profit corporation without share capital operated by a board of directors, not c­ ommunity-owned in the strictest sense of the business jargon, but their operations mirror community-­ ownership very closely. The Argonauts are owned by a large consortium that includes corporate titan Bell Canada, which also has a stake in the Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL), Toronto Raptors (NBA), and Toronto FC (Major League Soccer). Despite the rich and deep history of the Argonauts, they have been one of the most problematic teams in the CFL. Almost counterintuitively, the team’s location 247

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in Toronto, Canada’s largest city and North America’s fourth most populous behind only Mexico City, New York, and Los Angeles, is part of the problem. Toronto, so cosmopolitan, seems to have little appetite for the old-fashioned and unpretentious CFL. Instead, many of the city’s football fans prefer the NFL product and have shown interest in the acquisition of a team. In an unofficial trial run, the Buffalo Bills of the NFL played several “home games” in Toronto but met such mixed reviews that the agreement was cancelled. Still, the absence of the Bills’ contract does little to improve the Argonauts’ fortunes in a city too big, and seemingly too trendy, to support them. Although the city is lukewarm to the CFL, the CFL needs a presence in Toronto. There are precious few Canadian markets that can support a CFL team. Failure in the country’s largest one could be the death knell of the plucky league. So desperate was the league for stable ownership in Toronto that it not only allowed but encouraged businessman David Braley (b. 1941), who has also owned the British Columbia Lions since 1997, to purchase the Argonauts in 2010. That made him the owner of two CFL teams simultaneously—an obvious conflict of interest that no league with viable options would ever allow, let alone court. Braley held onto the Argonauts until 2015, almost as a caretaker, before a suitable owner appeared and was able to purchase the Argonauts from him. Braley also owned the Tiger-Cats in the late-1980s which allows him the claim of owning one-third of the CFL clubs at some point in time.

Troubled Times The mid-1980s began a dark period for the league. The CFL’s broadcast partner, Canadian brewer Carling O’Keefe, did not renew its three-year $33 million deal (1984–1986). By contemporary standards, the deal appears paltry, particularly when compared to the $3.1 billion (USD) the NFL generated in 2014 alone from broadcasting rights (Rocco 2015). Nevertheless, the Carling O’Keefe television partnership delivered approximately $1.1 million for three years to each CFL team, which was considered essential revenue. The lapsed contract set back the league almost two decades (Willes 2010, A39). One of the league’s founding franchises, the Alouettes, finally succumbed to monetary woes after several floundering seasons. The Alouettes folded in 1982 but were rescued the next day by liquor magnate Charles Bronfman (b. 1931), who also owned the Montreal Expos of MLB, and were renamed the Montreal Concordes in a re-branding effort designed to change the struggling fortunes of the team. The name change did not have the desired impact and the team returned to the Alouettes moniker in 1986. Again, the team folded one day prior to the beginning of the 1987 season. The Alouettes’ collapse was predictable, in retrospect, but blindsided many in 1987, particularly after club president Norm Kimball (b. 1931) spoke in glowing terms about the Alouettes projections for a terrific season just days before the team was dismantled (McAuley 1987, B1). The Stampeders needed a “Save Our Stamps” campaign in 1986 and the Roughriders required a fund-raising telethon in 1987 to keep from sharing in the Alouettes’ fate. The poverty was widespread. Lions GM Joe Galat had confessed to the commissioner that his team, so cash-strapped in 1987, had begun to use Grey Cup (to be staged by the team later that fall) money for club operating purposes to get the team through the season. The Blue Bombers were so dollar-conscious that 248

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they refused to issue new socks to players, which caused running back Robert Mimbs to trudge over to a shopping mall, still in his practice gear, to purchase a new pair for himself (Willes 2013, 17–18).

American Expansion After some failed years to close out the 1980s, the CFL and its teams were on the brink of bankruptcy during the early-1990s. When seven of the league’s eight teams were desperate for money, the league hastily made plans to introduce two expansion franchises in the United States, one in San Antonio and the other in Sacramento. Each new team paid a $3 million Canadian expansion fee, and it was believed this revenue boost would ease the pressures of mounting debts. The proposed San Antonio franchise, however, backed out at the last minute, leaving the league with a single American franchise in 1993 and more than a little embarrassment. Pressured by the Sacramento ownership, the CFL expanded into three more American markets the following season and another two in 1995. Expansion efforts were conducted hastily and involved many unreliable owners whose commitment to the CFL was as diminished as their bank accounts. Their lack of understanding of the CFL and its potential appeal to American audiences doomed the experiment from the beginning. American franchises saw little success, with poor finishes, and abysmal fan support. The Baltimore Stallions were the outlier and proved to be the model expansion franchise, posting above-average attendance figures, earning Grey Cup berths in its only two seasons, and capturing the coveted national trophy in 1995 and, thus, serves as a painful reminder to Canadian football purists of an experiment gone wrong. At the conclusion of the 1995 season, however, the beleaguered Cleveland Browns of the NFL relocated to Baltimore and rendered the Stallions obsolete in that market. With no alternatives stateside, the franchise sought refuge north of the border in Montreal as the reincarnated Alouettes, and has been a successful CFL franchise ever since. Expansion into the United States was a risky proposition born out of desperation. How does a national league establish a foothold in an international market without losing its historically based identity, which was essentially the CFL’s most valuable asset? Confronted with a grim financial outlook, the CFL was not well positioned to protect itself and its brand from the unavoidable dilution of its traditions and heritage that came with foreign entanglement. The league was so economically vulnerable that it gambled its credibility with its stout, but numerically insufficient, homegrown fan base. The CFL and its Canadian teams, so desperate, had no time to conduct the necessary research into potential owners and markets that would ensure the health of these American franchises and safeguard the league from further failure (Greenham and Andrews 2016).

National League in a Global World Compared to the state of the league in the mid-1990s, the CFL of today is in excellent financial shape. It seems that the league has learned from those hasty 249

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expansion failures of the past. The CFL’s latest expansion effort, which revived football in Ottawa for a third time, involved a meticulous series of negotiations and a well-budgeted stadium renewal project. The new team, the Ottawa Redblacks, played its first down of football in 2014, four years after the expansion process began. If the CFL can continue its patience and diligence, there is hope any future international expansion efforts will avoid the recklessness of the past. In keeping with its on-field protectionist policies, the CFL was overseen by Canadians for the entirety of its first 102 years. This changed, however, in March 2015 when the Board of Governors broke with tradition and hired an American, Jeffrey Orridge, to be the league’s commissioner. Orridge’s resume includes a number of marketing positions with a definite emphasis on global development and a bolstered digital presence. Orridge has accomplished a great deal during his brief tenure as commissioner. He promptly extended the league’s existing television contract with the self-proclaimed worldwide leader in sports, ESPN, and signed a new contract with BT Sports in the United Kingdom. He also announced a social media-friendly logo and ad campaign, and live-streamed the CFL’s championship game, the Grey Cup, worldwide on YouTube. With fewer than ten thousand views, this attempt to expand the league’s audience hardly qualifies as a viral success, but the fact that the YouTube stream was not available in Canada, the United States, or the United Kingdom where broadcast deals were in place makes this number more palatable. All these actions have been aimed to increase the league’s global and social media presence, and are indicative of the kind of changes Orridge was likely hired to enact. Orridge’s ambitions to global relevance are visionary, but also risky. Considering the new commissioner’s global perspective, it is logical to assume the CFL may consider renewing failed international expansion efforts of decades past. In an increasingly globalized world, expansion beyond the borders of Canada seems logical. But with the painful past still fresh in the minds of Canadian fans— the CFL base—any plans will need to be measured and carefully considered. It is clear, however, that Orridge cannot depend upon the introspective strategy of previous commissioners who promoted the product to a captive audience with limited access to global sports. Technology has cleared the path for Canadians to consume athletic offerings from around the world. In turn, technology represents an opportunity for the CFL to maximize its global exposure, and—at least for now—the CFL’s approach has been to draw in the eyes of the world rather than to plant new franchises abroad (Greenham and Andrews 2016).

Further Reading Brunt, S. (2012). 100 Grey Cups: This is our game. Toronto, Canada: McClelland & Stewart. Cosentino, F. (1969). Canadian football: The Grey Cup years. Toronto, Canada: Musson. Cosentino, F. (1995). A passing game: A history of the CFL. Winnipeg, Canada: Bain & Cox. Cosentino, F. (2014). Home again: Canadian football 1995–2014. USA: Lulu Press. Currie, G. (1968). 100 years of Canadian football. Toronto, Canada: Pagurian Press. Dowdall, B. (1999). Turnover: The fumbling of the Ottawa Rough Riders. Carp, Canada: Baird, O’Keefe. Duff, B. (2013, November 23). Windsor, Detroit played a role in Winnipeg’s 1935 Grey Cup win. Windsor Star. Retrieved December 20, 2016, from http://windsorstar.com/sports/windsor-detroit-played-role -in-winnipegs-1935-grey-cup-win Goodman, J. (1982). Huddling up: The inside story of the Canadian Football League. Don Mills, Canada: Fitzhenry & Whiteside.

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Chapter Fourteen: Canadian Football Greenham, C. (2017). Super bore: The Canadian media and the Grey Cup-Super Bowl comparison. International Journal of the History of Sport. DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2017.1336160. Greenham, C., & Andrews, B. (2016). Canadian football on the world stage. The Allrounder. Retrieved November 22, 2016, from http://theallrounder.co/2016/09/29/canadian-football-on-the-world-stage/ Howell, C. (2010). Blood, sweat, and cheers: Sport and the making of modern Canada. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Januska, M. (2012). Grey Cup century. Toronto, Canada: Dundurn. Kelly, G. (1999). The Grey Cup: A history. Red Deer, Canada: Johnson Gorman. Kelly, G. (2005) Greatest Grey Cups: The best of Canadian football. Canmore, Canada: Altitude Publishing. Kelly, G. (2001). Green Grit: The story of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Toronto, Canada: HarperCollins Canada. MacFarlane, D. (1948, November 29). Calgarians took it all, game, town and color. Globe and Mail, pp.1. Retrieved September 4, 2017, from https://search-proquest-com.ledproxy2.uwindsor.ca/hnpglobe andmail/docview/1291457202/4202FD2BE2164760PQ/1?accountid=14789 MacLean’s. (2013). Sports scholarships are an expensive fix to a nonexistent problem. Retrieved December 18, 2016, from http://www.macleans.ca/general/an-expensive-fix-to-a-non-existent-problem/ McAuley, L. (1987). Post-mortem on Alouettes. Ottawa Citizen, B1. McGill University. (2012). This date in history: First football game was May 14, 1874. Retrieved October 2, 2016, from https://www.mcgill.ca/channels/news/date-history-first-football-game-was-may -14-1874-106694 Milton, S. (2012). Grey Cup symbolizes difference between Canada and our neighbour to the south. Hamilton Spectator. Retrieved November 29, 2016, from http://www.thespec.com/sports-story/2262268 -grey-cup-symbolizes-differences-between-canada-and-our-neighbour-to-the-south/ Morrow, D., & Wamsley, K. (2013). Sport in Canada: A history (3rd ed.). Toronto: Oxford University Press. National College Football Attendance. (2015). NCAA. Retrieved December 21, 2016, from http://fs.ncaa .org/Docs/stats/football_records/Attendance/2015.pdf Radley, S. (2016). Dismal attendance only downside to Vanier Cup. Hamilton Spectator. Retrieved December 12, 2016, from http://www.thespec.com/sports-story/6988995-radley-dismal-attendance-only-down side-of-vanier-cup/ Rocco, M. (2015). TV deals boost NFL revenue to new record. Fox Business. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2015/07/21/tv-deals-boost-nfl-revenue-to-new-record .html Smith, R. (2013). Football, American. In D. Levinson & G. Pfister (Eds.), Berkshire Encyclopedia of World Sport. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing. Taylor, J. (1991). Don’t allow the CFL to lose its identity. Vancouver Province, 71. Willes, E. (2013). End zones and border wars: The era of American expansion in the CFL. Madeira Park, Canada: Harbour. Willes, E. (2010). Sure can’t rival a revival. Vancouver Province, A39.

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Chapter Fifteen: American Football in Latin America Jorge IBER Texas Tech University

Although some scholars argue that American football has made few inroads into Latin America culture, evidence shows an extensive and lengthy presence in some nations (such as Mexico and Cuba), and substantial growth currently in nations where the game has been adopted in recent decades. Meanwhile, Latinos in the United States who are fans or players are beginning to introduce more recent immigrants to the game. Keywords: IFAF (International Federation of American Football), ONEFA (Organizacion Nacional Estudiantil de Futbol Americano), Havana University Caribes, UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, IPN (Instituto Politecnico Nacional), Clasico-Poli-Universidad, FMFA Federacion Mexicana de Futbol Americano, LFA Liga de Futbol Americano Profesional, AFFP (American Football Federation of Panama), SAAIF (Salvadorian Association of American Intramural Football, El Salvador, FENAFAH (Federacion Nacional de Football Americano de Honduras, LIPFAN (Liga Pimer de Football Americano Nicaraguense), AFAM (Asociacion para el Desarollo de Football Americano en Nicaragua), AEFA (Asociacion de Equipos de Football Americano), PRAFL (Puerto Rico American Football League).

I

n early September of 2016, an important clash took place between two neighboring gridiron rivals: the Lions and the hometown Eagles. The action on the field was fast and furious, with the squads trading touchdowns via the air and the ground. At the end, the visitors triumphed by the score of 26-24. After the contest, the media was eager to get reactions from the participants of this highly anticipated matchup. The Lions’ coach was quoted as saying that he was very happy with his charges’ efforts and that the “execution of the plays was also perfect in the second half of the game.” The only setback that the Lions endured was a game-ending injury to their starting quarterback in the first half. Still, as has happened on so many fields over the decades, the substitute came in, and with a total team effort was able to guide his side to victory. Afterwards, this athlete was heard to say (and in a very modest tone) that, “the offensive line actually carried us by opening up the holes for 253

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our fullbacks to wreak havoc, and then for a great passing game… making it really simple actually, for me and the backs to do our job.” While disappointed in their defeat, the head coach of the Eagles noted that what occurred on the field was, in the end, of secondary importance to the benefits his players derived from the vigorous competition. “Our focus with the young players is to raise them up…to be good citizens in society, with good behavior. Also to realize that football is a good way to keep them interested in healthy activity and out of gangs and drugs” (Ms. Elle 2016). At this point, readers may have assumed that this game took place at the home of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles, or, as the discussion turned to the topic of the youth of the players involved, that this was a contest between high school teams at any one of thousands of locations throughout the United States on a Friday evening. Yet the actual field of battle for this gladiatorial contest was instead Cranshaw Stadium, located in the capital city of the Central American nation of Nicaragua. The teams were not members of the National Football League (NFL), nor powers of collegiate football from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), nor important high school teams. Rather, they were the Leones Cartago F.C. (of Costa Rica) competing against the locals, the Aguilas F.A. As noted in the story, there was much interest in this game, as three national television and two radio stations promoted the contest leading up to the game. Further, a photographer from Tackle Magazine (based in El Salvador) was there to capture the action for subscribers, as well as a broader, international audience, through the online journal, American Football International Review. Lastly, so as to make the festivities of American football even more complete, the full-pad contest was preceded by an all-female flag football game pitting a team from El Salvador (the Liberty Hawks) against the hometown Pinoleras (slang for “Nicaraguans”). Here, once again, the locals came out on the short end of the final score, this time by a tally of 30-6. A final quote from a member of the Leones Cartago F.C. adroitly summarized the happenings on this day: This was my third time playing Nicaragua with three different teams spanning my football career. It was an honor to represent Costa Rica in a game. I am grateful to all of the Leones Cartago F.C. coaches, players and the entire staff who supported us on the field and especially to the Aguilas F.A. team for the invitation. They are a great team! I always learn a lot when we play international games. (Ms. Elle 2016) While some may be surprised at the manifestation of American football in nations where futbol (soccer) predominates, substantial evidence documents a fairly long-standing presence of the game in Mexico, Cuba, and Panama since the early decades of the twentieth century. The development of the sport throughout the rest of Latin America in countries such as Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and further south into Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and elsewhere, however, is of more recent vintage. Clearly, the popularity of the American version of football pales in comparison to futbol, but the game is growing, and there are now several fairly well-established associations playing versions of the sport (including flag football for young women) in many nations of Latin America (IFAF 2016). In addition to the game’s expansion to locations outside of the United States, there have been significant developments in regards to football and the Spanishsurnamed population throughout the United States. As the population of Latinos/ 254

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as (both immigrant and native-born) expanded since the middle of the 1960s, there has been a concerted effort by the NFL and collegiate teams in recent decades to “win over” the Spanish-speakers in their areas to the brand of “football” created north of the Rio Grande River (that marks the boundary with Mexico). While this has proven efficacious with the segment of this populace born within US borders, there has been less success in regards to disconnecting recent immigrantes from their ties to soccer. Certainly, there has been progress; for example, the number of USborn Latinos playing in the NFL has increased and there are increasing numbers of such individuals competing in the NCAA. Additionally, the Dallas Cowboys, Oakland Raiders, and Miami Dolphins, in particular, (cities with large Latino constituencies) have developed strong ties to these fan bases. By the early 2000s, even teams in cities such as Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Seattle had commenced efforts along these lines (Iber, Regalado, Alamillo, and De Leon 2011, 1–5, 243–247, 266–268). As Latinos have moved into areas of the country where they had previously not been present in substantial numbers (for example, into the region of the American South, where football is, for all intents and purposes, almost a religious experience), the presence of the Spanish-surnamed on the gridiron is becoming noticeable. A review of some of the literature dealing with this migration into the South reveals that many of these athletes are still drawn to soccer (Cuadros 2007). A perusal of other studies, however, shows that at least some of these students are moving into American football, in the South and elsewhere (Bater 2016). Two examples to support this contention come from an analysis of the rosters of two high schools located in northwestern Arkansas: Springdale and Rogers. The 2016 lineup for the Bulldogs (Springdale) lists a total of ninety-one players, twenty-four of whom (26.4 percent) have Spanish surnames. The pattern for the Rogers Mounties is similar, with a total of twenty-six of ninety-seven players (26.8 percent) being of Hispanic backgrounds (Springdale Bulldogs and Rogers Mounties 2016). Where are these players coming from and what is attracting their families to such “remote” (in the sense of historical Latino population trends) locations? Many of these student athletes are from Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala, or the children of immigrants. While the majority of such youths continue to play soccer, a number are doing “as other ethnic groups new to the United States have done throughout the nation’s history, used athletic competition in order to help mitigate racial and ethnic barriers and thereby claim social space in local schools” (Iber, Regalado, Alamillo, and De Leon 2011, 2). Still, as the number of immigrants and children of immigrants from these nations continues to increase, it is important to examine whether they, or their parents, have had any awareness/interaction with American football previously. The goal of this essay is to inform readers of how American football initially spread into locations in the Caribbean and Central America and how it has moved further down to South America. Prior to examining some key historical developments in the various countries, it is necessary to provide a brief examination of research that has been conducted regarding American football in this region of the world. Two scholars whose work provides such insight are the late Joseph Arbena of Clemson University, and Gerald Gems of North Central College in Illinois. Arbena, in an essay entitled “American Sports across the Americas,” which appeared in the December 2011 issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport was quite brusque in his assessment of the role of this sport in the region, arguing 255

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that it “has had minimal impact outside the United States.” Still, he does proffer a brief summary of the history of the game in Mexico, noting that football has “been played with regularity…since at least the 1920s and perhaps earlier.” As recently as the later years of the 2000s, “26 universities belonged to Liga Mayor…of the National Student Organization of American Football (ONEFA).” He also notes that Panama, with American youth playing the game within the Canal Zone, had some activity in the sport, though it “had little impact on the outside republic and faded as the zone disappeared in the 1980s,” and US influence subsided. Lastly, Arbena briefly discusses the presence of a few Latinos in the NFL. Overall, it appears that this scholar did little to provide more than a cursory overview of the totality of American football in Mexico (indeed, other than the passing mention of Panama, he does not discuss any other nation), failing to go much beyond the number of teams in ONEFA at the time of his writing. This essay will provide additional substance in this regard and challenges Dr. Arbena’s conclusion concerning the impact of American football in this part of the world (Arbena 2011, 2530, 2531). In his 2006 work, The Athletic Crusade: Sport and American Cultural Imperialism Gerald Gems’s discussion on football in Mexico, while more limited than that of Arbena in 2011, does provide pertinent information. For example, he states that during the 1990s, broadcasts of professional American football had expanded into approximately 190 nations, including Mexico. Gems presents statistical data that counters Arbena’s claim that American football has had “minimal impact” in this country: specifically, he cites the impressive attendance of more than 110,000 fanaticos which witnessed a 1994 preseason tilt between the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Oilers in the Mexican capital. Subsequently, there have been several games, both preseason and regular season (including a then-NFL-record crowd of 103,467 that witnessed a contest between the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers in Mexico City in 2005) which demonstrates that there is an interest in the game south of the Rio Grande River. As further support for this contention, a 2015 announcement by the NFL committed the league to, at first, three games, later increased to five, in the country starting in either 2017 or 2018. Arturo Olive, the head of NFL Mexico stated that, “we’re taking steps in the right direction so that eventually, this platform…which we have reconstructed will enable us to talk directly to the NFL in New York about the possibility of staging games in Mexico.” As will be noted later, the broadcasting of NFL games into Latin American countries has helped to increase the visibility of, and interest in, the sport in this part of the world (Gems 2006, 155; Associated Press 2009). Gems’s book also provides a brief examination of the genesis of the sport in Cuba. As with baseball, football’s migration to the island occurred when: wealthy Cubans who had attended schools in the United States returned to their homeland to establish the Havana Sports Club and the Vedado Tennis Club in 1902. Both eventually competed in baseball, basketball, and American football. The latter played against American colleges and the University of Havana, which eventually installed an American coach and…athletic director. The earliest example of the University of Havana playing against a US academic institution occurred in 1907, when Louisiana State University trounced the Caribes (Gems 2006, 89–90). 256

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Mexico Football spread from its New England roots to the South by the later part of the nineteenth century and one of the most successful zealots, named James Perkins Richardson, wound up as a school teacher at Ball High School in Galveston, Texas and is credited with bringing the sport to the state in 1892 (Baron 2003, 26–39). By the later years of that decade, and with the start of the twentieth century, the game soon reached border locales such as Laredo, El Paso, and the Rio Grande Valley. Thus, although they were not necessarily playing the sport, individuals of Mexican background north of the international divide were familiar with football. Given the permeability of the borderline with Texas, it should not be surprising that some brought at least partial knowledge of the game south of the dividing line. Additionally, Dr. Jorge Prieto, a writer of Mexican descent, provides a similar story confirming this assumption, but based on his experiences in southern California (Prieto 1994). In Mexico, as noted in a short film produced by Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) the initial development of the sport is credited to two forces: first, the arrival of US Marines to Veracruz, and second, the tireless promotion by a war correspondent for Hearst Newspapers named Arthur Constantine. After the Marines played a game in the port city in 1896, they left balls and other materials with locals upon their departure. Among those who came into possession of these implements was the son of the state’s governor, Raul Dehesa, who, due to time spent at American institutions, was familiar with the sport. Shortly thereafter, in the nearby city of Xalapa, Raul and friends became, most likely, the first Mexicanos to play this version of football. The game remained predominantly a curiosity among elites until the later part of the 1910s, however (Santiago Eagles 2009; UNAM 2013). The other historical actor credited with diffusing the game in Mexico was Arthur Constantine, who arrived to cover the nation’s revolutionary turmoil, and married into a prominent Mexican family. His spouse, Amanda Moran de Constantine, had a long and distinguished career as a professor at both Mexico City College (which would also develop into a prominent player in Mexican football) and UNAM. It was in part through the connection to UNAM that Constantine became acquainted with Mexican students who like Dehesa, after that university’s reconstitution in 1910, were familiar with the game from having spent time in the United States. By the late 1920s, Constantine, in cooperation with students such as the Noriega brothers, Alejandro and Leopoldo, and American industrialists, got a team started. One highlight of this early era was UNAM playing against Mississippi College in 1929 with Emilio Portes Gil (1891–1978), president of Mexico between 1928 and 1930, in attendance. The US influence at UNAM, through Constantine and others, was prevalent until the 1940s, as eight of the first eleven head coaches of the football team were Americans; and, not surprisingly, there was a Yale connection here as well, as Reginald Root guided UNAM in 1933 and later went on to coach (with limited success) at his alma mater (ESPN Deportes 2001). Between 1933 and 1944, UNAM won a dozen consecutive Liga Mayor (the principal league for collegiate football in Mexico until the late 1960s) titles. During this time, additionally, there developed the most significant rivalry in the nation’s collegiate football history between UNAM and the Burros Blancos of the Instituto Politecnico Nacional, or the IPN (National Technical Institute). The first showdown, 257

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referred to as the Clasico-Poli-Universidad (Poli-University Classic), between the two early titans of Mexican collegiate football took place in 1936 with IPN shutting out their rivals, 6-0. This tilt would continue in its initial format until 1957. The rivalry featured legendary coaches and athletes of Mexican football, such as IPN’s icon Salvadro “Sapo” Mendiola and UNAM’s great Roberto “Tapatio” Mendez (who would rename the UNAM team Pumas in 1942). The era before the 1940s also witnessed the development of what was known as Segunda Fuerza and Tercera Fuerza which were roughly equivalent to high school and youth football throughout many parts of the nation (Tackleo.com 2008). Given the growth of the sport, and the expansion of the two universities, the Clasico game endured but eventually featured combined teams from numerous UNAM and IPN campuses. The contest continued until the early 2000s with stoppages at certain times due to social circumstances/disturbances. For example, cancellations of the Clasico took place in 1968 (indeed, the entire Liga Mayor season was canceled) and 1969 due to violence associated with the student movement then fomenting disorder at many Mexican universities. A recent article by author Robert Andrew Powell has noted some of the reasons behind this mayhem and its impact on American football. In July of that year, there were some fights between students attending high school football games and the “government’s response felt like overkill.” Mexico, you see, was preparing for the Olympic Games, and political leaders felt the need to break up student groups, many of which attended football games. All of this led to the tragic massacre of 2 October 1968, which, in turn, saw the cancellation of the entire season that year. By 1970, the government was monitoring goings on in the stadiums, and began to plant troublemakers in the stands. There was a stoppage in 1979 (after the death of a fan in 1978), and still others in 1980, 1982, 1983, and 1989 due to the activities of a group known as porros (which comes from the word, “porras,” meaning “club” or “baton”—hence, porros are individuals who “carry clubs”). While the Clasico remained popular, the porros (with some sources, such as tackleo.com, claiming that such individuals were often paid by the national government, and dressed to appear as students, with the intent to disrupt games) had their effect, and by the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a decrease in attendance at American football games in Mexico. One former player from the 1970s told Powell that these porros were there to disrupt the games, to steal wallets and purses, to smash stuff and make the stadiums unattractive places to spend an afternoon. They didn’t want the students to get together, so they tried to disrupt football….There was still a taboo linked to football, because of what happened in 1968. (Powell 2016) The violence did not completely crush gridiron competition, however, for the game had become deeply ingrained throughout much of Mexico. As proof of the sport’s appeal, by the late 1940s, yet another “Clasico,” this one pitting newer institutions of higher learning such as Monterrey Tech (known as the Borregos Salvages) and the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon’s (the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon) Autentico Tigres, established itself outside of the national capital. In subsequent decades, both schools garnered multiple national championships at the highest levels of competition. 258

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The Liga Mayor existed from 1933 until 1968. Then, as new teams came into existence, a restructuring took place and an association known as the Liga Nacional Colegial—the National Collegiate League, came into being (lasting until 1976). Monterrey became a national powerhouse during this era, winning four titles. Still another reconfiguration took place in 1977 (and lasted until 2007) with the birth of ONEFA, the Organizacion Nacional Estudiantil de Futbol Americano (National Student Organization of American Football). Among the most successful sides during this period were newer squads such as the UNAM Condores, the IPN Aguilas Blancas, and the Universidad de Las Americas-Puebla (University of the Americas-Puebla) Aztecs, each laying claim to multiple national titles. By the end of the 2000s, yet another division took place, led by state-funded UNAM and IPN, as schools divided up into leagues based on whether the members were privately or publicly supported. The newly birthed organization indicated its makeup through its name: Comision Nacional Deportiva Estudiantil de Instituciones Privadas (the National Student Sporting Commission of Private Institutions [CONADEIP]) (Tackleo.com 2007). In addition to the history of the game at the university and lower levels in Mexico, the nation has, more recently, become a noteworthy force on the international American football scene through the participation of the Federacion Mexicana de Futbol Americano, or FMFA (Mexican Federation of American Football), which is part of the International Federation of American Football (IFAF). Mexico has participated in various tournaments staged by IFAF since 1999. In the first competition, held in Italy, the Mexicans finished second (silver medal), losing to Japan in the title game, 6-0. Another loss versus Japan occurred in 2003, this time by a tally of 34-14. Mexico’s subsequent appearances have produced a fourth place finish in 2011 and a bronze medal in 2015, defeating a squad from France, 20-7. Even more impressively, in 2014 (in Kuwait) and 2016 (in China), in their best international showings, Mexico garnered a bronze in the Under-19 World Championships, defeating Germany, and most stirring of all, crushed the United States, 35-7 for the World University Championship title, on 11 June 2016. There are even Mexican-based high school teams crossing the border to play “elite” squads in Texas (Hernandez 2014; AFI 2015; Segura 2008). Another example of Mexico’s role in international competition of longer standing is its participation in the Aztec Bowl, which has been contested on a fairly regular basis between Mexican all-star teams and American institutions or all-star squads since the 1950s. At the start of the twenty-first century, the configuration of this game has featured a select Mexican side playing against a team comprised of US-based Division III athletes (from smaller institutions that do not play at the highest levels of collegiate football in the United States). Ever since 2010, the American side has consisted of players from Division II (a slightly higher level) and III, indicating an improvement in the level of competition from the Mexicans. Recent results on the field are encouraging for the Mexicans as their team won the most current encounter against the USA All-American Eagles, 17-14 at Aztec Bowl XLII in December of 2015 before approximately 32,000 fans (AFI 2015). Lastly, Mexico has just established its own professional, outdoor football league: Liga de Futbol Americano Profesional, the LFA (the Professional League of American Football) which commenced operation in 2016 with four clubs based in Mexico City. This was the first attempt at a professional football league in the nation in twenty years. The original squads (all owned by the LFA) were: the Raptors, 259

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Eagles, Condors, and Mayas, with the Mayas claiming the first championship. In late September of 2016, the LFA announced the establishment of two expansion clubs. Given the long connection to the sport at the collegiate and lower levels, the new franchises will be the first headquartered outside of the national capital: the Monterrey Smelters and the Saltillo Dinos (Saltillo is the capital of the state of Coahuila, just south of the Texas border). As an example of the success of the initial campaign, the salary level for players is expected to increase by 30 percent for the upcoming 2017 season (AFI 2016; Kelly 2016). In summary, Mexico’s ties to American football are extensive both in historical length and breadth. While certainly not on the par with futbol, the game most assuredly has attracted a substantial fan-base at all levels of the sport: youth, collegiate, and now, professional.

Cuba There are poignant similarities between the history of American football in Cuba with that of the sport in Mexico. As noted earlier in Gems’s work, by 1902, the game gravitated to the island via connections established through interactions of the nation’s elites during time spent at American universities. According to research conducted by the historian Michael T. Wood, a game played in January of 1905 featured members of the Vedado Tennis Club (VTC) and the University of Havana. Wood also notes that the game remained the domain of the more fashionable set of alta sociedad (high society) as, “Cuban colleges and athletic clubs, particularly in Havana, organized amateur leagues and played against each other….The number of teams…varied from year to year, depending on the condition of the clubs and political stability on the island” (Wood 2015). In addition to playing against other Cubanos, the youths of VTC and Havana University soon began to test their mettle against Yankees (Americans): with very limited success. The first recorded tilt took place in late November of 1906, with the Caribes playing against a team of sailors from the naval ship USS Columbia with the Americanos emerging with a 15-0 triumph in a game played in Havana. Another consequential encounter, and thoroughly studied for its social and historical significance, is a Christmas Day contest between the Caribes and the Louisiana State University (LSU) Tigers in 1907, with the Americans defeating the Cubans, 56-0. As Wood notes in a recent article, the substance of this match went well beyond what happened on the playing field to provide a sense of, among other historical topics, “North American perceptions of race and ethnicity.” In a nutshell, the Louisianans, and a group of American sailors who witnessed the game, perceived the match as a competition between inherently unequal “races.” The Cubans, they believed, were simply cast as insignificant “others” who were going to be taught a football lesson (as the Yanks supposedly had taught the Cubans lessons in democracy, modern government, and economics during their occupation of the island). As further proof of this sense of American superiority, it is noteworthy to cite a cheer heard that day which included an ethnic slur (“Lick the Spicks, Kill the Spicks!”), as well as noting one of the stipulations placed on the game by LSU: “The dark-skinned natives could play anybody they wanted on their team, excepting Negroes and Americans.” The American team, hailing from a southern state, brought its racial prejudices to this game. 260

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The students of Havana University, on the other hand, sought to demonstrate their “worthiness” to play this “scientific” and “modern” sport. As one Havana paper argued, the student population at the institution was quite up-to-date on the pomp and circumstance that surrounded collegiate games back in the United States. “There will be plenty of college spirit shown, and the Havana University students are practicing their yells, their college songs, and various institutions of noise-making will convey enthusiasm to the players, while the colors of the colleges will be seen on all sides.” The Cubans’ preparation for the contest certainly approximated that of most colleges and universities in the United States (Wood 2015). Although the Cubans proved no match on the field, they did show “the greatest cordiality, friendship and enthusiasm” to the American teams. In total, over a fiftyyear span, teams comprised of Cubans with university, athletic club, military, and police affiliations played forty-nine games against US-based teams. The last game in this series, which took place on 30 November 1956 in Key West, Florida, saw Stetson University beat the Caribes, 64-0. Overall, the islanders’ mark against Americanbased competition was an unimpressive 9-37-3. The most notable victories in this series were an 11-0 triumph over Tulane University by the Cuban Athletic Club (CAC) in 1910, and another triumph by CAC over the University of Mississippi, 13-0 in 1921 (Wood 2016). In addition to these contests, there is documentation of Cubans playing in the NFL early in the league’s history, such as Ignacio Molinet in 1927 with the Frankford Yellowjackets (Iber, Regalado, Alamillo, and De Leon 2011, 93). Other evidence comes from the site profootballdaily.com, which shows a 1944 clipping entitled “Redskins Sign Cuban for Football Tryout,” about Eneas Munoz. The same article also notes that another Cuban, Manuel Rivero, played for Columbia University and had a tryout with the Chicago Bears (Profootballdaily.com 2014). Although failing to make it in the NFL, Rivero, however, became a successful multi-sport coach and administrator at Lincoln University, a historically black institution between 1933 and 1977, located in Oxford, Pennsylvania. His tenure and contributions were so significant that the institution’s gymnasium was named in his honor in 1986 (LULions 2014). Other works provide a first person account of Cubans playing American football. Ruben Perez, who had quarterbacked the Caribes in the early 1950s, recalled his experiences in 1998. Not surprisingly, Perez learned about the game while spending time in the United States as an exchange student in North Carolina. The story details some of Perez’s recollections about playing for Havana University, as well as how political tensions helped to bring an end to the game in Cuba. As Perez noted, “on the university team, there were men who died fighting Batista and men who died fighting Castro” during the Cuban Revolution. Toward the end of the article, Perez does note that Eneas Munoz, mentioned above, did play “some” exhibitions with the Washington Redskins before being cut. As happened with some baseball players, Munoz’s first name proved too difficult for his coach to pronounce, so field general Dudley DeGroot (1899–1970) simply “referred to him as ‘Jeff.’” The rise of the Castro government brought about the end of American football on the island for about a half century. As journalist Bonnie DiSimone argued at the end of an article about football in Cuba, “Castro banished football from Cuba because of its association with the enemy. But he was selective in his purge of gringo games. Baseball he kept because he loved it and his people were good at it.” DiSimone goes 261

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on to argue that American football “probably was never meant to thrive there in the first place, a stern and self-serious game of chalkboard formulas in a society that loves flash and improvisation” (DiSimone 1998). This statement is too broad a generalization, as there is, even after almost five decades, proof that the game still has some attraction in Cuba. In 2003, well before the final and formal, reestablishment of relations, two teams from San Diego, California, the Bonita Vista Barons and the La Jolla Vikings, traveled to play on the island. In addition to the competition, the students and administrators visited historical sites and interacted with students at Cuban high schools, initiating possibilities of a resurgence of football in Cuba (Vargas 2003).

Central America A principal location for American football in Central America outside of Mexico was the nation of Panama. Given the existence of the Canal Zone, the Americans who lived in the sector played the game as they did back in their homeland. Recent information documents the existence of teams in Panama, which comes from the work of a former linebacker, and Central and South American football emissary Tom Kelly, in his book Gridiron Diplomat. Here, Kelly mentions some of his early efforts in the region in the late 1990s. He recounts his travels to San Jose, Costa Rica and helping to establish the game in that country, primarily with equipment donated by American collegiate and high school coaches. One of his collaborators was Guillermo Suarez, a Panamanian who lived in Tampa, Florida. Suarez welcomed the effort to develop American football in San Jose, as it would provide a “challenge [to] one of the many existing Panamanian teams” which were the offspring of previous efforts by “American troops stationed in Panama [who] had helped to develop the game there for years” (Kelly 2012, 297–298). It is not surprising, therefore, that by 2016 Panama had several established leagues, both full-contact and flag football, across the nation under the membership of the American Football Federation of Panama (AFFP-Guillermo Suarez is a past president, with Jaime Carrizo as the current president). The well known men’s first division league is called the Panama Major Football League (PMFL), which was established in 2011 by founding president Ivan “Moto” Paz. The PMFL held its 2016 tryouts in late January, with 170 hopefuls taking part. Of these, ninety individuals were accepted and divided up among seven teams: Los Diablos, the Colon Eagles, USMA Frailes, Halcones PTY, Panama Raptors F.C., Panama Saints, and the Club Wolfpack Panama. The season culminated with the Panama Saints completing a perfect season by defeating the Panama Raptors F.C., 7-0 in the championship game. The game’s popularity continues to grow with women in this nation, and so does the success of such squads. For example, Panama recently won the gold medal at the 2016 IFAF Flag Football World Championships (Ms. Elle 2016). Using the connections provided by Suarez, and meeting up with some American expats in San Jose, Kelly reached out to the sports director at the University of Costa Rica in 2000 and soon recruited some students there, as well as at Panama Tech. With the help of his fellow Americans, he arranged a game between the Panamanian students and a highly enthused, yet very inexperienced, side of Costa Rican players. Even with just a brief introduction to the game, the Ticos prevailed by the 262

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score of 8-6 before approximately one thousand fans on 29 July of that year (Kelly 2012, 301–302). A more formal Costa Rican connection to American football commenced with a triumph over their southern vecinos (neighbors) but even prior to Kelly’s arrival, however, there had been some attraction to the game, as detailed by Alejandro Castro Z, administrative director of X-Cite Sports Management, in a 2012 article. His piece in El Residente Magazine stated that “the early players came from bi-lingual private high schools in the central valley of San Jose.” Many of these individuals were avid followers of the NFL on television in the 1990s. After the victory over the Panamanians, there were organized games taking place at La Sabana Park through the mid-2000s, followed by an (unexplained) “dormant period” lasting between 2005 and 2008 (Castro Z 2012). The next “active” era of the sport in Costa Rica began in 2009 with the genesis of the Federacion Costa Ricence de Football Americano (FCFA-the Costa Rican Federation of American Football). This league featured five squads: the Toros, Tiburones, Black Gators, Bulldogs, and Dragons. The first Super Bowl of Costa Rica saw the Toros defeat the Tiburones, 23-10. The FCFA continued until 2010, when it was replaced by the Federacion de Futbol Americano de Costa Rica (FEFACR-the American Football Federation of Costa Rica). This new entity was recognized by the Costa Rican Institute of Sports and Recreation and the IFAF. The Bulldogs have become the dominant team in the association, winning various titles. One of the important actors behind the development of the sport has been former professional player, and Texas native, Ethan J. Kelley. He and his wife moved to Costa Rica in the late 2000s, and he was almost immediately notified about the existence of an association of American football referees (headed by Luis Ramirez). Ramirez put Kelley in touch with Bulldogs’ head coach Jose Lopez who, recognizing his good fortune, quickly offered the ex-NFL player a position as a coach. Kelley’s comments in a 2012 interview with a Costa Rican media outlet document some of the development that has taken place with the game among Ticos: “One of the biggest changes I see…is the location of where the games are played. Cuty Monge Stadium (seats about 5500) is much more accommodating to the sport….[American football has] develop[ed] a larger presence in Central and Latin America. People are taking notice and that helps give the sport a more optimistic future.” In addition to the games in-country, Costa Rica now also plays regular contests against representatives of other nations, such as Nicaragua, El Salvador, and even the United States (Evans 2012). A fairly recent example of this development is the playing of Tropic Bowl V, sponsored and organized by Athletes without Borders, which took place in May of 2015 between a national all-star team against an American squad (the Yankees triumphed, 18-0 in this contest). Tropic Bowls are the longest-running international tournaments in Costa Rica and continue to be scheduled. Significantly, the 2015 game also featured fullpad women’s and youth games, as well as clinics to improve skill levels. The newly established Tico league, Asociacion de Equipes de Football Americano, or AEFA, will feature seven of its ten member teams during the 2017 first division national championship calendar. In addition, many of these full-pad clubs are associated with youth and flag football squads (Ms. Elle 2015). There are also four first division (full-contact) women’s teams in Costa Rica. The Angels football team and the Warriors F.A. represent the southern zone of Perez Zeledon and two San Jose 263

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valley teams: the Codea Falcans Football (Alajuela) and the Olympian Goddesses CR F.A., headquartered in San Jose. Tom Kelly visited and helped to establish the game (along with the ever-present role of US Marines) in other nations, such as Honduras (with the help of Juan Raskoff—current president of the national federation) in 2000. The Federacion Nacional de Football Americano de Honduras or FENAFAH (the Honduran National Federation of American Football) began operations in 2008. The most successful team has been a squad named the Huracanes, which won seven consecutive titles between 2009 and 2015. A recent article on the league noted that there are now eight squads, mostly located in Tegucigalpa and Camayaguela; though there are plans to develop teams in Ceiba, Choluteca, and San Pedro Sula as well. There has also been a female flag football league since 2013 (Ms. Elle 2014, 2015; Kelly 2012, 319). The men’s first division will feature six teams for 2017. Women’s full-contact football is growing in Honduras as well. In 2017, the Liga de Football Americano Femenino de Honduras (LFAFH) will commence. The initial teams are: the Dark Angels, Lobas, Blitzkrieg, and Queens. Kelly also helped initiate the game in Guatemala (through the help of entrepreneur Marco Antonio Cobar, who would also become an officer in the IFAF, and personnel at Rafael Landivar University) in 2000 by donating used equipment. By 2004 the Asociacion Guatemalteca de Football Americano (Guatemalan Association of American Football) began operations, and an actual league started in 2010. This was followed in 2011 by the establishment of an entity called the Academia de Football Americano (the Academy of American Football) with the purpose of teaching the game to youths. The very next year, the Asociacion Estudiantil de Football Americano (the Student Association of American Football) was created in order to promote the sport within the nation’s schools. A team from Guatemala participated in the first IFAF Torneo Centroamericano (Central American Tournament) against Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Panama in 2013. The champion of the round-robin, Panama, went on to represent the region at the 2015 IFAF Americas Qualifying Bowl against Brazil. Guatemala finished fourth. Finally, a female flag football squad, the Cobras, began in 2014 (Kelly 2012, 302–306; AGFA 2014). Shortly after leaving Costa Rica, Tom Kelly made his way to Nicaragua, where he met Frank Silva of the Universidad Autonoma de Nicaragua (Autonomous University of Nicaragua). Although a bit suspicious of the Yankee visitor, Silva acquainted Kelly with interested students on campus as well as introducing him to Carlos Palacios, the head of the national police academy and Lt. Francisco Valdez of the Managua constabulary. These two individuals helped create two law enforcement-connected teams, while another began on the university campus. During Kelly’s time in the country, a riot took place (students were protesting an increase in tuition) on the university grounds and the officials were ready to dispense some “justice” to the youthful troublemakers. The gringo (American) stepped in and convinced both sides to settle their differences via a scrimmage on the gridiron (Kelly even served as referee). The result was an 8-8 tie, but more importantly, “the cadets lined up and marched to the student bench to shake hands” (Kelly 2012, 302–306). The Guerreros of Nicaragua, a league established over a decade ago, has been a member of IFAF for seven years. Founding president Eduardo Cordoba Samayoa still presides over the league. During 2014, the Liga Premier de Football Americano Nicaraguense (LIPFAN) was formed and consists of two association leagues and four 264

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teams: the Asociacion de Football Americano de Managua (AFAM Leones of Managua and Minotaurs) and the Asociacion para el Desarrollo de Football Americano en Nicaragua (ADEFAN Lobos and Iron Wolves) (Ms. Elle 2014). A new first division league, Liga Nicaraguense de Football Americano, or LNFA, will replace the defunct LIPFAN and AFAM. Two new teams, the Spartans and the Titanes from the Guerreros of Nicaragua and the two teams from the ADEFAN, the Lobos and the Iron Wolves, will play a joint 2017 championship calendar. In El Salvador, the US embassy helped to establish a team known as the Diablos Rojos (Red Devils) which began play in 1999. By 2001, the Americans had discontinued support for the team and another, locally directed squad, the Santa Tecla Jaguares (Jaguars), was established to carry on the sport. The Jaguars would represent El Salvador in competitions against other Central American nations throughout the rest of the decade. By 2010, a non-league association, the Salvadorian Association of American Intramural Football (SAAIF) came into existence, and was admitted provisionally into the IFAF. Permanent status for the organization came in 2014. Over the past decade, there has been substantial progress in regards to American football in El Salvador. The Jaguars were reconstituted in 2013, and they are now part of a league that also features the San Salvador Caimanes, the San Miguel Fire, the Sonsonate Sharks, and Soyapango Gurreros, with the latest team being the Acajutla Spartans. League leadership, under the guidance of SAAIF Commissioner Steve Agreda, anticipates adding three more teams for 2017, and a tenth squad the following season. Additionally, there is also a co-ed flag football tournament (since 2011) that now features thirty-two squads (including five women’s teams), as well as a women’s national team, the Liberty Hawks. El Salvador is also planting seeds for further expansion with sub-19 and sub-17 teams that are working to establish youth leagues in cooperation with the National Association of Universities throughout the nation (Ms. Elle 2014 and SAAIF 2016). Finally, there is another league in El Salvador, the Asociacion Salvadorena de Football Americano (ASFA), that once had an array of full-contact and flag football teams under its banner, but now only has the flag version of the game. Given all of the above, there is little doubt that a developing culture of American football throughout all of Central America has taken shape in recent decades.

South America Tom Kelly has noted in his work that the genesis of the game in South American nations was usually via the flag version of the sport. “Flag football was getting very popular in the 90’s…Teams from Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela participated in a tournament in Ft. Lauderdale in 1999.” Given the contacts made here, Kelly decided to “start from the bottom of South America and work my way up.” Thus, he started his visits in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By the time he arrived, there were already several 11-player flag teams, plus a club from the US embassy playing a tournament in the capital city. Kelly brought full-contact equipment to share with the Argentines and was hoping to give half of the materials over to interested parties in Montevideo, Uruguay. A principal player from Uruguay, Fernando Rodriguez, informed Kelly that the Argentines were not interested in competing against their 265

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neighbors. Eventually, the Uruguayos did get to play against both Americans and Argentines, and Kelly provided them with the equipment to begin playing tackle football (Kelly 2012, 297). The Football Americano Argentina (FAA) website indicates that prior to Kelly’s arrival there was already interest in football due to, not surprisingly, the availability of games on cable television. The FAA began operations in 2004. Initially, the association held a brief tournament featuring three teams: the Cruzados, the Osos Polares, and the Tiburones. The Jabalies joined in 2005, the Corsarios in 2006, and finally, the Legionarios followed in 2007. By 2012, the FAA not only included a Major category (ages 19+), but also an under 19 and youth leagues. In recent years, the FAA now features different city leagues in the capital, as well as Cordoba, Rosario, and Mendoza (FAARG n.d.; Lorenzo, 2016). Given the popularity of flag football, plus the influence of NFL games through cable television, Brazil took up the tackle version of the sport in 2008. The first two full-contact clubs were the Coritiba Crocodiles and the Curitiba Brown Spiders. The first guiding entity was the Associacao De Futebol Americano Do Brasil (the Association of American Football of Brazil), which changed its name to the Confederacao Brasileira de Futebol Americano (the Confederation of American Football of Brazil) in 2013. Among recent highlights of the sport was the national team’s first victory (over South Korea, 28-0) in IFAF competition in July of 2015. After this triumph, the head coach of the squad noted that “In Brazil, everybody has an NFL team…. Brazilians are very passionate about their sports. They take it up because of that.” Recent research has shown that Brazil is the third largest fan-base for NFL games, after only the United States and Mexico, with approximately 20 million aficionados. In May of 2016, Brazil inaugurated a new thirty-one team “Super Liga Nacional” which promised to bring the game to even more fans throughout the country. The league has four conferences. At the end of the season, a sixteen-team playoff will be held leading to the pairing of finalists in the Brazil Bowl (Hill 2016; Pereira 2016; Barbosa 2014; McKeon 2016). Other nations that have commenced leagues in recent years include Uruguay, which held its first championship game in 2005 under the direction of the Liga Uruguaya de Football Americano (Uruguayan League of American Football), or LUFA. As in many other countries, the impetus for the start of the game, in addition to the work done by Coach Kelly, were Marines at the embassy in Montevideo. In addition to competition within the nation, LUFA sponsors a national team, the Charruas (slang for Uruguayan), which has participated in competitions sponsored by IFAF for more than one decade (Riffel 2015; LUFA 2016; Kelly 2015). There are also teams in Chile (under the auspices of FEDFACH, Federacion Deportiva Nacional de Futbol Americano de Chile, National Federation of American Football of Chile), which has sponsored adult (21 or older), juvenile, and female flag football teams since 2010. Similarly, the Federacion Colombiana de Futbol Americano (the Colombian Federation of American Football) or FECOFA, has been in existence since 2008 and as of 2012 had ten teams scattered in Bogota, Medellin, Cali, Manizales, and Zipaquira. FECOFA has also helped to establish a flag football league in the country (FEDFACH n.d.; FEDFACHOficial, 2016). A 2015 article in AFI Review documented the establishment of the first league for tackle football in Peru known as the Liga Inka de Futbol Americano (the Inca League of American Football). Among the teams in the association, are the Dire 266

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Wolves, who have already competed against a team from Ecuador in an international friendly. Other clubs with international experience include the Club Eagles, which have played against teams from Brazil, Cali, Bogota, and an arena team (played indoors and on a shorter field) from Mexico (McKeon 2015) .

Caribbean Relative to the development of football in the Dominican Republic, there is an anonymous article entitled “American Football in the Dominican Republic,” apparently from the late 2000s, which notes that the sport “has a history…dating back to the early 1980s and a new found interest is being cultivated with the emergence of the Dominican Football League (DFL), and its marquee team, the Dominican Raiders.” The team started in 1983 under the direction of Henry Moret, who was followed by the father and son duo of Arthur J. Levy and Ross Levy-Tovar. By the time the article appeared, Levy-Tovar was the individual in charge of the Raiders. Between 1984 and 2000, the Raiders played international contests against teams from Puerto Rico; the Ponce Lions, the Rio Piedras Blitz, and the San Juan Fires, “although there was no football league or overarching authority.” In the following years there continued to be sporadic games, as well as the emergence of flag football. The impetus to establish a more formal structure occurred when “Levy-Tovar was contacted by Jeurys Perez, leader of a group of students at UASD (Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo) who had been playing without equipment for a few months.” Shortly thereafter, Levy-Tovar agreed to coach the students. The coach even managed to set up a visit by the NFL’s San Diego Chargers’ defensive end, Luis Castillo (b. 1983), who is Dominican, though he was born in Brooklyn. By 2006, Levy-Tovar, working with the Dominican Sports Minister Jay Payano, sought out stadiums to play games by full contact teams in the newly formed DFL. The article noted that there was an effort to bring about an international tournament, but no results or further mention was found. Further, in addition to the Raiders, there were going to be three other teams: UASD Saber Cats, the Puerto Plata Warriors, and the Santiago Eagles. The author of the piece sounded an optimistic tone by arguing that, “The future is bright….There are efforts to expand the league nationally…The biggest hurdle…is the public’s lack of knowledge about American football….This is a cultural barrier, but there is a core group of players and coaches who are willing to see this vision through” (Anonymous n.d.). Given the lack of more recent information, however, it appears that the DFL is no longer a functioning entity. The rise to stardom of the New York Giants’ Victor Cruz (b. 1986), and the successful run by the Carolina Panthers to Super Bowl 50 under the leadership of Ron Rivera (b. 1962), has stimulated interest in their familial homeland of Puerto Rico (as of 2016, no NFL player has been born in Puerto Rico, however). The game has existed on the island for many years, given the American influence. There is an established “semi-pro” league, the Puerto Rico American Football League (PRAFL), focused on individuals who wish to continue to play the sport after high school, which featured eight squads going into the 2016 season. There is also an association geared to high school students, though the structure is unusual. Two teams, the Pirates (Antilles High School) and the Comets (Commonwealth High School) are 267

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tied directly to institutions of learning, while other teams, the Dolphins, Spartans, Eagles, Packers, Blitzz, Blue Wave, Cowboys, and Broncos are club teams. Puerto Rico also has a women’s flag football and pee-wee (youth) league. The island was accepted as a member of the IFAF in 2012, but a recent review of that organization’s webpage did not show any information concerning the existence of an overarching American football association in Puerto Rico (PRAFL.com, PRHSFL.com, PRPEEWEE.com, PRFFL 2016, IFAF 2012).

The Future of Football in Latin America This article provided an introduction and brief overview of history and current status of American football throughout the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, as well as in Central and South America. While the treatment is necessarily cursory and introductory, it has provided a great deal more coverage than has been presented previously. This is but a first step, however, in capturing the total history, social significance, and context of the sport in the locales discussed. Obviously, a next step would be to do research directly in the various nations and conduct substantive interviews (and look for other primary sources) that would further expand upon the historical milieu of the rise of American football in the various countries. While this essay has not proffered much discussion on the topic of American football and Latinos (both of recent and long-standing tenure) in the United States, it is imperative to mention, in this final section of the paper, how the NFL (in particular) is seeking to develop this market, and not just in places such as Miami, Dallas, and Oakland where significant Latino populations reside. For example, the return to Los Angeles by the Rams franchise for 2016 was discussed in an interesting article by journalist Andrea Canales. In “The Rams are Back, but Los Angeles has Changed,” the author deals directly with the issue of how the team will deal with the changed demographics of the city. “After the Rams moved to St. Louis (from Los Angeles), the biggest population trend…was the steady rise of the Latino population. According to census projections, Latinos, mostly from Mexico, are expected to be the majority in L.A. County by 2020” (Canales 2016). This trend presents the Cabras (Rams) with both an opportunity, and a concern. First, since there are many Mexican Americans who are second, third, or even more, generation Americans, they know football. In addition, many of the immigrants who are arriving in the city and county are, from their experiences in Mexico itself, familiar with the sport. As Priscilla Leiva, a sociologist from Cal State University, Los Angeles argues, “‘The Rams have a Latino fan base that existed before their return. They have diehard fans.” On the other side of the equation, there are many long-time Latino residents who have developed an affinity, in the years since 1994, for other teams from the American West: among them, the Raiders, Chargers, 49ers, Cardinals, and most especially, the Cowboys. How will the Rams win those individuals back or win them over in the first place? As Canales notes, for “many… Hispanic fans…it might take some convincing…it’s harder for a new generation of Latinos, who are more varied and less homogeneous than ever, to feel a connection to the team” (Canales 2016). Some of the concerns about American football and its relation to the immigrants (and not only from Mexico) is that they are primarily wedded to the game 268

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of futbol. As noted in a two reports from the late 2000s, “our” version of the game is having difficulty reaching many of these individuals. Two reports indicate that the NFL still has a way to go, particularly in reaching recent immigrants (who still place soccer and boxing at the top of their viewing and interest list). David Sternberg, general manager of Fox Sports en Espanol, notes that the ‘key work is acculturation. Hispanics who are interested in the NFL tend to be second or third generation.’ The principal concern seems to be whether the league will be able to tailor its marketing message in order to appeal and bring over large numbers of more recent arrivals to their version of football. (Iber, Regalado, Alamillo, and De Leon 2011, 268) While this will continue to be a concern for the foreseeable future, the NFL, the NCAA, and high school teams can take heart that the game Americans so love does have a long lineage in Latin America, and the connection, contrary to Arbena’s assertion, is anything but “minimal.” Anexample of the fervor for the game can be seen in the announcement that all tickets for a November 2016 contest between the Raiders and the Texans in Estadio Azteca sold in just minutes (AFI 2016). This is not to say that football does not face significant challenges. Leagues and teams change, and sometimes fold. Nonetheless, the linkage to football by individuals from Latin America and the Caribbean is being strengthened in places such as Costa Rica, Argentina, and yes, even Arkansas. While certainly not in a position to challenge soccer at this juncture, American football is growing in most of the nations from where these immigrants hail. Just like Germans, Italians, and other European immigrants came to love baseball in the early decades of the 1900s, perhaps American football will grow in appeal to a broader base of Latinos, both here and in their “old countries.” Latinos who have been in the United States for more than one generation already tend to love the sport; perhaps they will bring along more recent immigrants into the tent that is this thrilling game.

Further Reading AFI. (2015). Team Mexico defeats Team USA All American Eagles to win Aztec Bowl XLII. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/team-mexico-defeats-team-usa -american-eagles-win-aztec-bowl-xlii/ AFI. (2016). Monday night football in Mexico tickets sell out in minutes. Retrieved Octoer 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/successful-ticket-sales-monday-night-football-mex ico/?utm_source=American+Football+International+Weekly&utm_campaign=c94904872e -American_Football_International_Weekly11_16_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_37995d 0cb0-c94904872e-90376121. AFI. (2016). Mayas win first Liga de Futbol Americano Championship Game in Mexico. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/mayas-win-first-liga-de-futboll -americano-championship-game-mexico/ AFI. (2016). Mexico’s only pro American football league adds two teams. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/mayas-win-first-liga-de-futboll-americano-champion ship-game-mexico/ AGFA. (2014). Historia AGFA. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.ligaagfa.com/home/historia Anonymous. (n.d). American football in the Dominican Republic. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://dr1.com/articles/football.shtml Arbena, J. L. American sports across the Americas. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 28(17), 2527–2546.

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Touchdown: An American Obsession Associated Press. 2009. NFL Regular-season-crowd of 105, 121 sees Giants-Cowboys. Retrieved September 30, 2016 from, http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d812c91b4/article/nfl-regularseason record-crowd-of-105121-sees-giantscowboys Barbosa, D. (2014). Brazil Bowl V: Coritiba Crocodiles top Joao Pessoa Espectros in a nail siter!. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/brazil-bowl-v-coritiba -crocodiles-top-joao-pessoa-espectros/ Baron, D. (2003). The birth of Texas schoolboy football. In M. Bynum (Ed.), King football: The greatest moments in Texas high school football history. Birmingham, AL: Epic Sports Classics. Bater, M. (2016). For Latinos, college football’s passion is akin to ‘the other futbol.’ Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.espn.com/blog/onenacion/post/_/id/5030/for-latinos-college-footballs -passion-is-akin-to-the-other-futbol Canales, A. (2016). The Rams are back, but Los Angeles has changed. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http:// www.espn.co.uk/blog/onenacion/post/_/id/5222/the-rams-are-back-but-los-angeles-has-changed Castro Z, A. (2012). American football in Costa Rica. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www .americanfootballcr.com/history-of-american-football-in-cr.html Cuadros, P. (2007). A home on the field: How one championship soccer team inspires hope for the revival of small town America. New York City: Harper Collins. DiSimone, B. (1998, October 24). Cuba once had QBs, too. Chicago Tribune, Section 3. ESPN Deportes. (2001). Campeones de la Liga Mayor. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=XpXqt5XruGk Evans, M. (2012). American football in Costa Rica. Retrieved on May 10, 2016. http://news.co.cr/american -football-in-costa-rica/2412/ FAARG. (n.d.). Historia. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, https://www.facebook.com/SAAIF.ES FEDFACH. (n.d.). Historia. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://fedfach.cl/site_news/historia/ FEDFACHOficial. (2016). FEDFACH. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from https://www.facebook.com /FEDFACHOFICIAL/ Gems, G. R. (2006). The athletic crusade: Sport and American cultural imperialism. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Hernandez, F. (2014). 2014: A breakout year for Mexican American football. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/2014-a-breakout-year-for-mexican-american -football/ Hill, M. (2016). Brazilian football is gaining yardage in USA. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www .americanfootballinternational.com/brazilian-football-gaining-yardage-usa/ Iber, J., Regalado, S. O., Alamillo, J. M., & De Leon, A. (2011). Latinos in U.S. sport: A history of isolation, cultural identity, and acceptance. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. International Federation of American Football. (2012). IFAF Congress ratifies new international federation structure. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://ifaf.org/articles/view/1319 International Federation of American Football. (2016). IFAF Americas. Retrieved October 21, 2016 from, http://www.ifaf.info/federations/ifaf-americas/ Kelly, R. (2016). New professional American football league kicks off in Mexico. Retrieved October 24, 2016, http:// www.americanfootballinternational.com/mayas-win-first-liga-de-futboll-americano-championship -game-mexico/ Kelly, R. (2015). Barbarians capture 2015 Uruguayan championship. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/uruguayan-championship-decided/ Kelly, T. (2012). Gridiron diplomat. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform. Lorenzo, A. (2016). Cordoba American Football League in Argentina set to start. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/cordoba/ LU Lions. (2014). LU Facilities. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://lulions.com/sports/2014/7/2 /GEN_0702141729.aspx LUFA. (2016). Liga Uruguaya de Football Americano. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from https://www.face book.com/LUFA.Oficial McKeon, J. (2016). Brazil’s newly formed 31-team CBFA SuperLiga Nacional. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/brazils-new-cbfa-superliga/ McKeon, J. (2016). Sao Paulo Football League semi-final round promise huge crowds. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/sao-paulo-football-league-semi-final -round-promise-huge-crowds/ McKeon, J. (2015). New American football league in Peru; Liga Inka kicks off. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/new-american-football-league-in-peru -liga-inka-holds-tournament/

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Chapter Fifteen: American Football in Latin America Ms. Elle. (2014). El Salvador’s ASFA League holds premier championship bowl. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/el-salvadors-asfa-league-holds-premier -championship-bowl/ Ms. Elle. (2014). American football in Nicaragua: LIPFAN & more in Central America. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/american-football-in-nicaragua -lipfan-more-in-central-america/ Ms. Elle. (2014). Liga Centroamericana de Football: CA-4 ‘all or nothing.’ Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballca.com/20-14---ca-4-honduras-edition.html Ms. Elle. (2015). Central America: Honduras wins IFAF 2015 4 Nations Tournament. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/central-america-honduras-wins -ifaf-2015-4-nations-tournament/ Ms. Elle. (2015). American football in Costa Rica: Tropic Bowl V. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http:// www.americanfootballcr.com/tropic-bowl-v---article.html. Ms. Elle. (2016). The roar of the Leones: Costa Rica’s Leones Cartago F.C. Edges Aguilas F.A. in a thriller. Retrieved oSeptember 14, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/costa-ricas -leones-cartago-f-c-edges-aguilas-f-thriller/ Ms. Elle. (2016). The Panama Saints capture the 2016 PMFL Championship. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/panama-saints-capture-2016-pmfl-champion ship/?utm_source=American+Football+International+Weekly&utm_campaign=7416120b20 -American_Football_International_Weekly11_16_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_37995d 0cb0-7416120b20-90376121 Pensado, J. M. (2013). Rebel Mexico: Student unrest and authoritarian culture during the long Sixties. Sanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Pereira, F. (2016). Challenges not hurting football’s popularity in Brazil. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/challenges-not-slowing-footballs-popularity-brazil/ Powell, Robert Andrew. (2016). A new day for (American) football In Mexico. Retrieved October 28, 2016 from, http://thelab.bleacherreport.com/after-the-massacre-1968-mexico-city-american-football/ Profootballdaily.com. (2014). Football in Cuba. Retrieved May 10, 2016 from, http://profootballdaly.com /football-in-cuba/ Prieto, J. (1994) The quarterback who almost wasn’t. Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press. Riffel, H. (2015). Uruguay’s LUFA announce 2015 draft and clubs. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.americanfootballinternational.com/uruguays-lufa-announce-2015-draft-clubs/ SAAIF. (2016). Salvadorian Association of American Intramural Football. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, https://www.facebook.com/SAAIF.ES Santiago Eagles. 2009. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://santiagoeaglesfootball.blogspot .com/2009/12/xalapaveracruz-en-1896-raul-dehesa-y.html Segura, M. (2008). Friday night futbol. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.si.com /vault/2008/10/27/105746289/friday-night-ftbol http://www.springdalefootball.com/roster.html and http://rogersmounties.com/roster.aspx?path=foot ball. Retrieved September 29, 2016. Tackleo.com. (2007). Cronologia del football Americano en Mexico. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from http://www.tackleo.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22&Itemid=98 Tackleo.Com. (2008) El Clasico. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://www.tackleo.com/index.php ?option=com_content&view=article&id=256&Itemid=189 UNAM. (2013). Impulsor del Football Americano en la UNAM: Arthur Constantine. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpXqt5XruGk Vargas, N. (2003). Hoping to revive football in Cuba, two local teams will begin season there. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, http://havanajournal.com/culture/entry/hoping_to_revive_football_in _cuba_two_local_teams_will_begin_season_there/ Wood, M. T. (2016). Bacardi Bowl: American Football in Cuba. Retrieved May 10, 2016 from, http:// bacardibowl.blogspot.com/ Wood, M. T. (2015). American Football in Cuba: A brief introduction. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, https://ussporthistory.com/2015/07/30/american-football-in-cuba-a-brief-introduction/ Wood, M. T. (2015). American football in Cuba: L.S.U. vs. University of Havana, 1907. Retrieved October 24, 2016 from, https://ussporthistory.com/2015/12/31/american-football-in-cuba-l-s-u-vs-university -of-havana-1907/

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Chapter Sixteen: American Football in Europe Lars DZIKUS University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Various factors led to the introduction and development of American football in Europe. Since the 1930s there have been a number of attempts, especially by the National Football League (NFL), to establish the game as a spectator sport for Europeans. In some countries, the work of local organizers has been chiefly responsible for making American football a relatively successful niche sport. At the same time, the sport continues to search for a solid governance structure that fits local needs and traditions. Keywords: American football, globalization, Americanization, Europe, NFL, AFN, media, military, governance, history

T

here is a long history of American football games played in Europe dating back to the early 1900s. In England and France, those first contests took place between American soldiers, particularly during the two world wars and the Cold War. Starting in the 1930s, there have also been several attempts to establish the sport in Europe on a commercial basis, highlighted by the efforts of the National Football League (NFL) in the 1990s. Yet, the early military games were largely organized by and for Americans, and the for-profit enterprises have had mixed results in terms of commercial success. American football as a participatory sport, on the other hand, has made considerable progress across Europe. Since the 1970s, the game has developed into an amateur sport for youth as well as adult men and women who play flag, tackle, and even beach football. Due to continued organizational woes, precise numbers for active participants are hard to come by. The now defunct European Federation of American Football (EFAF) counted twenty-four member federations with over 100,000 individual members before it was dissolved as the European governing body in 2014. At the time, national federations had to have at least five active teams playing in league competition to qualify for membership in the umbrella organization (EFAF n.d.). Europe’s largest American football base is in Germany, where in 2016 the national governing body, American Football Verband Deutschland (AFVD), numbered 55,305 individual members. Thus, about half of Europe’s organized American football membership resides in Germany. Counting players, cheerleaders, referees, 273

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and supporting (“passive”) club members, American football placed thirty-fourth among the sixty-two member federations of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund, DOSB). American football membership in Germany outnumbered membership in triathlon, ice hockey, fencing, baseball/ softball, and rugby. Among non-Olympic federations, the AFVD ranked eleventh of twenty-eight. In men’s senior tackle football, Germany’s eighteen thousand players are numerically second behind the United States and before Japan. Yet, other European countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, do not have enough teams to field their own national leagues. In Belarus, for example, the Minsk Zubrs (Bison), founded in 1991, appear to be the only official club in 2016. That same year in women’s tackle football, the Budapest Wolves were Hungary’s only female team and thus competed in Austria’s national league. In recent years, the growth of women’s tackle football has been particularly noteworthy. According to an unofficial count in 2016, there are over 200 women’s teams playing American football in seventeen European countries (Yoder 2016). France with thirty-six teams, and Germany with thirty, recorded the most teams. After the world championships in 2010 in Sweden and 2013 in Finland, the first Women’s European Championships took place in 2015 in Spain. Seven national teams were represented: Austria, Finland (champion), Germany, Great Britain, Russia, Spain, and Sweden. Overall, American football in Europe has overcome considerable growing pains including organizational woes, quarreling among club officials, and competing federations. As will be discussed below, however, recent developments in the global and continental governance of the sport have caused doubts about further progress (Nisavic and Murth 2016).

US Military Football in Europe American football first came to Europe alongside US efforts to assert its global reach in the form of the Great White Fleet. Between 1907 and 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) ordered sixteen battleships, all painted in white, on a worldwide voyage to demonstrate naval power. During port calls, games of football were part of the program for the sailors, for entertainment as well as exercise. Thus, in January of 1909, a few hundred spectators—men, women, and children— witnessed the first American football game played in France on the grounds of Parc Chambrun in Nice, where American navy men from the USS Minnesota clashed with their counterparts of the USS Kansas. A year later, people in England were first able to observe American football first-hand when sailors from the American fleet visiting London played a series of exhibition games in November of 1910. Similarly, some Italians might have gotten their first impressions of the sport when sailors of the USS Connecticut and the USS Kansas squared off on a field in November 1913 (Crawford 2016). On the occasion of the 1909 exhibition, a French sporting magazine described the scene as a game where anything goes. Showing photographs of players piling on in tackles, the reporter noted, “this chaos of human members repeats over and over again during a game.” Yet, the team’s performances were reportedly “strongly acclaimed by the elegant crowd” (“Un match de football américain a Nice,” 76–77). With an emphasis on the physicality of the game, its incomprehensiveness, and 274

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(mild) entertainment, this report largely foreshadowed European media coverage of American football throughout the century. In World Wars I and II, American soldiers again brought their sports across the Atlantic. During those wars and again from 1952 to 1966, when Charles de Gaulle’s (1890–1970) France left the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), over a thousand games were played on American military bases around France. Intended to boost the esprit de corps and keep soldiers in shape, physically and morally, the US government invested heavily in American football. During the Great War, for example, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) shipped close to $3 million worth of sporting equipment to Europe, so three-quarters of a million soldiers could play American football while being watched by over 3,700,000 of their peers (Crawford 2016). In 1945 France, an estimated 5,600 GIs played tackle football on 190 teams in front of 380,000 spectators, who were almost exclusively American. Importantly for the development of the sport in Europe, the purpose of these games was to entertain US soldiers, not European audiences. Thus, with the exception of Germany, the American military presence in Europe did not lead directly to the spread of the sport (Crawford 2016; Dzikus 2004b; Dzikus 2005).

Professional Football in Europe Apart from football played in the military, various entrepreneurs independently sought, however in vain, to introduce American football to France and other parts of Europe in 1938, 1961, 1972, 1976, 1977, and 1989 (Crawford 2016). Among the stronger enterprises were various versions of NFL-run spring leagues in the 1990s and early 2000s known as the World League of American Football (1991–1992), the World League (1995–1997), NFL Europe (1998–2005), and NFL Europa (2005– 2007). These efforts, however, had longer antecedents. As early as 1964, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle (1926–1996) had suggested that the NFL might someday play overseas exhibition games. The NFL had been present in Europe since the mid-1960s, if only on the screen in the form of the NFL’s Game of the Week show. Originally produced by NFL Films for the American market, where it was syndicated weekly by CBS affiliates and sponsored by American Express, the program became a centerpiece in the league’s effort to control its image in the United States (MacCambridge 2004). The presentation of NFL’s Game of the Week overseas went back to a friendship between Rozelle and Tom Bell. In 1964, Bell worked for TransWorld Airlines (TWA) as their international public relations director in Paris. Bell reportedly mentioned to Rozelle that he missed American football. Consequently, Bell and TWA began to distribute Game of the Week films internationally. In 1970, the weekly show reportedly attracted 800,000 viewers to movie screens in the Eastern Hemisphere. By 1971, Bell and TWA rotated seven rolls of Game of the Week between more than eighty cities on three continents. The films not only reached Paris, London, and Rome, where the show played regularly at the Hilton hotel and at private screenings for American priests at the Vatican, but also in Tel Aviv, Nairobi, and Johannesburg, as well as Moscow, Bucharest, Prague, and Warsaw, mostly for American patrons. The NFL was not the only organization interested in opening the European market for professional football. In October 1973, Gary Davidson (b. 1934) 275

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presented a new rival league to the NFL, the World Football League (WFL). The thirty-eight-year-old attorney from California had already founded the American Basketball Association in 1967, the World Hockey Association in 1972, as well as World Team Tennis. The WFL was originally designed as a league with twelve teams in the United States, including Hawaii. From the beginning, however, Davidson mentioned the option of future expansion with possible teams in Mexico City, London, Rome, Düsseldorf, Tokyo, and Osaka. Later reports also mentioned Madrid, Munich, Paris, and Stockholm. Before such international plans could come to fruition, the WFL folded midway through its second season in 1975. It was unable to attract viable audiences and is perhaps best remembered for its economic mismanagement by owners with shallow cash pockets (Brooks 1994). By then, the NFL had announced its own intentions for a six-team European league to begin play in 1975 (Wallace 1974). The NFL’s plans were rooted in the entrepreneurial efforts of Bob Kap (1923– 2010), who had co-founded, on paper, the Intercontinental Football League (IFL) in 1972. Born in Skopje, Yugoslavia, Kap had been a first-division soccer player and coach in Europe. To escape the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, Kap moved his family to Canada and the United States. There he capitalized on his expertise to help recruit European soccer-style kickers to the NFL. Kap hoped to further capitalize on his transatlantic connections in the form of the IFL with proposed teams in Istanbul, Rome, Munich, Berlin, Vienna, and Barcelona. Kap won over potential business partners, such as Adalbert Wetzel (1904–1990), former president and major benefactor of 1860 Munich, a leading club in West Germany’s soccer Bundesliga in the 1960s. Kap and his business partners got the ear of the NFL, which seemed interested enough in the idea to call a press conference announcing the plans in June 1974. The NFL, however, did not follow through with its support for the league and without it the IFL did not materialize. Still, Kap’s continued efforts would later have an impact on the spread of American football in Austria and Italy (Crawford 2016; Foglio and Ford 2015). In the meantime, England and Germany became main targets for the NFL’s market expansion in Europe. Between 1982 and 1990, the NFL, the American brewing company Anheuser-Busch, and British television company Channel 4 were among the power players in promoting American football in British society (Maguire 1990). In 1986, the NFL staged an American Bowl exhibition game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Chicago Bears in London’s sold-out Wembley Stadium. The NFL’s main objectives for this project were to promote the sport abroad, to create a new fan base, and to establish and protect trademarks on a worldwide basis for commercial applications. In Great Britain, sales of NFL licensed products, ranging from underwear to coffee mugs and replica jerseys, increased from 125,000 pounds in 1983 to over 25 million pounds in 1987. Whereas the majority of the league’s overseas income came from Canada and Mexico in the early 1980s, Europe became the NFL’s overwhelming source of foreign revenue by the end of the decade (Maguire 1990). The next step in the NFL’s international strategy was the establishment of a professional league with regular season games in Europe. In July of 1989, twenty-six NFL team owners founded the World League of American Football (WLAF). Its management advertised the endeavor as the first transcontinental league in team sports. In its inaugural season in 1991, six teams were located in the United States, 276

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and one each in Canada, England, Spain, and Germany. Although the European teams drew sizable crowds, American audiences largely ignored the league. Logistic challenges and the costs of flying entire teams across the Atlantic on a regular basis added to the woes. Consequently, after only two seasons, the league went on a two-year hiatus. Rebranded as World League and limited to Europe, professional football made a comeback in 1995. Teams in Amsterdam, Glasgow, and Düsseldorf joined previous ones in Barcelona, Frankfurt, and London. Despite emphasizing the relationship to the American original (NFL) and local connection (Europe) in subsequent rebranding, the American-owned enterprise continued to struggle in many countries. The league, however, did relatively well in Germany. During the 1997 season, the two German teams led the league in attendance with an average of 35,013 spectators per game in Frankfurt and 21,655 in Düsseldorf. Therefore, the NFL management increasingly concentrated on Germany by replacing the Barcelona Dragons and Scottish Claymores with the Cologne Centurions (2003) and the Hamburg Sea Devils (2005). By the time NFL Europa closed its doors after the 2007 season, five of the league’s six teams were stationed in Germany (Dzikus 2005). The closure of NFL Europa signaled a shift in the NFL’s international strategy. In 2007, the league announced plans to host a regular season game in London. With that the NFL retreated to its original European bridgehead. Between 2007 and 2016, the NFL staged eighteen regular-season games in London as part of the NFL International Series. During that period, the British fan base reportedly tripled or quadrupled to 13 million (Bamberger 2016). In addition, London became a frequently discussed site for an NFL expansion franchise.

Grassroots American Football in Europe Despite games being played by American soldiers and several commercial endeavors, American football did not grow roots in Europe until local football pioneers adapted the sport by organizing it in the traditional structure of league competition governed by regional and national federations (Crawford 2016; Dzikus 2004a, 2004b). It is at the participatory, grassroots level that American football has made considerable strides in Europe. As a sport for players and supporters of local clubs, the organizational structures of American football in Europe largely follow the classical (Western) European model of team sports.

European Sports Governance At the base of the European sport system are nonprofit clubs consisting of individual members who pay membership fees and elect leadership positions within the clubs and federations. Typical purposes for these clubs include the facilitation of physical activity and sports for all without contests and at various levels of performance and competition. At the second level of the pyramid, clubs are members of regional governing bodies, which govern leagues and competition at a regional or state level. The third-tier consists of national federations for the specific sports. These national governing bodies (e.g., of volleyball, tennis, or gymnastics) also form non-governmental, 277

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national umbrella organizations that represent the various sports. At the top of the pyramid are European sports federations for each sport, which in turn are organized in corresponding global federations. (For more on the European sports model, see European Commission n.d.; Pfister 2011; Pijetlovic 2015). In this organization, the structure of athletic competition mirrors the organizational pyramid of clubs and federations. Here, in simplified terms, novice teams or teams that emphasize leisurely play compete in local leagues. By finishing a season top-ranked, teams can be promoted to the next higher level of competition for the coming season. Likewise, teams finishing at the bottom of the league standings will be relegated to the next lower level. As the level of competition increases toward the top of the pyramid, leagues expand geographically with a national league at the top consisting of the country’s best teams. For logistical reasons, leagues can also be broken down into parallel divisions or conferences. Depending on the number of clubs and teams, there can be several levels from a local district league to the nations’ premiere league. At the international level, club competition extends the national system of relegation and promotion, as a nation’s top performers can qualify to represent its governing body in European-wide and broader international competitions the next season. Thus, in the “ideal” form of this open system, all participants— from weekend warrior to elite athlete—are organically connected through the dual pyramids of clubs/federations and relegation/promotion. As stated above, this characterization simplifies the diversity of structures in European sports. The description applies mostly to team sports and most closely resembles the organizational setup in Germany. Since the 1990s, particularly the introduction of financial criteria for clubs to obtain a license to compete in top leagues has modified the practice of relegation and promotion (Pijetlovic 2015). The following overview focuses on the introduction of American football in countries that dispatched teams to the first European Championships in men’s senior tackle football held in Italy in 1983. The cases of Germany, France, Austria, Finland, and Italy illustrate various catalysts in the spread of American football in Europe.

American Football in Germany Germany has the largest number of American football members and players in Europe and is also home to the sport’s oldest national league and federation on the continent. Obviously, the presence of the American military after World War II had a considerable influence on Germans, who became interested in the sport in the late 1970s. Of the original six Bundesliga teams in 1979, five were located in cities with large US military bases (Ansbach, Berlin, Bremerhaven, Frankfurt, and Munich). Only Düsseldorf was located in the former British occupied zone and did not have direct access to American players and coaches. Local availability of the American Forces Network (AFN) was another catalyst for the birth of German American football (Dzikus, in press). The founding of Germany’s first American football team goes back to a night in Frankfurt am Main in 1977, when twenty-two-year old German bank clerk and judoka Wolfgang Lehneis ran into American Alexander Sperber (b. 1952). Like West Germany, Sperber was a product of German-American post-war relations. He was born in 1952 on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. His father 278

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was an American, who had married his German wife while stationed abroad. As the child of a military family, Sperber spent most of his youth and young adult life going back and forth between Germany and the United States. After attending Frankfurt American High School, where he played football in a military league, and attending college in the United States, Sperber returned to Frankfurt to study architecture in 1973 (Dzikus 2005). Sperber introduced Lehneis to American football and together they recruited like-minded youth to informal practices in a city park. Soon, the plan was born to start a “real” team resulting in the formation of the Frankfurt Löwen (Lions) in 1977. Coincidentally, the German public broadcasting system, ARD, showed a brief summary of the Super Bowl late at night in January 1977 and again in 1979. In the context of the second airing, Sperber and Lehneis appeared as guests of a live television show. This exposure led to several inquiries by young men interested in the sport. In search for competition for their team, Lehneis and Sperber then took on the role of football missionaries and went on a tour to jump-start groups in other cities. Elsewhere in Germany, American football had already caught the attention of other young men who were able to receive AFN radio and/or television in the vicinity of American military bases. This contributed, for example, to the foundation of the Ansbach Grizzlies and the Berlin Bären (Bears) in 1979. The German organizers of the first football teams had grown up in the local sport system and understood the necessity and benefits of registering their clubs as Eingetragener Verein (registered associations). As such, the teams would be on par with traditional sport clubs, could apply for access to municipal practice and game facilities, and file for governmental subsidies. The formation of a national league (Bundesliga) and a national federation were the logical next steps. Thus, in March of 1979, the American Football Bund Deutschland (AFBD) became the first federation to govern the sport in Germany and the first of its kind in Europe. Not everyone in Germany’s burgeoning football community was content with the development, however. A particular point of contention was the use of American players. Football knowledge was scarce among the teams in the former British-occupied zone of West Germany, which lacked American military facilities. Consequently, the Düsseldorf Panther (Panthers), who had finished the 1979 season with an 0-10 record, pushed to limit the number of American players on the field. Power struggles ensued and AFBD expelled the team from Düsseldorf after the first season. The Panther then formed their own federation, the American Football Verband (AFV) and each governing body fielded eight team leagues for the 1980 season and both claimed to crown the German champion. The existence of two rival federations stood in the way of American football’s acceptance as a member of Germany’s sport governing body—then called Deutscher Sportbund (DSB)—as it insisted on the one-federation-per-sport principle. Throughout 1981, trouble brewed in the still immature organizations of American football in Germany. By June AFBD president Sperber had resigned due to “personal reasons” and was replaced by Paolo Wölker. Sperber also left the Frankfurt club he had founded to take over as coach of the Bad Homburg Falken. Meanwhile, a speaker for the Hanau Hawks accused Wölker’s AFBD of dubious and non-transparent business practices. The club demanded that the federation produce a notarized financial report at the federation’s next general assembly. In November 1981, a planned “Super Bowl” between the federations respective champions Ansbach 279

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Grizzlies (AFBD) and Düsseldorf Panther (AFV) in November 1981 had to be cancelled when Ansbach and the AFBD could not agree on contractual terms. By year’s end, several of the young clubs were rumored to be on the brink of bankruptcy, as they failed to recoup the considerable start-up costs of importing jerseys and equipment from the United States. Germany’s largest tabloid, Bild, quoted a federation representative saying, “No wonder that the clubs are not functioning. The people have no idea about management” (Hansen 1981). Over the next several decades, similar charges became a refrain in “state of the union” addresses in German American football. Advancements on the field, difficult to discern for novice observers, have often been overshadowed by commentaries about Verbandsquerelen (federation quarrels). In October 1982, the AFBD finally folded due to internal differences and financial losses. The AFV was renamed American Football Verband Deutschland (AFVD) and subsequently offered to take on the responsibilities of a national governing body. This move, however, did not find the support of all teams in Germany. Of thirty-four clubs participating in the referendum, only twenty voted in favor. The two existing leagues agreed on a common play-off for the 1982 season leading to the “1. Deutscher Super Bowl.” The ensuing season saw a new break-away league, the South-Southwest-League with the Hanau Hawks in a leading role. Finally, 1984 was the first year the AFVD governed all existing clubs in Germany. By this time, the growing number of clubs had required the organization of seven regional federations who in turn made up the membership of the national federation (Dzikus 2005). Two years after the consolidation into one governing body, women started to play tackle football in Germany. In 1986, teams started to play in Hannover and Berlin. The next year, the first official game took place between a joined team of the Hannover Ambassadors / Cologne Crocodiles Ladies and the Berlin Adler Girls. The women played according to the same rules as the men with the exception of using a smaller youth ball. In 1989, a selection of players from five teams won an international exhibition game against the Great Britain Iceni in Leicester by a score of 27-6. The game is considered to be the first international contest between European women’s teams. Six German teams played a regular season in 1990 and by 1992 eight teams competed for the first official national championship governed by the AFVD. The Bamberg Lady Bears wrote history by winning “Ladies Bowl I.” By 1995, ten teams played in the 1. Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga. Whereas most of the teams were part of established American football organizations, some formed independent clubs. By 2015, eight teams competed in Damenbundesliga (Ladies Federal League), eleven in the 2. Damenbundesliga, and three in a regional developmental league. (For more information, see: AFVD, n.d.).

American Football in France As discussed above, neither football games played by US soldiers nor commercial efforts popularized American football in France in the twentieth century. It was not until football was organized by the French and for the French that the sport took roots (Crawford 2016). The development in France illustrates the significant role of individual agency in the spread of American football. In particular, the ingenuity of 280

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Laurent Plegelatte (1947–2010) sparked the building of French football from the ground up, resulting in the foundation of the first French team in Paris in 1980, the first game between local teams in 1981, the establishment of a league in 1982 and federation in 1983, and the diffusion of the game at a national level in the 1990s. In 1980, the then thirty-two-year-old Plegelatte founded the Paris Spartacus club, trained most the founding members of other teams in the early era, and became the French federation’s first president. Whereas the NFL, Bob Kap, and others aspired to construct professional leagues, Plegelatte focused on organizing local amateur teams (Crawford 2016). Plegelatte was a man of many talents (Crawford 2016). As a child he participated in rugby, tennis, and track and field. Later, he played the saxophone, earned a pilot license, went on a motorcycle tour around the world, and professed his love for learning other cultures. Plegelatte had left medical school after two years to study physical education and sport, and received a teaching degree in 1971. Next, he earned a second degree as a judo instructor from the National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance in Paris (“Football Américain” 2010). Plegelatte was introduced to American football during a vacation in Vail, Colorado in September 1980, when he met a local high school coach. On the spot, Plegelatte committed to the idea of introducing American football to France. Before returning to Paris, he bought enough used football equipment for twenty-five players from a store in Denver. Back in France, Plegelatte quickly recruited twenty-five young men, mostly from his judo club. Finding suitable training grounds proved difficult. Eventually they convinced a local Young Workers’ Housing Association to allow the team to use its grounds and small gym, which suffered much damage during the winter practices (“Football Américain” 2010). Over the next year, young enthusiasts learned the basics of the game from Plegelatte, who instructed his followers to start their own clubs. By 1981, there were four teams, all situated in and around Paris. After forming a national committee for the development of American football in 1980, Plegelatte became the first president of the Fédération Française de Football Américain (French Federation of American Football, FFFA) in 1983. Plegelatte has variably been described as a communist or Trotskyite (Crawford 2016). He staunchly defended his vision for American football in France as a participation rather than a spectator sport and he emphasized amateurism over commercialization. At the 1985 championship game, Plegelatte demonstrated his activism by organizing a field invasion/sit-in to protest a league’s decision that had cost his Spartacus team a spot in the final. Before the game could start, the striking Spartacus players had to be removed from the field by French riot police. Subsequently, Spartacus members were accused of being “commies” (Crawford 2016). Plegelatte’s approach to growing the sport clashed with that of other French football pioneers. Les Anges Bleus of Montreuil, for example, favored a more professionalized spectacle. Led by Brothers Jean-Marc and Eric Burtscher, the Blue Angels were the first to import former American college players in 1985 (Crawford 2016). Competing philosophies and personal rivalries briefly led to the expulsion of Les Anges Bleus from the FFFA and the threat of a rival federation. The conflict demonstrated how delicate the organizational foundation of the young sport was, but the federation survived and the number of teams grew slowly to forty by the end of the 1980s. Of the original four clubs from 1981, only the Météores de 281

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Nogent-sur-Marne were still in existence by 2016 (Crawford 2016). That year, the FFFA consisted of 224 clubs with nearly 23,000 members (FFFA 2016).

American Football in Austria Gerhard Bahula, a teacher at an engineering-focused secondary school in Vienna, is considered to be the “founding father” of American football in Austria. After returning from a trip to the United States, Bahula shared his observations with his students and helped establish the “First Austrian American Football Club” in June of 1976. The members advertised their team by distributing flyers, which caught the attention of Thomas Aichmair. Looking for a new athletic challenge, Aichmair founded the second club, the Vienna Ramblocks (Foglio and Ford 2015; Plenk 1993). As the formation of the first clubs was underway, Austrian football enthusiasts received further inspiration when a reported 18,000 spectators in Vienna’s Prater Stadion witnessed a game between two lower-level American college teams on 5 June 1976. Bob Kap, who was still chasing his dream of establishing a professional league in Europe, organized the 1976 exhibition series featuring Texas A&I (later Texas A&M University, Kingsville) and Henderson State University of Arkansas. The tour made stops in West Berlin, Vienna, Nürnberg, Mannheim, and Paris (Crawford 2016). Despite the best efforts to get people interested in the game, it took several years for the teams to get ready for competition. In the first game of an Austrian team, the Munich Cowboys’ youth team defeated the Vienna Falcons’ senior team in the summer of 1980. Two years later, the Graz Giants and Vienna Ramblocks squared off in the first game between two Austrian teams. That same year saw the establishment of a national federation. Founded in 1982, the American Football Bund Österreich (AFBÖ) governs American football in Austria at a national level, including tackle football, flag football, and cheerleading. In 1994, AFBÖ became a full member of the Österreichische Bundes-Sportorganisation, the country’s sport governing body. Among others, AFBÖ organizes national championships, administers training and licensing for coaches and officials, and organizes national teams for its sports. AFBÖ structures leagues and competitions by gender and age groups. First initiated in the early 1990s, youth teams start in the under-eleven (ages six to eleven) division and progress to senior categories for men (seventeen-years of age and above) and women (fourteen and above). By the second decade of the twentieth century, men’s senior tackle football teams from Austria were among the top-ranked teams in Europe, largely due to solid organizational structures and the investment in youth development. In men’s senior tackle football, AFBÖ offers five levels of competition. At the top, the national league is called Austrian Football League (AFL) with eight teams. Connected via relegation and promotion, the leagues below the AFL are called Division 1 through 4. In Division 1, ten teams competed in two conferences in 2016. The AFBÖ sets the rules of the respective version of football in Austria. In tackle football, for example, the rules largely follow those of the NCAA in the United States. There is only a certain number of players who are considered “A players” allowed on the field and roster. A player is classified as an “A player” if he has played the game in the United States, Canada, Mexico, or Japan or if he is a professional football player in Austria. AFL teams, for example, are allowed 2–3 “A players” on 282

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the roster, with two on the field at any given time, whereas none are allowed to play in Division 3 and 4. The origins of women’s tackle football in Austria date back to 1995 and the formation of the Vienna Cherokees, who started to scrimmage against German teams. The team soon fell apart, but former members of the Cherokees founded the Mermaids team as part of the established Vienna Vikings club in 1997. The first national championship (Ladies Bowl I) took place in 2000. In Austria, women’s teams played with only nine players on the field until 2010. Subsequently the system switched to teams of eleven players, in preparation for the first Women’s World Championships in 2010. By 2016, six teams, including Hungary’s Budapest Wolves, competed in the Austrian Football League Division Ladies.

American Football in Finland Despite some suggestions that Finns played American football as early as the 1950s, no solid evidence has surfaced about these activities and it can be assumed that they were short-lived (SAJL 2009). By the mid-1970s, Finnish exchange students returning from the United States organized informal games of touch and flag football at their high schools (SAJL 2016). Among the pioneers was Heikki Jäättelä. In 1974–1975, Jäättelä had attended Bolsa Grande High School in Garden Grove California, where he played on the boys’ varsity tennis team and became familiar with American football as a spectator. Upon his return, Jäättelä helped organize football practices at Munkkiniemen High School in Helsinki. The group of twenty boys adopted the nickname “Monks” and found kindred spirits at Tapiola High School in Espoo, located ten miles (sixteen km) from Helsinki. In 1976, the Monks dominated their counterparts in two make-shift games played without helmets or shoulder pads. Inspired by what he had seen, Risto Luostarinen, two years younger than Jäättelä, co-founded the club Munkkiniemen Amerikkalaisen Jalkapallon Seura (MAJS), later nicknamed the Munkka Colts. Founded in 1979, the Suomen Amerikkalaisen Jalkapallon Liitto (SAJL) is the governing body of American football in Finland. Luostarinen was instrumental in the leadership the federation, where he served as president, vice president, and member of the board of directors from in 1979 through the mid-1990s (SAJL 2016). In the fall of 1979, three teams determined the winner of the Syys-Cupissa (Autumn Cup): MAJS, the East City Giants (Helsinki), and Polyteknikkojen Urheiluseura (PUS), a team from the polytechnic in Espoo. At this point, standard equipment consisted of ice hockey helmets and shoulder pads. These and other games began to attract attention of local newspapers and television, which aided in the development of the sport (SAJL 2009). The following year, seven teams played in the Vaahteraliiga (the Maple League) for the Finnish championship. The number of teams grew to eight in 1981 and thirteen in 1982. By 1983, the capital of Helsinki alone reported seven teams. That year, about 500 players in a total of twenty clubs competed in the Sumen Mestaruussarja (Champions League) and the lower first division (Kreutner 1983). In contrast to Germany, football teams in Finland could only count on a handful of Americans to support their teams. Several of the teams were associated with universities, and about half of the players were students (Foglio and Ford 2015). 283

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The reliance on home-grown talent might have contributed to the strength of Finland’s national teams. The men’s senior tackle team has competed in every European championship since 1983. It has won the tournament five times (1985, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2000), placed second four times (1983, 1989, 1991, 2001), and finished third twice (1987, 2005). The men’s under-nineteen national team won the first three Junior European Championships (1992, 1994, 1996). In women’s tackle football, eight teams competed in the Naiset Vaahtera Liiga (Ladies Maple League) in 2016. Finland’s women’s national team has competed in tackle football since 2008. The team placed third in the IFAF Women’s World Championships in 2010 and 2013 and won the inaugural European championships for women in 2015 (SAJL 2016). In 2017, Finland’s national federation counted thirty-nine member clubs with close to 3,500 participants in five senior men’s, two senior women’s, and five youth divisions, in addition to several flag football leagues (SAJL 2017).

American Football in Italy Italian football historian Massimo Foglio with Mark Ford (2015) described three points of origin for American football in Italy, where separate interests of three protagonists converged in 1976: a TV network executive, a high school rugby player, and a US military officer. Though not as ubiquitous as in Germany, American military bases in Italy also featured in football Americano, as did the emergence of rival organizations. In contrast to Germany, however, these organizations were leagues, rather than federations and local commercial interests played a more distinct role. Bruno Beneck (1915–2003) had been instrumental in the development of baseball in Italy immediately after World War II. The journalist and television producer for Italy’s RAI network served as the president of the Federazione Italiana Baseball e Softball from 1969–1984, as well as of the European Baseball Federation from 1971– 1984. In 1970, Beneck had met with representatives of the NFL’s New York Giants on a business trip and considered the potential to introduce Italians to another American sport. Thus, in January 1972, Beneck and others established the first Italian American football association, Federazione Italiana Football Americano (FIFA). Although the new federation only existed on paper, it already faced resistance by Italy’s sport establishment. The Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) denied accreditation, in part because of lobbying by Italy’s rugby federation, which perceived the American cousin as a threat. Italy’s baseball federation also refused to join forces with the newcomers. In light of the resistance, in February 1973, Beneck decided to go a different route and bought a franchise from Kap for the Roman Gladiators Football Club in the proposed IFL. As stated above, although that league never played a game it would eventually serve as a blueprint for the NFL’s World League of American Football (WLAF) (Foglio and Ford 2015). As Bob Kap and Bruno Beneck dreamed of commercial success, in the small northern city of Piacenza, high school student and rugby player Alberto Marcucci began his own grassroots efforts in American football. During summer vacations in 1973 and 1974 near an American military base in Italy, encounters with American high school students whose families were stationed near the Mediterranean Sea exposed the young Italian to the American game. Subsequently, in 1975 Marcucci

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and his friend Carlo Pini formed Italy’s first team and settled on Pantere Rosa as a nickname, inspired by the release of the movie “The Return of the Pink Panther.” The third major contributor to the early development of football Americano was Doug Urner, who spearheaded the Northern Italy Football League (NIFL). In the mid-1970s, the US Army officer and assistant coach of a local American high school helped to convert an annual tournament between American bases in northeastern Italy into a regular league no longer directly tied to the US military structure. The result was the organization of five military teams and a potential opening for a local team. In the fall of 1976, the paths of Marcucci’s Pantere Rosa and the NIFL converged, when the Rangers of Camp Darby agreed to play a friendly game with the Italian newcomers, making the contest the first for an Italian American football team. By 1977, Beneck was no longer inclined to wait for Kap to make good on the promised IFL. Instead he made plans for three exhibition games with teams of his own choosing. Armed with broadcast commitments by RAI, as well as sponsorship of four major sporting papers and the Unilever Corporation, Beneck convinced teams of the NIFL to wear the colors and names of made-up local teams. Advertised as a fundraiser for a local senior citizen center, the contests drew more than ten-thousand spectators per game (Foglio and Ford 2015). In the halo of Beneck’s endeavors and the NIFL, additional teams started to pop up in various cities. In June 1978, the Pantere Rosa played the first game between two Italian teams when they faced the newly formed Frogs Gallarate. After that, lured by the sponsorship of hotel owner Giovanni Colombo (1937–1993) the organizers of the Pink Panthers moved their club to Milan. Transformed into the Milan Rhinos, the team was granted membership in the NIFL. Following two years in the formerly all-American circuit, the Rhinos established the first Italian league with four other squads. The Associazione Italiana Football Americano (AIFA) opened play under president Colombo in 1979 (Foglio and Ford 2015). Meanwhile, in the fall of 1978, Beneck had revived his Gladiatori Roma at the grassroots level, after three Italian youngsters had contacted him regarding their interest in starting an American football team in the Eternal City. Using his contacts, Beneck had secured a deal with NFL Properties, the league’s merchandising and licensing arm. The Americans would supply his teams with equipment in return for merchandizing rights. The pieces were falling into place for Beneck’s next brainchild, the Lega Italiana Football Americano (LIF) with four teams. In July 1980, this brought the total of separate leagues and organizations to three. The last puzzle piece was a location to stage the games. Beneck proved his entrepreneurship once more when he convinced civic leaders and the NFL to build Europe’s first American football stadium in Castel Giorgio about two hours from Rome. The trick was to make everyone believe that the remote town was the ancestral home of the grandparents of Vince Lombardi (1913–1970), the famous coach of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers. The construction of Stadio Vince Lombardi might have been aided by the fact that the nephew of Castel Giorgio’s mayor was a team member of the Gladiatori Roma. Either way, the stage was set for Beneck’s LIF. The league’s sudden demise after only two seasons will be featured in the chapter’s concluding section (for further details on the developments in Italy, see Foglio and Ford 2015).

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Past and Future Challenges The cultural adaptation of American football into the classical European sports model with membership clubs and federations has significantly contributed to American football taking hold in Europe. At the same time, however, organizational mismanagement has hampered the sports development and threatened its continued growth. In 2014, for example, the president of the French federations and its executive committee resigned after the federation’s general assembly had blocked their plans for the coming year. That same year, IFAF had to cancel its plans to hold the 2015 men’s World Championships in tackle football in Sweden, after financial mismanagement and personal rivalries. Organizers were able to move the tournament to Canton, Ohio, but costs prohibited many teams from participating (Crawford 2016). Further, as of 2016, the governing structure of American football in Europe appears to be in limbo. As described above, the late 1970s and early 1980s saw a rapid growth of American football in several western European countries. To foster the development and facilitate international competition, the need for a European umbrella organization akin to those in established sports became evident. By 1981, football organizers in Italy and Germany felt that the time was ripe for their sport to take the next step in joining the established sports in Europe. Italy’s Beneck and Germany’s AFBD president Paolo Wölker forged plans for the establishment of national teams. Four international friendlies took place that year, two in each country. Team Germany dominated the first contest on Saturday 14 June 1981 in Stadio Vince Lombardi. The squad of Coach Lehneis won 12-0 against an Italian team, mostly made up of players of the LIF’s Gladiatori Roma. A second game was scheduled for the following Wednesday night in Milan, but the bus with Team Germany arrived an hour after the scheduled kick-off. By then the paying spectators had left disappointed. Colombo and his rival AIFA league players took advantage of the chaos and offered to replace Beneck’s Team Italy for the return games in Germany that September. While Colombo’s stocks went up, Beneck’s fortunes turned from bad to worse later that year, when a LIF regular season game in Turin had to be called off because nobody had bothered to hire an officiating crew. With that, three LIF teams jumped ship and joined Colombo’s AIFA, which marked the end of Beneck’s league. Meanwhile, the lure of national team tournaments, which arouse so much passion in established team sports like soccer, kindled new desires among Europe’s American football avant-garde. In July 1982, the American Football European Federation (AFEF) was formed under the leadership of former AFBD president Wölker. The following summer, Castel Giorgio’s Stadio Vince Lombardi was the site for the first European Championship. Team Austria finished in fifth place. With Germany’s best teams in the national play-offs—and unable or unwilling to dispatch its players—Germany’s delegation consisted of players from the South-Southwest-League, which had previously declared its independence from the AFBD. The team was strong enough to win the bronze medal game 27-20 over France. In the final, host Italy defeated Finland by a score of 18-6. Leadership over American football in Europe consolidated in 1985, when the national federations of Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Great Britain joined AFEF, which was renamed the European Football League (EFL). With its expansion, 286

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the organization continued to struggle with administration and financial problems, often leaving it dysfunctional. In the mid-1990s the governing body reconstituted as the European Federation of American Football (EFAF), counting fourteen member countries by 1996. By the 2010s, run by volunteers, EFAF organized quadrennial European Championships for senior (nineteen-years and older) and junior teams (biannually), as well as the biannual EuroFlag, a European championship in flag football for women, men, and juniors. At the club level, EFAF directly organized the highest level of competition in Europe. Historically, the national champions and runner-ups qualified to play in the European Football League (EFL) the next season culminating in the annual Euro Bowl, held first in 1986. For most of its history, the EFL was a kno”k-out tournament with up to sixteen teams. The governing structure of European American football began to crumble when the International Federation of American Football (IFAF)—founded in 1998 as a global governing body—announced the formation of IFAF Europe as a continental executive committee that would govern international competitions in Europe. The move was immediately contested by EFAF. Following a prolonged power struggle, EFAF’s general assembly unanimously voted to dissolve the organization in 2014, leaving a leadership vacuum. Originally set up to help German teams compete internationally, the German Football League International (GFLI) took over organization of the major international club tournaments and called the legitimacy of the global governing body into question. In the most recent development, in September 2016, IFAF split into two rival factions holding separate meetings: “IFAF New York” (with Great Britain, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark) and “IFAF Paris” (with Germany, France, and Ireland) (Nisavic and Murth 2016). Thus, five decades into the existence of European American football, the organizational wellbeing of the sport is frail at the continental and global level.

The Future of American Football in Europe Coinciding with the arrival of the NFL’s WLAF in 1991, scholars have debated whether the international spread of American football should be considered a form of Americanization and cultural imperialism—”the influence of a particular culture on a wide array of other cultures” (Ritzer 2007, 253). According to American sport historian Allen Guttmann (1991), these theories imply an often inaccurate intentionality. This perspective can be applied to the case of American football in Europe. Although American military, media, and business contributed, they did not simply cause the spread of American football to Europe. In the end, the introduction and subsequent growth of the sport was largely the result of coincidences and personal initiatives rather than a military imposition of the American way of life or corporate marketing. More accurately, then, the diffusion of American football abroad can be understood as “push and pull” processes, where American and multinational business interests provided a push, while local individuals actively imported the sport and adapted it according to their own needs and traditions (for further details, see Crawford, 2016; Dzikus 2004a, 2004b, 2005; Massimo and Ford 2015). Over a period of decades, it took cultural transformation to make American football a relatively successful niche sport in several European countries. 287

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Currently, little is known about American football’s development in Eastern European countries, where the socio-political context for the reception of the American obsession of football differed significantly from Western Europe. Continued success for the sport will depend on its development east of Germany, Austria, and Italy, for example: support for women’s and youth teams: as well as the ability of well-organized governing bodies to guide the development of global American football—from grassroots participation to commercial spectator sport.

Further Reading American Football Bund Österreich. (n.d.). Willkommen beim American Football Bund Österreich [Welcome to the American Football Federation Austria]. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http://www .football.at/ American Football Verband Deutschland. (n.d.). Ladies football. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http:// www.ladiesbowl.de Bamberger, J. (2016). Here’s where we are 10 years into NFL’s grand UK experiment. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http://sports.yahoo.com/news/heres-where-we-are-10-years-into-nfls-grand-uk -experiment-231157933.html Brooks, C. M. (1994). Sports marketing: Competitive business strategies for sports. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Crawford, Russ. (2016). Le football: A history of American football in France. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Dzikus, Lars. (2004a). American Football, Deutschland und der Unternehmer. Amerika in unseren Köpfen und Stadien [American football, Germany, and the entrepreneur: America in our heads and stadiums]. Sportwissenschaft, 32, 50–64. Dzikus, L. (2004b). American football in West Germany: Cultural transformation, adaptation, and resistance. In Annette Hofmann (Ed.), Turnen and Sport: Transatlantic Transfers, 221–239. Münster: Waxman. Dzikus, L. (2005). From violence to party: A history of the presentation of American football in England and Germany. (Dissertation), Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. Dzikus L. (in press).  Amerika: The Super Bowl and German imagination.  The International Journal of the History of Sport. European Commission. (n.d.). The European model of sport. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http://www .bso.or.at/fileadmin/Inhalte/Dokumente/Internationales/EU_European_Model_Sport.pdf European Federation of American Football. (n.d.). EFAF members. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http:// www.efaf.info/text.php?Inhalt=memberliste FFFA. (2016). Histoire de la FFFA [History of the FFFA]. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http://www.fffa .org/fr/fffa/presentation/histoire-de-la-fffa.html Foglio, M., and Ford, M. L. (2015). Touchdown in Europe: How American football came to the old continent. Kindle Edition: Published by author. Football Américain [reprint of interview with Laurent Plegelatte in Quarterback Magazine (1987)]. (2010). Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http://www.elitefoot.com/france/article/plegeleatte/laurent.htm Guttmann, A. (1991). Sports diffusion: A response to Maguire and the Americanization commentaries. Sociology of Sport Journal, 8, 185–190. Hansen, J. (1981). Football: Vor der Pleite. Bild. Kreutner, W. (1983, November–December). Suomen Amerikkalaisen Jalkopallon Liitto: Football im land der tausend seen [Finnish American football league: Football in the land of thousand lakes]. American Football Magazin, 1, 37–38. MacCambridge, M. (2004). America’s game: The epic story of how pro football captured a nation. New York: Random House. Maguire, J. (1990). More than a sporting touchdown: The making of American football in England 1982– 1990. Sociology of Sport Journal, 7, 213–237. Nisavic, G., & Murth, G. (2016). An open letter from IFAF Europe Executive Committee Chairman, Goran Nisavic and IFAF Europe Executive Committee Vice-Chairman, Gregor Murth. Retrieved March 20, 2017 from http://www.ifafeurope.org/open-letter/ Pfister, G. (2011). Gender equality and (elite) sport. Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe.

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Chapter Sixteen: American Football in Europe Pijetlovic, K. (2015). EU sports law and breakaway leagues in football. New York: Springer. Plenk, R. (1993). All the way—American football in Österreich 1976–1993. Wien: Bernhardt Druck. Ritzer, G. (2007). Contemporary sociological theory and its classical roots: The basics (2nd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill. SAJL. (2009). 30 vuotta jenkkifutista suomessa: Suomen Amerikkalaisen Jalkapallon Liiton historiikki [30 years gridiron Finland: Finnish American football league history]. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from https://sajl-fi-bin.directo.fi/@Bin/ad426c5622cb7e982306173ba6987bb5/1490993122/application /pdf/823964/SAJL%2030-vuotisjuhlajulkaisu.pdf SAJL. (2016). 1976-ensimmäinen ottelu [1976-First match]. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http://sajl-fi-bin .directo.fi/@Bin/3534d7fe69c034e4902bc03d4ff802f8/1491015812/application/pdf/5365221 /SAJL2016_NETTI.pdf SAJL (2017). Briefly in English. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http://www.sajl.fi/in-english/ Un match de football américain a Nice. (1909). La Vie au Grand Air, 76–77. Wallace, W. (1974). N.F.L. to introduce football in Europe. New York Times, 45, 48.  Yoder, C. (2016, 10 October). The complete list of women’s American Football teams in Europe. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http://www.growthofagame.com/2016/04/the-complete-list-of-womens -american-football-teams-in-europe/

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Chapter Seventeen: American Football in China: A Story of Resurgence HUO Chuansong Chengdu Sport Institute Linda J. BORISH Western Michigan University

Football was introduced to China as a sport played entirely by Americans. The Chinese began to participate in the 1920s, and after World War II, more Chinese football teams and leagues were established. While a culture gap still exists between most Chinese people and a game that many find unwatchable, playing football has gradually become a sign of fashion among some in the younger generation. Keywords: Shanghai American Football Association, City Bowl, Tianjin Great Wall team, Beijing Cyclones, “NFL Apple Seed”

A

merican football was introduced to China around the beginning of the twentieth century, a few decades after rugby. The Chinese gave the same name to these two sports due to the similar shape of the balls and the ways of playing, at least in people’s eyes. Both called ganlanqiu 橄榄球 (“olive ball” in Chinese), the two sports are differentiated by means of their national origin, with “British” (yingshi 英式) for rugby, and “American” (meishi 美式) for football. Clearly, neither football nor rugby has been popular in China, as shown by this semantic confusion. Yet the story of the development of American football in China is one of resurgence. The sport was introduced to China from the cities along the eastern coast in the beginning of the twentieth century, and then developed in Shanghai beginning in the 1920s. By the end of the 1930s, American football had declined in popularity due to World War II, and finally disappeared completely in the beginning of the 1950s. American football reappeared in China in the mid-1980s. Nearly thirty years has passed, and while the development of American football in China is speeding up, popularity remains limited. Most Chinese people pay little attention to American football, not only due to the rarity of participation, but also due to lack of knowledge about the sport, which results in low television ratings. The phenomenon of American football in China is a result of complex social, historical, and cultural factors. This chapter will show the views of American football in different periods 291

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of China and put forward some thoughts on the historical phenomenon, current condition, and prospect for further discussion of this sport.

American Football in the Republic of China The earliest known American-rule football team in China was organized at the Zhili Higher Normal School in Baoding in 1913–14, although the team was soon disbanded by officials who felt that the game was too violent for the players (Shi 1987, 15). This anecdote shows how the conflict between the playing style of American football and Chinese traditional culture is one of the main factors that limits the development of this sport in China. Nonetheless, one can still explore the regional development of American football in China in this period via the newspapers and journals. Before 1910, information about American football had been transmitted to China in the form of news. On 18 December 1906, the North China Daily published news of an annual football game between the US military and the Naval Academy, held in Philadelphia. This is the earliest known record of an American football game to be published in China. Another football game in the news, held in China this time, was published by the North China Daily on 27 October 1910: USS HELENA v. USS SAMAR. Yesterday afternoon, on the Shanghai Cricket Club’s ground, a game of American football was played between teams from the USS Helena and the USS Samar. The latter team was at a great disadvantage in weight, in addition to the fact that the boat had a far smaller crew than the Helena from which to choose a team, and was severely defeated by 41 points to nil. (North China Daily 1910, 8) Although the information about American football is limited when compared with other Western sports such as soccer, basketball, or even rugby in the same period, it is enough for historians to view the historical line clearly.

The Early Game Played by Americans The Qing dynasty fell in 1911 and China entered into the period of the Republic period while remaining essentially a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. Western nationals resided within colonial enclaves. The United States mainly controlled the region along the southeastern coast, where American football was introduced into China. During this time, Americans, mostly military personnel, played and organized American football. “With a view to popularizing American Football in Shanghai, it has been arranged that a game between sides representing Shanghai and the USS Helena shall take place in Hongkew Park tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon, beginning at 3 o’clock” (North China Daily 1912, 5). Although rarely played by Chinese people, football has since drawn the attention of some advanced scholars in China. A report of the game between the USS Wilmington and Torpedo Flotilla on 26 November 1915 contrasted American

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Introduction of Lineups (North China Daily. Thursday 13 November 1919, p.8.)

football with rugby. “The fact that tackling in American football is so different from that usually witnessed in ordinary ‘Rugger’ games, is sufficient to produce large attendances at future events, of which, we understand, many are to take place during the winter” (North China Daily 1915, 8). The biggest tradition of American football—the Thanksgiving Game—was introduced to China in 1917 and then became a regular event over the next twenty years. On 22 November 1917, a news article reported that “the American Athletic Association is making arrangements to play a game of American football at the Recreation Ground on Thanksgiving Day, Nov.29. The two teams will be composed entirely of Americans and it is said that there are many old gridiron stars among them” (North China Daily 1917, 8). From then on, American football games occurred, and the quality and quantity of detailed reports kept increasing. A series of games held around Thanksgiving were played among four teams in 1919: Shanghai, the USS Wilmington, the USS Elcano, and the West Pointer came from Tianjin. One of the reports of these games even named the Shanghai lineups and referees. Subsequent games produced additional news coverage, including sixteen articles, forecasts, and analyses in 1921. An American football club, which was founded that year, organized several games, including ones with the Beijing Legation Guard and Shanghai. A report on 21 December noted the arrival of the Beijing team and introduced the starting lineups of both sides and referees. The indeterminacy of teams and games represented the character of this period. Americans introduced the game to China, which drew some attention and interest from the Chinese, even though all the organizing, playing, and officiating took place entirely under the Americans’ control.

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Introduction of Shanghai & Beijing Players (North China Daily. Saturday 21 December 1921, p.10.)

The American Influence American football was introduced to China as a sport and a cultural symbol, but it was the American army who presented it virtually as a team game to the Chinese. After the introduction of the game between the USS Samar and the USS Helena in 1910 more teams were founded, adding to the popularity of football, as more than ten football teams competed in Shanghai. Organized by the US Army, schools, and clubs, such as the Navy, the Marines, the Shanghai American School, the American Athletic Club, the American Football Club, the YMCA, Glen Line, and other civilian teams. Chinese teams included St. John’s University, Huaimei School, and the Chinese All-Stars, organized by returned overseas Chinese in Shanghai).

From Occasional Games to the Cunningham Cup Beginning in 1919, there had been occasional games played every year, but the series games had not been regularly scheduled until 1925. Most of the football games were by invitation or friendship, organized by different organizations and teams. In the winter of 1925, the Triangle League was organized by the Shanghai American 294

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The “Beef Boys” of the 2nd Battalion, 4th US Marines (North China Daily. Thursday 24 November 1938.)

The Standing in League (North China Daily. Saturday 15 November 1930, p. 18.)

School, whose team was formed by students who had returned from America, and the Huaimei School from Yancheng. This is the first historical football league in which Chinese participated. After the founding of the Chinese American Football Association in 1926, the St. John’s University team became the representative team of Shanghai. It played against the Shanghai American School three times that year, with the last game played on Thanksgiving Day. The rivalry between St. John’s University and the Shanghai American School became a tradition over the next several years, with games often played on Thanksgiving Day. On 18 October 1930, the Shanghai American Football League started play with four teams: the 1st and 3rd Battalion of the American 4th Marines, the YMCA, and the Shanghai American School. The champion would be awarded the Cunningham Cup. The North China Daily even reported intramural games held at the Shanghai American School in order to select players for the league teams (North China Daily 1930, 17). The News even documented ticket sales tickets to spectators, which cost $1 for single games and $15 for the whole season (North China Daily 1930, 17). Another Thanksgiving Day game also sold for $2 and $3 each (North China Daily 1936, 13). The meeting report of the Shanghai American Football Association published in 1933 showed that the league proved unstable. The quantity of teams was small and the organizing of games was slack, yet the Cunningham Cup had been retained and the annual Thanksgiving Game was guaranteed. With American teams 295

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The Report of Shanghai American Football Association (North China Herald. 30 August 1933, p. 344.)

dominant and the lack of new Chinese members, the league faltered and eventually ceased play with the Japanese invasion of China.

Participation by Chinese Athletes (1923–1950) On 8 December 1923, an American football team of the Huaimei School, an all-Chinese squad, came from Yancheng, and played against the team of the Shanghai American School (SAS) at the playground of the SAS. This game is recorded as the first played by Chinese, and the Huaimei School was defeated by the Shanghai American School 31-6, as recorded below: An American football game was played between Shanghai American School and Huaimei School in the last Saturday afternoon...More than 800 spectators, with about 100 foreigners among them, watched the game...The president of Huaimei School, Jia Jiamei coached the team...The names of players are: Zhao Zhenjie, Zhang Pengjing, Xu Rongyu, Liu Guangtao, Zhou Dekui, Pei Wuhuang, Wang Yaotang, Liu Hengpeng, Sun Hai’an, Song Xichun. (Nanyang Weekly 1923, 72) The North China Daily published an article entitled “A Chinese Team’s Debut” on 10 December, and documented the game and results in great detail. Two days later, another article entitled “Chinese Promising Beginning” analyzed the 296

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Shanghai American Football Team, formed in 1926 (“Johannean” 1927, p. 294.)

shortcomings of Chinese players in the game. Meanwhile, it also made a comment on whether Chinese people could play football and gave a positive answer. It finally suggested the hope of holding more interscholastic games in China in the future (North China Daily 1923, 24).

Founding of the Chinese Football Association Many Chinese studied abroad in the 1920s, and a large quantity of Chinese majored in sports and returned from the United States. They brought modernized sporting theories, organizing methods, and sports rules back to China. They went on to found several Chinese-managed sports organizations, as they assumed greater control from the foreigners who had previously controlled sporting organizations. American football was no exception. At the first meeting held at the Race Course on 23 October 1926, the Shanghai American Football Association was officially established. The chair of the China National Amateur Athletic Federation, Shen Siliang, took the presidency and an all-Chinese football team was formed (with most of the players from St. John’s University). Professors Portfield and Gilliam of St. John’s University coached the team (Zhang 1991, 47–48). This association is the first and the only recorded football organization managed by the Chinese during the Republican period.

The Annual Thanksgiving Game According to a report from the North China Daily, after being introduced into Shanghai, the Thanksgiving Game had become the most important annual one in China, similar to the games in America. With the participation of the Chinese team 297

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The Civilians vs. The Marines in 1935 Thanksgiving Day Game (North China Daily. Thursday 28 November 1935.)

from St. John’s University, the annual football game in republican Shanghai gained greater respect and prestige. Over the next two decades, the most important rivalries or final games between the schools were all scheduled on Thanksgiving Day. The game flourished in the early 1930s as the football league expanded. By 1935, a band performance even appeared during half-time. Thanksgiving games were also held in Shanghai in 1937 and1938, even as the Japanese invaded the country. The Japanese invasion and World War II forced a lull in the football games until 1945, when the annual Thanksgiving game was resumed by the US Army in China. Because of the civil war that erupted in the wake of WWII and the domestic situation in China, participation by the Chinese was greatly reduced and they gradually faded from participation in the American game. With the evacuation of the American military from China, the game had disappeared by the 1950s. 298

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The Short Recovery after World War II News or reports about football games did not appear again until 1946, although a six-man football game was played in 1941. On 11 September 1947, a new football league was organized by the US Navy Welfare and Recreation Office in Shanghai. This time the participating teams were again entirely formed by Americans; the main players were all American nationals and Army personnel from Shanghai and Nanjing. On 10 October 1948, the football league sponsored by the Naval Athletic Center was established in Shanghai and Nanking. St. John’s University participated and lost to the American Athletic Club in the opening game. In addition to the above, there were only two documented games that Chinese participated in, played between St. John’s University and the Shanghai American School on 2 November 1947 and 23 October 1948. These serve as the final documents about football games held in China during the Republic of China period.

Academic Interest in American Football Although Chinese participation in the sport was limited, some Chinese indicated an interest in the academic exploration of football development. A Chinese YMCA journal, Progress, published an article in 1912 entitled, “Outdoor Sports—Chapter of Football” (“Shi Wai Yun Dong Zhi Yi Zhong— Zuqiu Pian”) authored by Professor Zhao Zichen of Suzhou Dowu University, which briefly introduced the field, players, referees, equipment, rules and regulations of soccer, rugby, and football along with some illustrations (Zhang 1991, 47–48). This is the earliest scholarly indication of football in China. The North China Daily in 1917 contrasted football with rugby, including regulations, rules, and tactics. This is the first detailed comparison of these two sports in China after Prof. Zhao’s initial introduction. In 1924, the North China Daily reprinted a New York report of the development of defense in football. In 1926, a player from the Shanghai team, Hao Boyang, a famous sportswriter, wrote several articles including “Differences between American Football and Soccer”, “Brief History and Play-rules of American Football” to make a detailed introduction of football rules and tactics (Shanghai Tiyu Zhi). On 29 November 1933, the North China Daily published an article entitled “Development from Rugger in Past Fifty Years” devoted to comprehensively introducing the history of American football development (North China Daily 1933, 12). It was one of many published by the newspaper on the topic, which informed the Chinese public about football.

Expansion of Football Beyond Shanghai In the same period, very few documents recorded the development of the game outside of Shanghai. Besides the Huaimei School in Yancheng, the only recorded football game played by Chinese outside of Shanghai was the game between Guangdong and Lingnan on 26 February 1933 (North China Daily 1933, 14). Additionally, Yanjing News reported an interdepartmental football game held at Yanjing University, which 299

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The Football Game in Guangdong (《时代》 1933 (4)2:18.)

was moved to Chengdu, Sichuan due to the hostilities with Japan (“Furen tongxun” 1940, 5).

Media Coverage of Football In the Republic period, the Chinese media reported on the college games and the National Football League (NFL) in the United States. The North China Daily also published a report about the development of football in Japan. It is worth noting that the North China Daily in 1926 reported a football game in which an American Chinese team of the University of Hawaii defeated the Pomona College team in California on 1 January 1924 (North China Daily 1926, 14). In 1934, there had been an illustrated report about a game played between American Chinese and American Japanese which was held in San Francisco.

Football in the PRC: Resurgence and Development From the 1950s to the late 1970s, American culture, including American football was rejected in China due to the Cold War political climate. During this period, China modified the Whole Nation Sport System adopted from the USSR that emphasized the political uses of sports. Participation in international games to show power and earn glory for one’s country had become the main mission and objective of Chinese sport in this period. The political ice persisted until the year of 1972 when the Chinese Ping-Pong Diplomacy offered sporting breakthroughs as a political means to negotiation, and a consequent return of Western culture to China. After closing the door for decades, Chinese people once again got the chance to see views of the Western world. They were curious and surprised, almost as if Western culture had never before appeared China. 300

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Football Game between Chinese and Japanese Americans (North China Daily. Wednesday 31 January 1934, p. 12.)

American football was reintroduced to China as the most American sports. In March 1986, Chinese spectators watched the videotape of Super Bowl XX via China Central TV (CCTV) on television (Hu 2014). In 1996, a group of athletes in Tianjin formed an American football team and named it “Tianjin Great Wall.” They converted motorcycle helmets and made other protective gear themselves, and registered the team as an official club on 18 June 1996, located at the No.2 Worker’s Cultural Palace. The founder of the team even called himself “the Father of American Football in China” in his own blog. Tianjin Great Wall became an epic team in the history of American football in China, attracting many spectators to their games (Quanguo gedi). Despite the resurgence of American football in the People’s Republic of China before 2003, it remained marginal due to limited media exposure. That changed with the signing of Yao Ming, a star basketball player, by the Houston Rockets, and the rapid expansion of interest in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in China, which also influenced the NFL to increase its own efforts. In 2003, the NFL started its media marketing campaign. The CCTV5 transmitted Super Bowl XXXVIII live and it attracted more than a 3 million viewers, even though the game was on a Monday morning in Beijing time. The Shanghai TV transmitted Super Bowl XXXIX live in 2005 and the Shanghai Dragon TV and Beijing TV co-transmitted Super Bowl XXXX live again the next year (Hu 2014). On 1 February 2004, the NFLCHINA.com went online and then opened an office in Beijing in 2007, which became the fifth one after London, Mexico City, 301

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Training & Games of Tianjin Great Wall (http://bbs.hupu.com/10751537.html)

Tokyo, and Toronto. In April of the same year, the NFL suggested a “China Bowl” wrap-up game, but it was canceled due to the high cost of converting the stadium and the low popularity of the sport (Hu 2014). During this period, the NFL unleashed more advanced media campaigns, but it did not gain great popularity among the common people beyond recognition that “a sport named American football came from the U.S.,” and the notion that football was “a rude, no-ruled colliding game”. As the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 and the success of the NBA provided greater exposure of sports in China, interest developed in American sports, including football and baseball. The NFL strengthened its media campaign, which helped football take root and germinate in different places after several years of slow growth. In August 2008, the NFL repackaged the official website, NFLCHINA.com, and then started cooperation with SINA.com to broadcast NFL games. Expanding into the internet from a TV platform became an important means of communication in China for the NFL. In 2009, CCTV5, Shanghai TV, Guangdong TV, and Shanghai Dragon TV co-transmitted Super Bowl XXXXIII while internet media platforms such as SINA.com, PPTV, and Tencent TV transmitted it online, which attracted an 302

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audience of more than a 2.2 million. The nfl.HUPU.com became the official website for discussion and communication among football fans in China (Hu 2014). By 2016, the NFL had partnered with sixteen television stations and eight social media outlets to extend its reach among Chinese youth. The NFL also sent top American players to tour China, invited expats and locals to viewing parties in urban areas, and sent a rolling exhibition in an NFL semi-truck around the country to build interest in the sport. It has claimed more than 77,000,000 Chinese fans in 2015 and projects 151,000 by 2022 (Mailman 2015).

The Popularization of Flag Football Flag football was introduced to China in 2003 at more than sixty middle schools in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Several training camps and matches were held as the game was rapidly promoted, aimed at middle schools in the eastern area from 2003 to 2007. A famous camp named “NFL Apple Seed” was founded, attracting the participation of cities and provinces like Harbin, Zhengzhou, and Shandong. Thereafter, more than five hundred middle schools with tens of thousands of students took part in this sport. In 2004, the Experimental High School Affiliated to Capital Normal University was the first to join the fifth Flag Football World Cup and won ninth place. In 2005, Beijing hosted the World Championship, and the Guangzhou No.41 Middle School joined the match as the Chinese team and won fifth place (Hu 2014). In 2007, flag football shifted its promotional focus to colleges. In 2009, twenty-four colleges from Beijing and Shanghai united and held the first “University Bowl” Flag Football League. The game has since been adopted by more than sixty colleges in China, with forty-four teams taking part in the 2013 University Bowl. Nowadays, there are three divisions in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou; sixteen teams are from Beijing, twelve teams are from Shanghai, and eight are from Guangzhou. The Bowl League is held by NFLCHINA and has three stages: division matches, playoffs, and finals. The league starts from mid-April and lasts until early June every year. Each game has two halves of thirty minutes each and eligibility is strictly observed: every player must be legally enrolled as a student in the college to be a member of its team (Hu 2014). In November of 2015, 126 schools competed in the tournament, and although none of the teams from Shanghai and Beijing reached the 7th China NFL University Bowl. The Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine emerged as the champion, defeating Shangdong University 36-6. The former NFL star Troy Polamalu watched the final game and acted as the medal presenter, awarding the championship cup to the winners. This showed the emergence of teams from other cities and the popularization of this game in a larger area of China (NFL daxuewan).

An Official Organization After being introduced to China a century ago, American football finally experienced a resurgence in China after 2010. It has developed rapidly during the past six years, due to a closer Sino-American relationship and a more powerful impact of 303

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The Victory Ceremony of the University Bowl VII (http://sports.163.com /15/1123/09/B93KQM0B00051CAQ.html)

American sports in China. More and more Chinese people have recognized that it is football, not basketball, that is the biggest sport in the United States. In addition to flag football, arena football has sprouted up in China as well. Even more Chinese, especially college students, have begun to try to play fully equipped American football, as American coaches increasingly travel to China to offer coaching clinics (IFAF. (2015). World u19 Championship Heads to China. Retrieved on 8 Mai 2017 from http://ifaf.org/articles/view/1633.). On 9 June 2010, after getting approval from the Sport General Administration of China, the Chinese Rugby Football Association was founded in Beijing. Although the word “rugby” is used in the Association’s title, the Chinese Rugby Football Association, as the affiliated association of the Sport General Administration, oversees both rugby and American football in China. The main mission of the association is to promote the sport of rugby in China and the construction of a national team with the power of the Whole Nation Sport System, because rugby has become an Olympic medal game. But as stated above, rugby and football share the same name in Chinese; the association also focuses on the development of football in China and has held training camps for football coaches and officials (Zhongguo ganlanqiu xiehui).

Expansion of Teams In addition to the Tianjin Great Wall team, the Beijing Cyclones were founded in January 2011, leading to the establishment of other teams throughout China. By 2016, at least thirty-four football teams from twenty-three cities in China, including 304

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The opening of the theme park also brought Under Armour to the Chinese market (http://sports.sina.com.cn/o/nfl/2011-11-29/15385849005.shtml)

those from Hong Kong (and excluding college teams), were active. According to a report from the AFLC (American Football League of China), other teams are in the initial stages of organization, which could result in more than sixty teams. Excluding Hong Kong, Shanghai is the center of development, with three teams. The office of the NFLCHINA also moved from Beijing to Shanghai (Quanguo gedi). On 27 November 2011, the “Shanghai-NFL Assembly” American football theme park was officially opened to the public in Shanghai.

First Amateur League: the AFLC The AFLC (American Football League of China) was founded in 2013 as the first amateur football league in China, with eight teams; by the 2016 season it numbered sixteen teams in four divisions. Its main founder and chair, Christopher McLaurin, played for the University of Michigan. He has worked in Chongqing since 2003, where he helped to found and coach the Chongqing Dockers, who won the Eternal 305

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Bowl as the first champions of the league (“Zhongguo bentu”). The Chongqing Dockers were the first team to use foreign players, although most teams do so now. Most of the foreign players are students or are employed in China. As an amateur organization, all the players in the AFLC compete without salary and purchase their own equipment. Most teams have been coached by Americans, while most players consist of college students, interested locals, and foreigners living in China. In 2016, Fudan University became the only college team in the league. Games start in September and the finals are played in January. The AFLC initiated the home-and-away system season, while cross-division matches were canceled in the 2016 season, somewhat easing the pressure on the guest teams playing games at significant distances. The growth of the league has attracted a lot of economic support from different sponsors, which covers the cost of travel expenses. The competition has led some teams to hire some powerful players from America. As the result, in the 2016 season, the AFLC has limited the number of foreign players to five per team and plans to reduce the number in future (ChinaBlitz 2015). Despite or perhaps due to rapid development, the league has experienced some growing pains. For instance, only a few days after the game schedule of the 2015–16 season was published, news emerged that some teams had quit the league. During the playoff games, more teams from Guangdong and Hong Kong quit due to the players’ jobs and funding problems (ChinaBlitz 2015). The 2016 AFLC final, held on 16 January in Shanghai Yuanshen Sports Center, became the most formal American football game in China, and with play at the highest level. Played on a standard gridiron with official goals and lines, the game also used a full staff of eight referees to officiate the game. Spectators watched the game for free, but were seated in designated areas after a security check. The entire affair was conducted American style, including food service, a pre-game party, an eat-off, a band performance, and a victory ceremony. The NCAA football Chinese commentators were also invited for the first time to commentate on this spectacle (Zong 2016).

A Challenge from City Bowl After monopolizing the Chinese football competition market for two years, the AFLC met with a challenge from a new power in 2015. Some teams that had quit the AFLC left to found their own enterprise, known as City Bowl. Twelve urban teams joined the initial organization, which quickly expanded to twenty-one for the 2016 season, surpassing the AFLC in membership. (ChinaBlitz 2015). On 19 March 2016, City Bowl held its first conference meeting in Suzhou. City Bowl published the game schedule, contest regulations, organizing instructions, and operating conditions, and sponsors from many famous corporations provided funding (Chengshiwan). With a new logo, registration as a corporation with an official website, and a formal schedule of games, City Bowl has quickly grown into the biggest football league in China. Corporate sponsorship provides for training and hiring referees, as well as game and team promotion. Some teams even pay their players with the funds, while City Bowl has made an agreement with some equipment producers in order to offer discounted equipment to players (Beijing lianmeng).

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The 2016 Game Schedule of City Bowl (http://www.citybowl.net/h-nd-j-69-1.html)

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There is no doubt that the emergence of City Bowl is a big challenge to the AFLC. A report entitled “The Observation of 2015 American Football Season in China” of ChinaBlitz states that if there is no significant change (like external capital injection or interest conflict) in a short period, City Bowl will possibly become a powerful league which can compete with the AFLC. The competition between different leagues will benefit the development of American football in China and these two leagues may even become the Chinese NFC and AFC (ChinaBlitz 2015).

Other Leagues Several other football leagues have recently taken up the game in China. In August 2014, the first college football league, the Chinese University American Football League (CUAFL), was established. It was formerly the BIG 4 College American Football League of Shanghai and now includes six universities around the Yangtze River Delta area. Several universities in Sichuan and Chongqing are building their own teams and preparing to join the league. If the schools in the southwestern area join in this effort, it will become a national collegiate league. This league has its own official website and runs an online football equipment mall, while being sponsored by some businesses, although its current impact is limited to local regions. The China Arena Football League (CAFL), founded by Marty Judge, the owner of the Philadelphia Soul, started at the beginning of 2014. Like its American counterpart, the games of the CAFL are played indoors and this makes it the only Arena Football League in China. It has won the support and funding from the Chinese Rugby Football Association; and six sport universities have played as the National Collegiate Arena Football League for two seasons. Each team has twenty players, including eight foreigners. Each player will be paid $3000–$5000 for each game played (Zhongguo meishi). The CAFL united with the Sport General Administration of China in February 2016 and then held a national tryout for new players, who were then drafted in Beijing and Shanghai in April. On 1 October 2016, the National Day of China, the first Chinese Professional Arena Football League opened its initial season in six cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, Qingdao, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen) and culminated with a Final Weekend in the metropolis of Shanghai on 5 November 2016. All the games are played on the weekend while the Final Weekend will be named “The China Bowl” (CAFL). The first official football league, the National American Football League (NAFL), was founded in Beijing on 19 October 2015. This league gathers many civilian football teams from Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Urumqi, etc., along with eight college teams, including Shanghai Jiaotong University and Tongji University, while the Chinese Rugby Football Association is on the list of supporting institutions. The NAFL built its official website on which it declared itself as the only American football organization in China that the Chinese government recognizes and that it oversees all aspects of American football development in China. This includes coaching certification, referee certification, official marketing, and games recognized by the Chinese government ( NAFL 2017). A glance at the member teams shows that there is a large overlap of those in City Bowl. Thus it seems that the purpose of the NAFL is to, under the support of the official association, integrate existing resources and unify the leagues in China. This is not a destination that seems easy to reach, but the 308

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Spalding becomes the sponsor of the CAFL (http://www.ganlanmedia.com.cn /xinwen/2016/0421/237.html)

official support remains the biggest advantage. If the NAFL can help its teams solve the supply problem, it can hope to create a new promise for American football in China (Sina Sports 2015).

“Paradise Bowl” and City Rivalries Although city rivalries are common in the sports world, no football rivalry existed in China until the 2010s, when the Shanghai Night Hawks and Shanghai Warriors squared off. In May 2015, two amateur clubs, the Suzhou Blue Knights and Hangzhou Ospreys created a city rivalry game named the “Paradise Bowl,” and agreed to play a game every May, rotating between both cities. During this May rivalry, an interactive zone was created by the gridiron to let people experience the sport in full gear. The organizer made a 100,000 RMB budget which paid for a special trophy from the United States and the rent for a stadium (Zhao 2015).

Hosting of the IFAF Youth Championship The city of Harbin received the right to hold the International Federations of American Football (IFAF) 2016 U19 World Championship and the 2018 International College Championship. Harbin University of Commerce is known as one of the first schools to promote American football and the first one to feature an equipped 309

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football class, training center, and team. Many of its athletes have played in the first World University American Football Championship. The New York Times has even featured the developing condition of American football at Harbin University of Commerce (Shi & Wang 2016). The school hosted the U19 World Championship between 28 June and 10 July 2016, the first time that the championship was held in mainland China. In attendance were more than 500 players, coaches, referees, and officials from seven countries. This surely has advanced the development of football in China, and has also improved sports communication between China and the Western world.

The Super Bowl and Media Promotion The increasing development of American football in China has no doubt attracted a large quantity of fans. Based on the statistics, fans in China have grown from 1.4 million in 2010 to 17.7 million in 2014. In promoting the NFL culture, the Super Bowl paves the way. The NFL offers this most valuable game to China for free. The Super Bowl XLIX attracted an audience of more than 10 million Chinese; and Super Bowl 50 was even played on Chinese Spring Festival Day. The Spring Festival Gala is the biggest evening party held by the CCTV and transmitted live on Spring Festival Eve. This traditional event started in 1983, and almost all Chinese families get together and watch nothing else but this party on TV (as many Americans do on Super Bowl day), transmitted live via more than nineteen media outlets, and attracting more than 12 million viewers. Of this audience, more than 5 million watched the game via the new media platforms, a growth of 85 percent over the last year. (Hu, 2014) The readership of #Super Bowl 50# was more than 380 million on micro-blog, which featured nearly 3 times as many as those on the game last year; and the issue was one of the top three sports issues on micro-blog. It is worth noting that according to “the 2015 Sports White Book” published by micro-blog, the official blog account of the NFLCHINA represented the sixth biggest impact tournament institution on “the Ranking of Impact of Games and Medias,” surpassing some famous international professional leagues like the German Bundesliga and the Spanish Liga, thus proving the growing impact of the NFL in China (Di 50 Jie). Additionally, after more than ten years of football development in China, in recent years, Chinese people, especially the younger generation, have seemed to grow tired of the over-coverage of NBA games. Thus, some new media like iQIYI and Great Sports have begun to build their own game broadcasting platforms and to seek new sports to cover. The NFL has become their key partner, so that more games besides the Super Bowl are transmitted via these new media. During the 2015–16 season, the NFL live games and its related videos on new media platforms attracted more than 217 million audiences, among which the live game audiences are more than 31 million. In recent years, as the promotion of the NFL in China has increased, some coastal cities have opened training camps, football weekends, and NFL vans (a big van which themes in NFL and can be separated into several areas), and planned to hold the first NFL China Game in 2018 (Chaojiwan). As the leagues and the numbers of games have increased, media in China have paid more attention to football. The official website of City Bowl publishes news and videotapes of every game; Chengdu TV asked journalists to focus on the host game 310

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The player of Chongqing Dockers on the cover (http://sports.sina.com.cn/o /nfl/2014-04-08/15597110126.shtml)

of the Chengdu Pandaman and gave long post-game reports; the cooperation between teams in Shanghai and NFL HomeField made the games in the AFLC an annual program and the “Paradise Bowl” created by Suzhou and Hangzhou attracted great local attention. The final game of the AFLC 2015–16 season was transmitted live on an internet platform for the first time, while Chinese commentators He Liaohan and Lu Yekai were invited to be the live commentary guests. The Chongqing Dockers, one of the earliest football teams in China, got attention in the United States when one of its players appeared on the cover of New Republic magazine in an article about football in China. Rights to the story, “The Year of The Pigskin,” have been bought by Sony Corporation, which plans to make it into a Hollywood film (ChinaBlitz 2015). 311

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An “NFL Yao Ming,” and a “Chinese Walter Camp” American football in China has grown rapidly after 2010, but it cannot be called a popular game yet. American football has not reached the acclaim of basketball and soccer. As football leagues are commercialized, the NFLCHINA has given voice to the notion that “China needs the ‘NFL Yao Ming.’” A Chinese American player in the NFL, Wang Kai, often comes to China to join promotional activities and training camps as the NFLCHINA ambassador. It is undeniable that the success of a native star in a professional league abroad will likely lead to the development and commercialization of the sport. But American football is a highly Americanized and highly commercialized sport, and most Chinese people have no idea about the American spirit it embodies. The complex rules and the discontinuous pace keep a lot of potential fans away from this game; as it is necessary to explain the rules during the live Super Bowl transmission every year. The success of basketball and soccer in China has much to do with the easily learned rules and the sensory stimuli of the fast, continuous pace of these games, and also with how they attract fans from different social classes. Not only is an “NFL Yao Ming” needed for American football in China, a “Chinese Walter Camp” is needed perhaps even more. Known as the “Father of American Football,” Walter Camp brought football to American colleges a century ago. Today in China, High-end equipment, complex rules and tactics, and tense clashes are the barriers that stop football from expanding participation. China needs a Walter Camp who can modify the sport to a game that can be easily learned and accepted by the Chinese people, while maintaining the original game spirit of solidarity. The game needs more young participants, especially from working-class families. Talented players in high schools and colleges could become the source of new players in the higher leagues, and will also provide a generational base with potential broad market appeal. Indeed, playing football has gradually become a sign of fashion in the younger generation. Football has a high entertainment component and the corporate sponsorship of the sport provide an unlimited potential of the domestic sports market.

Further Reading American Game of Football: Some Comparisons with Rugby. (1917, November 27). North China Daily. Tues, 1917.11.27:8. p. 8. Beam, Christopher. (2014). “Year of the Pigskin.” Retrieved from https://newrepublic.com/article/117246 /chinese-football-my-season-chongqing-dockers Beijing lianmeng 北京联盟 [Beijing league]. Retrieved from http://www.010lm.com/roll/2016/0411 /1563469.html. CAFL fabu guanfang xiliesai saicheng jihua. CAFL 发布官方系列赛赛程计划 [The CAFL published the official plan of for the series schedule]. Retrieved from http://www.ganlanmedia.com.cn/xinwen /2016/0503/243.html. Chaojiwan jiang ying 50 zhounian qingdian, zhongguo chengle NFL bizheng zhidi. 超级碗将迎 50 周年 庆典，中国成了NFL必争之地 [The Super Bowl will be on the threshold of 50th its fiftieth anniversary, and China has become the battle ground for the NFL]. Retrieved from http://mt.sohu .com/20150915/n421199711.shtml Chengshiwan lianmeng shouci huiyi yuanman wancheng. 城市碗联盟首次会议圆满完成 [The first conference of the City Bowl League successfully finished]. Retrieved from http://www.citybowl.net/ ChinaBlitz. (2015). Ssaiji zhongguo bentu meishi ganlanqiu saiji guancha. 2015赛季中国本土美式橄榄球 赛季观察 [The 2015 season observation on American football in China in 2015]. Retrieved from http://weibo.com/p/1001603932666272577957?mod=zwenzhang

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Chapter Seventeen: American Football in China: A Story of Resurgence Di 50 jie chaojiwan zhongguo shoushilv chuang lishi, chao qianwan guanzhong kan zhibo. 第50届超级 碗中国收视创历史 超千万观众看直播 [The 50th Super Bowl’s 50’s rating in China made new his­ tory, more than 10 million people watched the live broadcast]. Retrieved from http://sports.ifeng .com/a/20160303/47676557_0.shtml Furen tongxun: Gai xiao tiyubu zhuban zhi meishizuqiu xiji bisai. 輔仁通訊：該校體育部主辦之美式足球 系際比賽 [Furen News: The Inter-department American Football Games held by the Sports Department of the School]. (1940). Yanjing News,s: 1940.7(17), p. 5. Ganlanqiu, menqiu, taiqiu, baolingqiu. 橄榄球、门球、台球、保龄球 [Rugby and football, gate ball, billiard, bowling]. Retrieved from http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node2/node2245/node4455/node 13485/node13555/node60880/userobject1ai15231.html Hu, Zhuqing. 胡竹青. (2014). Zhongguo ganlanqiu yundong de lishi jiyu yu zhanlue xuanze 中国橄榄球 运动的历史机遇与战略选择 [The historical opportunity and strategic options of Chinese rugby and football]. Doctoral Dissertation of Wuhan Institute of Physical Education. IFAF. (2015). World u19 Championship Heads to China. Retrieved on 8 Mai 2017 from http://ifaf.org /articles/view/1633 (http:/ifaf.org/articles/view/1633). Mailman. (2015). NFL Season Preview in China – How to Build on 2015. Retrieved May 8, 2017 from, http://www.mailmangroup.com/2015/09/nfl-season-preview-in-china-how-to-build-on-2015/ NAFL. (2017). About NAFL. Retrieved from http://www.nafl.cn/news_detail/newsId=75.html Nanyang Weekly (Nanyang Zhoukan 南洋周刊). (1923). 南洋周刊 [Nanyang Weekly]. 3(10), 72. NFL daxuewan shanghai luomu, chaojiwan chuanqi juxing xianchang hudong. NFL 大学碗上海落幕 超级 碗传奇巨星现场互动 [The NFL University Bowl closed in Shanghai, legend stars of Super Bowl took part in the interaction]. Retrieved from http://sports.163.com/15/1123/09/B93KQM0B00051CAQ .html Quanguo gedi meishi ganlanqiudui zonghe zuiqiang jieshao. 全国各地美式橄榄球队综合最强介绍 [A comprehensive introduction of Chinese American football teams]. Retrieved from http://bbs.hupu .com/10751537.html Shi, Liang. 史量. (1987). Ershi niandai Shanghai de ganlanqiu yundong 二十年代上海的橄榄球运动 [Rugby and American football in Shanghai in the 1920s]. Shanghai tiyu shihua, 9(17),, 15. Shi, Yifu史轶夫, and and Wang, Shu. 史轶夫,王舒. (2016). Daxue tui meishi ganlanqiu, qingnianzu shijiesai denglu dalu diqu. 大学推美式橄榄球 青年组世锦赛登陆大陆地区 [(The Uuniversitiesy promotes American football, and the World Championship for Youth gets aboard ion mainland China]). Retrieved from http://sports.qq.com/a/20160430/024565.htm Sina Sports. (2015). NAFL meishi ganlanqiu lianmeng zhengshi chengli. NAFL 美式橄榄球联盟正式成立 [The NAFL American football league is formally founded]. Retrieved from http://sports.sina.com .cn/others/rugby/2015-10-19/doc-ifxivsce6938506.shtml Zhang, Tianbai. 张天白. (1991). Zhongguo ganlanqiu yundong xiaoshi 中国橄榄球运动小史. [A brief history of rugby and American football in China]. Sports Culture Guide: 5(3), 47–-48. Zhao, Yan 赵炎. (2015). Suhang ganlanqiu julebu jiang jinxing “Tiantangwan” chengshi duikangsai. 苏杭 橄榄球俱乐部将进行”天堂碗”城市对抗赛 [The clubs from Suzhou and Hangzhou will hold the “Paradise Bowl” City Rivalry]. Retrieved from http://rugby.sport.org.cn/news/2015-05-08/470132.html Zhongguo bentu meishi ganlanqiu liansai--— -AFLC.中国本土美式橄榄球联赛——AFLC [The American Football League in China--— -The AFLC]. Retrieved from http://bbs.hupu.com/10731912.html Zhongguo ganlanqiu Xiehui. 中国橄榄球协会 [The Chinese Rugby Football Association]. Retrieved from http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=9l8Htb8VBVLjxDtUUaJ3Tpe_Jqp6-fgKGrVN-Ko-TCCayJ3pTXn XfmtlK5zKDpr-lOT-cISObWGtnxtGumfdzq Zhongguo meishi ganlanqiu lianmeng de bisai jiangzai shinei zhankai. 中国美式橄榄球联盟的比赛将在室 内展开 [The Games of the CAFL will be held in arenas]. Retrieved from http://news.meyet.com /article-113413-1.html Zong, Guyi .宗谷一. (2016). Zhongmei yundongyuan wei AFLC ganlanqiu juesai zaiju Shanghai. 中美运动员为 AFLC 橄榄球决赛再聚上海 [The Chinese and American players get together in Shanghai again for the AFLC football final]. Retrieved from http://sports.enorth.com.cn/system /2016/01/14/030756757.shtml

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Paul Rusch (1897-1979), the Father of Japan’s American Football.

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Chapter Eighteen: American Football in Japan Kohei KAWASHIMA Musashi University, Japan

The average American may not know that the Japanese play American football, yet it has a nearly century-long tradition in Japan. A linguistic survey suggests that, unlike baseball, football has not assimilated into Japanese culture, but it appeals to the Japanese because it symbolizes America. Despite concerns about its future popularity due to competition from sports like rugby, with dedicated supporters Japan’s American football tradition may continue to develop into a major sport. Keywords: Japan, acculturation, Paul Rusch, rugby, bowl games, club teams, company teams, high school teams, college teams, World Cup, Koshien Bowl, Rice Bowl, American Bowl, Japan X Bowl, X-League, Super 9, Battle 9, Obic Seagulls, Colby Cameron, Kwansei Gakuin

I

n Japan, the American version of football is usually called either American football (or “Ame-foot” in short) or American rugby (or “Ame-rug” in short), while the original version of “football” is usually called soccer, as it is in the United States. In other words, Japanese people do not normally use “football” independently to avoid confusion as to which of the two is being mentioned. American football in Japan is typically a boys’ or men’s sport, as it is in the United States, while girls or women commit to the game typically as cheerleaders, managers, “Ame-foot mums,” or spectators. The number of people playing American football in Japan is much smaller than those playing the nation’s top two games: baseball and soccer. Yet, as Kiyoyuki Mori (b.1964), head coach of the 2015 Japanese national team once said: “Honestly speaking, the typical American doesn’t know that Japan even plays football… Sometimes when we go over to the States and talk with people there, they are surprised to hear we play the game. They often ask things like, “Do you have the same rules?” (Japan News 2015, 16). As Mori implies, it is safe to say that Japanese people know American football a little better than the average American thinks that they do.

American Football Pioneers: Okabe and Rusch There are two men who were deeply involved in the origin of American football in Japan: Heita Okabe (1891–1966) and Paul Rusch (1897–1979). Okabe is known 315

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to be the first Japanese who played, coached, and wrote about the sport. For these roles, Okabe should be regarded as a pioneer. Rusch, on the other hand, took the lead in establishing Japan’s first American football association. For those efforts, Rusch rather than Okabe, would be later acclaimed as the “Father of Japan’s American Football.” Okabe was born in 1891 in Fukuoka in the southern island of Kyushu, and in 1917 he graduated from the Tokyo Higher Normal School. As a judo master, he was devoted to the promotion of Japan’s traditional martial arts and modern sports. At the Kodokan Judo Institute, he succeeded in being promoted from white belt to second-degree black belt by beating five opponents without interruption, and then to fourth-degree black belt by beating seven in a row. Okabe was also an expert in boxing, sumo, and tennis, while attaining to gain a reputation as a journalist, a writer, and a poet of waka—a form of classical Japanese literature. Okabe was, according to his biographer Hitoshi Kawaguchi, the former standing director of Japan’s National Football Association (NFA), a “renaissance-type multi-talented” person, who “shows his presence far more vividly through a rich accumulation of time even after his death” (Kawaguchi 2004, 6). At the age of twenty-five, Okabe went to the United States to study as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and played American football for the first time, under legendary head coach Amos Alonzo Stagg (1862–1965). Okabe wished to take the top position of quarterback, but Stagg assigned the Japanese beginner to left end and tackle. He immediately fell in love with the game to the extent that, he once wrote, it was “unfortunate I was not born in America” as he found himself a born football player (Kawaguchi 2004, 15). Okabe returned to Japan in 1920. He began to teach American football to fourth-year students at the Tokyo Normal School, to college students at the Tokyo Higher Normal School, and coached the track and field team of the faculties of agriculture and economics at the University of Tokyo. From 1923 to 1924, he took a position at the South Manchurian Railway and was assigned to inspect the sporting activities in selected Western countries. Okabe’s reports were published in the magazine Asahi Sports, a journal that had just begun to circulate, since March of 1923. In one of his reports, Okabe explained how American football was played, presenting illustrations and diagrams of the field, and offensive formations. His reports were put together into a book published as The Sports of the World in 1925, which is credited as Japan’s first guidebook on American football (Kawaguchi 2004, 27). During his career at the South Manchurian Railway, however, Okabe gradually lost touch with American football. As a result, the development of American football in Japan was left to an American, six years junior to Okabe. Paul Rusch was born in 1897 in Indiana. Having grown up in Louisville, Kentucky, he became a pious member of Christ Church Cathedral, and served with the US army in France during World War I. In 1923, Rusch went to Japan for rescue activities with funding from the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) immediately after the Great Kanto Earthquake that inflicted tremendous damage on the Tokyo region. In 1926, then Rikkyo University Chancellor John McKim (1852–1936), fascinated by Rusch’s talent in management and his enthusiasm for teaching, employed Rusch as a professor of economics. In 1934, Rusch gathered several faculty members and students to his residence at the university’s Building No. 5 for a meeting to establish the first collegiate league 316

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of American football in Japan, which was named the Tokyo Collegiate American Football League (TCAFL). Rusch took the position of the league’s chief director who raised funds, while Rikkyo’s physical education director, George Marshall, took over the management role. Most students who participated in the new league were nisei, a term that means second-generation Japanese-Americans. Many of them were not yet accustomed to a new way of life in Japan. They sought their raison d’être in initiating American football in Japan, a game already prominent as a top college sport in the United States, and one which reminded them of a pastime during childhood in their home country.

Early Years On 29 November 1934, the TCAFL, which consisted of officials, and students from Japan’s three leading private universities, Waseda, Meiji, and Rikkyo, was joined by one student each from Hosei University and Keio University, two schools that were planning to launch their own football teams. Comprising twenty-six members, the TCAFL team faced up against the twenty-one members of Yokohama Country and Athletic Club (YCAC) team at the Jingu Gaien Stadium, which was pre-war Japan’s most sacred ground for modern sports. It was Japan’s first official American football game. The YCAC team was composed mainly of Englishmen with experience in playing rugby. Although they had an advantage with larger and more powerful physiques, they had no experience of playing American football. Jun Hanaoka, Meiji’s freshman player who would later become the varsity’s head coach, remembered that the Japanese footballers played in a convivial mood without much feeling of nervousness (Hanaoka 1984, 35). It was Thanksgiving Day for the Americans, but a regular day for the Japanese. Still, the game attracted a sizable audience of approximately twenty-thousand, indicating that this American-born game, from the very beginning of its history, appealed substantially to sports-loving Japanese people. Guests of honor at the game included Emperor Showa’s young brother, Prince Chichibu (1902–1953), who was the imperial family’s leading sports patron. Joseph C. Grew (1880–1965), the American ambassador to Japan, made the opening address. The energetic and adolescent Japanese team unfailingly pressed against the senior YCAC team. The Japanese athletes scored a touchdown in each of the first two quarters, and two in the last, consequently triumphing with a score of 26-0. In 1935, an All Collegiate Japan team, consisting of top players from five universities, now including Keio and Hosei, grabbed the chance to play against top-level American college teams. In the spring of that year, the Asahi newspaper invited an All-American collegiate team to boost the game in Japan. The invitation also aimed at facilitating amicable relations between the United States and Japan, two nations unpropitiously building tensions on the diplomatic and military fronts. The US team took on three games against the All-Japan collegiate team and Meiji University. Japanese promoters also hosted ten exhibition games by two separate American teams. The All-Americans consisted of thirty-three athletes and two officials from football powerhouses, including the University of Southern California, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Oregon, the University of Washington, and Stanford University, among others. The American squad featured fourteen 317

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college football all-stars. The American side beat the Japanese opponents with a facile victory by scores of 71-7, 73-6, and 46-0. Waseda’s Motoyuki Inoue was taken to the hospital after one game due to damage to the stomach. He wrote, “I never forgot the severe pain I suffered.” The All-American team praised the Japanese rival, acknowledging that the Japanese had “played great, consistently showing a fierce fighting spirit despite the handicap of not having learned the basics” (Inoue 1984, 37). Moreover, in 1935 the first varsity team was established in Kansai, Japan’s western region, at Kansai University, which challenged two eastern contemporary rivals, Hosei and Keio, within the year. Kansai lost both games: 43-0 to Hosei and 23-0 to Keio. Japan’s first two interregional games left bitter losses in western Japan, but they certainly marked the beginning of an American football era for the region. In the winter of 1936, twenty players from season-champion Waseda University, runner-up Meiji University, and other colleges were organized for the All-Japan team to compete against US teams again, with Meiji head coach Michio Takeda and two team officials. Of the twenty players, nineteen were Japanese-Americans. This time they went on a tour to the United States funded by American benefactors. The Japanese footballers played against the All Southern California High Schools and Roosevelt High School, which was Hawaii’s top team of that season. The All-Japan team lost 17-6 to the Californians but tied in a scoreless game with the Hawaiians. Also in 1936, the collegiate league was renamed the Tokyo Collegiate Beishiki-Shukyu (meaning “American Football” but translated into Japanese and written in Chinese characters) League. This name change could imply a step toward cultural co-option, although the league membership still remained significantly American as 61 of 141 registered players (43 percent) were Japanese-Americans (JAFA 1995, 27). In January of 1938, the Japan American Football Association (JAFA) was established as the first nationwide official body governing the sport. Paul Rusch served as its first chief director. Two months later, JAFA set up the first East-West Exchange Game between Japanese teams. A crowd of about twenty-five-thousand spectators watched the East beat the West by 21-0. Also in this year, the radio broadcasting of American football games began by the NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai, or Japan Broadcasting Corporation in English). In the NHK-broadcasting tournament final, Meiji crushed Waseda by 26-0, winning its first victory in two years, and fourth overall. Takizo Matsumoto, Meiji’s chief director proudly said, “There are three things that constitute American football’s strength. The first is fighting spirit, the second is fighting spirit, and the third is teamwork. Love your alma mater. Go and win. I said so before the game to inspire the players. This is why we beat Waseda” (JAFA 1995, 28). In 1939, the JAFA invented a rule original to Japan. Since 1937, some newspapers had criticized nisei players for bringing a bucketful of drinking water to the gridiron and lying down in front of spectators, both of which the fans viewed as rude. Reflecting upon these opinions, the JAFA added prohibition to the rulebook: no carrying water on to the gridiron (JAFA 1995, 28).

The War Experience In September 1940, the JAFA was renamed Japan “Gaikyu (Armor Ball)” Association as the Japanese Empire began to view the United States as the most threatening 318

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hypothetical enemy in the impending war. The new name derived from the playing uniforms, which the Japanese associated with traditional samurai defensive wares. It was a policy of self-restraint by the football league in the fear that the old name with the enemy’s name in it would offend the military. An alternative name, koukyu (helmet-ball) was also proposed, but gaikyu was adopted because the image of armor could, they thought, represent the game better. In 1941, Kwansei Gakuin University, following Kansai University and Doshisha University, organized the third college team of the Kansai region, which was named “Kwansei Gakuin Patriotic Armor Ball Squad,” fully conveying the bellicose mood of the time (JAFA 1995, 29). On 29 March 1943, as the United States–Japan Pacific War entered its third year, the Ministry of Education banned American football along with baseball and ice hockey, which they labeled “enemy sports.” The Association attempted to maintain the game by remodeling the sport to what they call “Navy Fighting Ball,” a game that they wished to introduce in the navy’s training. In July of the same year, however, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy forbade all college sports and disbanded all their teams through an official edict.

Post-war Development After the war ended, American football came back to Japan. In the midst of reconstruction efforts from the war, General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964), leading the General Headquarters of the Allied Occupation of Japan (GHQ), endorsed sports, especially American sports, as a means to revitalize the defeated nation. In 1946, Japan’s first game at the high school level was held. The high school was still called “junior high school” as it had been in the pre-war system of intermediate education, but was soon to be renamed “senior high school” under the United States-led post-war educational reform. Japanese-American Peter Okada coached Ikeda Junior High School and Toyonaka Junior High School, both in Osaka, and Nara Junior High School in Nara. At the end of the same year, Toyonaka beat Ikeda in this first ever game between high schools (JAFA 1995, 31). In January 1947, the GHQ authorized the resumption of the National High School Baseball Championship at the Koshien Stadium, one of pre-war Japan’s most popular athletic events. Invigorated by this policy, Japan’s leading promoters of American football, particularly Mainichi newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Chikao Honda (1899–1980) and his men in Osaka, made up their minds to host the East-West College Championship, and named it the “Koshien Bowl.” The first Koshien Bowl was held at the Koshien Stadium in April of the same year. Keio University defeated Doshisha University by a score of 45-0. American football leaders in Tokyo were inspired by Osaka’s success in the Koshien Bowl and revived the East-West Exchange Game on 17 January 1948, and dubbed it the “Rice Bowl” after the Japanese staple food. The first Rice Bowl was held at the Jingu Gaien Stadium. Rusch showed up at the opening ceremony. He had been deported from Japan and repatriated to the United States during the war. Recently returned as a member of MacArthur’s general staff, he declared “Here we are again” in his congratulatory address, and then ceremoniously made the first kick-off of the game. The East overpowered the West, 33-0 (Hattori 1984, 42). 319

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Club teams began to be organized in the late 1950s and the first company-sponsored team, Mitsubishi Jushi, was established in 1961. More companies became involved and in 1971, the Japan Shakaijin American Football League was founded (“shakaijin” means a person in society who does not belong to a school). In 1984, which was the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of Japan’s first football organization, the Rice Bowl was reorganized into a championship game between the winners of the shakaijin and the college leagues. In the first new Rice Bowl, the college champion Kyoto University Gangsters beat the shakaijin champion Renown Rovers in a close game by 29-28. On this occasion, the Paul Rusch Cup was awarded to the winning team’s Yasuhisa Umezu, which was created as the most valuable player trophy of the national championship in honor of the father of American football in Japan.

Other Bowls, International Games, and the World Cup In 1970, the first high school championship was played, in which Kwansei Gakuin High School won against Japan University Sakuragaoka High School by a score of 35-0. This championship would be named the “Christmas Bowl” in 1989 and continues to the present day. In 1986, the National Football League (NFL) of the United States began the American Bowl as a pre-season exhibition game to propagate American football in foreign countries. The NFL held the first game in London in 1986, and then in the following years in twelve other major cities, including Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, Mexico City, Montreal, and Vancouver, and Japan’s two metropolises of Tokyo and Osaka. Japan hosted its first American Bowl in Tokyo in 1989. In total, Japan held this event twelve times in Tokyo and once in Osaka, making Japan the world’s most hospitable city to the NFL. In 1991, the NFL was also involved in the European market with the operation of the World League of American Football (WLAF). Japanese shakaijin players saw this European league as a short-cut to the NFL, and many of them successfully took part in it. The WLAF would be renamed the NFL Europe League in 1998. In 2005, however, the NFL’s strategic shift to China brought an end to the American Bowl. In 2007, NFL Europe also collapsed. In 1987, the Tokyo Super Bowl started as the championship game for the shakaijin No. 1 team. In 2003, it was renamed Japan X Bowl and has remained so ever since. In January 1989, the Epson Ivy Bowl was held in the Yokohama Stadium, in which a Japanese collegiate all-star team lost miserably 73-3 to William & Mary College. In December 1989, the game changed its format so that the Japanese team would confront an all-star team from the Ivy League in the United States. Seven games were played from 1989 to 1996, and the Ivy Leaguers won all, but with much closer scores than the inaugural game. The closest game was in 1995 when the Japanese lost to the Ivy Leaguers 20-10. Japan’s national team has also played in a series of international exhibition games. Among these, Japan defeated Hawaii’s all-star team 20-16 in the Japan-USA Bowl of 2005 at the Tokyo Dome. In 2009, Japan lost 19-3 to the “Fighting Irish Legends,” a team of former players from the University of Notre Dame also at the Tokyo Dome. In 2010, Japan’s national team visited Germany for the German-Japan Bowl, in which the Japanese won 24-14. 320

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The history of Japan’s association with American football cannot be complete without mentioning the International Federation of American Football (IFAF) World Championship or the World Cup, at least for the first two tournaments. Established in 1998, Japan had been playing an active role in the IFAF membership. Chief director of the Japan American Football Association, Eiji Sasada, for example, served as its first president. Sasada recalled that Japan’s high status in the global American football community could be partly ascribed to Japan’s victory over Finland on 3 August 1998 (Yagura 1998, 2). Finland had been a three-time consecutive winner of the European championship. Italy was the host to the first IFAF championship in 1999. Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Finland, and Australia participated, but the United States did not because of the war then occurring in Kosovo. Japan beat Mexico 6-0 in overtime in the final to win the first championship. Germany held the second championship in Stuttgart in 2003, again without the US team. Japan won against Mexico in the final for the second time, 34-14. Japan hosted the third championship at the city of Kawasaki. The US team participated for the first time—though without bringing NFL players. The United States beat Japan with a 23-20 overtime victory in the final. The US team also won the championships in the fourth (2011) and fifth (2015) IFAF games. At the 2011 Championship in Austria, Japan did not make the final for the first time, losing to Canada in the semifinals, but beat Mexico 17-14 to secure third place. At the 2015 Championship in Canton, Ohio, Japan ended as runner-up to the United States.

Playing Population Despite Japan’s achievements on the field and leadership role off the field in the IFAF, American football has not yet attained the position of a major sport. One concern shared among Japan’s over eighty-year-old American football community is the decline of its playing population. In the IFAF foundation year of 1998, the nation had about 20,000 American football players, the world’s second-largest population after the United States. That population, however, decreased to about 19,000 in 2011, and further dropped to 14,700 in 2013. By contrast, as research by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2011 reveals, the playing population of a sport and its proportion to the total population aged ten or older was 9.24 million (8.1 percent) for golf (including practice at a driving range), 8.12 million (7.1 percent ) for baseball (including playing catch) and 6.38 million (5.6 percent ) for soccer (including futsal) (MIAC homepage). The huge gap in participation rates between Japan’s most popular sports and American football, 19,000 (0.017 percent ), was obvious.

Levels of Play The American football community of Japan is uncommonly well organized with its institutional webs spreading across every part of the nation that could play the game. As stated before, IFAF’s first president was Japanese, as a well-ordered Japanese-style administration is highly respected among IFAF officials. This stable administrative structure embodies the national administration of American football in Japan. At the top of the national hierarchy resides the Japan 321

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American Football Association (JAFA). The JAFA branches into four segments: the National Football Association (X-League) for shakaijin teams, the Japan Collegiate American Football Association (JCAFA) for colleges, the Japan High School American Football Federation for high schools, and the Football Officials Association Japan. The X-League consists of three tiers of X, X2, and X3, in a way that is similar to the divisions of soccer leagues around the world. Highest-ranking teams in the lower tiers can ascend by winning playoffs against the lowest-ranking teams in the tier above it. X and X2 teams are grouped into three divisions of the east, the central and the west, each of which has five to six teams. The east and central divisions are composed of teams from eastern Japan, while the west consists of teams from western Japan. The X-League teams are also divided into two groups of nine each. The top-nine ranking teams from the preceding season (top three in each division) make up the Super 9. The lower nine teams comprise the Battle 9. The JCAFA has eight regional branches, each of which is administered by an association. Of these, the largest is the Kanto branch or the Kanto Collegiate American Football Association, which comprises ninety-six college and university teams. It is followed by the Kansai branch with fifty-three teams (including five for the six-player games, which are played by teams composed of only six players). Other branches include those at Hokkaido, Tohoku, Tokai, Hokuriku, Chushikoku, and Kyushu. The total JCAFA enrollment is an impressively numerous 211 teams. This figure amounts to approximately 27 percent of the nation’s 779 colleges and universities (MEXT homepage). Meanwhile, 138 schools in eastern Japan and 45 schools in western Japan or a total of 183 schools belong to the High School Federation. This figure amounts to approximately 4.8 percent of the nation’s 3,824 high schools. To motivate an even younger population to play in the future, the association also teaches flag football to about 270,000 pupils in about 2,300 elementary schools.

The X-League The X-League is composed of two types of teams: company teams and club teams. All of the X-Leaguers are amateurs, and thus not paid to play. The company teams belong to, or more precisely, are owned by a company, and the players are mostly its employees. On the other hand, the club team is supported by a sponsor or sponsors, in which the players are not necessarily employees of the sponsors. In many cases, however, one major company takes the role of the main sponsor and the team adopts that company’s name in return. The Obic Seagulls, which has won over fifteen national titles, including seven Rice Bowl championships, the most of any American football team in Japan, is a club team, although it was initially a company team owned by Recruit. The past thirty years have seen frequent disruption in the makeup of the league, reflecting the economic instability of the nation. The Fujitsu Frontiers, which won their firstever X-League title and first-ever Rice Bowl title in 2014, are among the few which remain company teams. During the late 1980s, many Japanese banks fielded teams. In the wake of the collapse of the stock market, however, the banks deliberately dissolved their teams 322

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The Fujitsu Frontiers currently dominate the X-League with their three-year winning streak of the X Bowl, 2016-2018.

and by 2001, completed their withdrawal from the first tier. Two former X-League champions sponsored by apparel companies, Renown and Onward, disbanded their teams in 2003 and 2008 respectively, having suffered from the economic downturn in that industry. The X-League’s regular season starts in late August and runs through October. The playoffs are held in November, climaxing in the Japan X Bowl for the championship in December. In 2016 the Fujitsu beat Obic 16-3.

American Players in Japan Through the rule amendment of 2001, the X-League lifted its bar against foreign players, admitting up to four players on one team (but limiting them to two on each side of the ball, i.e., two on offense and two on defense). The league, however, did not remove its bar against those who had previously played professionally in the NFL. The foreign players, as with the Japanese players, are amateurs who are not paid to play, but are employed either by the owner company if it is a company team, or by sponsoring or affiliated companies if it is a club team. Foreign players have come from a variety of levels, including top division schools in the United States such as Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, UCLA, or the Ivy League. The first full-time American X-Leaguer was George Heather, defensive lineman from San Diego State, who played for the now-defunct Onward Skylarks. The first quarterback was Robert Sloan, who played for the Renown Rovers, which no longer exists. In 2004, Brad Brennan of Fujitsu, who was a wide receiver at Arizona University, became the first American All X-Leaguer. 323

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Defensive end Kevin Jackson (b. 1981) of the Obic Seagulls stood out more than any other foreign player. Jackson made the All X-League team for ten consecutive seasons since his 2005 debut in Japan. He also earned the league MVP award in 2005 and 2013. In 2012, the IBM BigBlue brought in Kevin Craft (b. 1985), who played quarterback (QB) at UCLA. Craft was one of two QBs to join the league that year (the first since 2002), and broke all of the league’s passing records. He led the team to the 2014 X Bowl. It was the first time in IBM’s football history that the company made it to the championship game. Fujitsu, on the other hand, was led by Colby Cameron (b. 1990), who was a record-setting QB at Louisiana Tech. Cameron also led the Frontiers to the Japan X Bowl. In the 2014 championship game, Fujitsu defeated IBM to grab their first-ever title. Fujitsu running back Gino Gordon (b. 1988), from Harvard, was acknowledged as the MVP. Other successful American X-Leaguers over the past decade include defensive back Al-Rilwan Adeyemi from San Diego, defensive back BJ Beatty from Colorado, offensive lineman Frank Fernandez from Harvard, defensive back Reggie Mitchell from Nevada-Reno, and tight end John Stanton from St. John’s, Minnesota.

Limit of Cultural Cooptation The existence of a game’s basic terms in the Japanese vocabulary represents one meaningful way to measure the depth of a sport’s rootedness in Japan and its culture. According to Robert Whiting (b. 1942), the American journalist and best-selling author who undertook a perceptive comparative examination of American baseball and its Japanese equivalent yakyu, this Japanese version developed into an utterly different game from the baseball that Americans had played. This was because, in the Meiji era when baseball was introduced, the Ministry of Education “regards the American-born ball game as a useful tool to develop the Japanese national character” (Tamaki and Whiting 1991, 4). Whiting contends that when the Japanese translated the term baseball into yakyu, they made it a part of Japanese culture and fundamentally transformed it. Whiting concludes that the translation of the name reflects the fundamental change of a sport (Whiting 2006, 43). Whiting’s argument can be applied to American football to examine the extent of the game’s acculturation. Today, as mentioned earlier, American football is usually called amerikan-futtobouru, which is the phonetically accurate version of the English name in Japanese writing and accent. Furthermore, as stated above, at the beginning of the first Japanese-American football association’s history, Rusch and others named it the Tokyo Collegiate American Football League. Like baseball, however, the Japanese renamed American football with the Japanese word gaikyu in 1940. This implies that a shift in cultural appropriation was underway, but this word only lasted briefly because of the war’s interruption. Using the Asahi newspaper search engine Kikuzo Visual that contains a database of the newspaper’s pocket edition from 1879 to 1999, one can measure the frequency of the appearance on its news stories of yakyu, besubouru (baseball), gaikyu, and amerikan-futtobouru during these years. The term yakyu was used throughout the years, suggesting that yakyu as a sport is deeply embedded in Japanese culture with the term being widely used as part of the daily vocabulary. The term besubouru was 324

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used more often in pre-war years. Its use as both a word and a sport decreased considerably during the post-war years. In contrast, the term gaikyu was used only during the period from 1940 to 1944, which covered the years from the term’s invention to one year beyond the prohibition of American football by the imperial edict. In the other years, this term never appeared in the newspaper. The term amerikan-futtobouru was used throughout, but with rising frequency from the past to present. American football remained as amerikan-futtobouru, and its Japanese translation gaikyu did not, unlike yakyu which has penetrated into the Japanese vernacular, implying a limit to the cultural appropriation of football in Japan. This comparative analysis of the English and Japanese names of the two major sports reveals baseball and American football in contrasting positions. The data have shown the widespread and consistent use of yakyu and a very limited use of gaikyu. It suggests, therefore, that if baseball is the sport deeply assimilated into Japanese culture, as Whiting suggests, American football has not followed suit.

Publications about American Football The search engine Webcat Plus for recent book publications from 2010 to the present run by the National Institute of Informatics shows twenty-four hits for the keyword “American football,” twenty for “NFL,” and five for “Super Bowl.” The total is forty-nine. This means that Japan’s publishing companies have produced forty-nine books in Japanese about American football since 2010. Only a handful of them probe into the game’s cultural and historical aspects, however. If these books are categorized into seven genres, namely, “directory/season outlook,” “nonfiction/ self-enlightenment,” “guidebook/introduction/rulebook,” “business/management,” “association/university memorial,” “academic/scholarly,” and “novels,” the number of books in each genre suggests how much and what kind of information Japanese readers can derive from America’s most popular sport. The genre with the most entries is “directory/season outlook” (thirteen), followed by “nonfiction/self-enlightenment” (twelve) and “guidebook/introduction/ rulebook” (twelve), “business/management” (seven), and “association/university memorial” (three). Only one entry pertains to each of “academic/scholarly” and “novels.” The “academic/scholarly” entry is the Japanese version of Alan Tomlinson’s The World Atlas of Sport (Maruzen 2012). This book only assigns two pages to American football, however, in the section titled “Sports A to Z,” as one of thirty modern sports. “Sports A to Z” serves as an encyclopedic guide to modern sports. Touchdown Corporation, which publishes Japan’s oldest American football magazine, lists thirteen books as the company’s recent publications on its homepage. Most of the books are introductions or guidebooks, except for Iza Iza Iza (Hurray, Hurray, Hurray), which is a biographical documentary that traces the lives of Kwansei Gakuin University players, and Sadao Goto’s Common Sense of the NFL, which is a cultural study with a collection of episodes about the NFL. At the beginning, the author argues that “a sport is a culture, and into American football, American culture is condensed.” He insists that “unless we understand the sport’s philosophy and culture that underlie it, we can never diffuse its skills and rules accurately” (Goto 2010, 4). Insufficiency in the publication of academic or scholarly books implies that Japanese authorship on American football has not yet satisfied the standards set by Goto. 325

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Accidents and Risk Awareness In November 2016, one high school athlete in Osaka, who belonged to the powerhouse Kwansei Gakuin High School American football squad, was hit hard on the head during a game at the national tournament, fell unconscious, and died of acute subdural hematoma four days later. This was only one of a series of accidents that have threatened the health and even lives of Japan’s young players. According to the school, the student complained to the team’s trainer, saying “My head hurts,” two days before the game, but on the day he said “I am OK,” so they let him participate. Kwansei Gakuin High School has one of the most traditional and strongest high school teams with eighteen victories at the national tournament. One of the school’s trustees said, “We apologize for the death of a student with a bright future. We would like to take every possible measure so that such an accident never occurs again.” Japan’s American football community has increasingly recognized the risk of playing American football. The 2016 translation of Jeanne Marie Laskas’s best-selling Concussion has also raised awareness of the danger of playing the game among Japan’s general public. Concussion is based on a true story about a Nigeria-born doctor who confronted the gigantic NFL alone to protect the lives of American football athletes. The book is rated 3.7 (out of 5) on Amazon Japan’s reviews. Many Japanese cinema lovers have also seen its movie version, starring Will Smith (b. 1968), during its 2015 roadshow season and since then on video. The movie received a high rating of 3.72 (out of 5) on Yahoo! Japan Movies.

Rivalry with China China’s economic growth could have caused American football’s stagnation in popularity for the Japanese in the recent past. Although China had attracted the NFL as a huge potential market in the mid-1980s, the success of basketball, another American-invented game, directed a renewed focus on the world’s most populated nation. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the National Basketball Association (NBA) succeeded in recruiting Yao Ming (b. 1980), a Chinese star player in the Houston Rockets, who at seven feet, six inches tall, played center from 2002 to 2011. Inspired by the NBA’s strategy, the NFL launched its own campaign to dig into China’s massive population for both spectatorship and athleticism soon after the turn of the century. China captivated the NFL with the potential promise of many gifted athletes with a height of over two meters, or six feet and eight inches. The NFL began coaching programs for flag football, which is a preparative version of American football, at junior high schools in large cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue (b. 1940) stated in 2005 that he “wished to hold two pre-season games immediately before the Beijing Olympics in 2008” (Yuri 2005). In 2005, the NFL discontinued the American Bowl, which Japan had hosted more often than any other major city in the world. It also dissolved NFL Europe in 2007, which had accumulated deficits that cost an average of $30 million per season. Later, pre-season games in China were postponed to 2007, renamed as the “China Bowl,” and eventually cancelled for reasons never formally announced. NFL International Vice President Gordon Smeaton left an ambiguous message when he admitted their plan’s cancellation, saying that the league had “confronted situations in China that they wouldn’t in other countries, which took them too much time to 326

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deal with” (Miyata 2007). The NFL’s China strategy, however, gave birth to China’s first NFL player, Ed Wang (b. 1987), who joined the Buffalo Bills in 2010, which is an achievement Japan’s American football community has not experienced yet.

Rivalry with Rugby A recent and unprecedented rugby boom has also challenged and raised concerns from Japan’s American football community. American football leaders in Japan are anxious about the growing interest in rugby that could potentially curb the development of American football in the nation. According to aforementioned 2011 data on sports participation, rugby’s playing population is more than six times larger than that of American football: 122,368 vs. roughly 19,000 (MIAC homepage). In addition, one single game in the 2015 Rugby World Cup stirred Japanese fans’ interest, causing a record-breaking boom in the game. In this match, Japan, ranked thirteenth in the world, brought off an unexpected win against two-time world champion South Africa, then ranked third in the world, by a score of 34-32. This upset marked Japan’s first World Cup victory in twenty-four years, since a 1991 victory over Zimbabwe. Japan failed to proceed to the final round of the tournament, but the Japanese national rugby side successfully produced star players such as Ayumu Goromaru (b. 1986), Kotaro Matsushima (b. 1993), and others, further enhancing the game’s popularity through frequent media exposure. Rugby’s popularity boom goes on. The Top League, which is Japan’s top-level corporate league, has experienced an amazing increase of 39 percent in spectatorship. The national rugby team has risen to eleventh in the world as of November 2016. Moreover, Japan will host the rugby World Cup in 2019, in all probability further fueling the game’s popularity. Rugby’s enhanced popularity could lead to declining participation in American football as high school and college students prefer rugby during the recruitment process. The recent sudden rugby boom, however, also indicates that once one game attains enormous international fame with an impressive victory, its popularity can quickly swell. There is no reason this could not happen with American football in the near future.

Human Network and Commitment The human resources that fill the organizational networks of American football in Japan are supplied mainly by old boys (OBs) of university and corporate squads, who are extensively connected with leaders of Japanese politics and business. Sadao Goto, the founder of Touchdown, Japan’s oldest American football periodical represents a quintessential Japanese football promoter. He was born in Tokyo in 1943, and played American football at Keio High School and Keio University. He has been devoted to writing about American football through his journal and taking part in Japanese television broadcasts of the sport. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (b. 1959) had expressed his appreciation to Goto by naming him as Japan’s “great ambassador” of the sport (Goto 2010, 3). Photo-journalist Tak Makita is another example. He was a Seattle-born Japanese American, studied and played football at Kwansei Gakuin University, winning 327

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the Koshien Bowl championship in 1953 and 1954, and supplied first-hand information about the game to readers as a regular contributor to Touchdown. Other ardent devotees of the sport include Makoko Ohashi (b. 1965), a senior advisor to the Obic Seagulls. As the team’s head coach in 2015, Ohashi promptly announced prior to the 5th IFAF World Championship his “dream” of defeating the US team. If Japan would win against the US team, Ohashi speculated, the accomplishment of that “challenge will open the next door.” He proclaimed, “we will try again, again, again to make it bigger” (Japan News 2015, 16). The national team’s head coach Kiyoyuki Mori agreed, arguing that “it won’t happen right away, it might take five years, or 10 years, or even be 50 years away” to beat the Americans. Still, the coach never gives up, saying, “all we can do on the field is try to keep producing results” (Japan News 2015, 16)

The Future of American Football in Japan Japan’s efficient human and institutional networks with their adept, committed, and diligent staff members hold out the hope that Japan’s national team can someday conquer its US counterpart in the IFAF World Championship. This victory could bring about an unprecedented American football boom similar to that of rugby. If that happened, then amerikan-futtobouru could win the position of a major sport in Japan, while keeping its international position as an American football power. Such a day may belong to a not-too-distant future.

Further Reading Araki, K. (2016). Ragubi Nihon Daihyo wo Kaeta “Kokoro no Kitae-kata [“Mental coaching” that changed Japan’s national rugby team]. Tokyo: Kodansha. Ariyoshi (Special Correspondent). (1976). 8500 mannin ga terebi kansen: Supabouru Sutiirazu kaisho [85 million watched TV: Steelers victorious in the Super Bowl]. Asahi Newspaper. January 20. Asami, T. et. al. (Eds.). (1984). Gendai Taiiku Supotsu Taikei vol.25 Ragubi, Amerikan Futtobouru [Contemporary physical education and sports vol.25 Rugby, American Football]. Tokyo: Kodansha. Asahi Newspaper Kikuzo Visual (search engine). Associated Press. (1975). Kaigai tanpa: Takkuru wa iyayo [Short wave from abroad: No tackle, please]. Yomiuri Newspaper. January 15. Goto, S. (1991). Supa Bouru: Purofesshonaru Futtobouru Nyumon. [The Super Bowl: Introduction to professional football]. Tokyo: Touchdown. Goto, S. (2010). Common sense of the NFL. Tokyo: Touchdown. Hamuro, T. (1984). Haisen kara fukkatsu he: Koshien Bouru tanjo [From defeat to recovery: The birth of the Koshien Bowl]. Japan American Football Association (JAFA) Kagirinaki Zenshin: Nihon Amerikan Futtobouru 50 Nenshi [Limitless progress: Fifty years of Japan’s American football] (Tokyo: Japan American Football Association), 40–41. Hanaoka, J. (1984). Nihon futtobouru tanjo no shiai: Showa 9 nen 11 gatsu 29 nichi jingu gaien kyogijo [The birth game of Japan’s football: November 29 of the 9th year of Showa at Jingu Gaien Stadium]. JAFA, Kagirinaki Zenshin, 34-35. Hattori, S. (1984). Oorusutasen no saikai: Kanto deno Fukkatsu [The resumption of the All-Star game: Recovery in the Kanto area]. JAFA, Kagirinaki Zenshin, 42–43. Hopsicker, P., & Dyreson, M. S. (2006). Super Bowl Sunday: An American holiday? Encyclopedia of American holidays and national days, 1. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. Ihara, A. (1996, January 28). Asu NFL Supabouru Kauboizu vs. Sutirazu [NFL Super Bowl Tomorrow Cowboys vs. Steelers]. Yomiuri Newspaper. Ikushima, J. (2007, February 17). Yomi toku supotsu beikoku ga Chugoku ni Daisekkin [Reading and explaining sports: America drastically approaches China. Asahi Newspaper.

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Chapter Eighteen: American Football in Japan Inoue, M. (1984). Tanjo Chokugo no Nichibei koryu: Zenbei Senbatsu Rainichi to Beikoku Ensei [Japan-US exchange immediately after the birth: All-Americans’ visit to Japan and All-Japan’s US tour]. JAFA, Kagirinaki Zenshin, 36–37. Japan American Football Association (JAFA). (1984). Kagirinaki Zenshin: Nihon Amerikan Futtobouru 50 Nenshi [Limitless progress: Fifty years of Japan’s American football] (Tokyo: Japan American Football Association). Japan American Football Association (JAFA). (1995). Dodotaru Zenshin: Nihon American Fottobouru 60 Nenshi [Remarkable progress: 60 years of Japan’s American football]. (Tokyo: Japan American Football Association). JAFA Homepage. Retrieved December 25, 2016, from http://americanfootball.jp/ Japan News. (2015). Japan aims to earn title, respect at worlds. Japan American Football Association (JAFA). (2015, June 24). Japan aims to earn title, respect at worlds. Kanner, B. (2003). The Super Bowl of advertising: How the commercials won the game. Princeton: Bloomberg Press. Kawaguchi, H. (2004). Okabe Heita shoden: Nihon de saishono Amerikan fottobouru shokaisha [A short biography of Okabe Heita: Japan’s first introducer of American football]. Amagasaki: Kansai Fottobouru Kyokai. His homepage at [http://kawaguchi-kgfighters.sblo.jp/]. Retrieved June 13, 2017. Kumazawa, T. (2013). The Introduction of American Football into Japan and Tokyo Higher Normal School [in Japanese], Hitotsubashi annual of sport studies 32, 44–53. Kumazawa, T. (2015). Sport Diplomacy and Japanese-American Friendship in Japan: A Case Study of American Football in Japan between 1933 and 1937 [in Japanese], Japan Journal of Sport Sociology 23(1), 63–80. Larmer, B. (2005). Operation Yao Ming: The Chinese sports empire, American big business, and the making of an NBA superstar. New York: Gotham Books. Makita, T. (1991). Jibun hitori no NFL futtobouru [NFL Football only for myself]. Tokyo: Touchdown. MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). Retrieved December 25, 2016, from http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/shinkou/genjyo/021201.htm Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Heisei 23nen shakai szeikatsu kihon chosa (seikatsu koudou ni kansuru kekka) [2011 Social life basic research (Results on Daily Activities)]. Retrieved December 24, 2016, from http://www.stat.go.jp/data/shakai/2011/gaiyou.htm Miyata, K. (2007, July 9). (Warudo Supotsu 2007) Beipuro chugoku e Nesshisen kyodai shijo ni shojun ugoki zokuzoku [(World Sports 2007) American professional sports’ eager look at China, targets at its large market with many new projects]. Asahi Newspaper. Mori, K. (2011). Amerikan fottobouru no kisogijutu [American football basics]. Tokyo: Touchdown. National Institute of Informatics. Webcat Plus. Retrieved December 25, 2016, from http://webcatplus.nii.ac.jp/ Niwa, K. (2010). Iza Iza Iza: Kangaku Amerikan no Nakama tachi [Now now now: Teammates of the Kwansai Gakuin University American Football Team]. Tokyo: Touchdown. Ogawa, T. (1984). Nihon futtobouru no chichitachi: Tanjo no omoide [Fathers of Japan’s football: Memories of its birth]. JAFA, Kagirinaki Zenshin, 32–33. Ohashi, M. (2011). Yokuwakaru Amerikan fottobouru [Beginners’ introduction to American football]. Tokyo: Jitsugyonotomo,. Oriard, M. (2007). Brand NFL: Making and selling America’s favorite sport. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Sakakibara, K. (2015, July 8). Dato bei buki ha joho ryoku genchijin tsukai senryoku bunseki Amefutto sekaisenshuken 9 nichi kaimaku [Beat America information as weapon strategy analysis with local human network American Football World Championship Open on 9th]. Asahi Newspaper. Tamaki, M., & Whiting, R. (1991) Beisbouru to Yakyu do Nichibeikan no Gokai wo Shimesu 400 no Jijitu [Baseball and the way of Yakyu: 400 facts that reveals misunderstanding between Japan and America]. Tokyo: Kodansha. Tomlinson, A. (2011). The atlas of sport: Who plays what, where, and why. Brighton: Myriad Editions. Top League. Retrieved December 24, 2016, from http://www.top-league.jp/ Whiting, R., & Midori M. (for translation). (2006). Yakyu wa Beisbouru wo Koetanoka [Has Yakyu Transcended Baseball?]. Tokyo: Chikuma. World Rugby. Retrieved December 24, 2016, from http://www.worldrugby.org/ Xu, G. (2008). Olympic dreams: China and sports, 1895–2008. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Yagura, K. (1998, November 20). [Supotsu Maindo] Amerikan Fottobouru: beikoku igai niha makerarenu [[Sports mind] American football no defeat except by US]. Mainichi Newspaper. Yamanashi Nichinichi Newspaper. (2004). Kiyosato no Chichi Poru Rasshu Den—Do your best and it must be first class [Father of Kiyosato, biography of Paul Rusch—Do your best and it must be first class]. Kofu: Yamanashi Nichinichi Newspaper. Yuri, H. (2005, May 14). Bei prosupotsu, chugoku ni Shojun NFL to NBA [American professional sports target China: NFL and NBA. Asahi Newspaper.

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Chapter Nineteen: American Football’s Pacific Connections Joel S. FRANKS San José State University

A tool of colonialism, football’s Pacific connections propelled Hawaiians, Samoans, and Tongans across often troubling cultural borders. A source of upward mobility and pride for some of the more talented Pacific Islander players, football has not significantly relieved the social-economic pressures facing many Pacific Islanders in the American empire. Moreover, football glory has failed to lead Pacific Islanders away from racism and, for some, profound personal tragedy. Keywords: colonialism, football, Guam, Hawai’i, local culture, masculinity, Pacific Islanders, Polynesians, Samoa, Tonga

T

he Heisman Trophy symbolizes unmatched US college football excellence for the top individual player in a particular year. Given the popularity of elite college football in the United States, it has reigned as one of the most coveted awards bestowed on an individual in American sport. In 2014, the Heisman Trophy was awarded to Marcus Mariota (b. 1993), a quarterback for the University of Oregon. The choice made history as Mariota became the first Hawaiian resident and the first person of Pacific Islander ancestry to receive the trophy. In his acceptance speech, Mariota clearly recognized his Pacific connections. He declared: In Hawaii, if one person is successful the entire state is successful. I’m just grateful to be a part of it. I hope this is just the beginning and that a lot of kids back home are inspired to succeed….It’s been a journey, but I couldn’t have done it without my boys back home, my family and my teammates. My boys back home were the ones who believed in me. Without them I wouldn’t be standing here today. This isn’t just a one-person deal, there’s a lot of people who have put their heart and their hard work into it. (SB Nation College News, 2014) In closing, Mariota, not only unsurprisingly thanked his parents for their support, but added, “To the Polynesian community, I hope and pray that this is only the beginning. Young Poly athletes everywhere, you should take this as motivation, and 331

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dream big and strive for greatness,” ending with “Fa’afetai tele lava, God bless, and go Ducks” (SB Nation College News, 2014). This is not the first time an esteemed athlete reflected upon his connection to an ethnic community; nor, of course, will it be the last. But the Heisman Trophy going to Mariota and his acceptance speech tell an important story about race and ethnicity in American football. That is, since the 1970s, followers of American football have encountered the growing presence of football players with ethnic connections to the Pacific Islands on many of their favorite teams. Often bearing names that many on the mainland cannot easily pronounce, football players who have traced their ancestries to places like Hawai’i, Samoa, Tonga, and Guam have often achieved acclaim as football stars. Yet the dominant American culture has generally failed to acknowledge that Pacific Islanders have significantly altered the racial dynamics of football; indeed, American sport in general. Most of us have settled for, although not always very comfortably, with the black-white dyad. Yet Marcus Mariota and the many football players with Pacific connections preceding him have complicated things and not always in a celebratory, “Isn’t it grand we gave that Samoan a trophy?” sort of way. That is, there are other, more troubling, stories to tell. A powerful offensive lineman for the great Dallas Cowboys teams of the 1990s, Mark Tuinei (1960–1999) possessed Samoan ancestry. In 1999, Tuinei was retired and living in Hawai’i. He hoped to become a high school football coach on the islands. Instead, he died of a drug overdose. Junior Seau (1969–2012) was arguably the greatest Samoan American football player of his time. An All-American linebacker at the University of Southern California (USC) in the late 1980s, Seau went on to become a fierce linebacker for the San Diego Chargers of the NFL. Not only was he recognized as an all-pro defender, but he was respected for his charitable activities in the San Diego area where he grew up. In 2012, two years after he retired from the NFL, Seau died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his chest. In retrospect, it is quite clear that all those concussions sustained while hitting and getting hit during his long stint in the NFL, not to mention the physical traumas he experienced at USC and before that at Oceanside High School, had much to do with the depression and terror he experienced in his last years and the ultimate choice to put an end to it all. But Seau’s tragedy and physical and emotional breakdown, also experienced by other elite football players regardless of racial and ethnic identity, should make us pause before celebrating Pacific Islander gridiron heroics. The cost may just be too high. Moreover, Pacific Islander football players have had to cope with an excessively masculinized image, imposed from without and within Pacific Islander groups. Perhaps this image has made it harder for Pacific Islander football players to handle the emotional and physically consequences of playing football over an extended period of time. Just as worrisome is that while some of their sons have gained acclaim for their football prowess, Pacific Islander communities suffer significant levels of poverty in the United States (Ramakrishnan and Ahmad 2014). In any event, it is striking that while we cheer Samoans and Tongans as they tackle and block and occasionally run, catch, and throw footballs, where they come from and what they experience as members of non-white, colonized ethnic groups remains largely invisible to the football-loving American public. Thankfully, scholars such as Ty Kawika Tengan and Jesse Makini Markham (Tengan and Markham 2009), as well as Rob Ruck (Ruck 2016), are trying to talk 332

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us down from acclaiming Pacific Islanders as either representative of a post-racial America or as football’s “model minority.” The Pacific connections linking American football to Hawai’i, Samoa, Tonga, and Guam were forged by colonialism, attended by racial and gender oppression as well as class exploitation. If those connections eventually encouraged significant and often joyful cultural border crossings and permitted football players from the Pacific Islands to gain fame and at least a modicum of fortune, that might warrant some rejoicing. But the people of these islands have not escaped colonialism and all that colonialism has entailed as their sons and brothers crash violently into one another and other sons and brothers on myriad football fields throughout the United States and its colonial possessions. And even if football could offer an escape from colonialism, it, as in the case of Tuinei and Seau, push participants toward perils just as ominous.

American Football in the Pacific Created in the late nineteenth century, American football’s Pacific connections both sustained and undercut American colonialism in the region. That is, on the one hand, it justified US benevolence and consumer capitalism among those living on various Pacific Islands. On the other hand, Pacific Islanders and non-indigenous, often Asian, “locals” were not necessarily pliable subjects of America’s “King Football.” They could see in the sport a way to express their own cultural agendas. Yet American colonialism advanced in the Pacific in diverse ways during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Accordingly, how American football planted itself in the Pacific varied, especially between Hawai’i and the other colonized islands.

Hawai’i In 1898, the United States officially dragged the Hawaiian Islands into its burgeoning empire. Decades before the turn of the twentieth century, however, American commercial, military, and spiritual influences had penetrated and sought domination in Hawaiian society. As early as the 1840s, the US government had proclaimed the islands as embraced by America’s sphere of influence. Meanwhile, American and children of American-born missionaries sought access to Hawaiian souls and then Hawaiian wealth in land. Called haoles by Native Hawaiians, they transformed much of the Hawaiian landscape into sugar plantations and recruited multiethnic labor forces of mostly Asian, but also indigenous, southern European, and Mexican workers. Agribusiness in Hawai’i, moreover, incorporated the cultivation of pineapples by the early twentieth century and non-agrarian enterprises such as shipping and tourism (Okihiro 2015, 35–36, 117–150, 221–265). Meanwhile, a “local culture” emerged out of the class, race, and ethnic dynamics on the islands as large-scale capital was largely possessed by Anglo-Americans while non-white Asian and those of indigenous descent forged an often contentious but generally stymied working class up to World War II. Fueled significantly by Hawaiian Creole, more widely known as Pidgin English, this local culture to some degree transcended the very real racial and ethnic differences among Hawaiian workers and other lower-income people. Accordingly, a multiethnic, multiracial 333

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labor and political movement emerged in post-World War II Hawai’i to eventually topple the haole oligarchy and ready the islands for statehood (Okihiro 2015, 221– 265; Takaki 1998, 132–179). Barefoot football represented some of the key elements of that local culture. Engaged in and watched by Hawaiians of indigenous, Asian, and southern European descent, barefoot football both paid tribute to and undercut America’s King Football that was not only worshipped on the US mainland but found plenty of support on the islands. There is no full-length, published study of barefoot football on the islands. But cultural historian Lauren Morimoto’s unpublished dissertation offers several noteworthy insights and details about the development of barefoot football on the island of Kauai’i before World War II (Morimoto 2005). Played throughout the islands in make-shift uniforms and without cleats, Hawaiian barefoot football followed the basic rules of the game as played on the mainland, while valorizing speed, improvisation, and deception more than the early twentieth century mainland version. In Hawaiian barefoot football, a ball might pass through different hands before it crossed the goal line; thus emphasizing a collective mentality on the part of the participants. On the mainland, coaches stressed military or mechanized precision, while inclement weather and muddy and snow-laden fields frequently dictated conservative, ponderous line plunges and third-down punts. The game was also more individualistic than on the islands, with plays calling for individuals to score touchdowns, with the help, of course, of blockers (Morimoto 2005; Watterson 2000). A plantation economy dominated Kaua’i, which was heavily populated by Japanese and Filipino laborers. Plantation management saw in organized sports a way to tame labor discontent and they saw in barefoot football a relatively inexpensive tool to do just that because participants would not need to be outfitted with costly uniforms. Barefoot football, moreover, appealed to participants because they would not spend what little money they had on helmets, shoulder pads, and cleats. Thus, regardless of the precise origins of barefoot football, working class and other lower-income, generally non-white, Hawaiians took ownership of the sport. Locals became league officers and coaches, as well as, of course, participants and spectators (Morimoto 2005). Barefoot football leagues on Kaua’i and other islands were organized into weight divisions, with 175 pounds usually the heaviest division. This meant that athletically inclined young, indigenous and Asian Hawaiian men not big enough to please high school football coaches might get a chance in the 135- or 120-pound weight divisions to show off their speed, dexterity, and toughness (Morimoto 2005). Post-World War II witnessed outbursts of labor disturbances that the plantation economy hoped to avoid. On Kaua’i and elsewhere, plantation management had used ethnic distinctions to keep the work force from uniting in a labor movement. The developing local culture, however, significantly undermined management’s “divide and control” tactics. And the multiethnic, multi-racial barefoot football teams propelled lower-class people across racial and ethnic borders to nurture local culture. Indeed, one of Kaua’i’s greatest barefoot players, Dyna Nakamoto (1921– 2014), was also a labor activist. Yet, in the case of Kaua’i, Morimoto points out, the labor movement’s success might have spelled eventual doom for barefoot football. Humbled planation management submitted to labor demands but the price was an end to its sponsorship of barefoot football, although Morimoto asserts that barefoot 334

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football remained popular on the “garden island” well into the 1950s (Morimoto 2005; Jung 2006).

Guam A colonial possession of Spain until the Spanish-American War, Guam was turned over to the American winners of that war. The US military governed Guam, while its residents were considered US nationals ineligible for US citizenship. During much of World War II, Japan occupied Guam until the US military took back the island in 1944. In the early 1950s, Guam became a US territory and Guamanian-born people were allowed (granted) US citizenship. Meanwhile, Guam was perceived as vital to US security in the East Pacific region. According to historian Bruce Cummins, the United States saw Guam as a “‘power projection hub’ on the edge of Asia” for the use of US military. Cummins adds, “The 160,000 residents of Guam are unlikely to [throw the United States out] since the island is an American territory—nor were they ever asked if they wanted to be a ‘power projection hub’” (Cummings 2010). During the second half of the twentieth century, scholar Vicente Diaz asserted, American football put down roots in Guam as a consequence of American empire (imperial?) maintenance. Diaz recalled playing for the Tamuning Eagles as a youth in Guam. The Eagles won an astonishing 125 consecutive games played throughout the Pacific Basin. Some of their victims were predominantly European-American squads. The Eagles, according to Diaz, were founded by racially and ethnically diverse Hawaiians possessing Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and European ancestry—Hawaiians who had sought employment with the US military occupying the island in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Many of these Hawaiians had played football on the islands before World War II and had sons on the Eagles. Possessing Filipino ancestry, Rocky Soriano, for example, stood out as the Eagles’ quarterback in 1971 (Diaz 2002). Guamanian football owed much to American imperialism in the Pacific, but, Diaz insisted, also to the Hawaiian “warrior’s tradition.” He remembered the Eagles’ battle cry was imua, which translates into “forward.” Imua, according to Diaz, provided a key element of the native Hawaiian Kamehameha School’s fight song—a legacy of the Hawaiian “warrior’s tradition” (Diaz 2002, 187). Accordingly, for Diaz, his team performed gender—in this case, masculinity. Diaz’s narrative described a complex masculinity, however, revealing in part an American masculinity of hyper-competitive, football physicality and in part a “Pacific Islander masculinity,” incorporating “music-making and merriment” and post-game generosity toward opponents. Diaz insists that Guamanian football represented something distinct from the American football worshipped by all those wishing to channel the famed, late professional coach Vince Lombardi (1913–1970) in the stands, the owners’ boxes, as well as the sidelines. Diaz remembered “the aloha that the Eagle ohana gave me that I have in return.” Echoing historian and journalist C.L.R. James’s analysis of colonized yet talented West Indian cricket players of the early twentieth century, Diaz also joyfully remembered, “[t]he rarest experience that colonized islanders can ever have: knowing what it means to be a winner at the colonizer’s own game” (Diaz 2002, 187; Gems, 2006, 130-133 James 1993) 335

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Samoa and Tonga Probably to most American football fans, Samoans and Tongans are pretty much the same people. To be sure, Samoa and Tonga experienced colonialism, but in distinctive ways. During the late nineteenth century, the Samoan islands tempted German, British, and American imperialists. The indigenous people of Samoa were not asked permission on the matter but, in 1899, Germany, Britain, and the United States worked out a division of the island. Consequently, American Samoa was governed under the aegis of the US military, although Samoans were allowed a semblance of political autonomy. Interestingly, while the United States granted Hawaiian- and eventually Guamanian-born people US citizenship, American Samoans still can only claim the lesser status of US nationals within the American empire. US Navy personnel, according to Tengan and Markham, introduced American football to Samoans before the 1950s. Stationed at Pago Pago, sailors played football with Samoans, many of whom were also recruited into a naval reserve unit called the Fitafita Guard. After World War II, the Interior Department took over direction of America Samoa and the government paid willing Fitafita Guard members to migrate to the United States. This all fed into what became known as “The Great Migration of 1952.” Many Samoans headed first to the then-territory of Hawai’i and eventually embarked for the Pacific Coast of the mainland. Preceding this, however, Samoans had been persuaded by Mormon missionaries as early as the 1920s to journey to La’ie on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. There, Mormons had constructed a prominent temple and cultural center, where Pacific Islanders surfaced as “labor missionaries,” who performed the needed construction work on behalf of the church. Yet whether in Hawai’i or Pacific Coast cities such as Seattle, Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Diego, Samoans familiarized themselves with American football. The early Samoan communities in Hawai’i and the West Coast were subsequently supplemented by Samoans joining the US military or seeking educational opportunities lacking on the island. Included among the latter were young men with football scholarships to gridiron factories such as the University of Southern California (USC) or the University of Washington. Meanwhile, what Tengan and Markham call the “Mormon Polynesian enclave” at La’ie nurtured talented football players for US mainland college teams, as well as the University of Hawai’i (Tengan and Markam 2009, 2416). Meanwhile, American football attracts participants and supporters on American Samoa. Tengan and Markham credit Vaughn Hawks, who taught at Mapusaga, a Mormon-run high school, for helping root American football on Samoa when he organized a game between Mapusaga and another Samoan school in 1963. Samoan American Al Lolotai (1920–1990) played an important role as well. Raised in Hawai’i, Lolotai became a college and professional standout on the mainland in the 1940s. Lolotai subsequently left professional football to become a prominent professional wrestler. But he retained an enduring link to Samoa. Thus, he returned to American Samoa to launch football camps and then served as athletic director for the colony’s Department of Education (Tengan and Markham 2009, 2416). Possessing the status of an independent kingdom, Tonga has been more a target of neo-colonialism than the direct colonialism inflicted on Hawai’i, Guam, and Samoa. To be sure, the Tongan islands attracted interest from imperial powers such as Britain and Germany. Nevertheless, the many islands of Tonga were united 336

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under the rule of one monarch in the mid-1800s. A few decades later, a constitutional monarchy emerged in Tonga. The British, however, sought successfully for a protectorate agreement with Tonga in the early 1900s. While Tonga is no longer a British protectorate, it lingers in the British Empire as a commonwealth member (Cooper 2016). Meanwhile, a neo-colonial relationship advanced between Tonga and the United States largely via Mormon missionaries. Upon arriving in Tonga, these missionaries hyped the American Dream along with Mormonism. In the process, they persuaded many Tongans to leave their homeland to work in La’ie, Hawai’i and the US mainland. And Tongans who journeyed to the mainland tended to live in and work around Salt Lake City, Utah (Cooper 2016). Given its association with the British Empire, it is not surprising that rugby emerged as a favored team sport in Tonga. Indeed, organized American football has been widely ignored in Tonga. A 2014 game of “gridiron football” was publicized as played between Tongan high school students, however. Tongan migrants to the United States also grew familiar with the popular American sport, while larger and more athletically inclined Tongan young men made their way onto high school and college teams (East/West Center 2014).

Making Pacific Connections, 1890s to 1960s For well over a century before Marcus Mariota accepted the Heisman Trophy, American football’s Pacific connections linked athletes from Oceana or those possessing Pacific Island ancestry to football fields on the US mainland. Demonstrating the impact of American culture on the Hawaiian Islands even before annexation, Native Hawaiian John Wise (1868–1937) sought schooling at Ohio’s Oberlin College after leaving Kamehameha, a school designed to educate indigenous Hawaiians. Wise performed as a lineman for the Oberlin football team in the early 1890s. After Wise’s return to Hawai’i, he supported Hawaiian sovereignty; an effort which led to his imprisonment after he protested the advent of the haole-backed Republic of Hawai’i (Williams 2012). A generation later, Noble Kauhane joined the football team of St. Mary’s College, abiding at that time in Oakland, California before moving to its permanent location in nearby Moraga. A standout running back for Punahou, a school originally intended to serve haoles but accommodating some non-haoles as well, Kauhane starred for St. Mary’s in the late 1910s and early 1920s. A handful of other Hawaiian football players joined Kauhane on the St. Mary’s squad. Upon returning to the islands, he took up high school coaching and public service. In the late 1940s, he went on record as supporting Hawaiian statehood, which at that time was surprisingly courageous since the reigning haole hierarchy displayed either reticence toward statehood or outright opposition (Franks 2010, 125; Horne 2011). During the 1930s, Hawaiian football players gained national prominence on mainland college teams. A scion of a relatively privileged Hawaiian family of mixed indigenous and Chinese descent, Gordon Chung-Hoon (1910–1979) starred as a halfback for the Naval Academy in the early 1930s (Chinese American Heroes 2012). Likewise possessing Chinese and Hawaiian ancestry, Walter McGuire scored touchdowns for the University of Wisconsin around the same 337

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time (Kopriva and Mott 2000, 59). On the Pacific Coast in the late 1930s, Bill Anahu was an all-Pacific Coast end for Sugar Bowl-champion Santa Clara University. Anahu would subsequently perish while fighting for his country during World War II (Franks 2010, 126). In the mid-1940s, St. Mary’s provided a home to the most famous Hawaiian football player of his time. Claiming an ancestral mixture of German, Chinese, and Native Hawaiian backgrounds, Herman Wedemeyer (1924–1999) ran, passed, and kicked his way into the hearts of many San Francisco Bay Area sports fans. “Little” St. Mary’s played “big time” football opponents from USC and the University of California, as well as military teams loaded with football players with professional and elite college football experience. Joined by other Hawaiians, Wedemeyer led St. Mary’s to a Sugar Bowl appearance in 1946 while gaining All-American honors (Franks 2010, 126–128). After his St. Mary’s career ended, Wedemeyer entered the ranks of professional football as a member of the professional Los Angeles Dons of the American Football Conference in 1948. He was not the first Hawaiian to play professionally on the mainland. That honor fell to Hawaiian-Chinese standout, Walter Achiu (1902– 1989), who performed with Dayton University in the mid-1920s and then played professionally for the Dayton Triangles and other professional teams. While Wedemeyer garnered probably the most fame (Franks 2010, 115–116), as it turned out, his professional career was brief and, to many, disappointing. It is true he was not the dazzling offensive performer that he was in college, but he demonstrated offensive versatility in his two years in the pros as well as defensive skills (Franks 2010, 119). Hailed by some as Wedemeyer’s equal, if not his superior, Hawaiian Japanese Wally Yonamine (1925–2011) joined the San Francisco 49ers, a professional team of the All American Football Conference (AAFC) in 1947. Given that less than two years had elapsed since V-J day and that California had served as ground zero for anti-Japanese animosity even before the war, Yonamine’s experiences in the Bay Area might have been expected to be bumpy. But the 49ers deserve some credit for taking a chance on a relatively unproven recruit, while the Bay Area press, though sometimes condescending, treated the Hawaiian with relative respect (Franks 2010, 128). A child of Maui plantation workers, Yonamine had starred in Hawaiian prep football during the war. After the war, he and a team of top-fight Hawaiian football players toured the mainland. They played college teams such as San Jose State and the University of Portland, and Yonamine astonished opponents and spectators with his football virtuosity. Seeking backfield speed and hoping to augment the then-new pro franchise’s fan base, the 49ers signed Yonamine (Franks 2010, 128). Yonamine impressed at the 49er training camp and pre-season, inter-squad games. But once the regular season began, he remained a fixture on the bench. The 49ers claimed that he was intimidated by the large crowds at San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium and the potential animosity of Bay Area fans. An injury suffered while playing baseball in Hawai’i dogged his efforts to make the team again in 1948 and he was quickly released in 1949 even though he had excelled in the comparatively talented Pacific Coast Football League for the Hawaiian Warriors. Yonamine would survive nicely, however, carving out an enviable baseball career in Japan as a player, coach, and manager (Franks 2010, 128–130). 338

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While the Pacific dispatched elusive running backs to mainland football fields, it also nurtured large linemen who stood out in mainland football in the 1940s and 1950s. Described as a plantation worker living with his Samoan parents in the 1940 US census, Al Lolotai (1920–1990) grew up in Hawai’i and then matriculated to Weber College in Idaho in the early 1940s. Joining Lolotai on the Weber squad was Hawaiian running back, Nelson Moku (“Weber College” 1942). Lolotai’s performance at Weber attracted the attention of the NFL’s Washington franchise, which recruited him for the 1945 season. In the process of becoming the NFL’s first player of Samoan ancestry, Lolotai showed promise as a rookie lineman. In 1946, however, the Los Angeles Dons lured him to the AAFC. And he remained with the Dons until the end of the franchise’s and the AAFC’s run after the 1949 season (Tengan and Markham 2009, 2416). During the 1950s, Hawaiians Charley Ane (1931–2007) and Herman Clark (1930–1989) were, by the standards of the time, hefty young men, closer to 300 than 200 pounds, but they were also very good. A graduate of Honolulu’s famed Punahou High School, Ane was part of an interesting, post-World War II movement of Hawaiian football players to Southern California. There, they would compete for a year or two for a junior college in the Los Angeles area and then, if good enough, move on to four-year schools (Franks 2010, 119). Ane enrolled at Compton Junior College, which also enticed fullbacks Sal Naumu and Harold Han from the islands. All three took their football skills a short hop to USC. For the Trojans in the early 1950s, Ane stood out as both a crushing blocker and tackler; he even played quarterback in the Trojans’ single-wing offense, in which he had to carry a large portion of the blocking burden. Claiming Hawaiian, Samoan, Chinese, and Irish ancestry, Ane left USC for the pros with one year of eligibility left. For the rest of the 1950s, he bounced between offensive tackle and center for the Detroit Lions in the NFL. And no matter which position he played, Ane managed to be an all-pro. Returning to the islands in 1960 rather than joining the first-year Dallas Cowboys, Ane began a long career of high school coaching (Franks 2010, 133; Lewis 2007). Herman Clark, also a graduate of Punahou, was the son of a Hawaiian police officer who also excelled in football and basketball. Indeed, Clark, Sr. played as a lineman for the famed multi-ethnic Honolulu Town team in the 1920s. Clark Jr. and his brother, Jim, headed to Oregon State University, which had previously been a destination for notable pre-World War II Hawaiian football players, “Honolulu Henry” Hughes and Harry Field. Heavier than Ane and perhaps just as impressive, Herman Clark excelled for the Oregon State Beavers and wound up drafted by the NFL’s Chicago Bears. As a pro, Clark joined Ane as one of the finest offensive linemen in the 1950s (Kwon 2000; Franks 2010, 133). Big time college football programs such as Purdue, Stanford, and Oregon State featured Hawaiian offensive stars in the 1950s. A son of a talented Hawaiian athlete of Chinese and indigenous ancestry, John Kerr was a star end for Purdue, catching passes from the illustrious Len Dawson (Kerr 2016). Al Harrington was an exciting running back for Stanford in the mid-1950s. Possessing Samoan ancestry on a campus not then known for cultural diversity, Harrington attracted plenty of press attention for his supposed exoticism. He subsequently claimed that his coaches were not enamored with his skin color (Franks 2000; pbshawaii.org 2014). A Kamehameha High School graduate in Hawaii, Joe Francis (1936–2013) headed to Corvallis, Oregon where he emerged as a versatile tailback in Oregon State’s single wing offense. 339

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After winning the Pop Warner Award symbolic of the best football player on the Pacific Coast in 1957, Francis moved on to the Green Bay Packers of the NFL where he vied for quarterbacking time. Perhaps because he had limited experience as a T-Formation quarterback and perhaps because Bart Starr proved better, Francis finished his professional career in Canada after an injury further limited his opportunities with the Packers (Joe Charles Naekauna “Joe” Francis, Jr. 2013) Michigan State University recruited talented Hawaiian players in the 1960s and 1970s. Tommy Kaulukukuia (1913–2007), a Hawaiian-Chinese player famed as a great all-around athlete at the University of Hawai’i (UH), had helped connect the islands to East Lansing, Michigan when he went to graduate school at Michigan State after his stint of coaching football at UH ended in the early 1950s. Fittingly, one of Kaulukukui’s nephews, Dick Kenney, was recruited as a barefoot place kicker in the 1960s. Possessing Samoan ancestry, Bob Apisa was a line-busting fullback and Jim Nicholson a fine lineman for the Spartans. Teammate Charley Wedemeyer (1946–2010) was Herman Wedemeyer’s younger brother. Flashing brilliance at Punahou, he headed to Michigan State. There, he proved a versatile back for Duffy Daugherty’s squad. Deciding on a career as an educator and liking the Bay Area, Wedemeyer took up teaching and coaching at Los Gatos High School in what is now Silicon Valley. A successful coaching career was sidelined by Wedemeyer’s struggle with ALS. But he fought a brave, long, and inspirational battle with the dreaded disease before succumbing to its determined grip in 2010 (Franks 2010, 134).

Questioning the Connections, 1970s to the Present During the 1970s, America’s sporting press acknowledged a developing cohort of Pacific Islander football players on various high school and college rosters, primarily on the West Coast. The Los Angeles Times’ Scott Ostler counted twenty players of Samoan background on Carson High School’s varsity squad in 1978. Ostler conceded that Samoans in places like Carson, just south of downtown Los Angeles, faced hardships, but offered that through football they could achieve a modicum (moderate?) amount of success and assimilation (Ostler 1978). Whenever the Interstate 110 Highway is not gridlocked, USC constitutes a short drive from Carson. During the 1970s, its football program became significantly dependent upon Pacific Islander football players to maintain its standing as a national power. In the late 1970s, fullback Mosi Tatupu (1955–2010) opened up holes in the defense for USC’s more illustrious tailbacks. Fifteen years later, Junior Seau journeyed up from Oceanside near San Diego to become one of the most feared linebackers in USC history. And in the early 2000s, Troy Polamalu (b. 1981) became just as feared as a defensive back for the USC Trojans. Skilled players of indigenous Hawaiian ancestry have contributed to UH’s football success since the 1920s. In the 1980s, Samoans such as Jesse Sapolu and Mark Tuninei blocked ferociously for UH running backs, contributing to the school’s surprising success against Division 1 opponents. (Franks 2000) By the late 1990s, however, UH’s football fortunes foundered as rosters thinned of Pacific Islanders. Journalist David K. Choo pointed out that once UH coaches decided to concentrate more on recruiting Pacific Islanders in the early 2000s, their teams got better (Choo 2003). Tengan and Markham, however, have questioned whether the university has 340

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lived up to its obligation of educating its Pacific Islander football recruits for a future beyond football (Tengan and Markham 2009, 2424). While few would wonder about Pacific Islanders donning UH football uniforms, more surprising has been a “Pineapple pipeline” constructed between Hawai’i, Samoa, and Tonga to Utah University and Brigham Young University (BYU). Indeed, in 2016, BYU hired its first head coach possessing Pacific Islander ancestry—Tongan Kalani Sitake (b. 1975), who once was a stellar fullback for the school. The inroads US Mormon missionaries made among the indigenous people of the Pacific Islands undoubtedly created the conditions conducive to the recruitment of Pacific Islander football players in Hawai’i, as well as those whose families’ embrace of Mormonism led them to Utah (Tengan and Markham 2009, 2416) The battering that these and other young men took in college and, in the case of Tuinei, Tatupu, and Seau, over several years of professional football went unnoticed as Pacific Islanders were seemingly hailed as elite football’s “model minority.” Just as Asian Americans have been racialized as inherently capable of accumulating high GPAs and income levels regardless of ethnic, class, and gender background, Pacific Islanders have been racialized as inherently excellent football players. Their physicality, respect for authority, and team work have not only been praised but deemed uniquely Polynesian by coaches, teammates, and the media. Whether in the classroom or on the football field, the model minority tag has been promoted to deny the validity of white privilege while demeaning the efforts of other, presumably not so model, minority groups (Okihiro 2015, 426–429). In 1999, Tom Holmoe, then coach at the University of California, Berkeley, remarked, “It’s the simple fact that Hawaii and other Polynesian Islands has some really good football players. A lot of players from the islands are fantastic players… there’s no reason why they shouldn’t succeed.” Holmoe’s clearly well-intentioned observation has been echoed in the media down through the years (Liou 1999). In 2009, an otherwise thoughtful National Public Radio story produced by Tom Goldman declared, “Polynesians have distinguished themselves at football’s elite levels for many reasons, including their traditional body types: broad shoulders, wide hips, thick legs. These football players’ love of hard physical contact and fierce competition has its roots in Polynesian culture as well.” Goldman interviewed Fatu Katoa, then Utah’s director of Pacific Islander affairs. Katoa told Goldman that “Football has been really good to us in a sense of publicity and getting our kids out there and some going on to the NFL arena,” but Katoa added, “[i]t’s that we just want to be known for more” (Goldman 2009). An ESPN piece in 2010 extolled Pacific Islander achievements in football. Yet it also maintained, “Samoans once were known as fierce warriors who practiced cannibalism. Now they take their aggressions out on the football field, and they do so with uncanny power and skill due to a potent brew of genetics and culture. Their bodies are naturally big-boned.” While no doubt some Pacific Islanders have taken pride in how the mainstream media has viewed their football skills, others have been more critical. For example, the Northwest Asian Weekly, serving the region’s Asian and Pacific Islander communities editorialized, “Though the ESPN story is a good story, it does have a few troubling spots. Between statistics and good quotes, the story also perpetuates stereotypes—probably unwittingly” (“Polynesians” 2010). In the same edition, Pacific Islander scholars expressed dismay over the ESPN coverage. UH professor, Ty K a wika Tengan, was quoted as declaring, “I find 341

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depictions of Polynesians as ‘naturally fit’ for football to be racist stereotypes that draw on a longer colonial history of misrepresentations not only of Polynesians, but also of other indigenous and negatively racialized peoples.” A cultural anthropologist at the University of Washington, Rochelle Fonoti maintained, “Samoan male bodies have been commodified.” That is, Samoan and other Pacific Islander football players have been represented as “savage warriors” to enrich the NCAA and the NFL. “It’s all good for football,” Fonoti claimed, “but oftentimes, there is no career to fall back on” (Cruz 2010). In a powerful 2009 article in the International Journal of the History of Sport, Tengan and Markham saw similarity between popular perceptions of Polynesian football players and African American athletes. They asserted that supposedly complimentary media representations of Pacific Islander football wind up “bearing resemblance to the ‘hoop dreams’ narrative,” referring to a 1994 documentary movie of the same name that revealed the false hopes inherent for African American youth in the sport of basketball. Accordingly, “we find this to be a very partial and limiting view of factors contributing to the prevalence of Polynesian football players.” Sadly, but understandable to Tengan and Markham, Pacific Islander communities have often bought into the “partial and limiting view” of Polynesian football. This has especially been the case for Polynesian males, Tengan and Markham maintained, who “make claims to an ‘authentic’ pre-colonial and pre-modern masculinity” as a way to counteract the presumably emasculating consequences of colonization and diaspora (Tengan and Markham 2009, 2413–2414). Hawaiian-based sociologist David Mayeda critiqued the assumption that Polynesian penetration of American football has been an unmixed blessing for Pacific Islanders. Mayeda blogged in 2013 that as a “minority male (though not a Pacific Islander)” and a former athlete, he enjoyed sports and admired superstars such as Junior Seau. Yet Mayeda also understood that “sport often times causes more harm than good in society” (Mayeda 2012). Writing in the wake of Seau’s death, Mayeda only briefly explored the impact of traumatic brain injury on the great linebacker and other football players. Instead, he focused on how race and class have impacted Pacific Islander football players such as Seau. Mayeda argued that despite their success in NCAA and NFL football, Pacific Islanders encountered racism in American society. He illustrated his point by telling readers that in Utah in 2012, police pepper-sprayed a group of Tongan males celebrating a high school football victory by performing a haka, a dance originating in the Pacific Islands. Moreover, while Mayeda recognized Pacific Islanders’ prominence in elite football, he stressed that poverty and discrimination were rendering them prominent “in forms of delinquency” (Mayeda 2012). Some discussion of the poverty in American Samoa and the presumption of football as an antidote is warranted. Some sources claim that Samoans are greatly overrepresented in the NFL based on population, and college football scholarships hold the promise of social mobility. Players such as Troy Polamalu make annual trips to Samoa to spread their NFL largesse, which, while perhaps laudatory, only reinforces the dream of football as a safety valve and a means to socioeconomic status and social capital. Indeed, the attraction of football to young Pacific Islanders has been alluring. Scholar Adam Beissel argues in a 2011 paper that one out of eight Samoans playing high school football on Samoa attract college scholarships from the US mainland 342

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or Hawai’i. Staying on the island would mean dealing with a 30 percent unemployment rate. Even if football careers can be all-too-brief and all too physically and mentally dangerous, getting a football scholarship to UH, USC, or the University of Utah seems an understandable option (Beissel, 2014). Working on a book about Pacific Islander football, historian Rob Ruck has recently attacked the complacency enveloping media representations of elite Polynesian football players. He writes that Pacific Islander football players are “athletic outliers” who have “pa[id] a steep price for their commitment to the game.” What has made many of them successful at tackling and blocking—”their extraordinary internalization of discipline and warrior self-image that drives them to play with no fefe (no fear)—have often proven hazardous to their mental and physical health.” Samoan boys, who train year-round on fields blistered with volcanic pebbles and use helmets that should have been discarded long ago, incur far too much neurological damage. They have a difficult time adjusting to college and maximizing the benefit of an athletic scholarship. More important, this micro-culture of football excellence coexists with a public health crisis. Samoans and Tongans are among the most diabetic and obese people on the planet, the consequence of forsaking a traditional diet for cheap and fast food (Ruck 2016). Complicating hyper-masculine representations of Pacific Islander football is the experience of Esera Tuaolo (b. 1968), who played several years in the NFL as a solid offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers, Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Minnesota Vikings, and Denver Broncos. Born and raised in Hawai’i, Tuaolo could claim a grandfather and uncle as high chiefs of Pago Pago. Before turning pro, Tuaolo was an all-conference player for Oregon State University. A gifted singer, Tuaolo had also performed the national anthem before several NFL games (Kluepfel 2002). In the early 2000s, Esera Tuaolo decided to announce he was gay. At the time, journalist Brian Kluepfel revealed, “The double-life he was forced to lead had him suicidal at times….He said that he made sure teammates saw him kiss women in bars, to keep them from being suspicious. ‘They didn’t know who Esera Tuaolo is,’ he said. “‘What they saw was an actor’” (Kluepfel 2002). Tengan and Markham have since observed that Tuaolo’s “double life” demonstrated the “homophobic masculinity…pervasive in college and professional football.” They added that since Pacific Islander football players have been hypermasculinized in the media it was “fitting” that Tuaolo emerged as one of the most “vocal opponents” of football’s obsession with heterosexual masculinity. As if to prove their point, Sterling Sharpe, a one-time superb tight end who played with Tuaolo in Green Bay, proclaimed that had teammates known about Tuaolo’s sexual orientation “he’d be eaten alive and he would have been hated for it” (Tengan and Markham 2009, 2424).

The Cost of Success For well over a century, people of Pacific Islander ancestry have played American football. Indigenous Hawaiians proved vital in popularizing the sport on Hawai’i. Moreover, talented Pacific Islander football players from Hawai’i such as Noble Kauhane, Herman Wedemeyer, and Charlie Ane took their considerable skills to the US 343

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mainland, where they excelled in early and mid-twentieth century America. During the latter decades of the twentieth century to the present, top flight, mainland college football programs have assiduously recruited young men of Samoan and Tongan ancestry, some of whom moved on to not only careers in the NFL, but stardom. The connections fashioned between American football and the peoples of the Pacific have demonstrated the democratizing potential of sport. Because of football, men of Pacific Islander origins have crossed durable cultural borders erected largely out of colonialism and racism. These men have often been able to play with and against others possessing diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Some have achieved fame and made good money for playing a game very well. In the process, many hopefully enjoyed themselves. Yet football’s contradictions erupt powerfully in how they have shadowed less economically privileged young men of color in general and Pacific Islanders specifically. The sport promises them fulfillment of the American Dream and masculine fantasies. Occasionally, it fulfills those promises, but perhaps at too dear a cost for young men of color, for their loved ones, and society. Critical scholars and journalists have sought with some success to point out the ramifications of all this for African American communities. Yet as the experiences of Junior Seau suggest, we need to regard more skeptically the Pacific connections constructed by American football.

Further Reading Beissel, A. (2011). Reducing the Samoan body: Articulating scientific racism and neoliberal sport. ISSA Conference, Havana, Cuba. , (June 14, 2016). Chinese American Heroes. (2012). Retrieved from http://chineseamericanheroes.org/2012/04/21/gordon -p-chung-hoon/ Choo, D. K. (2003). The Polynesian powerhouse: University of Hawaii football counts on its Samoan connection. Pacific Magazine and Islands’ Business. Cooper, Amy. (2016). Tongan Americans. Retrieved from http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Sr-Z /Tongan-Americans.html (May 9, 2016) Cruz, J. (2010. “Island Ball: Pacific Islands Are Good At Producing Pro Football Players: Reality or Steretoype?” Retrieved from http://nwasianweekly.com/2010/04/island-ball-pacific-islands-are-good-at -producing-pro-football-players-%E2%80%94-reality-or-stereotype/, (April 18, 2015) Cummings, B. (2010). Dominion from sea to sea: Pacific ascendancy and American power. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Diaz, V. M. (2002). “Fight Boys, ‘til the Last…”: Islandstyle football and the remasculization of indigeniety in the militarized American Pacific Islands. In P. Spickard, J. L. Rondilla, and D. H. Wright (Eds.), Pacific diaspora: Island peoples in the United States and across the Pacific. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. East/West Center. (2014). American football game played in Tonga. Retrieved from http://pidp.eastwest center.org/pireport/2014/June/06-30-16.htm Franks, J. S. (2000). Hawaiian sports in the twentieth century. Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press. Franks, J. S. (2010). Crossing sidelines, Crossing cultures: Sport and Asian Pacific American cultural citizenship. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Gems, G. (2006). The Athletic Crusade: Sport and American Cultural Imperialism. Lincoln, NE: Nebraska University Press. Goldman, T. (2009). Young Polynesians make a life out of football. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org /templates/story/story.php?storyId=112970742 (September 22, 2014). Horne, G. (2011). Fighting in paradise: Labor unions, racism, and communism in the making of modern Hawai’i. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. James, C.L.R. (1993). Beyond a boundary. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Jung, M.K. (2006). Reworking race: The making of Hawai’i’s interracial labor movement. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Chapter Nineteen: American Football’s Pacific Connections Kluepfel, B. (2002). Tuaolo emerges from the NFL closet. Retrieved from www.asianweek.com Joe Charles Naekauna ‘Joe’ Francis, Jr. (2013). Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Kerr, J. M. Jr. (2016). Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Kopriva, D., and Mott, J. (2000). On Wisconsin: The History of Badger Football. Champaign, Ill: Sport Publishing, LLC. Kwon, B. (2000) Sports Watch. Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Lewis, F. (2007). Charles Ane, Longtime Coach, Football Legend, 76. Honolulu Advertiser. Liou, B. (1999, October 14). The API Line-Up. Retrieved from www.asianweek.com. Mayeda, D. (2012, May 13). My sociological tribute to Junior Seau. Sociology in Focus. Retrieved from http:// www.sociologyinfocus.com/2012/05/03/my-sociological-tribute-to-junior-seau/ Morimoto, L. S. (2005). The barefoot leagues: An oral (hi)story of football in the plantation towns of Kaua’i. PhD Dissertation, Ohio State University. Okihiro, G. Y. (2015). American history unbound: Asians and Pacific Islanders. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Ostler, S. (1978). Carson’s Samoan connections. Los Angeles Times. Pbshawaii.org. (2012). Al Harrington: A life of gratitude. Retrieved from http://pbshawaii.org/wordpress /wp-content/uploads/2015/04/LSS-611-Harrington-A-Life-of-Gratitude-Transcript.pdf Polynesians Not Just Football Players. (2010, April 1). Northwest Asian Weekly. Ramakrishnan, K., & Ahmad, F. Z. (2014, July 21). Income and poverty: Part of the “state of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders” series. Progress for 2050: New Ideas for a Diverse America. Retrieved from https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/AAPI-IncomePoverty.pdf (January 17, 2017) Ruck, R. (2016, February 5). Football’s Polynesian moment: Samoa’s athletic outliers are paying a steep price for their commitment to the game. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2016/02/05 /footballs_polynesian_moment_samoas_athletic_outliers_are_paying_a_steep_price_for_their _commitment_to_the_game/ (April 4, 2016). SB Nation College News. (2014, December 13). Watch Marcus Mariota’s emotional Heisman trophy Speech. SB Nation. Retrieved from http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/12/13/7388679 /marcus-mariota-heisman-speech-video-transcript (April 14, 2016) Takaki, R. (1998). Strangers from a different shore: A history of Asian Americans. Boston: Back Bay. Tengan, T. P. K., & Markham, J. M. (2009). Performing Polynesian masculinities in American football: From “rainbows to warriors.” International Journal of the History of Sport, 26, 2412–2451. Watterson, J. S. (2000). College football: History, spectacle, controversy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Weber College Loses Hawaiian Youth. (1942). Salt Lake Tribune. Williams, R., Jr. (2012). To raise a voice in praise: The revivalist mission of John Henry Wise, 1889–1896. The Hawaiian Journal of History, 46, 1–35.

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About the Editors

Gerald R. Gems is professor emeritus at North Central College and continues to teach at the ISHPES Summer School at Paris-Est University and at other international sites. He is the past president of the North American Society for Sport History, and the past vice-president of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport. In 2011 - 2012 he was honored with a Fulbright Scholar Award, during which time he taught at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and the University of Malmo, Sweden. He has also been an invited visiting professor at the National Sports University in Beijing, China. In 2011 he was inducted as an honorary member of the Bangladesh Institute of Sport Sciences. He continues to serve on the editorial boards of The International Journal of Sport Sciences and Physical Education, East Asian Sport Thoughts: The International Journal for the Sociology of Sport, and is editor of the Sport, Culture, and Identity series for Lexington Books. He has authored more than 250 publications, including 20 books. Gertrud Pfister is a professor in the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports at the University of Copenhagen’s Institute of Exercise and Sports Sciences. In Germany and in Denmark, Pfister conducted several large national and international research projects, among others funded by the International Olympics Committee, the German Ministry of Women and Youth, and the Danish Agency of Science, Technology and Innovation. She has published more than 200 articles and 20 books. Pfister was guest professor at several foreign universities: the University of Jyväskylä and the Gama Filho University in Rio de Janeiro, among others. Dr. Pfister is former president of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport of the International Sport Sociology Association. In addition, she supports women and sport associations (IAPESGW and WSI), among other things, by providing advice or organizing networks. Gertrud Pfister has been active in sport all her life, in particular in skiing, tennis, and long distance running. She loves bicycling and jogging and is convinced that life is enriched by being physically active.

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Appendix: Super Bowl Winners and Results

NO.

DATE

SITE

RESULT

I

15 Jan, 1967

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

Green Bay 35, Kansas City 10

II

14 Jan, 1968

Orange Bowl (Miami)

Green Bay 33, Oakland 14

III

12 Jan, 1969

Orange Bowl (Miami)

New York Jets 16, Baltimore 7

IV

11 Jan, 1970

Tulane Stadium (New Orleans)

Kansas City 23, Minnesota 7

V

17 Jan, 1971

Orange Bowl (Miami)

Baltimore 16, Dallas 13

VI

16 Jan, 1972

Tulane Stadium (New Orleans)

Dallas 24, Miami 3

VII

14 Jan, 1973

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

Miami 14, Washington 7

VIII

13 Jan, 1974

Rice Stadium (Houston)

Miami 24, Minnesota 7

IX

12 Jan, 1975

Tulane Stadium (New Orleans)

Pittsburgh 16, Minnesota 6

X

18 Jan, 1976

Orange Bowl (Miami)

Pittsburgh 21, Dallas 17

XI

9 Jan, 1977

Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)

Oakland 32, Minnesota 14

XII

15 Jan, 1978

Superdome (New Orleans) Dallas 27, Denver 10

XIII

21 Jan, 1979

Orange Bowl (Miami)

Pittsburgh 35, Dallas 31

XIV

20 Jan, 1980

Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)

Pittsburgh 31, Los Angeles Rams 19

XV

25 Jan, 1981

Superdome (New Orleans)

Oakland 27, Philadelphia 10

XVI

24 Jan, 1982

Silverdome (Pontiac, Mich.)

San Francisco 26, Cincinnati 21

XVII

30 Jan, 1983

Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)

Washington 27, Miami 17

XVIII

22 Jan, 1984

Tampa (Fla.) Stadium

Los Angeles Raiders 38, Washington 9 (Continued)

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NO.

DATE

SITE

RESULT

XIX

20 Jan, 1985

Stanford (Calif.) Stadium

San Francisco 38, Miami 16

XX

26 Jan, 1986

Superdome (New Orleans)

Chicago 46, New England 10

XXI

25 Jan, 1987

Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)

New York Giants 39, Denver 20

XXII

31 Jan, 1988

Jack Murphy Stadium (San Diego)

Washington 42, Denver 10

XXIII

22 Jan, 1989

Joe Robbie Stadium (Miami)

San Francisco 20, Cincinnati 16

XXIV

28 Jan, 1990

Superdome (New Orleans)

San Francisco 55, Denver 10

XXV

27 Jan, 1991

Tampa (Fla.) Stadium

New York Giants 20, Buffalo 19

XXVI

26 Jan, 1992

Metrodome (Minneapolis)

Washington 37, Buffalo 24

XXVII

31 Jan, 1993

Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)

Dallas 52, Buffalo 17

XXVIII

30 Jan, 1994

Georgia Dome (Atlanta)

Dallas 30, Buffalo 13

XXIX

29 Jan, 1995

Joe Robbie Stadium (Miami)

San Francisco 49, San Diego 26

XXX

28 Jan, 1996

Sun Devil Stadium (Tempe, Ariz.)

Dallas 27, Pittsburgh 17

XXXI

26 Jan, 1997

Superdome (New Orleans)

Green Bay 35, New England 21

XXXII

25 Jan, 1998

Qualcomm Stadium (San Diego)

Denver 31, Green Bay 24

XXXIII

31 Jan, 1999

Pro Player Stadium (Miami)

Denver 34, Atlanta 19

XXXIV

30 Jan, 2000

Georgia Dome (Atlanta)

St. Louis 23, Tennessee 16

XXXV

28 Jan, 2001

Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Fla.)

Baltimore 34, New York Giants 7

XXXVI

3 Feb, 2002

Superdome (New Orleans)

New England 20, St. Louis 17

XXXVII

26 Jan, 2003

Qualcomm Stadium (San Diego)

Tampa Bay 48, Oakland 21

XXXVIII

1 Feb, 2004

Reliant Stadium (Houston)

New England 32, Carolina 29

XXXIX

6 Feb, 2005

Alltel Stadium (Jacksonville, Fla.)

New England 24, Philadelphia 21 (Continued)

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NO.

DATE

SITE

RESULT

XL

5 Feb, 2006

Ford Field (Detroit)

Pittsburgh 21, Seattle 10

XLI

4 Feb, 2007

Dolphin Stadium (Miami) Indianapolis 29, Chicago 17

XLII

3 Feb, 2008

University of Phoenix Stadium (Glendale, Ariz.)

New York Giants 17, New England 14

XLIII

1 Feb, 2009

Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Fla.)

Pittsburgh 27, Arizona 23

XLIV

7 Feb, 2010

Sun Life Stadium (Miami)

New Orleans 31, Indianapolis 17

XLV

6 Feb, 2011

Cowboys Stadium (Arlington, Texas)

Green Bay 31, Pittsburgh 25

XLVI

5 Feb, 2012

Lucas Oil Stadium (Indianapolis)

New York Giants 21, New England 17

XLVII

3 Feb, 2013

Mercedes-Benz Superdome (New Orleans)

Baltimore 34, San Francisco 31

XLVIII

2 Feb, 2014

MetLife Stadium (East Rutherford, N.J.)

Seattle 43, Denver 8

XLIX

1 Feb, 2015

University of Phoenix Stadium (Glendale, Ariz.)

New England 28, Seattle 24

50

7 Feb, 2016

Levi’s Stadium (Santa Clara, Calif.)

Denver 24, Carolina 10

LI

5 Feb, 2017

NRG Stadium (Houston)

New England 34, Atlanta 28

LII

4 Feb, 2018

U.S. Bank Stadium (Minneapolis)

Philadelphia 41, New England 33

LIII

3 Feb, 2019

Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta)

New England 13, Los Angeles Rams 3

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Glossary

Game play in American football consists of a series of downs, individual plays of short duration, outside of which the ball is dead or not in play. These can be plays from scrimmage – passes, runs, punts, or field goal attempts (from either a place kick or a drop kick) – or free kicks such as kickoffs and fair catch kicks. Substitutions can be made between downs, which allows for a great deal of specialization as coaches choose the players best suited for each particular situation. During a play, each team should have no more than 11 players on the field, and each of them has specific tasks assigned for that specific play.

Glossary All-American player – annual designation as one of the best collegiate players in the country. alma mater – Latin term used in reference to the school that one attended. alumni – graduates of a school (alumnus is the singular form for a male). backs – positions on the field lined up behind rather than on or near the line of scrimmage, whether for the team in possession of the ball (offensive backs) or for the defensive team (defensive backs). Big Three – historical reference to the elite colleges of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. boosters – fans who support their favorite teams, sometimes with illegal inducements to players whom they want to recruit. bowl game – the best college teams are selected annually to play in games that serve as regional spectacles to market local products or corporate sponsors, i.e. the Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, etc. center – the offensive player positioned at the center of the scrimmage line, responsible for initiating each play by snapping/hiking (propelling) the ball to the quarterback to start each play. conference – an athletic league of teams usually organized on a regional basis. cornerback – the defensive player who specializes in guarding the offensive pass receivers. double wing – an offensive formation where two backs are positioned with one on each side and behind the linemen. down – each team gets four downs (plays or tries) to advance the ball ten yards in order to retain possession of the ball and maintain its advance toward the opponent’s goal (if this seems unlikely to be attained they can punt (kick) the ball to the opponent or attempt a field goal).

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draft – the annual selection of mostly college players by the professional teams after the end of the college football season. backs – positions on the field lined up behind rather than on or near the line of scrimmage, whether for the team in possession of the ball (offensive backs) or for the defensive team (defensive backs). end – the players positioned on the end (nearest the side lines) of the offensive or defensive line. end zone – the area behind the goal line of each team, ten yards in depth across the entire width of the field. extra point (point after touchdown, PAT) – the opportunity to gain one additional point after a touchdown by kicking the ball through the goal posts on the ensuing play; or to gain two points by running or passing/catching the ball in the opponents’ end zone. As of 2015, professional NFL teams are required to attempt the extra point kick from the 15 yard line to increase the difficulty. fair catch – a receiver signals for a “fair catch” by waving his hand above his head before catching a punted ball. If he does so, the defensive players may not tackle him, and the ball is placed on the yard line where he caught the ball to begin the next play. fantasy football – a competition usually involving gambling or money prizes in which participants choose the players for their imaginary teams and earn points based on the actual performance of their chosen players. field goal – an offensive team may earn three points by kicking the ball above the cross bar and between the goal posts of the defensive team from any place on the field. flag football – a non-contact version of the game in which players wear a flag on each hip attached to a Velcro belt. In lieu of tackling the ball carrier, an opponent grabs the flag to stop the runner. flanker (wide receiver) – a player on the offensive team positioned near the sidelines (flank), usually used as a pass catcher. flying wedge – a strategy devised by Lorin Deland of Harvard in 1892, in which multiple players get a running start and converge on one opponent. The consequent injuries resulted in a ban on the play, but modern football teams still use a variation of the strategy on kickoff return teams. free agency – the eligibility of players to seek and obtain employment from another team once their contract has been fulfilled with their current team. fullback – a player on the offensive team positioned behind the linemen who may run or catch the ball, but is often used as an additional blocker for the halfback. goal line – the line defended by each team, 100 yards apart on either end of the field. goal posts – H-shaped post positioned at the end of each end zone that serves as the target for obtaining points by kicking the ball. gridder – a slang term for a football player. gridiron – a term that designates the football field based on its past resemblance to a grill when both vertical and horizontal lines marked the field. guards – the offensive players on either side of the center (i.e. right guard or left guard) whose duty is to protect the quarterback when passing the ball to another

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Glossary

player or to block the defending players to open running lanes for the ball carriers. halfback – a player on the offensive team positioned behind the linemen who may run with the ball or catch passes. halftime – the midpoint of a football game with an intermission that allows for entertainment of the spectators. In college football entertainment is often supplied by a school’s marching band. In professional football, cheerleaders may entertain the spectators. hash marks – the field markings one yard apart longitudinally and parallel to the sidelines for placement of the ball after each play. Heisman Trophy – an annual award named after an early football coach given to the best collegiate football player as chosen by the vote of mostly sports journalists. homecoming – an annual event at colleges and universities in which graduates of a school return for a weekend and participate in a festival highlighted by a football game. huddle – a short assembly of the players on the team between plays to determine the strategy for the next play. I formation – an offensive alignment in which three backs are positioned in a vertical line behind the quarterback. interscholastic football – games played between high school teams. intercollegiate football – games played between colleges, universities, and military academies overseen in the United States by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). kickoff – the play which initiates the game or the play after each score in which one team kicks the ball as far as possible into the territory of the opponent. kick returner – a specialist who catches and runs with a kicked ball (punt or kickoff). line or linemen – the seven offensive players who are positioned parallel to either side of the ball on the scrimmage line before the start of each play. linebacker – the defensive player(s) positioned behind or outside the defensive linemen. line of scrimmage – see scrimmage line. long snapper – a specialist player on the offense who propels the ball to a punter (kicker) or the holder on field goal and extra point attempts. NFL (National Football League) – the professional US football league, consisting of 32 teams from the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) – the governing body for the intercollegiate athletic programs in the United States (the NAIA is a similar, but smaller organization with fewer members, mostly small colleges). noseguard – the defensive player who is positioned directly across from the center of the offensive team. offsides – a penalty assessed to either team if a player is aligned beyond the scrimmage line. pep rally – a congregation or assembly of students before an athletic event for the purpose of stimulating enthusiasm for the school team. pigskin – a colloquial term for a football made of leather.

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place kick/ place kicker – a specialist who kicks the ball to start each game, or after points have been scored, or in an attempt to gain a point after touchdown or a field goal worth three points. play – any offensive or defensive action in the course of the game. pocket – an area behind the line of scrimmage in which the offensive linemen try to maintain a protective territory around the quarterback as he attempts to throw the ball. Pop Warner football – a national organization that provides football and cheerleading programs for youth ages 5 to 16. punt – a play in which the offensive team purposely kicks the ball to the defensive team to place them as far as possible from the goal line. punter – the player who specializes in punting (kicking) the ball. quarter – one of four time periods of fifteen minutes each during a football game. quarterback – the leader of the offensive team who is positioned behind the linemen, determines the strategy for each play, and initiates the play with verbal signals to the other players. safety – the defensive back responsible for covering offensive pass receivers in the area closest to his own goal line, i.e. the last line of defense. A safety is also the term used when a defensive team earns two points by tackling the ball carrier behind his own goal line. scrimmage line – the imaginary line that runs across the width of the field determined by the referee’s placement of the football after each play. scrimmage game – a practice game with another team, or within one’s own team, that does not count in league standings. Scrimmage games are used by coaches to determine the abilities of players under game-like conditions. sidelines – the lines marking the width of the field on both sides, designating the out-of-bounds area. single wing – a formation commonly used through the 1940s in which the ball is snapped to a halfback instead of to the quarterback (as in the T formation). snap – each play originates with the “snap” when the center delivers the ball to the quarterback by handing it to him between his legs as the quarterback stands behind him or by tossing the ball to the quarterback if he is positioned at a distance behind the center. Super Bowl – annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL), played by the winners of the American Football Conference and National Football Conference. tackle – to bring a ball carrier to the ground by any legal means; tackle also refers to the offensive players (left or right tackles) positioned adjacent to the guards, or to the defensive players aligned opposite their offensive counterparts. tailgating – the period before the start of the game in which friends congregate near the stadium in order to eat, drink, fraternize, and show support for their team. T formation – an offensive alignment in which three backs line up abreast about five yards behind the quarterback, forming the shape of a T. tight end – the offensive player who is aligned next to the offensive tackle, who may block opponents or catch passes. Title IX – a federal civil rights law passed in 1972 that insures equal opportunity for all citizens engaged in programs that receive federal funding.

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touchdown – a means of scoring in which a player advances the ball into the opponents’ end zone, resulting in six points. USA Football – the governing body for amateur football programs in the United States. varsity – the best or primary team that represents a school in interscholastic contests. youth football – football teams organized into leagues based on age groups intended to promote equitable competition based on similar size and skill levels.

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Index

A African Americans, 8, 29, 115, 136, 344. See  also All-America Teams and racial segregation, 26, 29, 42, 121 as quarterbacks, 12, 123, 244 in coaching, 12, 123, 124, 245 in college football, 9, 21, 23, 26, 29, 32, 139 in pro football, 12, 23, 111, 121, 244 racial stereotyping of, 123, 342 Alabama, University of, 13, 24, 121, 142, 178 All-America teams, 8, 118, 122, 332, 338 African Americans in, 12, 23, 121, 122, 244 American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), 83, 85 American Football Conference (AFC), 150, 181 American Football League (AFL), 14, 68, 69, 180, 246 and television, 14, 149, 150 and the Super Bowl, 14, 56, 57 merger with the NFL, 14, 57, 150, 187 American Professional Football Association (APFA), 168, 169 Arizona Cardinals, 41, 65 Ashamed of Parents, 219 Atlantic Coast Conference, 13, 174 Austria, 274, 276, 282 B Baltimore Colts, 13, 57, 133, 153, 180 fans, 132 Baltimore Stallions, 249 Bell, Bert, 67, 176 Berwanger, Jay, 10, 26 Big Ten Conference, 22, 25, 26, 27, 31, 174, 187 and television, 151, 152 Big Ten Network, 30 Big Three colleges, 7, 61, 62 Bowen, Matt, 66

bowl games, 11, 26, 107, 170, 173 Bowl Championship Series (BCS), 11, 31, 174 Bradford, Sam, 138, 139 Braley, David, 248 Braveheart, 216, 231 Brigham Young University, 29, 341 Brown of Harvard, 220 C Camp, Walter, 7, 20, 25, 39 Canada, 237, 239 coaches in, 238, 245 college football in, 239, 242, 243 football rules in, 167, 238, 247 Grey Cup, 240, 242, 245, 246, 248, 250 Labour Day Classic, 247 player salaries in, 245 players from the United States in, 67, 238, 242, 244 race relations in, 244 relationship with the United States, 237 team ownership in, 247, 248, 249 Vanier Cup, 237, 243, 251 Canadian Football League (CFL), 237, 239, 244, 246 and television, 242, 248, 250 compared with the NFL, 238, 246 expansion franchises, 239, 249 finances of, 247, 249 Caribbean, 267 Cuba, 260 Carolina Panthers, 56, 267 Carr, Joe, 168 Chicago Bears, 9, 89, 123, 148, 168, 169, 276 Chicago, University of, 10, 20, 26, 316 China, 191, 259 and the NFL, 326 Cincinnati Bengals, 135 Civil War, 25, 37, 61, 116, 119, 120, 121, 142 class, socio-economic, 21, 37, 111, 115, 118, 120, 217

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Cleveland Browns, 12, 63, 122, 133, 134, 249 fans, 133 coaches, 10, 31, 103, 109, 210 and player injuries, 82, 83, 86, 91, 92 college football, 11, 23, 27, 30, 32, 121, 126 pro football, 62, 109 roles in scandals, 32, 65, 68, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77 salaries of, 24, 31, 105, 106, 142, 188, 189 youth football, 44, 45, 51, 92 college football, 19, 74, 77, 84, 105, 116. See  also NCAA amateurism, 10, 19, 21, 105, 187, 192 and player misdeeds, 69, 72, 73, 77 and player protests, 32, 136, 137 and racial segregation, 12, 23, 29, 121 and radio, 148, 170 and television, 13, 30, 106, 151, 152, 159, 171 athletic scholarships, 25, 28, 30, 32, 48, 69, 105, 188, 191 commercialization, 11, 19, 25, 32, 117, 137, 170 early games, 5, 60, 83, 116, 118, 165 finances of, 187, 191 game attendance, 9, 12, 15, 148, 168, 170, 171 injuries and deaths in, 21, 22, 60, 83, 88, 92, 168 participation in, 35, 85, 118, 120, 121 popularity of, 20, 21, 24, 31, 117 compared with pro football, 10, 147 recruitment, 26, 74, 75 rule reforms in, 21, 22, 23, 40, 62, 83, 167 College Football Association (CFA), 13, 30, 172 Cotton Bowl, 11, 26 Curtis, Henry S., 39 D Dallas Cowboys, 155, 184, 185, 190, 276 cheerleaders, 127 fans, 255, 256, 268 Davis, Al, 133, 186 Davis, Ernie, 29 Denver Broncos, 56, 67 Detroit Lions, 63, 68, 339 draft, NFL players, 10, 14, 66, 107, 150, 151, 180 Drop Kick, The, 229, 231 Duke University, 27, 171

E Eaton, Lloyd, 30 Edmonton Eskimos, 241, 242, 244, 246 electronic media, 155, 158, 160, 182, 192 Eliot, Charles William, 21, 61 ESPN, 86, 89, 106, 150, 152, 173, 341 and Canada, 250 ESPN See also “Monday Night Football”. Europe, 273, 275, 277, 278 and the NFL, 14, 159, 160, 191, 276, 320 and women in football, 127, 207, 274 early games in, 273, 274, 275, 287 European Federation of American Football (EFAF), 273, 286 national federations in, 273, 277, 278, 281, 282, 284, 286 Eyes Right!, 222 F fans, 131, 166, 192, 231 boosters, 27, 31, 32, 70, 74 college football, 3, 11, 71, 74, 135 international, 159 in Canada, 248 in Europe, 276, 277 in Latin America, 260, 266 pro football, 86, 132, 135, 149, 175, 184, 255 use of media by, 120, 152, 154, 156, 157, 192 fantasy football, 3, 158, 183, 190, 192 Filchock, Frank, 67 Finland, 208, 274, 283, 287, 321 flag football. See also women as flag football players in China, 326 in Europe, 282, 283, 284, 287 in Japan, 322 in Latin America, 262, 263, 265, 267 in youth programs, 48, 49 Florida State University, 31, 106 Football Warrior, A, 215, 216, 218, 231 Fordham University, 23, 171 formations flying wedge, 8, 21, 60 T formation, 64, 76, 100, 340 France, 273, 274, 275, 280, 287 and women in football, 274 free agency, 30, 102, 110, 179, 181, 184, 187 and court rulings, 181 and Plan B, 182 and player salaries, 182 and the Rozelle Rule, 180, 181, 182

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Index

Freshman, The, 226 Friday Night Lights (Bissinger), 47 G gambling, 3, 21, 56, 120, 182, 185 Gammon, Richard “Von”, 21, 32 Gaudaur, Jake, 245 Georgia, University of, 13, 20, 32 Germany, 273, 278, 286, 287 and the NFL, 276 and women in football, 274, 280 role of US military in, 207, 275, 278 Goodell, Roger, 65, 66, 88, 135, 184, 327 Grange, Harold “Red”, 10, 24, 169, 229 Red Grange Rule, 10, 11 Great Depression, 11, 25, 26, 42, 45, 231 Green Bay Packers, 9, 13, 69, 175, 184 ownership structure of, 14, 178, 247 Grey, Earl, 240, 241 gun violence, 73 H Harvard University, 5, 20, 60, 115, 116, 122 and African American players, 21, 121 and football reforms, 22, 28, 61 “Boston game”, 6 “Boston Game”, 5, 167, 239 first “football”, 6, 19, 117, 167, 239 Harvard-Yale games, 60, 83 head injuries, 32, 191, 342 and the media, 86, 87, 88, 89 and the NFL settlement, 90 Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, 87 chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), 82, 87 Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), 91, 93, 112, 191 Committee on Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries (MTBI), 88, 90 concussions, 14, 82, 86, 88, 156 diagnosis of, 82, 83, 89, 95 in the NFL, 87, 90, 191 Congressional hearings on, 88 deaths from, 83, 85, 86, 87, 92 helmets and, 83, 86, 89, 90 in early games, 81, 82, 83 in youth football, 49, 51, 85, 92 lawsuits concerning, 15, 84, 89 return-to-play laws, 94 scientific research on, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89

Heffelfinger, Walter “Pudge”, 8, 10, 120, 126 Heisman, John, 24 Heisman Trophy, 73, 124, 331, 332, 337 and African Americans, 29, 244 and Native Americans, 122, 138 first winner, 10, 27 helmets, football, 50, 61, 81, 83, 86, 112 lawsuits concerning, 89, 90, 92 manufacturers of, 84, 89, 90, 92 standards for, 84 Helmets, football manufacturers of, 84 high school football, 35, 46, 52, 100, 104, 111, 155 girls in, 127, 204, 209 injuries and deaths in, 49, 50, 90, 92, 94, 167, 326 participation in, 35, 49, 50, 52, 84 USA Football, 49, 51, 112 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), 21, 26 Hoge, Merril, 87, 89 homosexuality in football, 127, 199 Hornung, Paul, 67, 68, 69 Houston Texans, 155 Hunt, Lamar, 14, 56 Hutchins, Robert Maynard, 27 I Illinois, University of, 24, 31, 229, 231 immigrants, 22, 118, 119, 217, 219, 255, 268 in college football, 26, 111, 115, 120 Indianapolis Colts, 123 Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS), 168 Intercontinental Football League (IFL), 276, 284 International Federation of American Football (IFAF), 259, 263, 264, 265, 268, 286, 287, 321 Irsay, Robert, 133 Italy, 259, 276, 284, 286, 321 Ivy League, 10, 28, 320, 323 J Jacksonville Jaguars, 124, 155, 156 Japan, 259, 274, 315 and the NFL, 320, 323, 326 development of football in, 317 Japan American Football Association (JAFA), 318, 322 National Football Association (X-League), 322, 323

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players from the United States in, 323, 324 popularity of football in, 321, 327 Jones, Howard, 24 K Kaepernick, Colin, 136, 190 Kansas City Chiefs, 56, 102 Kap, Bob, 276, 282, 284, 285 Karras, Alex, 67, 68, 72, 76 King Football (Harris), 69 King Football (Oriard), 216 L Latin America, 253 and the NFL, 256, 263, 266, 268, 269 Central America, 254, 255, 262 Mexico, 257 South America, 265 Latinos, 255 in the NCAA, 255 in the NFL, 255, 256 League of Denial, 89 LeVias, Jerry, 139 linebackers, 62, 63, 126, 332, 340 Lombardi, Vince, 56, 70, 285 Los Angeles Rams, 12, 65, 122, 133, 154, 268 M MacArthur, Douglas, 70, 319 Mackey, John, 181 Mariota, Marcus, 124, 331, 332, 337 Mating, The, 218 McGill University, 7, 19, 117, 167, 239, 240 Miami Dolphins, 69, 255 Miami University, 24, 31 Miami, University of, 32, 178 Michigan, University of, 6, 20, 119, 121, 188 Minnesota Vikings, 65, 123 monopolies in football, 13, 106, 166 geographic monopolies, 179, 180, 186 in the NFL, 179, 180 monopoly rents, 166, 179, 184 the reserve rule, 180 Montreal Alouettes, 244, 246, 248, 249 movies, football, 46, 215 early films, 215 N Nagurski, Bronislau “Bronko”, 26 Namath, Joe, 14, 57, 127, 246 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), 30, 31, 73, 77, 82, 85, 187.

See  also head injuries; scandals; college football and graduation rates, 111 and mass media, 12, 28, 141, 157, 170 television rights, 106, 151, 154, 177 as a cartel, 32, 143, 167, 168, 172 finances of, 32 formation of, 22, 62 hiring practices of, 124 lawsuits concerning, 13, 30, 91, 93, 106, 172, 177 Sanity Code, 27 National Football Conference (NFC), 181 National Football League (NFL), 64, 176, 187. See  also professional football; Super Bowl and mass media, 8, 13, 147, 154, 160, 176, 179, 182 changes to the game, 151 television audience, 3, 13, 190 television rights, 106, 149, 159, 177, 184 and player misconduct, 65 and player protests, 136, 190 and racial segregation, 12, 122 and revenue sharing, 169, 175, 177, 181, 184, 190 and video games, 156, 157 and women, 127, 210, 211 as a cartel, 143, 167, 177 club owners, 14, 69, 123, 176, 180, 190 diversity among, 124 enrichment of, 133, 165, 166, 179, 182 commissioners, 65, 67, 88, 182 early days of, 9, 10, 122, 168 finances of, 105, 106, 159, 179, 182, 185, 190 game attendance, 154, 155, 170 global ventures, 159 American Bowl, 276, 320, 326 in China, 326 in Europe, 273, 275, 284, 287 injuries and deaths in, 62, 64, 65, 76, 86, 89, 112 lawsuits concerning, 15, 89, 90, 177, 181 popularity of, 3, 8, 13, 147 Native Americans, 120, 122, 124, 138, 139 and team names and mascots, 24, 31, 123 as college football players, 122 Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 9, 21, 122 Nebraska, University of, 73, 135, 136 fans, 136 New England Patriots, 184 New Orleans Saints, 65

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Index

New York Giants, 9, 13, 67, 69, 132, 153 New York Jets, 57, 127, 246 New York Times, 60, 65, 75, 87, 88 NFL Europa, 191, 275, 277, 326 NFL Films, 86, 151, 152, 275 NFL Network, 106, 152 NFL Players Association (NFLPA), 14, 66, 180, 181 North Dakota, University of, 31 Notre Dame, University of, 13, 24, 30, 102, 135, 172 as a Catholic institution, 26, 43, 136 fans, 26, 154 O Oakland Raiders, 186 fans, 86, 133, 139, 142, 255 move to Las Vegas, 133, 185 Obama, Barack, 32, 186 Ohio State University, 32 Oklahoma, University of, 13, 30, 41, 74, 137, 172 fans, 74 scandals, 72, 73, 74, 77 One Minute to Play, 229 Orange Bowl, 11, 26 Oriard, Michael, 21, 28, 30, 31, 99, 128, 148 Orridge, Jeffrey, 250 P Pac-12 Conference, 27, 31, 124, 152, 174 Pacific Islands, 332, 333, 344 and racial stereotypes, 332, 341, 342, 343 Guam, 335 Hawaii, 333 players in college football, 331, 337, 340, 344 players in pro football, 124, 332, 338, 343 Samoa and Tonga, 336 Paterno, Joe, 32, 77 Payton, Sean, 65, 66 Pennsylvania State University, 32, 77 Pennsylvania, University of, 28, 172 Philadelphia Eagles, 10, 64 fans, 134 Pittsburgh Steelers, 10, 12, 13, 87, 123, 140 Pittsburgh, University of, 73, 170, 171 players, pro football, 109, 178, 180, 181. See  also free agency; NFL celebrity status of, 24, 110 misconduct of, 65, 66, 67 salaries of, 10, 105, 150, 165, 183, 184 strikes by, 14, 102, 181, 182

Plegelatte, Laurent, 280 Pollard, Frederick Douglass “Fritz”, 12, 23, 121 Pop Warner Little Scholars, 44, 46, 48, 50, 51, 84 lawsuits concerning, 93 Princeton University, 20, 22, 28, 60, 61, 116 early games, 5, 19, 60, 116, 117, 165, 239 professional football, 10, 14, 109, 148, 168, 175, 192 origins of, 8, 9, 120 Q quarterbacks, 15, 64, 65, 66, 76, 86, 109 Quarterback, The, 227 R radio and television, 30, 165, 190, 192. See  also National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and mass media early broadcasts, 24, 147, 148, 170, 171 portrayals of violence, 86, 156, 176 Robeson, Paul, 9, 12, 23, 121 Robinson, Eddie, 124 Rockne, Knute, 9, 10, 24, 26, 43 Rooney, Dan, 12, 123 Rooney Rule, 12, 123 Roosevelt, Theodore, 8, 118, 119, 125, 274 and football reforms, 22, 32, 40, 61, 167 Rose Bowl, 26, 27, 140, 173 early games, 20, 23, 25, 170 Rose-Ivey, Michael, 136, 137 Rozelle, Alvin Ray “Pete”, 13, 56, 67, 155, 176, 180, 275 Rozelle Rule, 180, 181, 182 rugby, 5, 20, 23 as the origin of football, 5, 6, 7, 8, 21, 117, 167 in Canada, 7, 239, 240, 241 in Europe, 274, 284 in Japan, 327 in the Pacific Islands, 124, 337 rules of play, football downs, 4, 7, 9, 20, 60, 62 fair catch rule, 62 field goals, 4, 9 formations, 8, 60 forward pass, 4, 8, 9, 22, 23, 62, 76 kickoffs, 4, 76, 238 line of scrimmage, 20, 60 safety, 4

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V violence in football, 62, 108, 112, 156, 157, 200 and player safety, 156 bounties on players, 64, 66 in early games, 59, 60, 83, 118, 119 reactions and reforms, 62, 64, 81, 167

scrimmage line, 8, 62, 117 two-point conversion, 4 Rutgers University, 5, 19, 116, 165, 239 S San Francisco 49ers, 14, 256, 338 scandals, 31, 32, 76, 138 bounties, 15, 65 cheating, 69 drug abuse, 72 eligibility, 28 gambling, 28, 67, 77 hostessing, 74 recruitment, 70, 74 sex abuse, 32, 72 Scrub, The, 218 Smashing Barriers, 223 Southeastern Conference (SEC), 25, 142, 151, 152, 174 Southern Methodist University and the “death penalty”, 31, 70 Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 (SBA), 176, 177, 178 Sports Illustrated, 71, 72, 73, 74, 155, 172 and concussions in football, 86, 87, 88 stadiums, 47, 134, 136, 190, 192 early construction of, 23, 61 public subsidies for, 185, 192 Stagg, Amos Alonzo, 20, 26, 27, 40, 316 Stanford University, 13, 20, 23, 24, 31 Sugar Bowl, 11, 26, 29, 74 Super Bowl, 13, 55, 123, 150, 178 and international audiences, 153, 279 and television, 13, 55, 127, 151, 152, 184

W Washington Redskins, 9, 64, 66, 123 Webster, Mike, 87, 112 women, 200, 205 as cheerleaders, 127, 199 as flag football players, 204 in Europe, 287 in Latin America, 254, 264, 265, 266, 268 as football fans, 125, 127, 199, 262 as hostesses, 74, 77 as kickers, 199 as leaders and officials, 127, 210 as tackle football players, 127, 197, 205, 208 in Europe, 274, 282, 284 in Latin America, 263, 264 in football leagues, 127, 197, 208 in “powder puff”, 204 Legends Football League, 127, 197 United States Women’s Football League (USWFL), 206 violence and harassment against, 72, 77, 127, 199 Women’s Football Alliance (WFA), 206 World Football League (WFL), 275 World League of American Football (WLAF), 14, 276, 284, 287, 320 World War I, 9, 23, 126, 199, 273, 275 World War II, 27, 44, 45, 273, 275, 335

T Texas A&M University, 106, 155, 282 Thanksgiving Day games, 7, 247 Their Hero, 223 Thorpe, Jim, 9, 22, 64, 122, 168 Title IX, 127, 198, 205, 206 Toronto Argonauts, 241, 245, 246, 247 U United Kingdom, 159, 208, 250, 273, 274 and the NFL, 276 United States Military Academy at West Point, 22, 27, 69, 70, 122, 217 cheating scandal, 28, 69, 70 United States Naval Academy, 27, 70, 217, 337

Y Yale University, 20, 22, 28, 61, 115, 117, 228 early games, 6, 7, 60, 83, 116, 117 youth football, 35, 44, 46, 48. See  also Pop Warner American Youth Football (AYF), 48 and girls, 282 injuries and deaths in, 39 Lystedt Law, 94, 95 participation in, 50, 84

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An American Obsession

—Allen Guttmann, Amherst College “Touchdown is essential reading for fans and scholars alike.” —John Nauright, editor of SportsWorld: Global Markets and Impact of Sport

—Bill Mallon, MD, past-president and co-founder, International Society of Olympic Historians “Readers around the world will find the chapters in the book interesting and illuminating, and researchers may also find the book a source of fruitful avenues of research.” —Packianathan Chelladurai, Troy University

Touchdown_9781614728290-Perfect.indd 1

BERKSHIRE

BERKSHIRE PUBLISHING

Gems & Pfister

“Two esteemed sports historians bring an academic perspective to the most popular of American sports. A multi-authored book, Touchdown is comprehensive, covering football in all it guises – youth, high school, college, professional, and also examining all its warts – social problems, concussions, economic problems. Particularly interesting is the last section of the book focusing on American football in other countries. Get this book – you’ll learn a lot.”

An American Obsession

“Gems and Pfister know enough about American football to realize that no single person could write a definitive history of the sport. They’ve used their own vast knowledge of the field of sport history to recruit a score of talented experts who have produced what may well be that elusive definitive history. Awesome.”

TOUCHDOWN

TOUCHDOWN

TOUCHDOWN An American Obsession Editors

Gerald R. Gems Gertrud Pfister BERKSHIRE

15/04/19 6:32 PM