This is article #14 in a series covering the origins of football’s terminology. All are available under the Terminology tab above. My book, Hut! Hut! Hike! describes the emergence of more than 400 football terms.
Modern English received the word gang from an Old Norse word that described a journey, especially one taken with others. The term was applied later to work groups and tools, especially those involving manual labor.
Gang tackle and gang tackling, which describes two or more defenders involved in tackling the ball carrier, first appeared in 1913 in an article describing Nebraska's defense in recent wins over Kansas and Minnesota. It shows up again in 1922 in a Los Angeles Times article about Washington & Jefferson's defense in their 1922 Rose Bowl tie with California.
While those uses predated Bob Neyland's arrival as head coach at Tennessee in 1926, he was responsible for popularizing the term and underlying approach. Besides winning four national championships and 173 games at Tennessee, Neyland is remembered today for preaching seven maxims he believed to define winning football. He wrote the maxims on blackboards taken on road trips and had his team recite them before games. Tennessee fans recite the maxims before games to this day.
The fifth of Neyland's maxims is:
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