Booklet Review: Walter Eckersall's How To Play Football

Those who study football history often point to seminal players who revolutionized or defined positions as the game evolved. Don Hutson was the first great split end, and Mike Ditka was the prototype tight end. Reggie White and Lawrence Taylor were the prototypes for their positions.

Other players were on the opposite side of the coin. They excelled at their positions, only to watch those roles fade or be redefined so that they no longer set the standard and were more easily forgotten as time passed. One example of the latter was Walter Eckersall.

(Eckersall, Walter. How To Play Football. Chicago: Chicago Tribune, 1928.)

He was the superstar quarterback immediately before and during the first year of the legal forward pass. He quarterbacked Chicago to a retrospective national championship in 1905 by beating Michigan 2-0 on Thanksgiving Day, with his punting being a critical factor in the win. He also quarterbacked them during the first year of the forward pass, but the quarterback's role in 1906 remained tied to the past rather than the pass.