Factoid Feast XVIII
As discussed in Factoid Feasts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, and XVII, my searches through football history sometimes lead to topics too important to ignore but too minor to Tidbit. Such nuggets are factoids, three of which are shared today.
The latest version of Factoid Feast celebrates oddities of the 1920s and 1930s.
Alabama Pitts
Alabama Pitts, age 19, was convicted of armed robbery in New York after being caught while hailing a taxi for use as his getaway car. Sentenced to six to eighteen years in nearby Sing Sing, he starred on the prison’s baseball and football teams, the Black Sheep.
Following an early release from prison, Pitts received permission from Kenesaw Mountain Landis to sign a baseball contract and played for nine minor league teams from 1935 to 1940.
Bert Bell, the Philadelphia Eagles owner and future NFL Commissioner, signed Pitts to a contract in September 1935, mostly as a publicity stunt. While coach Lud Wray did not support signing the felon, when fans at the mid-October Chicago Bears 39-0 trouncing of the Eagles called for Pitts to enter the game, Wray sent him in during the fourth quarter. Soon after, Pitts made a touchdown-saving tackle and caught a 20-yard pass to give the Eagles their fourth and final first down of the game.
Pitts played in two other NFL games and caught another pass for one yard, but was soon released, joining the New Rochelle Bulldogs instead.
In 1941, Pitts was stabbed and killed in a bar fight.
Huddling Redux
A few years ago, I wrote about the three primary ways football teams have formed huddles. As described in the linked article, the three forms were:
Closed, Circular, Ring, or Oval
V or Triangle
Open, Typewriter, Family Portrait, or Classroom
I recently came across a fourth form, used by Clipper Smith’s Santa Clara team in 1929. Old Clipper feared that a standard huddle might lead players to argue over the play call, so he had his linemen face away from the line of scrimmage, while the backs faced toward the line. The quarterback walked between the two groups, whispering the play call to one or two players at a time.
While the face-to-face huddle did not catch on, their ability to keep secrets helped the Broncos to a 5-3 record.
Training Rules
One of the challenges of being a football star in the 1920s was maintaining training, which required typical sport-specific work, and abstaining from alcohol, unhealthy foods, and tobacco.
Despite cigarette use being considered unhealthy by coaches, the tobacco industry cited the calming effects of their products, and the desire of finely tuned athletes to return to smoking the moment their seasons ended.
Claire Briggs, a popular syndicated cartoonist of the first quarter of the 1900s, contributed to that view with a cartoon for the Old Gold brand showing a running back thinking about cigarettes while running down the field.
Briggs’ cartoon did not identify who the nicotine-deficient running back played for, but Purdue, Vanderbilt, and Wake Forest are the only FBS schools for which Old Gold is a primary color. Given Wake Forest’s location in the nation’s leading tobacco growing state, I’m guessing he played for Wake Forest.
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