Pop Warner's "Football For the Spectator"

Part of the fun of acquiring old football-related advertising premiums is that their booklet format forced creators to condense the information. Their summaries can be especially interesting when the creator is Pop Warner, one of football's great minds.

Warner authored Associated Oil's Football for the Spectator in 1928. Associated Oil was a West Coast brand. By 1928, Warner was in his fifth year at Stanford and had authored several books on football techniques and strategies, including Football for Coaches and Players the previous year. He had three national championships at Pitt and one at Stanford.

1928 Associated Oil Football For the Spectator

The Associated Oil booklet is 50 pages long and has several sections to inform the general public of the fine points of the game. One section, What To Expect, outlines play-calling strategies in different areas of the field. Nearly every coach had a strategy chart or map to help their quarterbacks call plays, but there was only one Pop Warner, so his is worth reviewing.

One difference between Warner's approach and others was his focus on playcalling from the center and sides of the field, which was a bigger distinction before the field had hash marks. Also, while most strategy plans addressed only the offensive side of the ball, his covered defenses as well.