Today's Tidbit… 1876 IFA Rule #10: Tackle

('Donald Of Harvard Wriggling Out Of A Low Tackle Made By "Beef" Wheeler,' World (New York), October 11, 1897.)

This is #10 in a series covering football’s original 61 rules adopted by the Intercollegiate Football Association in 1876. We review one rule each Friday.

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Rule 10 of the IFA’s 1876 rules defined a tackle as a process rather than an outcome.

Rule 10: A tackle is made when the holder of the ball is held by one or more players of the opposite side.

Although Rule 10 and other 1876 rules did not go further than to say a tackle occurs when the ball holder is held, the rules of the time, as practiced, allowed the ball carrier to be grabbed only by the torso – below the shoulders and above the waist. Grabbing any other part of the ball carrier was a foul. If that sounds too gentlemanly for you, it was not always so. Per Amos Alonzo Stagg, Yale’s Baker ’82 was known for tackling opponents by jumping feet first into their chests.