Today's Tidbit... Factoid Feast V
Today's Tidbit... Factoid Feast V
As discussed in previous factoid feasts, my searches through football history sometimes lead me to topics that are too important to ignore but too minor to Tidbit. Such nuggets are factoids, three of which are shared with you today.
Riding the Big Bus to Berkeley
USC football fans could not take commercial flights to football games in 1921, but a transportation experience nearly as exciting came along that year: the bus. Kimball planned to open a factory in Long Beach to make trucks and buses, so what could be more exciting than riding one of their products up to Berkeley for a football game?
The ride would be exciting, and the tour group charges 40% less than a railroad fare. In addition, the trip took 16 hours, only one hour more than by train.
Unfortunately for Southern Cal rooters, the Trojans fell 38-7 to the Bears, making for a long bus ride home.
When Northwestern Was Chicago's Team
Northwestern sometimes calls itself Chicago's team or Chicago's Big Ten team, but it fell far short of that claim back in the day. Northwestern had winning teams at the end of the pre-forward pass era but did not play football in 1906 and 1907. They restarted in 1908, playing only a handful of games and avoiding the University of Chicago, which was among the nation's top teams then.
It was a one-sided affair, as shown by the scores of the Chicago-Northwestern games from 1901 to 1915. (Chicago's score is listed first.)
1901: 5-6
1902: 12-0
1903: 0-0
1904: 32-0
1905: 32-0
1906-1908: Did not play
1909: 34-0
1910- 10-0
1911: 9-3
1912: 3-0
1913: 14-0
1914: 28-0
1915: 7-0
While Northwestern managed to kick a field goal in 1911, they did not score a touchdown against Chicago in the eleven games from 1902 through 1915.
Things changed in 1916 due to Northwestern's having All-Big Ten halfback Paddy Driscoll. He scored a touchdown and kicked a field goal in their 10-0 win over Chicago that year.
Later, Driscoll starred for the Great Lakes Naval team of 1918, the Hammond All-Stars/Pros, and the Chicago Cardinals and Bears, and was named All-Pro six times.
Two-Seam Footballs
I covered two-seam footballs in a previous Tidbit but recently came across their inventor, Howard Perry, a former Penn player who coached at Valley Forge Military Academy. Perry developed the two-seamer in 1933, about a decade after valves that sat flush with the ball's surface allowed footballs to be inflated without unlacing the ball.
Although footballs no longer needed external laces from a manufacturing and inflation standpoint, they remained on footballs for forward passing purposes. (The laces disappeared from other inflated balls in the 1920s and early 1930s.)
Rather than sticking with the traditional four-panel ball, Berry opted for two panels, positioning the laces in the middle of one panel rather than on a seam. According to Berry, this configuration allowed punters to strike a seamless panel, allowing for more accurate and longer punts. Also, he shifted the location of the seams so they did not meet at the ball's noses, supposedly leading to truer bounces when drop-kicking.
Although Reach produced his two-seamer in 1934 and likely for a bit more, the ball did not enjoy commercial success and was kicked to the dustbin of football history.
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