Today's Tidbit... Penalty Signals of Yore

Since it first blessed us with its arrival, football has been in a constant state of change. Among its evolving elements are the rules about legal and illegal acts. Actions that were once illegal became legal, and the penalties associated with those actions disappeared as well. More important for this Tidbit was the disappearance or change in referees’ signals for those penalties, many of which we will resurrect below.

As I like to remind readers, referee signals related to penalties and other on-the-field actions are primarily the invention of Frank Birch, who began using them in the 1910s. Others adopted his signals and made their own before they went mainstream in 1929, partly to help radio play-by-play announcers let listeners know what was happening on the field.

Bill Alexander, whose Georgia Tech team beat Cal in the “Wrong Way” Riegel’s Rose Bowl game on New Year’s Day 1929, posed for the new signal system later in the year and showed some signals that now longer see use.

('Solving the Fall's Big Gridiron Mystery,’ Literary Digest, September 21, 1929.)

Football has seen several periods when it was illegal for blockers or tacklers to leave their feet. Popularly known as flying tackles or blocks, crossing the arms became the signal for that offense. When the penalty for the flying tackle went away, it became available for the delay-of-game penalty, as used today.

The military salute, which initially signaled a team declining a penalty, soon became the signal for unnecessary roughness. It remained that way until 1955, when the American Legion asked the football world to find an alternative. Of course, the officials snapped to attention, saluted, and found another way to signal roughness.