Today's Tidbit... Holders And Other Put Downs
Some time back, a reader, Ed Jarvis, asked about a 1940 program cover showing a holder on a kickoff, and wondered why the team used a holder rather than a tee? Ed might have seen one of covers below or a different cover, but his question remains: "What was the deal with holders back then?"
If you want the full story, I covered the question in the July 2022 Tidbit below.
The shorthand answer is that football originally did not allow artificial tees, so kickers had three options: 1) have a teammate hold the ball, 2) make a divot in the ground with their heel and place the ball in the divot, or 3) gather dirt to build a mound on which they placed the ball. (Golfers also built dirt or sand mounds early on.) However, some kickers got clever and had tees made of baked clay, figuring that since clay is a natural substance, not artificial, they could get away with their little caper.
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