Today's Tidbit... Archaic Football Terms

Football terminology comes and goes as the game evolves. My third book, Hut! Hut! Hike!, examines when and why several hundred football terms we use today entered the game. However, old-time football coaches and reporters used many other terms we no longer hear to describe players and teams. Here are a few archaic football terms.

Eleven or Football Eleven

We had football elevens before the invention of basketball, and reporters began calling basketball teams cagers and quintets. Elevens is among the greatest old-time football terms modern writers and broadcasters should resurrect. Sure, we have separate offenses, defenses, and specialists today, but the rules allow only eleven on the field at a time, so let's bring back this fabulous term.

('Charles E. Durand,' Boston Globe, September 19, 1894.)

('Linemen And Backs Of The Strong Wabash College Football Eleven, Which Has Won Honors This Year,' Indianapolis News, October 10, 1903.)

Educated Toe

Educated toe became familiar to football fans in the 1890s and saw occasional use into the 1970s, but we seldom hear it nowadays. Educated toes referred to kickers who made field goals and punters who dropped balls into coffin corners. The disappearance of educated toes coincided with soccer-style kickers replacing conventional kickers, but the term had probably worn out its welcome anyway.