Today's Tidbit.. Factoid Feast I

I don't know about you, but I prefer not to carry change in my pockets, which is problematic because I still use cash for some transactions. When I pay with cash, the cashier often gives me coins in return, and upon returning home, I dump them into a jar where they can remain for years. Eventually, my coin jar fills, so I take the coins to the kiosk at a local store, knowing that I will receive only 90% of the cash value of those coins.

A similar thing happens in my quest for football nuggets. As I encounter various football facts, I add them to my list of ideas for future Tidbits. Unfortunately, some of those facts are only factoids, too inconsequential or disconnected from other facts to justify a Tidbit, so they languish on my ideas list, just like the coins in my jar.

Since today is the first day of the rest of my life, I decided to use this cornucopia of cases and distribution of dope by periodically sharing a factoid feast, so all may learn of unimportant events in football's history.

So, I offer the First Factoid Feast with a fair warning that I have not emptied the jar. There are plenty more factoids where these came from.

The Agony of The Cleat

Sticking with the idea of disposing of unwanted items, the Navy ran a classroom training program at the University of Iowa for prospective pilots during WWII. Popularly known as the Iowa Naval Pre-Flight School, they fielded excellent football teams that played and beat top college elevens. Graduates of the pre-flight school went elsewhere to learn to fly, with some staying in state to train at the Ottumwa Naval Air Station, which also had a football team.

The Navy had football teams at bases nationwide and overseas, so they ordered equipment in bulk and found locations to warehouse those goods, some of which ended up in Ottumwa. After the war, many stored items were deemed surplus, so the Navy donated them to anyone willing to take them off their hands, and in 1953, the Navy donated its inventory of football cleats to the Ottumwa school system. Not football shoes, but the screw-on cleats, of which each shoe needed seven, so fourteen per pair.

Cleats, cleat wrench, and a strap-on kicking toe. (1940 Wilson Sporting Goods catalog)

At the time of the donation, the Navy had more than 500,000 cleats stored in Ottumwa, a supply sufficient for more than 35,700 pairs of football shoes. How Ottumwa disposed of 500,000 cleats is unknown, but one can only hope they shared their good fortune with neighboring towns.