Today's Tidbit... The Tie Goes To The Kicker
Before free substitution, expanded rosters, and specialization, the game had football players who kicked rather than kickers who played football. Kickers were Swiss Army knives who did two or more things well rather than one.
Kickers did not practice their craft as often or as intensely as their other jobs, and the percentage of field goals and extra points made suffered as a result. Nearly every kicker used the conventional or straight-ahead approach rather than the sidewinding soccer style, meaning they kicked with their toes.
Using tricks for better kicks, they added square toes to their shoes and laid tape measure-like devices on the ground to improve their aim. The NFL banned both, while the NCAA maintained the freedom of toe choice.
Yet another kicking innovation emerged in the late 1950s when kickers started tying up their toes with their shoelaces. The first kicker known to tie one on was Don Caraway, a fullback at Houston who doubled as a kicker. After playing for Calgary in 1957, he was in the New York Giants camp in 1958 when his unique approach to kicking appeared in newspapers nationwide. The Giants cut him anyway, leading to him spending that season and three more playing in Canada, where he booted or toed three extra points and one field goal.
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