Today's Tidbit... Will Tethered Footballs Make A Comeback?

Fred Gehrke, a former NFL player and coach, is best known for designing the horns for the Los Angeles Rams helmets in 1948, the first logo to appear on a professional football helmet. Later, while working with the Denver Broncos, Gehrke also designed the first sideline net used by kickers to warm up or practice during games. The kicking net highlighted one of the challenges kickers and punters faced when practicing their kicks. That is, every time they kicked the ball downfield, they either needed someone to shag the balls for them or had to run downfield to retrieve the ball from the spot where it stopped rolling.

Along the way, a few kickers and punters were smart enough to kick the ball into the nets or tarps hanging from the crossbars that passers used for target practice. Others used the nets behind soccer goals.

Passers throwing target practice. (Harvard University, Harvard University Archives, W401856_1)

Of course, football is famous for tinkerers who developed solutions to the problems faced in practice and games. One attempt to address the kickers' problem came in the 1920s, when William J. Dolan, Jr. of Pearl River, New York, applied for a patent on the tethered football. Born in 1901, Dolan starred in high school before heading to Norwich University. By 1923, Dolan had filed for a patent, and his tethered football appeared in the 1925-1926 D&M Fall & Winter catalog.