Today's Tidbit... Ye Olde Statue of Liberty Play

The Statue of Liberty play is nearly as old as football itself. Named after the statue President Grover Cleveland dedicated in New York Harbor on October 28, 1886, it is among the oldest plays still in use today. The first documented connection between the Statue of Liberty and football came in November 1900, when Pop Warner and the Carlisle football team visited Lady Liberty the day after losing to Columbia.

1900 Carlisle football team (Wiki)

Tradition has it that Amos Alonzo Stagg ran a version of the play with Clarence Hershberger, the team's punter and kicker who played for Chicago from 1894 to 1898. Others say Fielding Yost invented the play during his coaching days at Ohio Wesleyan in 1897, though Stagg and Yost may have called it by another name.

Another group suggests the play arose when Ray Morrison quarterbacked Vanderbilt from 1908 to 1911. Regardless of who invented this outstanding play, it was not until 1913 that it was named in newspaper articles when Geneva ran it against Allegheny. Redlands did the same against Occidental on the same weekend. Even then, the first mention and others of the period refer to the "old Statue of Liberty play" or similar, suggesting the Statue of Liberty had been around for a while, predating Ray Morrison’s time on the gridiron.