History of Football Class

I took a Theory of Football class in college, but our format was similar to what you typed. For junior high, I think you have more than enough ideas to get you started and then you can go from there as the class progresses.

I would maybe teach and show them a base offensive play and a base defensive set and then go outside or into a gym and have the kids run and rep it, even if at walk through pace. Consider it a "lab activity" if you get called on it!

Wow! What an awesome concept. We'd be lucky to have a football class @ the high school level let alone at the middle school!

I'd incorporate things like Vince Lombardi, Paul Brown, other great coaches and their contributions to the game. Maybe study some of the historically great high school programs (When the Game Stands Tall about Concord de la Salle sticks out, and you would be teaching across the curriculum and incorporating reading strategies in to the class which administrators love) as well as teach your base stuff in classroom/chalk talk settings.

At the risk of sounding corny, I'll suggest that you incorporate some kind of "football is like life" themes into the class. Individual effort that contributes to the team (family/society/whatever), supporting your peers, facing adversity, etc.

Personally, I am envious that you'll be able to talk about football as a class. Enjoy.

I am jealous as HADES!!!!

Is this for class for a full term? If so, AWESOME. Being a history geek, I would do it like this. Divide the course in the eras/periods of history
- Pre-football/Beginnings: Origins and early innovators. Include some of the early rule changes and who played it
-Football Infancy: Up to around 1930
-Pre-Modern Era: 1930-1956
-Modern Era:1956-1980
-Post Modern Era"1980-present
-Emerging Trends

Of course being a football coach, I would also be tempted to take a look at how particular offenses emerged and developing factors. Same with defense.

Of course I would assume, this is an offering as an elective and anybody can sign up for it. I would keep it generic as possible and deviate from this being a 'fan class' only so far as to high light the basic history.

I am sure you could generate a great list of books that would be open for reading/research. I would suggest from this reading list, instead of doing a 'research paper', a book critique. These are a whole easier to grade, as well as do for the student. Just set up a rubric as to what needs to be included and keep the length to about 2 typed pages. This was you can do more of these type assignments and not kill yourself with grading. This could even be done as a kind of book talk, where the kid's grade is the paper, and a presentation with a question period.

Also, great opportunities for FIELD TRIPS!!!!!

Or of course to make your admins happy, how about include some technology. Who'll be making highlight videos for senior night this year?!?!?

And now you have a legit way in which you can write off that new XBox 360.

And of course the across the curriculum crowd will love how you incorporate math (stats), science (physics, physiology), and ELA (how do you edit a Rex Ryan post game rant so it can be summarized in a school assignment?).

If I had the opportunity to do this I would definitly do alot of the things that's been suggested already, but I think my focus would be on teaching them how to properly watch film and learn to break down an opponent.

A lot of what has already been said, and then hit on some of the legends. Red Grange, Thorpe, Brown, Starr, Four Horsemen, etc. some of those guys that kids today may have never heard of.

One of the aspects of football I would like to teach was its similarity to biologic evolution (which I also happened to teach a college course on for several terms) in terms of speciation into different types of football. For instance, New Zealand started developing its own rules for rugby similarly to the development of Canadian & American football, but went back to the English rules because of a series of international matches.

The Journal of Sports History had a series of articles arguing (among other things) whether Teddy Roosevelt's threat to abolish football was serious or not.

As I've written here, the book Big Leagues, although football makes up only 1 chapter, has some details on the early development of American football that I haven't found in other books, which mostly parrot each other. It doesn't contradict the others, just fills in some things I think are important which the others are silent on.

There are things about the history of football that are just mysterious or are in dispute. Like, how'd the goals come to be 18'6" wide? I haven't found any answer to that, but you'd think someone would've wondered about such a strange measurement. Could it have been a distance between fence posts some place? And is John Waldorf's story about the 23'4" goal true? Why is the ball not a sphere? Best answer I've gotten was that it just happened to be the shape of a ball Spalding made that was preferred by players at Rugby School for its durability. That one's not completely convincing and raises questions of its own. Was the game really derived primarily from games that were played in Wales?