X and O's History

I believe the book is called An Encyclopedia of American Football. My brother got it from the library last year when he was working on a speech about the avancement of the game. It's a pretty interesting book and covers everything from how the game was started in England all the way up to more modern subjects.

One of the best sources on aspects of very early development of the game that other books don't cover, and yet one that doesn't get cited, is Big Leagues by Stephen Fox. This is true even though only a quarter of the book concerns football directly, and even though it focuses on professional sports. I wouldn't recommend it as the single most complete book on the subject, but it's one whose chapter on football you should read if you've already read the basic books.

Don't know if it has much "history" but I have a book that came in a binder called "A Guide for a Successful Coaching Career. Gordon Wood's Game Plan for Winning Football." It has his philosophies even describing what he looked for in a prospective coach. Also has his playbook in it.

See. Maybe I should just post questions! Thanks Coachks, it was a question I think about from time to time. Huh. It was that easy & I just never asked....

Although it's often interesting how little the game changes over long periods, sometimes in old footage you find curiosities. Recently I came across this from 1919:

Most of the snaps by both teams were from long punt formation, with someone 10-12 yards back either getting, or not getting, the snap, which puzzled me for a while. Then I realized that was due to a form of onside kick provided by the rules at that time, and eventually revived almost exactly by the XFL. A scrimmage kick, once it hit the ground 20 or more yards behind the "receiving" team's line, could be recovered and kept by any player of either team (except the kicker himself) whether he was onside to the kicker or not. So until you got close to the other team's goal line, having someone in position to boot the ball deep pretty well forced the defense to cover deep -- a trade that obviously offenses of the time liked.

Notice their trips bunch formation? That's an example of how little things change.

We saw a game here in the town I coach in that was played on Thanksgiving Day, 1941......lots of forward passes and very few completions. Pretty neat.....and those young men had no idea that in two weeks the world would change forever (Pearl Harbor).