This podcast episode delves into the intriguing narrative surrounding the concept of the "12th man" in football, emphasizing notable instances of unsportsmanlike conduct throughout the sport’s rich history. We engage in a conversation with Timothy P. Brown of footballarchaeology.com, who recounts several remarkable incidents that illustrate the lengths to which players and fans have gone in their fervor for victory. Among the stories shared, we explore an infamous tackle from the stands during a game featuring Michigan and the notable actions of a Naval Academy player during a critical match against Great Lakes Naval. These anecdotes not only serve to highlight the competitive spirit inherent in football but also prompt a reflection on the ethical boundaries within the sport. Join us as we navigate through these historical tidbits and examine their implications on the evolution of football’s regulations and conduct.

This conversation is based on Tim's recent Tidbit post of: Unfair Acts and the 12th Man

Join us at the Pigskin Dispatch website and the Sports Jersey Dispatch to see even more Positive football news! Sign up to get daily football history headlines in your email inbox @ Email-subscriber

Don't forget to check out and subscribe to the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel for additional content and the regular Football History Minute Shorts.

Miss our football by the day of the year podcasts, well don't, because they can still be found at the Pigskin Dispatch website.

You're just in time for a great conversation we'll have with Timothy p. Brown of footballarchaeology.com as he talks about the 12th man and some illegal activity that occurred in very unsportsmanlike times in the history of football.

Tim's up in just a moment to tell us all about it.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darrin Hayes, is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of Pigskind dispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit of football history.

And welcome to another Tuesday evening where we get to talk to Timothy b.

Brown of footballarchaeology.com Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey there.

Look forward to chatting once again and maybe bring in some extra effort to this one.

Extra effort.

All right.

I like that.

I like that.

I like your spunk tonight.

I am really excited about this one.

Yeah, you, you.

I am seeing.

You can see it in your face.

I'm bubbling over.

Well, this is our, our poor way of segwaying into tonight's topic, which is a recent tidbit of Tim's on footballarchaeology.com he titled it Unfair Acts in the 12th Man.

What can you tell us about this story, Tim?

Yeah, so this is.

I really first came across this whole issue when I was researching my first book, which is about the Rose bowl teams of World War I.

And yeah, I was reading the account of the Great Lakes Naval Team out of Waukegan, Illinois.

So just north of Chicago versus the Naval Academy there.

And they were on eastern tour playing a couple games.

And it turned out that as Navy was up six nothing, they're driving, they have the ball inside the five.

Couple minutes left in the game, and if they score, it's over, right?

And Great Lakes Naval had been told at halftime, if you win this game, you will get the Rose bowl invitation.

So, you know, I mean, that was pretty big motivation.

Sorry.

Extra.

Extra incentive.

And yet they're.

They're about to lose it.

They're about to lose the game.

So Navy hands the ball off inside the five to, you know, one of the running backs.

Ball pops out, you know, flutters in into the end zone and a.

One of their players, one of the Great Lakes players grabs it, scoots around the, around the end and starts running up field.

And he's got, you know, got A couple of blocks and then.

But he also had three of his teammates trailing him.

So there was basically, there's no way anybody from Navy can get to the Great Lakes Naval guy.

So he's run along the side, along the Navy sideline, heading for the end zone.

All of a sudden this guy comes off the bench and tackles him.

One of the Navy players such the tube, so a couple punches are thrown and.

And at the time, the football didn't have a rule about unfair acts, so there was no formal rule that allowed officials to kind of make any call they wanted to, to, you know, bring to right a wrong.

Right.

And so as it turned out, the commandant of the Naval Academy came out on the field and said, I don't care what you all say, you're going to give the touchdown to Great Lakes.

Right?

So he did want.

Not want his team to win through any kind of dishonor, Right.

And which was, you know, good move on his part.

But, but.

So that was the first time I remembered coming across that.

Now I also had kind of a memory of seeing a film of something like that, but obviously they didn't have film from that particular game.

So.

But it basically, it's an illustration of potential situations.

And we did it, you know, did a broader podcast about this a couple weeks ago about unfair acts, you know, that the referee needs a way to make a ruling that steps beyond the written rule, you know, and it shouldn't happen very often, but here and there things are going to happen, so they need to be, they need discretion.

And so, you know, basically they've instituted a rule to, to do this.

And so I basically, you know, what I did in this story is to identify four instances where something like that happened.

By Navy.

Another one, which was pretty funny when you, when you get in the details of it and read the, the period articles.

It's the first time the two teams ever meet, you know, because again, that's back in the day, you know, Midwestern teams didn't go out there very often.

The Big Ten didn't play in bowl games.

So.

So the two teams had never met.

And, but Michigan had Tom Harmon, who won the Heisman Trophy that year, and he just, his first game this season, he scores like 28 points.

He scores four touchdowns, throws for another one and kicks four extra points.

So I mean, he's just an absolute stud and a couple of his runs are really lengthy runs and not the second one of those Lengthy runs or after the.

Like this.

His first lengthy run, I think was a second touchdown.

And there was a guy in the stands sitting fairly low apparently, who said to his buddies, you know, if that guy gets loose one more time, I'm going to go out and tackle him myself.

And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah.

You know, and I think he'd had a couple of beverages.

So.

So sure enough, Armin gets loose and he had like, it was like 78, 79 yard, you know, touchdown jump.

And as he's approaching the end zone, here comes this guy, Bud Wellman or something like that, comes out of the stands and tries to tackle him and, you know, he's stiff armorson and then just kind of strolls into the end zone.

So, you know, this guy, it was kind of, you know, he was kind of made fun of in the, you know, the newspapers for.

For doing this.

But on the other hand, most people kind of admired him a little bit.

But so, you know, it's just.

Here's this guy in street clothes going out trying to tackle Tom Harmonies.

And, you know, good game.

It's supposed to be a good game.

Rice was favored.

And they're playing Bama.

And on the, like, the sec, I think it was Bama's second possession.

They gave the ball multiple times to this guy, Tommy Lewis and, you know, had a couple of nice runs, scores a touchdown.

And then Rice gets the ball and I'm gonna.

I'm probably gonna mess.

Mess up his name, but this guy, Dicky, I don't know if it's Meagle.

Meagle, he had a, you know, nice long run for.

For Rice to tie it up.

Maybe they went ahead and then like the next possession, he goes around end again and he's racing.

Racing down the field.

And this guy who was.

Had scored the first Bama touchdown who's sitting on the bench, is all po.

Watching this guy running down the field.

So he jumps off the bench and tackles him on the sidelines.

You know, so this one's captured on film and you know, the.

The.

The film is in the.

Well, actually, the film of that and the.

And the Michigan one, you know, is available in.

In the tidbit itself, but they're just kind of funny just seeing some guy coming off the bench or coming out of the stands trying to make a tackle.

And then the.

The third one is wake Forest at NC State in.

And, you know, kind of a similar thing happened.

It Was, you know, this one was a close game.

And the Wake Forest quarterback, I think, you know, he'd led them like in a fourth quarter comeback, but then, then they like failed to, you know, they got the, they were able to move the ball like there was a turnover.

They were able to move the ball close to maybe kicking a field goal to, to tie the game or to tie the game or go ahead and the, the ball, you know, it's like the box ticking.

It's like literally the last seconds of the game.

So they're rushing this kick and it's either a bad snap or know, bad hold, bad kick.

And the, the ball kind of goes flinger, you know, flicking off and is caught by an NC State player who then starts running down the sideline.

Now at that point they had won the game.

You know, Lake Forest wasn't going to score.

So it, it, this didn't decide the game, but he's running down the sideline.

And so the Wake Forest quarterback apparently is pretty admirable guy and everything.

Well, for whatever reason, he came flying off the bench and he tackles this NC State guy.

And so, you know, same situation.

The refs say no, we're awarding the touchdown.

And so NC State won like 20 to 15 instead of.

Or well, whatever, you know, they won like 20 to 14 instead of, you know, 15, 14.

But it's, it's just, I just find it so amusing that, you know, people's emotions got, got the best of them.

They just said, screw it, I'm going to tackle the guy.

Even though they clearly know it's wrong.

Right.

It's bad sportsmanship, but it's kind of understandable.

Yeah, I guess that competitive edge just fires them up.

Just the point of losing their senses for a moment.

So, yeah, yeah, that's some entertaining stories for sure.

And you describe them so well, especially the Harmon one.

That was a great description.

And I encourage everybody to read, you know, all of Tim's tidbits, but that one's a great description of an actual play.

That was fantastic.

And you do this a lot in your tidbits.

You, you tell us a little story, you do some research on it, you tell us the whys and whens, and you call them the tidbits of football archeology.

So maybe you could share with us how people can partake in these.

Yep, just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site, so subscribe and you'll get an email.

Every time that I publish a story that, you know, contains the, the story itself.

Or, you know, follow me on Substack.

Follow me on Blue sky because I post, you know, on there every time that I publish a new story or just bookmark it and come and visit anytime you want.

So.

Wow.

Coming out.

And use a little search function if you want to figure something out and there's probably something related to it sitting out there in an article.

Yeah.

Just find your keyword and put it in the old window and yeah, Tim will have a story there for you.

So.

Excellent.

Tim, we appreciate you coming on and sharing this great story of these, you know, uncommon scores or tackles or the 12th man coming on and not Seattle's 12th man.

And very entertaining and very historic and we appreciate you doing that and we'd love to talk to you again next Tuesday.

Very good.

Thanks, sir.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

We invite you to check out our website, pigskindispatch.com not only to see the daily football history, but to experience positive football with our many articles on the good people, people of the game, as well as our own football comic strip, cleat marks comics, pigskindispatch.com is also on social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and don't forget the Big Skin Dispatch YouTube channel to get all of your positive football news and history.

Special thanks to the talents of Mike and Gene Monroe, as well as Jason Neff for letting us use their music during our podcast.

This podcast is part of the Sports Show History Network, your headquarters for the yester year of your favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com.