Timothy P. Brown joins Darin Hayes to delve into the fascinating history of Walter Eckersall, a significant yet often overlooked figure in early American football. As the last great pre-forward pass quarterback, Eckersall made his mark in a time when the game was vastly different, showcasing his talents as a smart strategist and outstanding athlete. The discussion highlights Eckersol's contributions not only as a player but also as a sports writer and referee, illustrating the unique blend of roles he occupied in the sport's early days. Listeners will learn about his pivotal moments, such as the 1905 Chicago-Michigan game that effectively crowned Chicago as national champions. With insights into Eckersall's legacy and the evolution of football, this episode serves to illuminate the rich tapestry of the sport's history and the legends who shaped it.

Of course, this discussion all stems from Tim`s original article titled: Booklet Review:Walter Eckersall's How to Play Football

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Every generation of football players has to learn how to play the game from somewhere, and usually it's by somebody that they really respect on a national stage.

We're gonna go back over a century ago to talk about one of these individuals as Timothy P.

Brown joins us to talk about football learned by a star.

Coming up in just a moment.

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

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

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another edition where we get to visit with our friend Timothy p.

Brown of footballarchaeology.com to talk a little bit about some football history.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey, Darren, how you doing?

Looking forward to chatting about football and Eckersol and all kinds of good stuff.

Yeah, I'm doing great.

And who couldn't be great to talk about Walter Eckersol, you know, very interesting fellow from football history on many aspects.

And we're excited to hear what you have to say about this.

This tidbit.

Yeah.

So I just two things to point out.

So it was like a, a thing produced by wgn, then a radio station, now a television station and you know, owned by, you know, the supposedly world's greatest newspaper, the Chicago Tribune.

But he was a writer for sports writer for the Tribune after he played at Chicago.

And I'm wearing a Chicago Maroons football sweatshirt tonight.

It's cold here in the greater Detroit metroplex.

So I slipped this baby on.

Yeah.

So Eckersol is cool.

And kind of the way I position it in the tidbit is that, you know, he was, he was the last great pre forward pass quarterback.

Right.

But you know, even then I don't think he was a, you know, substantial passer.

You know, he back, you know, before the forward pass, the quarterback was mostly a blocking back.

But he was, he was always like the kind of the smart kid, you know, the gym rat sort of person who, you know, understood the game, understood strategy, could be trusted to make the right call because they're the ones that called the signals at the line of scrimmage.

At the time they ran with the ball.

Mostly they blocked Eckersol because he was so talented.

He was, you know, a runner as well.

He was, you know, one of the top punters of his era, one of the top drop kickers of all time.

You know, so.

And he was their primary punt returner too.

So, you know, he's really tremendous athlete.

And you know, what he's part of.

You know, every once in a while I come across something where somebody's saying, you know, if you could go back in time, what's the one game that you would want to see?

You know, they didn't name it at the time, but that's, you know, they were, they're recognized as a national champ.

So anyways, that's my, that's another little thing with.

Erl was a quarterback for Chicago in that game.

But he's kind of, you know, I mean, kind of sports or football historians know of Eckersol, but he's a little bit of a forgotten guy.

You know, I mean, he, he doesn't.

There are no stats about his, you know, they didn't have stats back then, but there's no stats about his.

What about his passing, which is what we expect nowadays.

You know, he never won a Super Bowl.

The school he attended dropped football and then, you know, brought it back at, you know, at non scholarship level later down, you know, 30 years down the road.

But, you know, so he's not like there's nobody that goes back and extols the virtues of, of Eckersol.

And yet, you know, after he remained a personality in the game, after his playing career, he was like I'd said earlier, a sports writer for the Tribune.

He was one of the primary referees of the era.

He umpired as well.

But, you know, he did a couple of Rose Bowls, which was the game, you know, in that era.

So, you know, and it was typically, I mean, the crazy thing was he would write columns, you know, predicting critiquing what was going to happen in the coming week because that's what newspaper, you know, columnists do.

He would referee the game and then, you know, then write up the story about the game afterwards.

You know.

And so, you know, it's just, it's one of those roles that we can't even conceive of today.

I mean, yes, you get a coach whose team is knocked out of the playoffs or something and then they end up making studio appearances.

But, you know, he was.

You don't see that with referees, right?

I mean the refs are supposed to be impartial and official officials generally.

I mean, I know you took some money under the table a couple times, but you know, Walter never.

They paid me to stay home and come do the game.

Yeah.

So anyway, I mean, so he's just this, he's like a guy from a different world.

You know, he really is from a different era.

You know, again, pre forward pass, the referee, newspaper reporter, you know, kind of mixed together.

And you know, he.

Trout did the five days on the train with them, going out to la, did the tours of LA with them as they, you know, and then saw their practices, all that kind of stuff.

Ref the game wrote up all kinds of stories about the trip and the game and then he got on the train and traveled back with them.

So, you know, it's just somehow people trusted that he was going to, that he was an honorable guy and that he was going to keep things separated.

Right?

Yeah.

So I, I find it amazing.

I mean, knowing officiating high school games and below, there's no way I would remember enough what happened in the game to, to sit down and write about it, you know, hours after.

Because usually you're, I mean, as a player you really get hyped up officiating.

You know, there, there's some era of excitement.

There's always something going on.

You have some kind of controversy because some, somebody out there, one side's not going to like you, the other side is, you know, or they both hate you, but whatever you do, so you sort of have that and it stirs emotions and get you fired up a little bit and you know, end of the game you're best thing I remember is, you know, you just want to, you talk it out with the rest of your crewmates and you know, settle yourself down a little bit and you know, and you, you move on.

You know, I don't know how they would remember to, you know, who the ball carriers were and you know, to not enough to write about it.

He must have had, you know, note takers, you know, maybe even ghostwriter, you know, somebody who was kind of writing as they're going because, you know, it's not like, like today, you know, they're take.

They're keeping the stats for you, right?

I mean.

Right.

The press box.

It's.

It's all, you know, you know, I mean, it used to be mimeographed, you know, but you had them immediately, you know, after the game.

You had them at halftime, and now, you know, it's.

It's instantaneous on computers and whatnot, you know, so.

But none of that was available, you know, down in distance, you know, somebody had to keep track of that stuff for him, you know, and exactly how it happened.

I don't know.

I've not come across anything that really talks to that issue.

I mean, I guess you would have some great pieces of quotes you could put in there, you know, after some guy makes a big run or makes a big tackle or something, because you're going in the pile to get them out.

Hey, that was a great tackle.

What do you have to say about that?

Yeah, you know, I.

I don't think that I've come across anything where he was revealing what happened on the field.

Right.

Like some fisticuffs or something between two players.

You know, I, I don't.

I think he kept those roles separate in his writing, but.

Yeah, so that'd be hard to do, too, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

No, but, you know, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't a secret, right?

I mean, everybody knew who this guy was, but he was doing Big Ten games and Missouri Valley games all the time, you know, and.

And he did it for decades.

So crazy.

Yeah.

Well, even, even the, the WGN logo you have in the background that, like, stirs up some memories from, you know, decades later.

But, you know, when I was, when I was a kid, cable television was first coming out.

When I was a teenager, came to our area anyway.

And of course you get WGN and, And you know, in the summers when you're off for school, there's no sports on in the summertime.

Except WGN would have the.

The Cubs on with Harry Carey and singing Take Me out to the Baseball Game.

And, you know, way off key, you know, how's Harry Carrey?

And, you know, I'm not from Chicago, but you had to respect the guy and love him because that was, that was what you had to watch, you know, or watch soap operas with your grandmother or something, you know.

I guess.

Yeah.

I mean, I grew up in Milwaukee, and so even before cable, we had.

We could get WGN on like UHF or something like that, you know, and at least there were certain.

For sure we were able to catch Cubs games because there was a period when the Braves had left and the brewers weren't in Milwaukee yet.

So we'd get the Cubs games, but then the White Sox would play at County Stadium.

So kind of crazy stuff going on.

But anyways, yeah, so the WGN thing was always, you know, sunk deep into my sports memory.

That and my, my younger siblings, you know, a little bit younger than me, watching the Bozo show in the morning when they'd have guy dressed up like Bozo the Clown and they'd play games, you know, a kids show in the morning every morning.

But yeah, that was my experience with wgn.

But very cool station, very great story on Walter erl, you know, and you have a lot of great stories on your tidbits where you go back and you preserve the history and help us to recognize some of these legends of the game from a century ago, you know, like in the case of Eckersol, and make us appreciate them a little bit more for some of the things that they accomplished.

Maybe you could share with the listeners how they can enjoy some of your tidbits to, to get into some of this action.

You're talking about these people.

Sure.

Just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site or newsletter.

So once you subscribe, you know, just enter your email, subscribe.

Then every time I publish a story, you'll get an email with that story.

And then of course, you know, you have access to the site.

So you know, the, the free version, you get about a third of the contents and a little, you know, some of the archives, whereas, you know, the paid version, you get access to everything, including full access to the archives.

You can also follow me on Blue sky or just book bookmark the site.

So yeah, and folks, I, I invite you because it's kind of a cool thing when you, when you actually go on the, the substack site from footballarchaeology.

Read the article and you have a question or maybe you know, something you want to add to the story that you, you read somewhere else or remember put a comment in there and Tim usually answers it and usually some other folks, you know, that are in there all the time answering it.

And it's just enjoyable to read the, even the commentary on it too.

So it's kind of a cool, cool thing to have.

Yeah, I've actually, I've been making some changes to the site and I'm going to try to get the chat portion of it, you know, a little bit more engagement there.

So far there really hasn't been much.

Mostly, you know, the, the engagement is in the the comments.

But anyways, you know, we'll see more on that in another week or two.

Okay, stay tuned, folks.

We got some may have some breaking news.

Breaking news.

Breaking news.

But just like Walter Ersall and journalism are breaking news.

And you know, we're going to break for the week here.

We thank you for sharing this football archaeology segment with us and the football history and we hope to talk to again next week.

Very good.

Look forward to it.

Thank you.