The history of the football tee is a fascinating exploration into a device that is often taken for granted amid the fanfare of the game. We are joined by Timothy P. Brown from FootballArchaeology.com, who elucidates the evolution and significance of this essential kicking apparatus. Delving into its origins, we discover that the term "tee" is derived from a Scottish word denoting a circle, which reflects its early usage in golf. As we traverse the timeline of the football tee, we learn about the various adaptations and regulations that have shaped its design, from the rudimentary dirt mounds of the past to the sophisticated models utilized by contemporary kickers. This episode serves as a reminder of how even the most commonplace elements of football possess a rich and intricate history deserving of our appreciation.

This episode is based on Tim's Tidbit: A History of Football Tees

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You know, we probably see them almost every single football game we watch at the opening kickoff and every subsequent kickoff after that, and extra points and field goals.

But do we really know the history of where the football tee came from?

FootballArchaeology.com's Timothy P. Brown joins us to tell us the history of this kicking device.

And he's up in just a moment to let us know what the history is.

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 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 of positive football history.

And welcome to another edition where we get to visit with Timothy p. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com to talk about one of his famous tidbits.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey, Darren, hopefully get a chance to chat a little bit here and you won't boot me out of.

Out of the discussion.

Yeah, well, you know, we're gonna do our shared segues here to get us into, and I'm just going to tee it up for you and let you take it.

Take off with it.

And of course, we're talking about Tim's recent tidbit that he titled History of Football Teas.

And I don't think you're talking about people sipping a brood thing with their finger up in the air.

Pinky.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

So what can you tell us about the history of the football tee?

Well, so a little personal story first.

Okay.

Fairly often when I'm, you know, I'm always.

Not always, but frequently combing through ebay in particular.

I'm just looking for stupid little stuff to buy that generates a story, or at least I can.

It starts me on a story.

It starts me down a path.

And so I. I bought this RPPC of Felix La Force of Hamilton College, and amazingly, I was able to figure out it was him.

But anyways, that's another story.

The.

And unfortunately, the thing, the item got lost in the mail, so I didn't receive said postcard.

So I was disappointed.

And then all of a sudden, it shows up.

So I was a happy boy that day because it's just.

How long were you without it that you thought you had lost?

Two weeks.

Two plus weeks.

You know, be up beyond the supposed delivery date.

Yeah, I'd already been Refunded and everything.

So then I paid the guy.

But so what I liked about the image was just like, I have other images from yearbooks of guys teeing up the ball on mud or dirt tees, but this was a much sharper picture and a larger picture than most of the early images I have.

And so I say, you know, he's teeing.

You know, he's teeing up a ball.

Like, if you watch rugby match, a lot of times the ball is pointed towards the goal posts, not away from the goal post, and he's teeing up towards.

Which is, you know, one of.

One of the styles that kickers choose.

Not much in American football, but, you know, in other games.

But, you know, back in the day, you could, you know, if you wanted to kick on a kickoff, you either, you know, made a divot in the ground or you gathered up dirt from the field and sod and just you made a mound and you kicked off of that.

That was the norm.

And the.

In the.

The tidbit, I also mentioned that the word T comes from the Scottish word for circle, because in golf, they would build a sand mound within a circle, the kind of the circumference of your.

The golf club circling the previous hole.

Right.

So you had to, like, if you.

If you made a circle with your golf club, you know, with the.

Like the.

Whatever, the hitting part, the head in the.

In the hole, you know, you had tee off from mound inside that circle.

And so that's where T comes from.

Circle.

So there's a factoid for you.

Yeah, yeah, I did not know that.

So anyways, so the, you know, it got to the point where, like, kickers, as fields improved, sometimes there wasn't loose dirt sitting around.

So kickers used to have little piles of dirt over on the side of the field.

They'd run over there, grab a pile of dirt and build their mound with it.

And then people started, like, baking, like, clay molds because you couldn't have an artificial tea.

And there were rules about that.

And then at what.

Then I think the.

That.

That was actually a. Yeah, that may have even been, like, on a field goal.

But so he, you know, used the helmet as a tee.

You know, the floppy leather helmets of the time.

So they said, okay, we got.

We got to stop this stuff.

So they eliminated all teas, and so teas were out of the game.

For like 19, 24.

So first it was artificial tees were banned.

Then they banned all teas in 24.

And that didn't change until NFL did it in like 42 and the colleges in 49 or something like that.

But so then, you know, I have all kinds of football and sporting goods catalogs.

And so I started combing through those just for all the different variations of TE's, you know, like, how did the TE's change over time?

And so the, you know, the tidbit has all, you know, pictures of all of those.

But it really came down to like there were, there's been two fundamental artificial tea designs.

One is kind of a multi peg design.

You know, there's some, they were like these black things with a couple, you know, kind of a rubber base or plastic base with these pegs sticking up, two higher ones in the back and you kind of lean the ball into those.

And then there's other TE's that are, have some kind of a cup or dimple and then you kind of put one of the tips of the ball into the dimple.

And there's, you know, variations on those themes.

But that, there's kind of this multi peg in the dimple thing.

And so know there was just these variations over time that, you know, like when I was playing, everybody used these orange tees that had these lines, you know, kind of kept the ball in place.

I was always frightened of those.

I'm sitting there going, one of these days I'm going to get tackled on one of those or something, impale myself.

Yeah, you needed to make sure you had a little kid who ran out on the field and grabbed the thing after the play.

But even like Luke Rosa had a, I mean in games he would use this tea where he had this tape that came out from it, like four, you know, four yard, three or four yard long tape that he used as, like, as an aimer, you know, helped him aim, you know, this strike of his foot.

Because all of these guys were conventional kickers.

You know, they kicked with their toe and you know, that's the only way that you kicked.

You know, I mean there, there actually were a few soccer style kickers here and there.

In the 70s it became almost universal.

And so then Jan Sten invented his, what he called the sidewinder te that was really designed for a soccer style kicker.

But that didn't come out until like 83.

And then in the 90s, there was another, the ground zero, which is like, probably still the primary kicking tee today.

And every NFL kicker uses the ground zero, and probably most, you know, college kickers do.

But that's, you know, kind of a dimple style.

You know, it's.

It's not a round dimple.

It's.

It's kind of, you know, you kind of have to see one.

So check the tidbit or just Google ground zero and you'll find.

You'll find one.

So it's just.

It's one of those things, you know, it's.

It's got to be small enough to be, you know, easily portable.

It's got to fit the mechanics of the.

The style of kick, you know, whether you're conventional or soccer style.

And, you know, and then, then every guy is like.

And then the other thing is we have the kicking block, right?

So for the.

For field goals and extra points, you can't have the little pegs or, you know, you just have a plain little flat little thing.

But now you can only use, you know, so there was a long time 1 inch T or 2 inch 2.

1.

2 inch T, 1 inch block, 2 inch block.

And then the NFL and colleges got rid of them, and pretty much they're all playing on artificial turf or, you know, nicely manicured turf anyway, so you don't really need teas.

And they kick it so darn far anymore that, you know, you don't need it for the distance or the height.

So anyways, it's kind of a bizarre little history of teas.

Right.

But it, it is just one of those things.

You know, the game evolved, kicking styles evolved, and, you know, so.

Yeah, so then it makes sense to change the style of teas.

Yeah, I had, when I was officiating, and I did many games for this one particular coach, but he, a local high school coach, he did not like kicking tees at all.

I take that back.

He didn't like free kick tees.

You know, for opening kickoff kicks off your score, he would let you bring out the block for his kickers for the extra point, but he would always have a holder.

And I'm always sitting there thinking, man, what a.

What a waste of a man, being able to rush downfield and having an extra guy to take up a lane.

And he just like have his.

Basically have his kicker and his holder be almost like safeties.

They're sort of behind the wall of nine guys going down to make the play.

Yeah.

So.

Well, you know, it's prime like, especially at the high school level, it's, you know, if you want to have two safeties back, that's probably not a bad way to do it.

And especially if, you know, sometimes kickers aren't the finest athletes.

Right.

And so, you know, maybe you want to have a kid who can actually do something.

So, you know, I mean, I can see a high school coach doing that, but.

But it's the worst thing in the world if you have a windy day and a kicker tees it up and it blows off the tee.

Usually we'd give them two, two times off the tee.

You got to get a holder.

Oh, my gosh.

It's like, you know, you stole, you know, something from them.

You coach, oh, my God, I gotta use a holder.

What are you talking about?

Like, the guy down the streets has a holder every play.

So it's funny how coaches get into their systems and in their head, you know, what works and what doesn't, so.

Yeah, well, whatever they do is the right way.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's for sure.

Very interesting on the kicking tee, and especially, you know, where the golf term came from, too.

That's a very, very interesting portion of what you talked about here, too.

And just some crazy things that people have done to get that ball off, set up for somebody to get it off their toe or their inseam of their foot.

So very good stuff.

And you do this a lot with your tidbits and you share, you know, an aspect of football that maybe isn't mainstream, maybe isn't talked about a lot, but you dig into the research, and we appreciate that.

Then maybe you could tell folks where you.

They can see some of your research on these tidbits.

Yeah, you know, if you want to dork out on football history, just go to footballarchaeology.com it's substack site.

Subscribe and you'll get an email every time that I publish something new.

Otherwise, just bookmark it.

Or you can follow me on Substack on the app or follow me on Blue sky, because I post every new article on there as well.

All right.

Well, Tim, we really appreciate you joining us here tonight and each and every Tuesday, and we'd love to talk to you again next week.

Very good.

Look forward to it.

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

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